 | |
| No. 1854 - 16 Nov 2011 - 16:46:02 |
Showing posts with label spirit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirit. Show all posts
29 January 2016
10 August 2012
28 June 2012
Pilgrimage - Part two
No. 9067 - 28 Jun 2012 - 14:59:13
In the copse up ahead is the house in which my mother spent a dozen years of her childhood. I visited it with her 18 years ago and even though it had already been abandoned to the elements we were able to enter and go up the stairs to the little room she used to share with her two sisters. Unfortunately the photographs I took inside the house did not turn out and I must rely on my memory to recreate the place that nurtured my mother's shared remembrances of a
depression-era upbringing.
The homestead was built on another's land, a tenancy farm, after her family lost their land in Cayer due to the 1929 stock market crash. It was situated a few miles north of Gilbert Plains, a small town on Highway 5, north of Riding Mountain National Park and west of Dauphin in Manitoba. The relocation precipitated their eventual departure from the prairies and permanent move west to British Columbia 13 years later, at the end of World War II.
In the copse up ahead is the house in which my mother spent a dozen years of her childhood. I visited it with her 18 years ago and even though it had already been abandoned to the elements we were able to enter and go up the stairs to the little room she used to share with her two sisters. Unfortunately the photographs I took inside the house did not turn out and I must rely on my memory to recreate the place that nurtured my mother's shared remembrances of a
depression-era upbringing.
The homestead was built on another's land, a tenancy farm, after her family lost their land in Cayer due to the 1929 stock market crash. It was situated a few miles north of Gilbert Plains, a small town on Highway 5, north of Riding Mountain National Park and west of Dauphin in Manitoba. The relocation precipitated their eventual departure from the prairies and permanent move west to British Columbia 13 years later, at the end of World War II.
Nos. 9012, 8989, 9000, 9032, 9002, 8992, 9014, 9020 - 28 Jun 2012
A thicket of poplar trees has grown tightly around the little house my grandfather built for my grandmother - out of sight as if a Sleeping Beauty. I could not see it when I first drove by and only spied part of its fallen roof after I turned the car around. With some difficulty I breached the barrier of little trees to discover the roof had collapsed through the second floor and through the first where once stood the parlour and all is sinking into the cellar.
A tree grows through the front porch.
A thicket of poplar trees has grown tightly around the little house my grandfather built for my grandmother - out of sight as if a Sleeping Beauty. I could not see it when I first drove by and only spied part of its fallen roof after I turned the car around. With some difficulty I breached the barrier of little trees to discover the roof had collapsed through the second floor and through the first where once stood the parlour and all is sinking into the cellar.
A tree grows through the front porch.
Nos. 9041, 9037, 9024, 9025 - 28 June 2012
No doubt my grandparents would be puzzled and fairly amused at my sentimental feelings for this pile of rotting timber. It is my understanding that, once the decision to leave was made, they left and never looked back. And yet, as a second generation survivor of the Great Depression, I feel as though I too know that house from hearing my mother speak of it often and lovingly
when I was young.
Old farms die like this on the prairie - slowly and with plenty of melancholy.
No doubt my grandparents would be puzzled and fairly amused at my sentimental feelings for this pile of rotting timber. It is my understanding that, once the decision to leave was made, they left and never looked back. And yet, as a second generation survivor of the Great Depression, I feel as though I too know that house from hearing my mother speak of it often and lovingly
when I was young.
Old farms die like this on the prairie - slowly and with plenty of melancholy.
25 June 2012
Panorama
No. 0126 - 25 Jun 2012 - 11:35:09The cemetary at Cathédrale de Saint-Boniface on Taché Avenue is stretched and flattened with the aid of a camera app.
Left of centre in this image and encircled by stone is
the grave of Louis Riel.
03 December 2011
02 November 2011
28 October 2011
Exhibit
No. 0094 - 08 Oct 2011 - 15:05:23Heart of the City
This neo-Gothic church building set in a neo-Dickensian downtown neighbourhood is St. James' Anglican* - frequent photographic muse, home to my beloved High Mass Choir (alto) and on Saturday, October 29, from 12 noon to 4 pm, host of an Open House for the Heart of the City festival.
It comes with a guided tour (12:30 pm), John Donne sermon in costume (1:30 pm), St. James' Music Academy performance (3 pm), photo exhibit (12:00 - 4 pm) and all for free!
This neo-Gothic church building set in a neo-Dickensian downtown neighbourhood is St. James' Anglican* - frequent photographic muse, home to my beloved High Mass Choir (alto) and on Saturday, October 29, from 12 noon to 4 pm, host of an Open House for the Heart of the City festival.
It comes with a guided tour (12:30 pm), John Donne sermon in costume (1:30 pm), St. James' Music Academy performance (3 pm), photo exhibit (12:00 - 4 pm) and all for free!
