Tag: lens-artists

Perspective

Katharine Asals5 Comments

The other night I went out in the dark of the night to begin the project of refreshing the animals, the “critters” I’ve been installing, here and there underneath the Gardiner, along Lakeshore.

I’d done a couple of first instalments on the most front facing pillars on the west side of Sherbourne, and had waded in a little deeper, into a bit of a cavernous wasteland of concrete structures and detritus and so on, looking for another pillar that might hold a bear or a grackle…

And perhaps it’s here that I should mention that it’s the first time I’ve gone out on my own, a lone female at night?

Somewhere a few evenings into the project I realized we didn’t really need to be two people – two people is great if you want a ladder to go higher, or if you want to do larger posts with two parts that need to line up properly, or if you want someone to document what is happening. But it’s not strictly necessary…

I figured it was time to get efficient. To just get out there. Why not just do it on my own.

So there I was, a bit deeper into the gargantuan dark underneath the Gardiner, laying down layers of wheat paste, getting the image straight, when I sensed there was someone to my left.

I turned towards my sense of a figure, and must have jumped visibly, as he said, “sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you!”

He was leaning on his bike – a bike loaded down with what looked like probably all the stuff needed for navigating an entire life in a series of bags and compartments, living out in the city in precisely such liminal spaces as underneath the highway.

“I just wanted to come say, Hi”, he explained.

“I’ve been around here, in this neighbourhood for about four years, and I’ve seen your artworks around, and I just wanted to say, I appreciate you. I appreciate you, I appreciate your art.”

So very sweet, so pure of heart.

If ever I’d had a moment of doubt about the project, if ever I’d wondered if this little project mattered at all in these odd and difficult days in the world, it all vanished in that one sweet tiny phrase, “I appreciate you”.

More about this project – Downtown Critters

Lens Artists Challenge – Perspective, Depth and Scale

The Quiet

Katharine Asals10 Comments

I have kind of fallen into what has turned into an extended, self directed artist’s retreat.

Originally I came out here for a wedding, but there was a house sit available and somehow, magically, that has become a two month visit to paradise.

The property where I’m staying has such a massive garden, I’m still getting to know all the areas of it, while watching the blooms come and go.

Up to one side is the orchard section, including apple trees, pear trees and hazelnuts –

And in various clumps around the property are gatherings of all kinds of ever shifting variously blossoming flowers –

The hummingbirds are plentiful, darting in and out the flowers, bickering over access.

Crows and ravens and the occasional distant eagle pass through.

And of course the songbirds….

Early morning and late evening at dusk are when the bunnies show up, but the deer wander through any time of day and will help themselves to the raspberries or the rather green looking pears on the pear tree, or sometimes they’ll just stop in for a rest in the shade –

But while all moments of the day are beautiful and peaceful, without a doubt, my favourite time is first thing in the morning, out on the balcony with a coffee, as the sun gradually finds its way up and over the tall tall trees….

Lens Artists Challenge – The Quiet Hours

At the farm

Katharine Asals11 Comments

I was up at a friend’s farm for a week.

It’s such a treat to

a) get out of the city, get out of the traffic and construction and virus cases going up fast fast fast, and

b) hang out with friends around a dinner table and the fire at night and the coffee in the morning, and be social and silly for hours and even days on end without worrying about corona the way we do in the city.

Each morning I’d try to slip out the side door and go for a walk, past the hungry barn cats, down the dirt road to the fields to catch some early morning light –

 Startling the horses, startling the cows…

There was a fair bit of rain, but that only gave way to dramatic clouds and even rainbows, adding to the magic of time OUTSIDE.

After my walk I’d do my morning meditation behind the house under this silver maple, so massive I couldn’t even fit it in the frame – 

From there I might wander out back to the garden, full of giant zucchinis and squash and kale and sunflowers that towered above me.

If there wasn’t too much rain, we’d head out to the back cabin, back away from the highway, with just the river and crickets and frogs and this old tree stump that made me think of a menhir.

I took pictures of it again and again, trying to find what it was that made it so majestic and mysterious.

One night we even spent the night out in that back cabin, and the moon, growing fuller on its way to the Harvest Moon, danced over the river…

Lens Artists Photo Walk