Sunday, May 29, 2011

Spring Bonnets and Books at the Lit Tent (CVAF)

This year marked the 20th Cathedral Village Arts Festival, in Regina, Saskatchewan, and to celebrate, they suggested everyone wear hats. 

I have many winter hats, but despite yesterday's chill (the writers all shivered as they tried to clutch their books and pages), wool just wouldn`t have been seasonal. (Would have been warm, though!)

Instead, I decorated an old straw hat with silk flowers. I`m very glad the dye didn`t run, as one of my friends hinted might happen. Imagine purple streaks running down my forehead!  

At the beer tent after the readings at the Lit Tent, someone asked if I was a Raging Granny. Or maybe she was suggesting I keep the hat until my rage and granny nature set in. I'm not sure, but it sounded like fun. What could be better than wearing pretty bonnets and singing protest songs?  

Writer Shelley Banks reads from Carousel #27, in Regina, Saskatchewan
Shelley Banks reads from Carousel #27

~~~~~

Lit Tent Readings: Cathedral Village Arts Festival

Great readings at the Lit Tent at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival yesterday in Regina, SK! I felt honoured to be part of the line-up, with writers Dave Sealy, Sandra Ridley, Martine Noël-Maw, Tracy Hamon, Brenda Niskala and Saskatchewan's Poet Laureate, Don Kerr.

The event was organized by the CVAF Literary Committee, and Bernadette Wagner, Paul Wilson and Bruce Rice handled the introductions with dramatic flair. (New to many in the audience: Bruce's father and mine both worked at a dynamite factory on Vancouver Island, back before either of us were born.) June Mitchell and others joined the fun at the open mic.

To celebrate, a gallery of photos from the day. (It was startlingly cold for late May! Look at the clothes and expressions of the writers/readers!)

Regina writer Bernadette Wagner, at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival 2011
Bernadette Wagner 

Regina writer Martine Noel-Maw, at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival 2011
Martine Noel-Maw 

Regina writer David Sealy  at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival 2011
David Sealy 

Writer Shelley Banks, at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival 2011
Shelley Banks 

Writer Sandra Ridley, at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival 2011
Sandra Ridley 

Writer Bruce Rice, at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival 2011
Bruce Rice 

Writer Don Kerr, at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival 2011
Don Kerr 

Writer Brenda Niskala, at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival 2011
Brenda Niskala 

Regina writer Tracy Hamon, at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival 2011
Tracy Hamon 

Regina writer Paul Wilson, at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival 2011
Paul Wilson 

Regina writer June Mitchell, at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival 2011
June Mitchell 

~~~~~

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Prairie Rorschach IV: Pelicans in Foam

A pelican reflected in foam on Wascana Creek...

Followed by a pelican made of foam on Wascana Creek...


Pelican floating in Wascana Creek, Regina, Saskatchewan
Pelican floating in foam © SB

pelican-shaped foam outline in Wascana Creek, Regina, SK
Floating foam pelican © SB 
~~~~~

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Frost on Apple Blossoms — Spring?

There is a weather warning for Regina tonight — frost.
A cool airmass over Southern Saskatchewan along with clear skies and light winds tonight will allow for the development of frost across much of the region overnight. Temperatures of zero to minus 3c are forecast across the warning area tonight with widespread frost.
Will today's apple blossoms survive that predication from Environment Canada?

apple tree in blossom
Apple blossoms in Regina, May 24, 2011     © SB 

Last year, we had only five misshapen apples from this tree. High winds and rain stormed through in early spring. They beat the blossoms to the soggy ground. No fruit formed.

~~~~~

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Prairie Rorschach III: Foam Figure Cartoons

As Wascana Creek churns through the city, foam bubbles rise, congeal into shapes, then dissipate. These transitory figures often look like line drawings or cartoon images floating on the surface of the flooded creek. Three recent favourites follow.  


