Seeing and Making Art

A weekend ago was all about art.

 

 I spent most of the Friday glazing my pottery after its first firing. Judy Tait, owner of Albert County Clay Company, thought my fern bowl looks very good. Though it’s really “our” bowl, as I could not have achieved it without her help.

 

My medallions and other pieces were also a pleasure to work on. Now I wait a couple of weeks until Judy has a glaze firing.

 Saturday, September 29, was the art studio tour in Moncton. After visiting the markets, and buying a special elephant/Ganesha pendant from my favourite jeweller, Terry Belliveau, we explored several studios but the incessant rain cut short what could have been another pleasant day of discovery. Some galleries and exhibits are open daily or the current exhibitions continue so perhaps we’ll visit another weekend.

 

On the Sunday the Owens Gallery on Mount Allison campus had its annual Open House. A great opportunity to ‘go behind’ gallery walls; to see the archives of paintings not always exhibited and to talk to restoration staff about the various methods used to detect damages and make repairs.

We spent time at the creative table making art-inspired buttons.

Gifts of and for a new session

Every time I come to my yoga nat for another class, another session, I receive many gifts. Each student new or long time brings me an individual ‘gift’. No gift wrapping is necessary when it’s a student new to the practice, making joyful discoveries,  finding the benefits to body and mind or the returning student’s happiness at being back in a place of relaxation and restoring of sprit.

 A wonderful re-occurring gift for me was once again being in Chester, Nova Scotia, rapidly becoming one of my favourite places, for my fourth workshop with senior Iyengar teacher Fr. Joe Pereira, on another visit from India. Three days spent with this energetic 70-year-old receiving his wisdom, both yogic and spiritual, is beyond any price. So much to take into my own life and practice, so much to bring back to give to my students.

Thoughts of growth, coming to fruition and fruitfulness were in my mind, appropriately echoed by this peach tree outside the window where we practiced.

Three days spent with this energetic 70-year-old, receiving his wisdom, both yogic and spiritual, is beyond any price. So much to take into my own life and practice, so much to bring back to give to my students.

Also a special gift was the evening sail offered by fellow students, Margie and Glen. Some of us continued or yoga practice on the deck.

 

Fr. Joe took a turn at the wheel.

A few weeks later I was back in Chester. Dr. Satyanarayana Das on his way home to Vrindavan after teaching at Rutgers university and Kripalu, came to talk about the Bhagavad Gita, Hindu philosophy and Ayurveda.  A compelling and intensely thoughtful two days.

 These intangible gifts are very precious.

 So are gifts I can hold in my hand.  There was Wendy’s singing bowl, passed into my care by her partner this summer.

My other gift, from a student found while she was on holiday in P.E.I, was a stone Ganesha, the beloved Hindu elephant-faced deity, one of the most popular gods in Hindu mythology. Known as the ‘remover of obstacles’ he is endowed with a gentle and affectionate nature; he is also a god of wisdom .

Ganesha has settled down in our Yoga Space and Wendy’s bowl sounds the beginning of each class and guides us into relaxation and meditation.

 

Playing with Clay

It’s not often I take a day off to simply play; a day for myself.

Last Tuesday I did just that. I spent a day playing with clay, getting my hands into mud from the Chocolate River in nearby Fundy.

I’d been thinking about doing this for quite a while. It’s been years since I did hand built clay work. Lately I felt a need to find time for myself, for creativity; to widen my circle of activities, to simply let go and see what happens.

Potter Judy Tait owns Albert County Clay Company in Curryville on Albert Mines Road, a quiet, winding country road by-passing Highway 114. Her studio is the 100-year-old Curryville Community Hall; until the early 1900 hundreds the centre of the community, hosting church suppers and ice cream socials.

With lots of help from her husband David, Judy extracts clay from the ‘red muck’ found locally.  It’s a fine clay that lends itself beautifully to her speciality of hand building. While I am studying my rolled-out pieces of clay, envisaging my end product, hoping it will match the picture in my mind, Judy is hand cutting and scoring large leaf shapes destined to be attached to the outer rim of a large vase. She handles the clay with authority and ease, with confidence in her creativity and how to shape the clay to her inner vision.

My vision was to create small medallions to be incorporated into mixed media and textile hangings. To help achieve this I took several of my Indian wooden fabric printing blocks. Usually used for printing on fabrics, they make interesting indented patterns. My Ganesha stamp produced some small bas-relief plaques.  As I made them I loved what I saw, though I have no idea how they will eventually feature in my own work.

As the day progressed Judy and I listened to Loreena MacKennnitt CDs and talked about many things. About textiles - her first training was in surface design; her studies in England’s Potteries districts; her travels to Ghana; yoga; meditation; life in the quiet countryside.

Judy encourages me to make a bowl. I opt for a shallow design, using an old glass light fixture as a mould.

 Excited by her signature of imprinting her pottery with grasses, leaves and natural wayside finds, I am thrilled to find ferns, one of my favourite plants, growing abundantly nearby. Leaving the centre of the bowl plain, perhaps to hold beach stones, pine cones or other treasures, I impress the edges with the ferns.

