Opening Night - 'Colour: A Personal Response' at Place des Arts, Coquitlam

Sarah and I are so looking forward to the January 12 opening reception for our exhibition 'Colour: A Personal Response' at Places des Arts, 1120 Brunette Ave, Coquitlam. 7 to 9 pm.

Two other exhibitions will be opening the same night:

'Lyrical Expressions', abstract acrylic and oil works by Jane Appleby

'Balance*', abstract fibre works by Mardell Rampton

We are looking forward to meeting up with friends and to connecting with new people.

If you can't make it to the opening we hope you can get in to see the exhibitions sometime over the month they are on - January 12 to February 10th, 2018.

'Colour: A Personal Response' Exhibition is Hung in Place des Arts, Coquitlam

Sarah McLaren and my 'Colour: A Personal Response' exhibition is on the road again.

The day before we loaded up the car...it was really full...

...and caught the first ferry the next morning.

We drove through Vancouver's persistent rain to Place des Arts Art Centre and Music School in Coquitlam. Conveniently there was dry underground parking with an elevator beside the entrance. It didn't take long to unload the car and get the work up to the main floor.

We laid sheets on the ground against all of the walls where our work would be hung. As we unpacked each work we placed it according to our layout plan.

There are 3 galleries in Place des Arts. We had been assigned the light-filled Atrium Gallery, much to our delight because it suits our body of work's concept so well.

Marziya and Jimmy are Place des Arts student volunteers who were ready to do anything needed. Once Sarah and I had decided on putting the 3D parts on plinths under glass, Marziya and Jimmy got to work putting them in position and removing the plexiglass covers.

The took on the challenge to assemble the colour cards on turntables which tested their colour wheel knowledge.

Then they replaced the covers.

The turntables full of colour cards and the framed collection are presented differently this time around because of the nature of the gallery space. The Atrium is a multifunctional largely unsupervised space used for musical events, dinners, a waiting room for parents and siblings while children attend classes, a meeting space... All of the small 3D items need to be protected which makes them no longer interactive but still interesting for people to look at.

Marziya cleans every single mark off the covers.

Challen and Joseph are a volunteer team that has worked together for 2 years hanging all Place des Arts exhibitions according to the Canadian National Art Gallery standards.

And they are good.

They hung every work perfectly and with well-rehearsed speed.

Don't you love the way their t-shirts match the artwork?

View from the upper level as we were about to leave. 

Sarah and I left the staff, Bali, Josephine and Lidia, to spend the rest of the week making and mounting labels, adjusting lighting and setting up the gift shop. Sarah and I return to the galley on Friday for the official opening which is going to be fun - Friday, January 12, 7 - 9 pm.

We reloaded the car with the empty boxes...

...and caught the next ferry back to Victoria.

All of the Place des Arts staff were so helpful and supportive things went smoothly and we were home again by early evening very happy with the way the day had gone. 

Do check out Sarah's blog to get her take on the day here

Backyard Project: Pattern Language #167 Six-foot Balcony

Lifting and stacking pavers for reuse in reworked walkways and sitting areas.

Pattern Language #167 Six-foot Balconies, verandahs, terraces, porches, and arcades along the building edge or halfway into it.

The Problem: 'Balconies and porches which are less than six feet deep are hardly ever used.' Pattern Language, p. 782.

Here is the 4-foot deep original guest bedroom patio. The pavers are 1 foot by 2 feet in size. It is not a walkway either because it doesn't lead anywhere. According to the Pattern Language, it wasn't used as a patio because nowhere was it at least 6 feet deep. 

'Balconies and porches are often made very small to save money; but when they are too small, they might just as well not be there. A balcony is first used properly when there is enough room for 2 or 3 people to sit in a small group with room to stretch their legs, and room for a small table where they can set down glasses cups, and the newspaper. No balcony works if it is so narrow that people have to sit in a row facing outward.' p. 783.

Arial view of what is left of the original guest room patio after construction trenches were dug and the river stone garden bed was removed. 