Shapes in river foam: this one, two cartoon characters
Are there two creatures here? © SB 

Shapes in river foam: this one, a dragon
And here, a dragon? © SB 

Shapes in river foam: this one, a floating woman
Floating woman, with mask © SB 

~~~~~

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Dempster & Kerr: Sage Hill Poetry Colloquium

Poets Barry Dempster and Don Kerr charmed their audience in Lumsden, SK, on Friday night with two great readings at the Muziek Art Gallery. The readings were part of the Sage Hill Writing Experience Spring Poetry Colloquium, which attracts participants from across the country.

Barry Dempster reads at the Sage Hill Poetry Colloquium, Saskatchewan
Barry Dempster reads. © SB 
Barry Dempster lives in Ontario and has published 15 books, including 12 poetry collections. (Wow.) His four most recent are Blue Wherever (Signature Editions, 2010); Ivan's Birches (Pedlar Press, 2009); the delightfully witty Love Outlandish (Brick Books, 2009); and The Burning Alphabet (Brick Books, 2005). 


Don Kerr reads at the Sage Hill Poetry Colloquium, Saskatchewan
Don Kerr explains the finer points of poetry © SB 
Don Kerr is Saskatchewan's current Poet Laureate, with eight books of poetry (among other books), including The Dust of Just Beginning (Athabasca University Press, 2010); My Own Places: Poems on John Constable (Calgary University Press, 2005); Smoke/Screen: Poems on Cigarettes and Movies (Thistledown, 2003?) and Autodidact (Brick Books, 1997)(And thanks, Don, for my gift copy of Going Places!) 

Tracy Hamon welcomes the readers at the Sage Hill Poetry Colloquium, Saskatchewan
Tracy Hamon welcomes the readers,
colloquium participants and guests.   © SB

The evening was hosted by Regina poet Tracy Hamon, the current president of the board of the Sage Hill Writing Experience, with support from Fionncara MacEoin, Sage Hill program assistant.

I confess to feeling some degree of regret... or longing... if not (surely not) envy, listening to the readings and audience chatter afterwards. I was at Sage Hill (though not the Colloquium) several years ago. That was a very good experience. But more: Barry Dempster, this year's instructor, is a talented poet and a generous editor, and everyone seemed so energized and happy, writing reams and having fun...

When I mentioned my conflicting emotions to one participant, perhaps she thought I was implying it was all a two-week holiday, because she responded: "It's work!"

"I know!" I said. "But it's the right kind of work."

And that, we both agreed on.

~~~~~

A note on these images: Yes, I continuing my journey to learn Photoshop. These started with the desaturated portrait look from Scott Kelby's "Photoshop CS4: Down and Dirty Tricks." However, my tiny camera is somewhat deficient under low light conditions , and as a result there was a lot of digital noise on these images. After trying to clean it, I decided to embrace the speckles and posterize the pictures. (The pre-posterized images are in my Facebook album.)  

~~~~~

Friday, May 13, 2011

Prairie Rorschach II: Foam Figure Flying

Another foam figure from the bridge by the old willow on Wascana Creek.

Another test of perception – but this time, you can judge mine, and my photo-cheating skills, as well.

Foam figure on Wascana Creek
Happy foam figure © SB 
What I see here is a happy creature, yodelling as it floats downstream, wings and tail fins flaring.

It’s a fascinating shape, and I wanted to cut it from the water so I could play with it. Of course, tracing requires excellent fine-motor skills, which it could be argued that I do not have. (Perhaps it's patience I lack, although given the time I've spent so far on this exercise, I doubt it...)

I'm fascinated by how the editing changes the creature’s character.

No longer a blithe spirit, there is something greedily disturbing about the foam's air- and water-skimming clones.  

foam figures photoshopped into flying creatures over Wascana
Dragons over Wascana Creek © SB  

~~~~~

This technique is based on Steve Caplin’s “Art and Design in Photoshop: How to Simulate Just about Anything from Great Works of Art to Urban Graffiti,” after the style of a Henry Moore abstract.

My result, however, owes little to Moore’s rounded, minimalist style or Caplin's expertise, and much to my love of detail and lack of skill – and perhaps, my youth spent reading comic books and science fiction.

In any case, Caplin says isolated objects work best in realistic settings; that's why I chose this picture of the bridge and the old willow for the dragon fly-bys.

And yes, I know – flight may not be realistic for water creatures spawned from foam.

