Aperture RIP

Posted on May 4, 2015 by JeanEB

May Day came in with a blast this weekend wiping away the last weeks of on again off again weather with pure sunshine. The festival season began in our town on Saturday, restaurant terraces are open and the garden center parking lots were full (we were there). I’m caught up in the feeling of energy and change with a number of new projects – probably more ideas than I’ll every get around to.

This past week I bought a painting literally off the easel of a local artist. I was in The Old Schoolhouse Art Centre where I’m taking another 6-week drawing class and ran into Jacqueline Smith, who I’d met socially some time ago, and had been following her work. Joining her in her studio for a chat, I was mesmerized by the piece she was just finishing, a 24×24 poured acrylic abstract inspired by Qualicum Falls, a place close to her heart, and before too long I decided it needed to be part of our collection. This has prompted me to move forward on something I’ve been thinking of for some time – with a few exceptions, I’m going to move around every piece of artwork in the house to new locations – new spot, new eyes, new appreciation.

The fuchsias are out of The GreenHouse now and over to the Summer GreenHouse where they will begin flowering over the next 6 weeks. The GreenHouse is due for a major cleaning once that’s done – I’ll remove everything to scrub and recaulk inside and out. It would be nice if my enthusiasm for spring cleaning extended to the house as well, but that’s highly unlikely. There are limits.

Besides the ongoing gardening, painting and taking pictures, there are other things in the pipeline and I’m not looking forward to all of them.

When I retired from the world of gainful employment some 8 years ago now, I removed my watch, changed the font, and bought an Apple computer. The watch is gone for good, the font change became a metaphor for exploring the creative and the new operating system took me about a year to get used to (I had used Windows for work and the personal forever). I started writing tales about what I was seeing on my traveling adventures to accompany the photos that I was taking in a big way. I used the Apple product Aperture to edit, sort and store my photos, the more pro version of their iPhoto software. I have over 20,000 images on this program, so that’s a lot of use, a lot of time and effort invested.

That’s gone now.

Apple has now abandoned Aperture and has released a replacement software that by all accounts comes up short. Professional photographers are leaving in droves. Apple’s focus is now on social media and interconnection of (their) devices via The Cloud. Apple wants you to use The Cloud. But of course. 5G of “free” storage runs out quickly (my photos alone are 20G) and then the monthly charges begin. I do not see any point in storing my stuff on some company’s server just to fuel the beast. The Apple operating system is morphing towards the look and feel of mobile devices. Meh. I’ve always been completely underwhelmed by the iPad. For me it is an overpriced magazine reader and YouTube viewer – preferably from a prone position on the couch. As for social media, forget it. Too noisy.

So it would seem at some point I have many hours ahead in front of the computer wrestling with a new photography program (along with new operating system). Oh joy.

I’ve never been a rabid Apple v. Windows advocate or fan but it seems to me that Scott Bourne, a professional photographer commenting on where Apple has been heading these past few years, may very well be on the money when he says

For those of you hanging on to the dream – It’s time to face the facts folks. Apple Computer is gone. When Steve Jobs died, so did the company that made high-end hardware and software for photo geeks. Now Apple is in the watch business. It’s a shame, but that is the way it is.

In the News

Posted on April 27, 2015 by JeanEB

I woke Saturday morning to the news of the day – a devastating earthquake in Nepal and Bruce Jenner is a woman. At 7.8 the Nepalese earthquake was huge with much loss of life, unlike two others felt elsewhere the previous day, one further up the BC coast from us and the other near my fave rave town of Nelson in New Zealand. As a matter of fact there were 667 earthquakes on our planet in the past 7 days according to one of my geo geek sites – Earthquake Track. As for Bruce Jenner – well that was certainly not earthshaking news to those of us who keep track of current affairs by scanning the covers of the tabloids while waiting to check out at the grocery store. I checked in again last night for the expected update on the earthquake – sadly seems it is most often the case that natural disaster strikes those least able to cope with it.

