Category — Collage

[acrylic, foil and paper on canvas]

“All of us are trees in winter, with little to give, stripped of leaves and growth, whom God loves unconditionally, anyway.”

- Brother Lawrence

I thought I’d start a neat little weekly feature called Word for thought Wednesday.

What do you think? Worth a weekly gander?

Last year I pitched a story to UPPERCASE magazine — a profile of my creative hero, artist/author Sabrina Ward Harrison. It was a thinly veiled attempt to meet Sabrina, whose work I have followed for close to ten years. As luck/fate (read: GOD) would have it, the pitch turned itself into much more than a phone interview.

I was sent to Prince Edward Island for a three-day sojourn with six other women to create alongside Sabrina at an old waterside hotel called the Highlands. (You may remember I faced a little trepidation as prepared for this trip.) The historic home and adjacent town dance hall, where we did our making, has housed royalty and the likes of Reverend Billy Graham. Each room was brimming with island minutiae and stacks of old LIFE magazines — a writer’s dream. Angela Ritchie, founder of the Whistler-based ACE Camps, and a creative mastermind in her own right, was the organizer of the retreat. I had the good fortune of interviewing her when I was back in Vancouver last week.

The fruit of the trip — Watchful Reverence, in UPPERCASE issue 10 — arrived at stockists and doorsteps days ago.

An excerpt:

“It’s the steady calm of the island air whistling through the birch trees. It’s the burst of plover, finches, and jays that begin their daylight calling at 4:30am, beckoning us to do the milking… I am sitting on the front stairs of the Highlands main house. Here four crooked trees congregate like an outer hearth. The twisting white-worn branches are the sort you’d find in the Haunted Wood of Anne of Green Gables’ imagination. The beaked chirps, caws and whistles blend into a symphony of spring. Behind me seven girls chatter on around the breakfast table: preserves, balkan yogurt, fresh-baked muffins, boiled eggs, brimming between. In the old adjacent dance hall Sabrina, dressed in a vintage polkadot dress, is readying for the day’s making.”

It was an absolute gift to meet Sabrina and a joy to work with Janine Vangool, tireless publisher/editor/designer of the magazine (not to mention mother to an on-the-run toddler.)

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If you are interested in reading the complete article you can order single copies or subscriptions to this beautiful publication at: http://shop.uppercasegallery.ca/collections/uppercase-magazine-1\. It is available in print only.

The final piece, now hung in our office / art room. Paint, India ink (Sabrina’s lettering, my words,) and collage on craft paper. I originally thought I was making a piece to be cut into pages but decided in the end I liked it too much whole.

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Closer…

[Grab images and drag to a new window to look closer]

[process]

Tomorrow I leave for a charming, Atlantic coastal house on the shores of Prince Edward Island to work on my life’s dreams. It’’s an Angela Ritchie ACE (arts, culture and education) camp being hosted by a longtime creative hero of mine, Sabrina Ward Harrison (whose work I was first introduced to by my dear friend Avital.) I’’ve been reading Anne of Green Gables in preparation, and between that and reopening Sabrina’’s book Spilling Open, I am being confronted with an abandoned way of living — Anne’’s insatiable desire for all things romantic and Sabrina’’s altogether raw confession.

Yesterday I was talking with my friend Sara and trying to explain how I felt about this trip. With my tongue uncharacteristically tied in knots, I finally spilled the truth that I was feeling NERVOUS.

I am nervous to go to camp.

Like the nervousness I felt before going to a Calvinettes camp-out when I was eight. Except today it’’s an adult nervous. Like I’’m fooling myself into believing that I can see all of the potential potholes ahead.

I’’m not nervous the girls are going to tease me or the boys won’’t think I’’m pretty. I’’m not worried I’’ll forget to bring my bathing suit or that it will rain all week and we won’’t be able to sing or roast marshmallows around the campfire. I’’m worried that this trip, this camp, this first four-day sojourn without my one-year-old, this meeting of a creative hero, this writing assignment, won’’t be all I desperately hope it will be.

Something deep, DEEP, in me wants to fling myself into this week with the unhindered expectation of a five-year-old. I want to believe with my twenty-year-old-heart (the better, freer, lighter heart) that this will be IT. The marker. The moment. The chapter changer. A time so affecting that I’ll hold it up as my Everest climb. A culmination of so so so much. And something (SOMEONE) tells me it is. And I want to believe it.

Oh god, do I want to believe it.

But my adult self tells me to be careful. To not care too much. To not get too excited. To set my expectations just a little bit lower.

And my five-year-old/twenty-year-old self is telling my thirty-one-year-old head/heart to fuck-off. To ““do what you did at first”” (Revelation 2:5). To BELIEVE.

That my God (the God I am so unsure of, the God who ever clings to me, the God of my youth, the God of the universe) is love. And that he WANTS me to believe this with every single inch of my being. And to not hold back.

And somewhere behind my ribcage, behind my separating bones, screams YES.