We had reworked some other paved areas to make the walkways more obvious by reducing their width. This one is now 4 feet wide instead of being staggered up to 6 feet wide. This gave us extra pavers to work with elsewhere and a bonus garden bed (yet to be developed).

The new guest room patio is now 6 and a half feet deep and 14 feet wide. The Pattern Language has found 'almost no balconies which are more than 6 feet deep are not used.'  It is going to be interesting to see if this reconfigured patio will be used.

The original patio was hardly inviting. Pattern Language explains why it was not a popular place to stop a while.

'Two other features of a balcony make a difference in the degree to which people will use it: its enclosure and its recession into the building. As far as enclosure goes, we have noticed that among the deeper balconies, it is those with half-open enclosures around them - columns, wooden slats, rose-covered trellises - which are used most. Apparently, the partial privacy given by a half-open screen makes people more comfortable.' p. 783.

Sitting out on this original patio one would feel exposed and vulnerable with the forest on one side and the dark underside of the balcony on the other. The flat wall of the house offers no protection or comfort. These are situational feelings humans still carry with them from hunter/gatherer days.

'Enclose the balcony with a low wall - sitting wall (coming), heavy columns (check - 6" x 6" cedar posts), and half open walls or screens (check - Propagation Room wall). Keep it open toward the south (partial check - it faces south but looks to a large cedar fence made of slats that will be covered in vines, while the east view is out to the forest). p. 784. 

The new patio will not be recessed into the original house but the addition of the Propagation Room has visually extended the building envelop and now gives the feeling of being tucked into a corner of the house.

Here's hoping we got enough of the Pattern Language # 167 incorporated into the design to make this patio a welcoming place for our guests to hang out on while offering privacy, protection and a view.

Backyard Report: Reconstruction of the Guest Room Patio

Through the sliding gate, outside the deer fence...

...is where the guest room patio will be reconstructed. There used to be a narrow paved area with a river stone covered garden bed against the house.

The area is next to Gunilla's Garden, a semi-cultivated native plant garden functioning as a transition to the forest zone. 

The Propagation Room wall and sliding gate are part of the deer barrier making the guest room patio open to the forest, browsing deer and the many other animals that live here.

The first task in the guest room patio reconstruction is to move all of the river stone out of the way but not too far away because the stone will be reused. 

Ron lays down the ubiquitous blue tarpaulin to hold the stones.

Ariel view from the balcony above. 

We have saved all of the pavers left over from modifying the walkways along the back and west sides of the house. We would like to be able to reconstruct this patio without having to buy more pavers, following a permaculture principle of using what you have.

The stone moving task in progress.

Green Shed Activity: New Singer Sewing Machine and 40 Meters Khadi Fabric

I got a new sewing machine for my birthday. 

It is a Heavy Duty Singer that can sew thick and fast.

My new Bernina 780 is not up to sewing thick layers of fabric, something I have had to accept after giving away my 40-year-old Bernina 830 Record which could handle everything I gave it.

The Bernina 830 Record is known as a workhorse. I did 4 years of City and Guilds courses on this simple, non-computerised machine. 

Ron has been getting a hard time from his buddies about giving me a machine so I can once again do canvas repairs on his boat, something I couldn't do after I got the Bernina 780. This Singer can sew 3 thicknesses of canvas but I haven't tested it to its needle breaking limits yet.

It comes with a needle threader, a thread cutter, 18 built-in stitches, 2 different buttonholes, can be threaded for a twin needle and the feed dogs can be dropped for free motion work.

All this for $149!

I won't tell you how much this baby cost. It was a graduation present after I completed a BA (Hons) Embroidered Textiles.

The Bernina 780 is an amazing machine but it does have some problems the company has not fixed and they have stopped making this model. It is so highly computerised it self-corrects the tension even when I want a loopy stitch. I can't work cable stitch using thick threads in the bobbin because it self-corrects. 

My new birthday Singer can make loopy stitches and it sews fast.

40 meters of lightweight fabric just washed.

I bought this Indian, handwoven cotton cloth from a favourite shop, Knotty by Nature Fibres,  here in Victoria. 

