Turning Thai

Seaflower Bungalows. Standing on my parent's bungalow veranda, looking toward the palm thatched restaurant.

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Entry penned on January 20th, 2017:

Early last week Wednesday morning I was contemplating my last breakfast at Seaflower Bungalows. Bananas in warm coconut cream on brown rice or Red Curry soup with rice noodles? What to choose, what to choose? I went for the Red Curry soup as per usual and Lise, the owner of Seaflower told me I was turning Thai. I took that as a compliment and enjoyed every spoonful of that bowl.

I am home from yet another journey away from this continent I call home. Three weeks in Thailand with my loved ones was good for the soul. Iain and I had a hoot exploring new cities from the back of tuktuks, motorbikes, bicycles and truck taxis. I ate like a queen and drank like a sailor. I hauled my Kiev across the globe and left my smart phone at home. That was the best decision I could have made to begin a new journey.

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Seaflower's beach looking toward the Gulf of Thailand.

Two Seaflower beach goers at ease at Happy Hour!

Typical scene between these two dingalings. Tall Changs and shenanigans.

My beautiful sister Erin and her first mangostein.

Self-reflection on my parent's veranda at Seaflower.

My mom in her happy place on the beach.

Me in my happy place at Happy Hour in silk pants.

Gareth pours himself a cold one.

Milky takes a load off.

Ma and Pa take a New Year dip in the ocean. 

Cousin Kaleb at the end of a really good book.

My dad having a cold Chang.

Erin soaks up the sun.

Ladies on the beach.

Dominoes at Heaven Bar.

Kaleb for Dusen Dusen.

Seaflower and a slice of Heaven Bar.

In my happy place.

Chai takes a friend out for a spin.

A good scene of some of my favourite guys. Mexican Train in full effect at Happy Hour.

My love.

Happy beachgoers at Seaflower.

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Kiev 60 / Portra 400 / Delta 400

Moondog in July

Ian Johnson's van. He was taking a picture of us on his big Mamiya rig through the driver's window. Meta!

Two cool cats. We cycled two blocks before stopping at this place to shoot a portrait. Why I placed Mangie & Luke in direct sunlight I will never know.

Mangie Chan & Luke Bergen.

Respect the Sacred. Under the Osborne bridge.

Bernie works the water wheel chez moi. Bern Dog, you funny duck you.

Carys sitting at my little table having crackers with two kit-tees. This child is so calm and easy it is almost frightening. 

First photo of the two of us. Bernie and Miss Meg. Winnipeg, MB; July 2017.

Iain heaps and hoes the family garden four miles north of Morden, MB.

Portrait of a man and his tractor. 

Iain's dad Ed found this skull in one of his fields. If you put it up high the flies will pick it clean for you.

Portrait of my sweetheart working the potato patch. I love his expression as well as that red / mint green garage behind him.

Sleeping, not sleeping. I can imagine a very, very good studio inside that silver shack. Summer Kiechje?

Summer silhouette. This was the state of the sky from my vantage point on June 30th.

10pm light on June 30th, 2017.

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I picked up this roll from the lab yesterday. 120 Portra 400. A recent roll of summer colour I felt compelled to share. I shot an incredible wedding in East St. Paul yesterday. Kirstin & Andrew. I always learn lessons at these type of high pressure, sharp timeline events. Slow Down, mainly. Time to go for a hot wind bike ride with my lover.

Adios.

Pilgrim at Pumpkin Creek

Lady in a straw hat walking alone in a field of wildflowers on a Tuesday.

Resting spot. Essentials along a slim creek.

I have been drawn to this place since I was a small child.

A good spot as any to meditate in the nude.

Brownie McGee in its natural habitat.

The fire wouldn't catch so I settled for smoke.

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July 9th, 2017: one month since dear friends married on a full moon.

I came back to this photo essay titled Pilgrim at Pumpkin Creek (ode to Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek") because I felt this particular series of photos needed a story to go with it. These photos were taken on June 20th. After being delivered back to my home by my sweet mum following a hellish time in purgatory, I started to spin out and panic and lose it. Have you ever felt like you can't be at home? My home is my sancutary so this was quite distressing to me. On a whim, I threw a bunch of things in a bag, filled jugs with water and hit the open road in Iain's truck. 

