I was taking photos of the snow yesterday, for our gallery, and noticed the light inside the house. The snow outside was bouncing the light up onto the ceilings, which bounced it down again and made the colours--we're not shy about colour: orange, green, purple, yellow--pretty interesting. Very cool but not thin. A very northern, spare kind of light. I am a poor photographer. It doesn't help that my camera is about ten years old. (Well, okay, maybe seven. But old.) But I think I'd be crap even with a brilliant bit of technology. Which is my way of saying the pictures don't show anything remotely resembling what I saw.
However. One of the photos I took was of a collage (9' x 4') on our living room wall. Our artist neighbour, Vicki Platts-Brown, made it for us from leaves and flowers--many from our garden-- pressed and dried between paper. She titled it "Reflections of the Puget Sound Tapestry." I call it Petalville.
Ours was the very first collage she made. She was learning as she went along. A few weeks ago we noticed cracks developing vertically in the mosaic of leaves, and a lot of fading. Vicki took the picture away and literally took a paint scraper to it, taking off a lot of the original leaves. She replaced them with similar leaves and flowers--though this time dried in a high-tech microwave thingie--and slathered on a UV protective coat. The pictures are similar but not identical.
Here, for your delight and delectation, are Petalville I, photo taken in summer with the door open:
and petalville II, taken yesterday, with the door shut. A prize (don't know what yet) to the person who spots the most differences. And one to the person who can name the most flowers and leaves.
Since making this for us, Vicki has really got into her art. We now have several other collages, and a handful of lovely, delicate aquatints. She doesn't have a website. I'll try to remember to take pix of the other stuff in a week or two.
I'm hoping I'll have a few more blog posts before the end of the year about artists I know--I mean know personally--and their art. There's a lot of beauty in the world.
Speaking of which, here are two pix I took of the snow yesterday morning. It was dull and overcast and, as I've said, I didn't catch the light (probably something to do with the fact that it was too damn cold to actually go out there; I took these through the open window.
This is the side deck and ravine:
And this is the back garden as seen from my office window. All the leaves, finally, have fallen from the tree. It must be winter.