It is a jacquard woven, light-weight, narrow cloth that I think would qualify as Indian khadi cloth.

I ironed the 40 metres while still damp and while binge-watching Vikings. 

At this stage, I have no idea what I will do with 40 meters of fine white cloth. It is all washed, ironed, folded and put away in the Green Shed to wait out the 'Percolation' stage.

Garden Report: Katherine's Water Drop Shaped Hugelkultur Bed

Daughter Katherine loves flowers. 

The Water Drop hugelkultur bed is dedicated to Katherine and will be covered in flowers.

The Water Drop is tucked in beside her sister's feather-shaped bed.

They are both partially under the canopy of a Douglas-fir and in the first spring, they were planted with their lower canopy trees. Katherine's is a white flowering pear tree.

Comfrey has been planted around the base to both build up the nutrients in the soil and to hold the soil in place.

Katherine's hugelkultur bed is water drop shaped because she studied fluid mechanics and works at managing the flow of water on the land.

A garden bed full of flowering plants can become a magnet for insects - an insectary.

"Not only will insectary plants improve your garden's health, but the flash  and shimmer of multicoloured buzzers and flutterers will both delight the eye and attract many varieties of birds to eat them, further increasing your yard's biodiversity." Gaia's Garden a Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway, p. 109.

Katherine's favourite flower colours are pinks and whites so I added that to the plant list criteria.

Almost any pollen or nectar producing flower will attract pollinating insects needed to set fruit and seeds. Predator insects are needed to gobble up unwanted bugs. I needed to find a variety of different types of plants to attract many different insects to this bed.

Another design goal was to have something flowering throughout the year.

These chives are pushing the colour scheme into purpley pinks and are something Katherine remembers helping to deadhead when she was very young. They are an early spring bloomer providing nectar when there is little else flowering in the garden.

A fall bloomer is this Autumn Joy Stonecrop Sedum that can be covered in different types of bees when the sunny days are getting shorter.

Behind the Liatris and Echinacea/Cone Flower is a Russian Tea (Camellia sinensis) plant forming the shrub layer in this ecosystem. It fits the criteria having masses of white flowers from September through to January as long as it gets enough hours of sun. This bed is south facing but our winters can have many cloudy rainy days so we will wait to see how much it flowers. 

It thrives in slightly acidic soil conditions which is a good thing with the bed being under the Douglas-fir. 

Bonus features are it is a nitrogen fixer to the benefit of plants around it and one can make tea from its leaves. 

It is the early stages of developing this Water Drop hugelkultur bed...

...while I have this picture in mind of Katherine with her wedding flowers.

Teaching 'Mindful Colours' Workshop for the First Time

Sarah Mclaren (website) and I taught our new 'Mindful Colours' workshop to 24 people. 

It was important to have 24 people because we sat them right in a colour wheel to involve more of their senses as they explored their own personal responses to colours.

Most colour workshops start off with making the ubiquitous colour wheel. Our workshop was no different except we encouraged people to intuitively pick their favourite colour from each tray and not overthink it. The idea is based on the way Johannes Itten worked with his students by encouraging them to isolate and work with their own personal palettes.

It was very interesting to see the variation in colours different people picked to make up their personal colour wheels. We encouraged them to write about their choices.

Sarah led the group in an exercise on value.

We also had exercises to explore other characteristics of colour - temperature and intensity.

The last exercise was based on pulling together what had been learned to make an abstract colour image expressing an emotion, feeling or visual experience.

It was so interesting to walk around the room looking at different people's colour wheels with their abstract picture. For a lot of the participants, it was only when they stepped back and saw their own colour choices besides others did they see how distinctive their own work is. 

We asked every person for an evaluation of the workshop. We were delighted with the feedback we recieved. Sarah and I sat down for a couple of hours while going through the comments and reworked parts of the workshop based on these comments.

Now we feel ready to go out into the world with our 'Mindful Colours' workshop.

We had such a fun time teaching it we are looking forward to our next booking - more on that later.