So what about my new friend as a statue in the park? I think it would be great in a fire-hued bronze, with perhaps one bit erased in the name of public decency, recognizing the unlikelihood of city committees sanctioning appendages of nude male aliens in this city's parks...

statue created by digital manipulation of foam figures
New statue in Les Sherman Park. © SB

I need to work on edges. Perspective. Shadows. Subtle effects.

~~~~

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Bob Marley in Concert — 35 Years Ago

May 5, 1976, Convocation Hall, University of Toronto: People in the line-up were growing restless. We knew that inside the hall, Bob Marley had finished his early concert, part of his Rastaman Vibration tour. But the audience wanted more and they would not leave.

Bob Marley
Bob Marley, c1980.
from Wikimedia Commons 
We were outside in the restless crowd. But until Security cleared the hall, we could not enter. Or, should not.

And so, we waited. Or, some of us waited. 

Convocation Hall (or, from my visual memory, what is more likely to be the adjoining Simcoe Hall) was covered in vines. Several concert goers seized the massive stems of these old creepers — and the opportunity to swing up to the second floor, where they clambered through an open window, cheering and singing. (And, possibly, being quickly evicted by Security. Or, judging by how full the hall was when we finally got in, possibly not.)

Four of us had driven in from Hamilton's McMaster University, squeezed into a streetcar-track-bait Mini. (Two from Jamaica, one from the Bahamas, and me — not long back in Canada from Cayman.)

When the doors finally opened for Bob Marley and the Wailers' late concert, there was a crush. We could only find seats near each other, not exactly together, nor with precisely the same numbers as were marked on our tickets.

But we did not care.

Say you just can't live that negative way
You know what I mean
Make way for the positive day
Cause it's a new day
New time, new feeling yeah!
Say it's a new sign
Oh what a new day

(from Positive Vibration)

Bob Marley claimed the stage. The crowd screamed. The Wailers started to play. The concert began, and what an amazing set list!

1. "Are You Ready?"
2. "Rastaman Chant" -> Lion Of Judah" -> "Keep The Faith"
3. "Slave Driver"
4. "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)"
5. "Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock)"
6. "I Shot The Sheriff"
7. "Rat Race"
8. "Johnny Was"
9. "Roots, Rock, Reggae"
10. "Want More"
11. "Positive Vibration"
12. "Get Up, Stand Up" -> "War" -> "No More Trouble"

As the Toronto Star reported in a recent retrospective (May 6, 2011):
The (1976) tour was memorable for many reasons, not the least of them being that it brought together one of the most dynamic incarnations of the Wailers’ oft-changing lineups, with Earl “Chinna” Smith and Donald Kinsey on guitar, Earl “Wya” Lindo and Tyrone Downie on keyboards, Aston “Family Man” Barrett on bass and Carlton “Carly” Barrett on drums.

~~~~~
Today is the 30th anniversary of Bob Marley's death at age 36.

So long ago — so young — so recent.
~~~~~

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Return of Robin Memories of Spring

Robin, Regina, SK
Robin Season in Regina © SB 
The return of the robins — one of the things I now love about spring.

Here in Regina, Saskatchewan, they look cheerful and inquisitive hopping across backyards, parks and shorelines, and although their chirps sometimes sound aggressive, at least these prairie birds do not attack me...  

Unlike the robins in Montreal Island area, which at one time were conditioned to hate me. Not all humans. Me. The short woman with the dark hair. Not men, not kids, not other women. Only me.

Eastern robins display a perplexing mix of dependence on, and contempt for, people: They recognize the safety we provide from grackles, raccoons and other egg thieves, but they do not want us near their nests. That works fine if they've chosen a spot close to the house, but far from the door. It's when they decide to nest in high-traffic areas that the trouble begins.

And where did my Montreal robin — the ancestor of my eastern Canadian avian enemies — choose to nest? In the tree at the edge of the back porch, a few feet from the kitchen door, right next to the north steps to the garden, inches away from the utility shelf for the clothesline. That was the route I used most from the house to the yard, where I would stand to hang the laundry, where I would watch the kids play on the swings or in the sandbox, where I would sit and play fetch with my dog.

I knew if the robin succeeded, I wouldn't be able to use that exit from the porch, or hang clothes outside, or stand or play there for the rest of the summer. So I developed a plan. She hadn't actually started to build; all I had to do was startle her, and she'd find somewhere else to nest.

But what did I know about robins?

When waving my arms didn't stop her — or her crafty mate — from trying to bring twigs and dried grass to my tree, I decided to increase my defenses. I tied a rope around the branch she'd selected, then went inside where I thought she couldn't see me. Every time she tried to land,  I tugged. The branch shook. She flew.

My porch was robin-free.

Or would have been, if she hadn't kept coming back. For hours.

That was when I realized I had neither the patience nor determination of a robin, because magically, a nest had begun to take shape, twig by twig, even though I would swear that no birds ever managed to land near it.

With the battle shifting from preventing a nest to destroying one, I conceded defeat.

And that's when I realized that I also have neither the perception nor memory of a robin. I still can't tell them apart, but even though I was hiding in the kitchen during most of our branch-tugging skirmish, she could pick me out from a group of people at 25 feet. And she did.

I respected her too much to keep using the clothesline — or, I at least learned to respect her and keep my distance after she flew straight at my face a couple of times. I started using the south steps from the porch and I avoided the lawn near her tree.

But it was summer and I still wanted to go outside, to eat at the picnic table or play with the kids. And every time she saw me on the porch or in the yard, she flew straight out of her nest to dive-bomb me. Not the kids. Not G. Not friends or relatives, not stray children or dogs. Her angry beady attack-robin eyes focused only on me.

I started wearing hats and carrying umbrellas. The robin's assaults continued. And so did her lessons: when her young robins left the nest, each was imprinted with me as the image of their foe.

By the next spring, every robin in the neighbourhood would know who and what I was.

And the next spring, she came back, triumphantly, to nest in her tree beside the porch, her glittery eyes watching my every move inside the windows, dive-bombing me once more whenever I stepped out the back door.      

