Monday, December 22, 2014

A new colour, light, lace and a question.


The amazing Steve (also known as St. Steve of Jubilee) has painted the dining room! I love the colours. It has taken us close to three years to agree that the walls needed a touch up, that a new colour would be refreshing and then what specifically that colour would be.

The spinach green is being replaced here with the white. My camera keeps capturing it as a pink. That is interesting because it is very white with a hint of pink, 'Marble White' yet no matter how I lit the room, the pink dominated. So pretend it is a clear white.


Steve likes to paint trim! I mean, if that isn't saintly, I don't know what is. For about two weeks now, he has puttered away on the trim and the walls. Luckily the entire dining room was finished before I entertained my Wednesday morning ladies group and everyone said out loud that they really liked the blue. In real life it is a dark tourquoise/azure. No comments on the trim colour, "Vintage Wine" a very dark purple/brown, but the overall comments were in favour. Good friends always tell each other the new paint jobs look spectacular.
The trim colour moves around the wall into the living room. The walls will remain the same red, only a fresh coat to brighten any fading and cover any cracks and knicks. Here the white looks white, despite any reflection from the red. Isn't light weird?

Steve manages to do this work with the Christmas tree in place. I feel that once the tree is in place, all work should come to a halt until January 5th, then clean up in time for my birthday cake.

In other colour news,
while we were in Montreal, I discovered  Marc Aurele Fortin.

These two above are the "Farm at Sainte Rose". Ordinarily I don't much enjoy a pastoral scene, however the red figures against the shadows and light blobby shapes caught my attention. I then looked at his other works that I had liked as I wandered by, but not paid attention to.

 From the pastoral nostalgic to the brutality of the waterfront, and still a wonderful sense of the light on the water. You probably can't see it but in the bottom right (your right) is a small figure doing something on the dock. It gives a perfect sense of scale of the objects as well as humanity against the machine. A narrative without being obvious.

Turn the corner and there is a 'Group of Seven-esque' piece. I was pooped and didn't read the accompanying statement. Maybe it is an homage to the gang, or maybe he found their techniques useful. I like the white mountain in the middle, it is a great contrast to the detail work of the foreground and water.
 
This last piece is not as inspiring but it shows an interesting blend of all the methods from above. A nice spatial quality, great scale, unusual point of view, lovely light everywhere and just enough shadow to give life to a simple narrative. The amount of wall space that Fortin took up suggests he's a pretty well respected artist in Quebec. I will wander over to Wikipedia and read a biography.

Finally, I am working on a lace piece.
Lace upon lace, stitching and beads. I'm about halfway done and love it. It is a nutty project.

Tell me what you think of this next bit. I was sewing while at a meeting, so as to not lose my mind and leap over long tables to murder anyone. At the end of the meeting a very nice lady came up to me and said, "Why are you doing all that?" I explained the purpose of the piece (I haven't shared it with you all yet) and she said "I don't know why you do that, It makes my stomach turn just to watch you. All that fiddly hand work." And she smiled to show she didn't mean to ... stab me in the heart. I felt the stab for only a moment though, I have come a long way from needing other people's endorsement of my work. But then I started to think (usually too much) I can fully understand someone not wanting to ever hold a needle and thread in their hands, just ask me about measuring cups and frying pans. But it just seemed a little too... personal. Maybe I need to ratchet back my "Oh God I hate cooking" remarks. Maybe I am hurting people who love to cook and think I'm a bitch for my joking comments? Maybe they aren't jokes after all? Do those sorts of comments about your passions hurt you, or are they funny? I could use a learning moment here.

3 comments:

  1. your lace is just beautiful....and i'm always saying that i hate to cook. doesn't sound like the comment made about your lace came from someone who appreciated its beauty. i may hate to cook but appreciate others ability to do so. just do what you love no matter what others say.

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  2. I'm learning that there is a fine line - often unseen before crossed - between enjoyable snark and careless hurt. Her comment definitely strikes me as being on the far side of that line - rather unnecessarily unkind. Your observations are frank, but never hurtful. And I like cooking, so --.

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  3. thank you both, it's good of you to comment.

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