A recent sculpture I made of a friend of mine whom I think of as a River Warrior: each summer, for decades now, he chooses a river, sometimes close by, sometimes in far outlying areas of Canada, and sets off to conquer it in his canoe. His preference of travelling companion is a little armful of over-eager positivity, a white Scotty Terrier named Kate. The agenda this summer is a Great Bear Lake tributary to the Mackenzie River in our Arctic Circle.
I’m guilty as charged of painting, frame, still life, table construction, room colour, photo. This is the east wall of my kitchen.
I think of this palm-sized bone sculpture now, more or less as a personal art motif that is always poised and ready for a new closeup photo from any angle.
I saw its potential after removing it as just a chunk of solid bone from a pot-roast 36 years ago and immediately began removing cartilage, rounding edges, cutting ovals into its planes to let in air and light, enriching its surfaces with scratched markings; and while I made the final adjustments to its form a dozen years ago, have since shifted the artistic exploration over into photography as its shape and form is so varied that it always offers up an attractive aspect in just about any lighting cast upon it, or any lighting that can be manipulated in a digital darkroom.
The presence of tides with scent of kelp and seaweed speak of an ocean’s edge.
Add these particular mosses, lichens, and nearby evergreens stunted by salt spray, and more precisely the location is Kiley’s Cove, Roddickton, NL on the North Atlantic Ocean.
The area features an in-draught of sea in the relative shelter of, and mid-way along a long, narrow bay with today a calm benevolent morning wind at zephyr stage.
A memory cell whispers, “seize the scene.”
My obsession with my little sculpture continues.
The bone, in its original state, came from a pot-roast so for this portrait shoot of it I’ve taken it back to a ceramic plate with cutlery and table mat to carry the suggestion that the eyes still find it delectable.
If you have not read elsewhere in this blog, I do wish you to know my diet in recent decades is mostly plant-based.
Fillière © Apr 15, 2018
A moment in time, a decade ago: Surreal summer image from a passing thunderstorm.
House, tree, and north-side neighbour, having each spent its/his every physical resource, have each, by time, at different times in the past decade, now been removed.
My eyes, and my camera, were entertained, and miss the J.K. Rowling effect of that earlier full-blown winter roof-line with its magnificently gnarled, pruned, decrepit maple fingers / hands / arms choreographing the full range of winter skies: a Harry Potter house with raccoons and bats; a wonderful wonky-eyed tree.
fillière 