Jamieson Creek
May 6, 2012
This little painting (6″ x 7.5″) is of Jamieson Creek, which is not even ten minutes drive from our front door. This is a desert-like region, featuring its own local cacti (which I discovered by way of my hand), and is called The Sunshine Capital of Canada. Water, while not scarce, has usage restrictions and homes are now being installed with water meters.
So to have the Jamieson splashing over and around rocks and fallen timbers is a great joy. It is the epitome of the ‘laughing brook’ of literature, and compliments the broad, slow-moving Thompson Rivers which run through town. Were it not for our rivers, Kamloops would be uninhabitable. Right now the creek and rivers are swelling from the melt-off of mountain snows. Kamloops itself is some 4,000 ft in elevation, the mountain snows are up that much higher, and June is when the river level is at its peak.
“Up The Jamieson”, L & M Jones Collection
This painting was on the wall no longer than ten minutes before it was sold. My colleague in art, Lynda Jones, thought it complimented her pottery so well she went with her impulses. And that made my day.
North American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
January 15, 2012
Pushing my cart into the supermarket yesterday I almost ran someone over. I’d jerked my head around to make sure I was seeing correctly–there in the middle of the aisle was a big fat display of this year’s new vegetable and flower seeds!
I mean to tell you, it is -10C, and snowing out there right now like it’s just going to keep on all night, and they want me to start planting seeds?
So okay–in the spirit of all that, raise your glass. Here’s to a touch of Spring . . .
"Juvenile North American Robin"
Autumn
January 5, 2012
Autumn. The very word speaks in tones that touch something deep and still. In my youth it was an invigorating Season, full of piles of leaves we’d shape into forts or rooms. The air would be tinted with a hint of smoke, the chill of it pinking my ear lobes and rouging my cheek. Teachers would begin rehearsing things for Christmas. There was an unspoken wonder over feeling the days shorten, and a little thrill over seeking out a forgotten, yet familiar scarf and hat. Underneath was an anticipation over when the first snowflakes would drift down, hoping it would be during waking hours–and then came the day when the shout of a classmate interrupted a math or geography lesson– “Look! It’s SNOWING!” , followed by a crush of bodies as we pressed against the windows, marvelling, wishing it would just keep going until there was nothing for it but to hunt in the attic for our sleds.
And now? I’m in the Autumn of my life. Who knows, but maybe even the Winter. The Season is now pensive, thoughtful. There’s a contemplative quality watching the last of our Red Maple’s orange hands let go and join the others. One thinks of endings more than beginnings–pasts more than futures. But the sweetness if anything, is made the more complex–like a well-mulled cider–for Autumn is made for memories– for kicking through the remains of the Summer and recalling Seasons long gone, while hoping for one or two more . . .
"Autumn Wood"
weisserwatercolours 