So head back in the shell, I once again do my best to ignore the Rest of World and split my time between The Bunkie Studio and the garden which is looking glorious. The fuchsias, about 45 pots of them, are fully leafed out and The GreenHouse is packed. Very soon it will be time to bring them all outside and hang them up, where they will soon start to flower.. The brugmansia is blooming in there as well. In the perennial beds everything is growing like crazy and we’re getting rid of a lot of the lawn this year to expand them. I’ve planted everbearing strawberries in pots, more blue poppies, planted seeds on a heat mat under lights, planted pots and pots of Tigridia bulbs in memory of the trip to New Zealand, acquired another Full Moon Japanese Maple, divided the King Kong Canna in a pot to create 3 of them, planted sweet peas in 2 huge pots with an obalisk, thought about weeding, edged what remains of lawn. I’ve bought new cushions for the garden furniture, had a motorized awning installed to shade the patio outside the main house, divided perennials, enjoyed the dozens of pots of daffodils I planted last fall, spread compost, pitched underperformers and all in all have been having a Real Fine Time.

Back in The Bunkie Studio where I spend the other part of my days, I’m still painting. I’ve become intrigued by the way Malcolm Gladwell’s observation (in the book Outliers) that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become good at anything shows up everywhere, as though it is some kind of magic formula. Let’s see. Suppose I paint on average 4 hours a day – (cue to sound of calculator firing up). That would be 2500 days. But I don’t paint every single day so suppose I paint on average 4 days a week. That would be 625 weeks. Or roughly 12 more years. My math may be off, no surprise there, but all of a sudden this starts to sound like work, which is something I don’t do anymore. Thanks Malcolm. So forget all that – my advice to myself is just to keep on doing something fun every day, and forget about getting “good” at it.

Back to the news of a more local nature. Last week at Columbia Beach, down the road from us, local residents found a seriously injured seal lying on the beach. They contacted the wildlife people and kept their eyes on it (fortunately the beaches are closed to dogs this month as migrating birds stop here at this time for a little R&R). Eventually the Vancouver Aquarium sent over staff to attempt a rescue. Big drama, wrestling this 300 pound animal off the beach and away to some kind of safety over on the mainland. In the end, all for nought, as the animal didn’t make it. The Aquarium folks have been over a few times this season, trying to catch and help the huge sea lions that hang out around here, that often become entangled in human debris – ropes, nets and such. Saving an animal like that is always a feel good story but the sea lions have other concerns as well. Like The Bikers of Georgia Strait…

One day last month when I was in town I heard that Orcas, the so-called killer whales, had been spotted the previous day off our beach in very shallow waters. “Maybe they are after the herring that have been spawning around here recently”, someone suggested. Yes, and maybe they’re after the animals that have been feasting on the herring. Which turned out to be exactly the case.

I am usually down at the beach at least a couple times a week – always with my bag with camera and binoculars, always scanning the waters for whatever’s out there especially whales, but unfortunately missed these ones. I had thought that this bay of ours, at Qualicum Beach, may be too shallow, but I guess not.

These particular whales are the transients that show up in Georgia Strait from time to time and these ones are “killers” that feed on sea mammals. They don’t travel in family groups, rather they are usually seen in 2’s and 3’s and occasionally just a solitary male. In contrast the resident whales, who live here for much of the year, eat salmon and other fish (they don’t eat seals or sea lions, and so don’t compete with the transients) and stay together in family groups – pods they refer to them as – as in J- or K- and L- pods of these Salish seas. Adult sons and daughters stay with their clans all their lives following Mom or Grandma on their journeys through these waters. This year the matriarch of JPod “Granny”, died at a very old age, estimated to be over 100 years old. But 4 new babies have appeared this year too, to the delight of their fans, so the cycle continues.

I see sea lions around here often – off our beach at this time of year during herring season, or beached on the float off Fanny Bay up the coast. They are huge, sprawled and ungainly (though at the same time powerful and beautiful) on the floats, out in the air, but fast and sleek underwater when they have to motor. The day after the transient Orcas were spotted off our beach, they were captured on video by a guy in a kayak (yikes) hunting sea lions (the whales that is) from a large group hanging out on the rocks up the coast off Hornby Island. The video, picked up by a number of news sites, shows just how immense and powerful these animals are, overwhelming these, what I used to think of as large, sea lions. In scale, think a cat and a mouse. (Although Dennis doesn’t eat the mice, just plays with them to death – then looks puzzled, wondering why they won’t wake up and “play” some more). I don’t think these guys were playing cat and mouse, they look like they were seriously after some lunch.