~~~~~

Monday, May 2, 2011

Prairie Rorschach: Figures in Foam

The old willow beside Wascana Creek, Regina, SK
Old willow on Wascana Creek   © SB 

Under the bridge next to the willow, 
spring scum churns 
to contours, then opens 
through an eddy to float 
free of any shape. 

The current catches and it twists 
again, contracts, expands. 

A face, a figure, flowers, legs. 
A Smurf, a dragon, nude. 

Raw umber, ivory foam.

~~~~~

Consider these a test of perception — what Rorschach might have used instead of ink blots if he'd lived near this creek. What do you see?

Figure formed by swirling river foam 1
Foam Swirl — A  © SB 

Figure formed by swirling river foam 2
Foam Swirl — B © SB

Figure formed by swirling river foam 3
Foam Swirl — C © SB

Figure formed by swirling river foam 4
Foam Swirl — D © SB

~~~~~

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Kitten Protection: Giant Mosaic Beaver

For the past 31 years, a giant concrete and ceramic beaver has loomed over a park in Regina, Saskatchewan. Harsh winters have cracked the tiles from its nose, but its eyes retain a soft, friendly glow.

On a recent afternoon, the beaver's bulk provided shelter for a small orange cat, who circled the statue as I approached, keeping me in sight and the large mosaic between us. Perhaps the beaver's ceramic base was warm in the late afternoon sun, but it seemed as if the tiny creature recognized a kindness in the big stone creature, and was seeking its actual protection more than just a hiding place or heat.

mosaic statue of giant beaver, with orange kitten, Regina, SK
Kitten and friend   © SB 

This sculpture in Regina's Les Sherman Park, beside the parking lot for the Neil Balkwill Centre, was created in 1980 as part of a West Central Canada Day project in conjunction with the Connaught Library. 

Students made its ceramic tiles, and decorated each with their names, flowers and other designs, and also personal messages ("winter, spring, summer or fall - I love Canada best of all"). I'm told by one Regina resident that this was a huge (great, big, exciting!!!) project at the time, but I can't find any information about it online. (Yes, I do remember how to research from pre-Internet times, and will look...)  

I wonder where Linda, Peter, Alastair, Sashawnee and the others are now? Do they still love Canada best of all? Do they remember helping to build this giant mosaic beaver? Was that a huge event in their lives, or just another after-school crafts project?  (If anyone has information about this, please let me know.) 

close-up of mosaic tiles
Close-up of ceramic tiles made by
Linda, Peter, Alastair, Sashawnee and others 

The plaque beside the beaver also says that the work of building it was done by volunteers, under the supervision of Ken Tollefson. (Again, he's not turning up on my Google searches; if anyone knows who this artist was, I'd be interested. Did he make other public art?) 

Information plaque for statue, built in 1980
From the marker in the park. 

To be continued... Perhaps... 
~~~~~

Carousel: Lemons & Leather, Independent Living

The Spring 2011 issue of Carousel magazine, C27, is now available. This includes two of my poems, "Lemons and Leather" and "Independent Living", and lots more great art and writing.

I've had my copy for a while, and I'm happy that others can now read it, too.

cover of Carousel, #27
Now available from Carousel
~~~~~
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...