It’s not all easy, requiring us, for this is not just ‘my’ bowl, to turn the clay over several times. I realise I’m far too gentle, rolling the clay tenderly, as if it were flaky pastry. Judy slaps it down on the table and uses the rolling pin with strength. She is firm with it but always respects it.

Still I am pleased with what I achieve. All day I let my hands focus on the clay, feeling its substance, learning its possibilities.  Totally forgetting about e-mails, phone calls, just absorbing the peace and quiet, letting it inform what I create.

Now the clay is drying and will be fired with other of Judy’s pieces; in a couple of weeks I can return to do the glazing. I’m busy considering colours; Ganesha should be red, his usual appearance. My favourite blues will figure in some pieces, and there is also a soft green, perhaps for part of my fern bowl. Some pieces I may finish with a natural glaze, allowing the richness of the clay to show through.

The results are for another entry in this journal.

Wendy's Bowl - the Song Continues

Each time I strike it, the sound goes straight to my heart. It’s a Tibetan singing bowl. A special one for which I have just been honoured to become its carer. I don’t think owner is the right term; I believe these bowls come to us bringing their special meditation and healing qualities for us to share.

This one belonged to Wendy Martindale, friend, former yoga student, ‘boss’ and mentor at the New Brunswick Museum and inspirer of my recent ‘Warrior Women’ – Yoga for Breast Cancer programme.

Wendy’s partner, Harvey, gave it to me a couple of weeks ago.  As August 1st would have been Wendy’s 60^th birthday, a day she had planned as her retirement, it was an appropriate, if stingingly sad time.  Wendy lost her warrior’s fight with cancer two years ago in July. Harvey had earlier given me her mala (prayer beads) and yoga books, providing a deep continuation of friendship and the sustaining power of yoga. A wooden box handmade by Wendy’s father is a fitting keeping place.

 

Wendy was one of the first people I met when we moved to Saint John. Wondering if the Museum might have work for a writer with my background. It didn’t at the time. But when Wendy, a previous yogi, heard I was also a yoga teacher, she was ready to sign up. And she did as soon as I began an early evening, after work class.

Later I began working part-time at the Museum, helping Wendy get through her hectic schedule. We cried together when I had to move to Moncton, but the connection remained strong. When I applied for a Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation grant for my ‘Warrior Women’ programme, Wendy wrote a moving testimonial about the amazing benefits, physical and spiritual, yoga offers to women adjusting to a ‘new normal’ body as they “continue to continue”.

 

Wendy’s bowl, as it will always be known, is an interesting design; brown with a pale gold band running round the upper rim. Symbols cover the sides and base with some inside. So far my research has not found any matching symbols or mantras, often etched or painted on. Next month I’ll again be at a workshop given by Fr. Joe Pereira, so I’ll take the bowl with me.

 

Researching Tibetan bowls is a lovely, if time consuming, process. Almost every web site has an audio track so you can hear the amazing sounds.

Tibetan singing bowls are thought to be made of a many-metal alloy  of silver, nickel, copper, zinc, antimony, tin, lead, cobalt, bismuth, arsenic, cadmium and iron. Other research suggests they may be a pure mixture of copper and tin.

 When stuck with a wooden mallet the clear, rich vibrations quickly inspire centring and stillness. When the mallet is gently circled clock-wise round the outer rim, harmonic overtones produce an ethereal singing sound, the vibrations are felt though your body and mind. It is this aspect that is very important in healing

 

In yoga and meditation we strike a bowl to signal the beginning of a practice session. By sounding to all four directions they offer a summons to the here and now, clearing the space of negative energy, opening it and the practitioners to new energies, deep meditation and healing. Sounding a bowl can also signal a change from sitting to walking meditation; a period in which meditators inhale and retain the breath until the sound ceases, or the end of a practice.

Thank you, Harvey. Thank you, Wendy. Your bowl has another good home and will continue to sing.

 

 

 

Landscape as textile

Last week I drove from Moncton to Quispamsis to interview Riel Nason, prize-winning author of the locally set and inspired novel ‘The Town That Drowned’.

 This entry is not about that interview. I don’t want to spoil the reading of it in the fall issue of Atlantic Books Today. So patience.

 It’s about the strikingly visual textile landscape I experienced on the drive. A perfect midsummer day. Blue, green and white.

When I have time to spare from my yoga teaching and writing I love to work with fibre and thread. On that day the sky was a piece of silk, palest translucent cornflower on the horizon to rich lapis high above. Weightless clouds were fine gauze, swansdown or fluffy kapok ready to fill a cushion. I wasn’t seeking any Polonius-like “camels or whales”,  just allowed the pure whiteness to float above and settle on my imagined collage.

Harvested wheat appeared as giant reels of golden thread rolling across yards of soft green velvet. Distant hills were two-dimensional tapestries; tree and bushes appliquéd and hooked.  The highway, lined with strong vertical evergreens, provided a frame.

Driving the highway can be boring, sometimes sleep inducing, so little traffic. It’s definitely a case of the destination being more important than the journey. Usually I have music playing, but that day silence seemed called for and I gave my visual imagination full creative licence

Quilting in my Garden

Three things I love a lot – yoga, writing, stitching.  (And there is a yoga pose known as ‘The Eye of the Needle’)

 Needlework and mixed media collage are among my favourite creative projects – when I have time.