The still shot above of the breaching Orca was taken by Howard a couple of years ago from our landlord’s boat in Victoria – another group of 3 transients hunting seal sausages off the rocks. An unforgettable experience to watch from such a close vantage point.

47 Paintings

Posted on March 14, 2015 by JeanEB

I picked up this old book recently at a used book store – a slim volume with a very recognizable figure intent over his easel, paintbrush in hand. Winston Churchill in his own words, illustrated by his own paintings. In it he proselytizes for painting as a hobby, urging everyone to pick up a paint brush – “Try it if you have not done so – before you die”, he says. Yes, ‘before’ would be preferable.

Painting as a Pastime was written in 1932, 15 years after he picked up his first paintbrush at the age of 40. He says that painting came to his rescue at a most trying time. He had been fired from his job of head of the Admiralty (Royal Navy) in 1915 after the disaster at Galipoli and was pretty depressed when he started to paint, a hobby he would continue with for the rest of his life.

It’s a fun read, mostly due to its archaic sounding style and language, the way he presumes to give advice, its play on words and phrases and its humour, not all of it intentional. His descriptions of how painting feels to him ring true for me. He finds great joy in painting, wants to share it with the world and have the world join him in this.

Sir Winston Churchill’s words of wisdom to late starting painters:

The first quality that is needed is audacity. There really is no time for the deliberate approach. Two years of drawing-lessons, three years of copying woodcuts, five years of plaster casts – these are for the young. They have enough to bear…The truth and beauty of line and form which by the slightest touch or twist of the brush a real artist imparts to every feature of his design must be founded on long, hard, persevering apprenticeship and a practice so habitual that it has become instinctive. We must not be too ambitious. We cannot aspire to masterpiece. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paint box. And for this Audacity is the only ticket.

Or in today’s parlance – just go for it.

Just to paint is great fun. The colours are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out. Matching them, however crudely, with what you see is fascinating and absolutely absorbing. Try it if you have not done so – before you die.

…the vistas of possibility are limited only by the shortness of life. Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will ever get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

One is quite astonished to find how many things there are in the landscape, and in every object in it, one never noticed before. And this is a tremendous new pleasure and interest which invests every walk or drive with an added object…this heightened sense of observation of Nature is one of the chief delights that have come to me through trying to paint.

Happy are the painters for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day.

When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject.

Well I don’t know about spending a million years on this but I’ll do it until I don’t.

At the end of this past year I pulled out all the paintings I had done since I started my own “pastime” of painting a year ago February. Turned out there were 47. They had been stacked in the corner and now needed to be put away to make space for the new. It was a blast to see them again and I smiled at the memories of what I had done or, more to the point, tried to do – all experiments, some more successful than others, but each one teaching me something new. I thought it might be a good idea to find a way to go back at some time to see them again, without the hassle of pulling them out of storage – which is only a short term solution anyway. I don’t have a lot of storage space so eventually I’ll have to get rid of them, throw them away. So I got out the camera, took pictures of all of them, recorded details – dates, size, workshop and so on. Then I compiled them all into a photobook, using Blurb his time, and had it printed. Just like that. Sounds simple, no? NO.

But all that work is done and I’m glad I did it. The book looks great and now I can easily look back and smile in memory again just by leafing through the pages. A great record of my own “pastime”. I’m now finishing up another photo book with the New Zealand photos. Sorting, cropping, setting up the pages. The photo book companies claim it is easy to just drop in your photos to their templates, but it’s not. No doubt the more I do it the easier it will get. Like anything. I hope.

I hadn’t painted in a couple of months what with travels and other projects like these ones, but I am now back in The Bunkie Studio these days pushing paint around and loving it once again. As long as I do, I’ll keep at it.

Every painting is practice for the next one.