* 303 East Cordova at Gore
20 October 2011
14 October 2011
Red-Shafted Flicker
No. 9040 - 14 Sept 2011 - 16:59:10
No. 9751 - 29 Sept 2011 - 10:15:50
Mt. Pleasant
Out a bedroom window I rented for September there was a small, shambolic garden which was a dead zone for birds outside of the occasional crow or house sparrow. I was more likely to hear than see anything in the tall laurels and when an unusual call caught my attention I took a picture of a mysterious silhouette on top of a neighbouring cedar. Once the image was up on my computer screen and with my BIRDS of North America* on my lap, I set about identifying the visitor to my ninth level of hell. The shape of the beak and a couple of spots on the chest led me to the page of large woodpeckers known as Northern Flickers, specifically, a Red-shafted Flicker (the western form named for its red wing feather shafts) - a medium-sized land bird.
Over the next two weeks the bird returned and confirmed the identification I made with the help of my digital camera with telephoto lens. Thanks to iPhoto I can synthesize the experience for my own gratification. Birding maintains my urban connection to nature - a rare and wonderful relationship.
* by Kenn Kaufman
06 October 2011
Latino Lunch
No. 9942 - 06 Oct 2011 - 11:38:52 * No. 9984 - 06 Oct 2011 - 12:55:33
Ingrid Méndez de Cruz and her team prepare and serve lunch every Thursday in the crypt at St. James' Anglican especially for hispanic residents of the downtown.
Ingrid Méndez de Cruz and her team prepare and serve lunch every Thursday in the crypt at St. James' Anglican especially for hispanic residents of the downtown.
14 September 2011
Small Bright Clean Functional
No. 1035 - 20 April 2011 - 09:26:40The threshold of *** Simcoe Street, Winnipeg.
01 September 2011
14 August 2011
Frozen Music
*I call architecture frozen music*
Goethe
This morning I am off to sing with the church choir at St. James' Anglican where I can test my courage by cantoring the Alleluia. To sing alone within the architectural vibrations of this particular edifice is breathtaking and edifying - and then I melt.
25 June 2011
Topography
No. 3868 (detail) - 11 Jun 2011 - 19:10:08The Drive
When I was a little girl, growing up on the edge of Grouse Mountain in the City of North Vancouver, I asked my mother what was on the other side of the mountains and she told me, "more mountains". I found the answer to be insufficient although I understood its veracity. Perhaps I meant to ask "what is on the other side of the obstacles I have yet to negotiate?"
My failure to post lately is due to a depressing cold I caught during my road trip which I still nurse while waiting for a bit of arthroscopic surgery on my right knee. In spite of a recent postponement I look forward to recovering the mobility I lost three years ago when I was last hit by the chronic illness stick and fell in the well.
Fortunately, I was able to chronicle and complete a body of work documenting civic, architectural, biological and social life, situated as I was, at an 8th floor outpost on the corner of Main and Hastings - an address so horrible that I barely mentioned it by name on these pages.
And yet the view was spectacular.
When I first began to capture this southern perspective of Metro Vancouver someone noted that it was a shame I did not also have a view of the North Shore Mountains to which I replied, "I know they are there and that is enough". They have my back even when I cannot see them and now inspire feelings of gravitas and continuity rather than appearing to be obstacles to expansion and self-discovery.
I am at liberty to look forward with a view to the opportunities in my 360 degrees of landscape consciousness at dimeChronicle. On the other side of the mountains are more beautiful mountains.
Regards,
CH
When I was a little girl, growing up on the edge of Grouse Mountain in the City of North Vancouver, I asked my mother what was on the other side of the mountains and she told me, "more mountains". I found the answer to be insufficient although I understood its veracity. Perhaps I meant to ask "what is on the other side of the obstacles I have yet to negotiate?"
My failure to post lately is due to a depressing cold I caught during my road trip which I still nurse while waiting for a bit of arthroscopic surgery on my right knee. In spite of a recent postponement I look forward to recovering the mobility I lost three years ago when I was last hit by the chronic illness stick and fell in the well.
Fortunately, I was able to chronicle and complete a body of work documenting civic, architectural, biological and social life, situated as I was, at an 8th floor outpost on the corner of Main and Hastings - an address so horrible that I barely mentioned it by name on these pages.
And yet the view was spectacular.
When I first began to capture this southern perspective of Metro Vancouver someone noted that it was a shame I did not also have a view of the North Shore Mountains to which I replied, "I know they are there and that is enough". They have my back even when I cannot see them and now inspire feelings of gravitas and continuity rather than appearing to be obstacles to expansion and self-discovery.
I am at liberty to look forward with a view to the opportunities in my 360 degrees of landscape consciousness at dimeChronicle. On the other side of the mountains are more beautiful mountains.
Regards,
CH
01 April 2011
I'm An April Fool
Pardon my vanity if I prefer the instant glamour of Photo Booth.
No. 7152 - 01 Apr 2011 - 15:33:4609 March 2011
17 February 2011
14 February 2011
06 February 2011
Red Rover
No. 4588 - 29 Jan 2011 - 15:23:13Come over Red Rover.
"Watch this", he said as he approached my stake-out,
thereby joining my game with a classic hockey pose.
Warm and happy people go outside to play in a Winnipeg winter.
The wind on the river is as breathtaking as the reflected light is brilliant.
26 January 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