Before long I had that old girl heading west for the counry. There is no radio in Brownie McGee (we both began in '86) but it didn't matter. It felt like a matter of life and death to open every window and let the breeze brush away the energy of that day. Ahhhhh. Feel those shoulders drop. I was wearing my old straw hat from Albuquerque, New Mexico. When I finally arrived to my favorite place called the Sugar Shack, I got out and stood in that little grass clearing near the truck in the photo above and said "this is my Calm Zone. I am safe, open and aware that this is where I need to be right now". I dropped my bag in the porch and made a beautiful bed. Put my boots on and marched through the hills to my favourite spot along Pumpkin Creek. My clothes came off and I lowered my body into that water and washed away the day. Sunshine on a nude body like a frog on a rock. That was how I welcomed the sun and summer this year. These are the photos I felt compelled to take while in the process of releasing the old. 

Welcome Party for the Sun, party of one in a maple tree stand. My kind of retreat. 

My friend Rebecca often refers to her home as her Calm Zone. I love this phrase: calm zone. Rebecca is Lula's Calm Zone. It is lovely to observe a dear friend glide into motherhood and discover new ideas while pushing herself to the limit as a new mom. It is so inspiring to me as someone looking outside in. Something to look forward to, perhaps? I would love to experience pregnancy, birth and motherhood in this lifetime. Time will tell. In the meantime, I can observe and learn from those around me who are in it for the long haul! My life is rich with little children. This I know.

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Kiev 60 / Delta 400

Eve of Summer Solstice / June 20, 2017

Precarious Dawn

Tail gate self-timer portrait of us on our way to Carman. June 10, 2017. Canon AE-1 / Delta 400

I am feeling very grateful for this bearded creature today.

The very thought of moving to the country with this jolly fellow makes my head spin. I hope I have my camera at ready for the moment when he slams his planting shovel into the ground to turn the soil on our first garden. His grin will blind! We dream aloud at our dinner table in the city while ambulances wail down Portage Avenue.

Here we are, pictured above, happy together on a back road to Carman. I propped the camera on the back end of the truck box and scampered to his side. I like the way that hand feels right there.

Stawberry Moon

I dream of silk beach pajamas. Someday I will make some for myself.

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I am trying to get back to work at my illustration practice. Getting myself to my table feels like pulling a stubborn ram by the horns in the opposite direction of desire. Yet once I am there, pulling ink is incredibly meditative. My fountain pens and ink have been collecting dust for too long. I recently shined one up and made these two line drawings in quick succession with the idea in mind to eventually print them on fabric for pillows and other linens 'n things up Margot Pollo's sleeve. One step at a time Dolly. The addition of the rose water on these sunny girls came this afternoon while battling a fierce hangover. Focusing hard on painting helped kick it to the curb.

In honor of the marriage between two dear friends of mine and Iain's, we celebrated in excellent company last night under the light of the moon. Grant and Rebecca wed at City Hall on the full Strawberry Moon of June surrounded by a loving community of friends and family. I had the privilage of capturing the course of their wedding day with my Kiev in one hand and Iain's Canon AE-1 around my neck. The rain came and washed the Bride's parent's farm yard good and proper throughout the evening but it never put a damper on the festivities! The smell of wet soil and the last of the Lilacs made for a heady and fresh atmosphere. Around nine the sky cleared, the moon rose and the fire burned hot. Candles placed into champagne bottles dripped freely. The wind felt warm on bare skin as the light sank. It was a magical gathering to say the very least. I can hardly wait to see this one photograph of Grant and Rebecca walking down a gravel road under an umbrella as the last night of day sank low. My gal Tony Chestnut made a custom wedding dress for the bride made out of linen the colour of dove grey. Mercy! What a time to be young and alive!

Adios, my cowboy and I are off to deliver to the groom the loveliest cowboy hat discovered this very afternoon at the Nearly New to You shop on Portage Avenue. Best six dollar wedding gift I can think of. Now it is time to hit the back roads once again with my most loved person and savour the warm air upon our bare arms while we celebrate Grant and Rebecca for the second night in a row. Celebration! How do they call it in Ukrainian? Propravinia? партія після вечірки! Party after the party!

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When in need of inspiration to draw, I look to circus imagery captured around the turn of the century.

Skipping Stones

 All photos shot on the Kiev 60 / Portra 400

Littlest Witch

Two of my favorite folks: Lula and her Uncle Beetle.