Perhaps that’s why one of my favourite perennials is hostas. The leaves have such a wonderful quilted appearance; they might have been cut out and stitched in the garden studio of a horticultural goddess. Shades of blue-green, green with white couched stripes, green with gold-edged binding.

One of the houses I lived in as a child was row house in Liverpool, England. It had literally what North Americans call a ‘yard’, just a few square feet of paving stones, nothing green or growing. That’s why I am so sad to hear grass, plants, flowers, bushes and trees, all clumped together and described as a yard. So bleak, so colourless, so uninhabited, so un–flourishing.

I first saw hostas as a grown-up. On an assignment on Kent in the south of England, I made my visit into a long weekend and included Sissinghurst Castle. This had been the home of Vita Sackville-West and her husband, the diplomat Harold Nicholson. In the 1930’s they created amazing gardens there. One of Vita’s then-pioneering ideas was the creation of a number of gardens each defined by a single colour.

 With their purple and white flowers hostas are featured in the gardens of both those colours. But it was the leaves that enchanted me. Not just the size and shape but the lines of what might have been stitches, not perfect, for this is nature, but so wonderfully delineating these plants.

Wherever I’ve lived since I’ve always planted hostas, and marvel each spring as they spread their quilted patches.

Among my favourite flowers are peonies. Their petals are like the hand-made paper and fabric I tear for my collages.

Sparingly cut for the house just one or two make a superb arrangement, the delicate perfume enhancing their wrinkled edges. Even the dark spear-like leaves make a singular arrangement.

Appropriately I’ll let Vita have the last word on flowers.

“A flowerless room is a soulless room, to my way of thinking; but even one solitary little vase of a living flower may redeem it.”

Chester Calling

Actually it was yoga calling. A few weeks ago I enjoyed another Iyengar workshop in what has become one of my favourite places to visit. Chester is a charming 250 year-old ocean-side village on the south shore of Nova Scotia. As usual I stayed at the appropriately-named Windjammer Motel

‘Cultivating Maturity in your Yoga Practice’ the workshop was led by Marlene Mawhinney, a senior Iyengar teacher, the founder and director of Yoga Centre Toronto. Marlene has spent many months over the years studying in India with the Iyengars and brings a similar stringent precision, and detail to her instructions, combined with light-hearted humour.

 Leigh Milne is a dedicated yoga teacher who frequently hosts these inspiring workshops. I  joined about 40 other teachers and senior students for an intense, demanding, invigorating, intense and fulfilling weekend. The Iyengar style uses props such as belts, blocks, blankets and bolsters. Marlene demonstrated and made individual adjustments on our bodies. “There's a little bit of each of us in all of us", she said. Which is why demonstrations benefit everyone, and add to the sangha or community we create whenever we come together to practice.

Much of what Marlene said resonated with me. In particular her thoughts on prana or breath. “One Breath at a Time” she kept reminding us. So true off the may as well as in our practice .“Find the breath that leads you into the posture, that keep you there and deepens, and the breath that leads you out” was another teaching gift I received. Some posture work will be integrated into my own practice, then in coming sessions shared with progressive students. Others will be shared with all levels so they benefit.

It’s always good to combine study with time to relax and make new discoveries.  Though most of my days in Chester were spent on the yoga mat I made the most of a few free hours on Saturday afternoon to explore more widely than on previous visits.

Taking time to walk around the village centre I had an interesting talk with Angie DeMont owner of Hibiscus Boutique, a store filled with eye-catching fashions and jewellery with a different appeal. I have more than sufficient clothes and jewellery but love to talk to people who also enjoy them. A chance remark about my Ganesha pendant and soon Angie was telling me about her visit to India and her interest in Yoga and Ayurveda. The connection is always there.

A drive west along Highway 3 brought me to Blue Shutters Antiques and a conversation with Bobby Young who co-owns the shop with Peter Fitch. Some years ago I sold antiques in Ontario and Britain and am still drawn to things that speak to me of days past.

Also on Highway 3 I dropped into Linens For Life, where Elaine LeBlanc offers a lovely selection of fine linen clothes and bedding. The section showcasing the bed linens is restful space with sun slipping through two skylights; more like a hotel room. Alongside the store is a quaint tea room. A keen gardener Elaine takes pride in the store’s surroundings.

Turning east on the highway I spent a lot of time enjoying Oceanview Garden Centre, one of the most comprehensive and delightful  garden centres  I have visited. Filled with colourful glass, decorative gifts, candles, shawls, teas and jams, some of which I purchased, it also offers everything a gardener could wish for to create a beautiful outdoor sanctuary.

Outside the selection of statuary, metal ‘flowers’, water garden accessories and colourful bird houses is quite enchanting.

The further along the coast to Chester Basin where I spent time sitting by the water, reading, making notes from the workshop, and dreaming some dreams. I collected a couple of beach stones to bring back for our garden before it was time to head back to Chester for the evening.