The yes of my two-year-old, five-year-old, twenty-year-old, pre-period, pre-heart-smash, pre-confusing-years, pre-church-mess-ups, pre-career-detours, pre-falling-out, pre-self.

Yes.

Yes. It will be.

Yes. I believe it.

Yes. There is love ahead.

Yes. There is more.

Yes. The daring will be worthwhile.

yes. yes. yes.

good. good. good.

love. love. love.

amen. amen. amen.

echoes my thirty-one-year-old heart.

And tomorrow I leave on a jet plane. And all shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things will be well.

Yes. Amen. Let it be.

It has been a whirlwind month and a half of travel, sickness and no childcare. The combined onslaught has left me very little time to work or dabble in other creative projects except for one:

My friend Wendy and I are co-hosting a vision board retreat this coming Saturday. There are a few spots left if you’re interested. We’d love to have you!

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Casting vision for the days ahead.

The new year is a time of new life. The year has reset itself. The clock has restarted. It is a time of fixing our eyes on the horizon and setting our course.

Nothing concretes our commitments better than setting them on paper and placing them in a spot we can see. That’s why we are inviting you to spend an afternoon on the peaceful shores of beautiful Bowen Island and creating a vision board with your hopes, dreams and goals for 2011. Think of it as a serene escape in a place where you can relax and create.

Over the course of three hours you will be welcomed into a waterside home with unobstructed views of the ocean, lush forest and snow-dusted mountains. Here you will be shown how to create a personal vision board: a visual representation of your vision for the year ahead.

A vision board (or creativity collage) is a poster in which you paste or collage images. The idea behind it is that when you surround yourself with images of your goals or dreams, your life changes to match those images.

In a day, make a year.

When: Saturday, January 29

Time: 1 to 4 PM

(Catch the 12 Noon ferry from Horseshoe Bay. Please let us know if you are walking on and need to arrange pick-up.)

Cost: $40 (includes all supplies and afternoon refreshments) To sign up, simply click here.

Your hosts: Wendy Meades & Christina Crook

Wendy is an occupational therapist and has a fine arts certificate from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Christina is editor of the Arts & Cultural Guide to British Columbia and a freelance writer of eclectic subject matter.

We can’t wait to create with you,
Wendy & Christina

One thing I will surely miss, when we depart for Toronto next spring, is our vast living space. We’ve been able to host the Marchioro family (2 parents, 3 kids, a Swiss student,) my island mom’s group (6 moms, 6 babies and room for more) and five friends (plus Michael, Madeleine, Brittany and her boyfriend) last weekend for brunch and a creative afternoon.

A day of peace, was the invitation. I met the ladies at the dock and delivered them, along the twisting cracked-pavement road, then up the dirt driveway to our house nestled deep in the woods. We lunched on warm cinnamon buns, eggs, sausages, bacon, fresh fruit, OJ and Ethical Bean coffee. Then we gathered around the coffee table each lighting a single tealight.

We turned our eyes to the flame as I shared Jesus’ words:

I am the Way, the Truth, the Light.

The weekend before the power in our house went out for more than 13 hours. At 9 o’clock I tiptoed into our bedroom with a lone candle in hand. The tea light cast no path, it simply enveloped my palm, my wrinkled knuckles, in its warm glow.

There was no path. As far as I could tell there was no room. Only the floor. Only the candle. Only me.

I was taken with the thought: God, Jesus, never called himself a path. Never directed us to a path. He called us to himself. He called us to the Light. THERE IS NO PATH. There never was. There is only Him.

Out of this focus on Light, on our Creator and Guide, we took to the bins of paper, the typewriter, the paints, and scissors and canvases. It was a rainless sky day, so I took to the porch and, with the lap of Pacific as my playlist, put the finishing touches on two paintings I’ve had in process for the last month.

Thank you, Steph, Marisa, Sara, Julia and Wendy (a day early!) for coming. I wish all days looked this beautiful.

Christmas card, 2009 by Christina Crook

I’ve been wondering why I haven’t been writing on here a heckuvalot lately. For me, blogging happens in bursts. Sometimes I am spilling with things to say, and other times I’m not. I don’t want to fake it.

Plus, it has been busy. Christmas is around the corner. (Literally, I can see him peering, wiley, from behind our apartment-sized tree.)

This year’s Christmas baking included the tried-and-true: shortbread (with a red and green twist,) a newcomer: orange-laced date bars (I’ll post the recipe tomorrow,) and the kick-ass: the chewyist brownies you’ve ever laid your teeth into (I took the liberty of adding cranberries which, as Michael can attest, was a spectacular choice.)

I’ve also been back at the crafting. 2009 marked a new tradition — the inaugural year of homemade cards. Not cheesy scrap-booky-kinds but collage-y ones hacked out of magazines and pasted on beautiful cream papers from Granville Island’s Opus. I likey.

Here is one of my favourites:

Also, I made a ton of my little magnets. I love sorting through bins of paper and meticulously cutting circles… It’s a little bizarre considering the fact I normally hate this kind of monotony.

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.