Lula in the sun / An icy fish caught by Ed while ice fishing on Rock Lake.

Lula and Rebecca go through an old album of Europe travel photos / Ironing in long underwear and a backwards cap. 

Typical scenes of spring.

Shadows of spring and a Margot Pollo kerchief.

Mama and girl.

A good day for drinks on the back deck.

Lula and her pa. 

Rascal Jr. & Sr.

Lula Browning sitting pretty at nine months old. April 2017.

All photos captured on Iain's trusty Canon AE-1 / Fujicolor Pro 400
Winnipeg, MB; February - April 2017

Certain Kind of Slowness

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing 
There is a field. I'll meet you there.

-- Rumi

Enjoying a fat parcel in my own time. Clearwater, MB; May 2017. Canon E0S-3 / Portra 400

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Last night I cycled through the city. The air was thick with the scent of Lilacs. First I picked up some textile ink from a cute house in West Broadway. As I was rounding back toward home, I felt the pull toward Ethelbert Street. I followed the feeling and ended up at my favorite table in Wolseley, the table belonging to my Aunty Daryl. We shared a pot of tea and I wept into her dish cloth. Why so sad? I am in a period of letting go I suppose. Letting go of children I have become very close with over the last year, Theo and Henry. Letting go of ideas and ideals. Let it go, let it go! Letting go of things in order to move forward. It is good and it is hard. As usual, I was perusing her bookshelves when my eye landed on one title running down a spine: "The Art of Mending". Can I borrow this? Sure. Just like that, a new world to take up residence in.

Mending! How fitting and hilarious considering that most of my idle time at home recently has been spent on a quilt I pieced together on a whim a few months ago. Frances, this ones for you. The colours are strange but strangely good and the overall feeling of the small quilt is very warm and soft. The blocks that are hand dyed in a neutral peachy tone are also stencilled with an old rose motif I carved out in 2013. Slow train comin'. The blocks that are untampered with came from the most soft twin duvet cover thrifted a long time ago thanks to the delicate floral pattern that initially caught my eye. My hand found it before my eyes did and the softness immediately reminded of my childhood blanket.

Technically speaking I have no clue what I am doing but the process of hand stitching a quilt feels like the most natural thing in the world. Almost as if these hands of mine have been doing it for a long, long time. In another lifetime. Over the past weekend, while friends played cards, I sat in a chair beside a fire and stitched to my hearts content. They laughed at the image of this young woman performing this archaic act but then this afternoon while sitting down with my new book I read two excerpts and all of the work I have been doing lately suddenly made perfect sense to me:

"My relatives still make fun of me for my love of things domestic, especially my Aunt Fran, who, whenever we visit, always tells me she's saved her ironing and mending for me. Actually, I wouldn't mind doing it. I like ironing. It's the physical equivalent of staring into middle space. I think it waters the mind, if you know what I mean. As for mending, I think it's good to take the time to fix something rather than throw it away. It's an antidote to wastefulness and to the need for immediate gratification. You get to see a whole process through, beginning to end, nothing abstract about it. You'll always notice the fabric scar, of course, but there's an art to mending; if you're careful, the repair can actually add to the beauty of the thing, because it is testimony to its worth. 

I make my living as a quilt artist, and for the most part the work I do is commissioned. I charge a hundred and fifty dollars a square foot, not without guilt. But I have whole days when I stand at my design board moving pieces of fabric around, and I don't sew a stitch. Then something clicks, and I hit the machine. The money I charge pays for the thinking time too; I explain this to my clients. And people pay it, willingly--I have more clients than I can handle. The wait for a finished quilt is four to six months, but people don't seem to mind that, either. I think there is a longing for things that reflect a certain kind of slowness; perhaps the pendulum is beginning its inevitable swing back".

- From Elizabeth Berg's 'The Art of Mending'.

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Perhaps my pendulum is swinging back, yes. Maybe my natural inclination to blast full steam into the next quick project is ought for naught. Nothing quick about quilting. No Siree. With each pull of thread, I am reminded that Slow Art is Subversive. It is all about tension. Even a quilt can be subversive if you want it to be.

Tomorrow I take up yet another new path with a new boy called Bernie. We will find our way in the coming summer months, I have no doubt. The first visit is always a little raw and frightening. Time will tell.

Happy Lilac Week to all my steppers out there looking sharp!