March 2, 2023

 March 2, 2023

Recently, Jim and I did a day trip by train into Luneburg.  It was a bit unnerving even though Emily had arranged our tickets and given us directions.  The trains move so fast and I am slower to get to my feet. 

Our initial train was canceled and so we had to wait an hour at the train station.  I sat and did a little sketch of the wonderful Uelzen Train Station with its five coloured columns topped with golden balls.  Image my delight yesterday, when I discovered that the station was designed by one of my favourite artists,  Hunderwasser in 1999.  Hunderwasser died in 2000 and so I am assuming that this was one of his last projects.

Almost fifty years ago, I saw an amazing exhibition by Frederik Hunderwasser at the Saint Mary’s Art Gallery   It was part of a world tour and my German artist friend,  Brigitte Petersmann, had recommended that I see it.  I was hooked and have been a fan ever since.  It was only recently talking to a Parrsboro artist friend, Anna Hergert that I found out that Hunderwasser also started designing buildings in the middle of his career. Within the Uelzen Train Station, there is a small Hunderwasser art exhibition, which Jim and I visited this morning at ten am when the museum opened. Definitely this is one of the highlights of my trip.  I identify with  Hunderwasser’s love of water and of windows and I love his quirky, colourful architectural style that considers art and form before structure when designing new buildings.

I have always wanted to design a building.  After seeing the Hunderwasser exhibition, I asked Jim if I could design his greenhouse instead of purchasing a premade one. I promised Jim a greenhouse for his 80 birthday in January.   He said certainly I could.  Now I need a source of old windows!

We enjoyed seeing Luneburg which has been a town for over 1000 years.  It originally had a wall around it and was an independent wealthy town based on its profitable history of salt production.    I had a tour in the afternoon of the Rathaus, the government building.  Unfortunately, the tour was in German but there was a pamphlet on the building in English. I managed a lot of steps and walking and was totally exhausted afterward. 

I bought more bread this morning for my bread painting. We are now overwhelmed with stale bread. At some point, I need to bite the bullet and discard the stale stuff and get back to eating the incredible bread instead of just painting it and smelling it. 

 February 27, 2023

Market days in Uelzen are Saturday and Wednesday from 7 until 2.  Big market trucks pull into the main street which is blocked off and the market happens rain or snow, summer and winter. Several trucks sell meat, bread, cheese and there is a large vegetable vendor.  All of the vegetables are marked where they are grown so you can buy locally if you want to.  Yesterday we didn’t buy anything as our fridge is stocked but by next Wednesday we will get our food from the market.  I have started a painting of the flower truck and a close-up of the bakery truck.  This morning I bought some flowers and sweets for the paintings.

After going to the market in the morning, we hiked to the river and the park at the very far end of our street.  I was so tired by the time we got there that I didn’t cross the highway and go on the hiking trails.

Yesterday we went for a walk with Ivy, Kai, Michael and Emily and we found access to the river that is very handy.  Kai wanted to take Janice, my walker. We decided to rename the walker, Oma, since Janice is Kai and Ivy’s Grandmother.  Ivy is just three and she rode her two wheeler bike and Kai was the old lady, pushing “Oma”.

February 24, 2023

Friday February 24th 2023

We set off on Tuesday morning for Germany.  All in all, the travel, although tiring was without mishap except if you count getting stuck on a too-low toilet in Toronto.  It did make me realize that I really am disabled.  The highlight of the flight was watching the Leonard Cohen Movie.  It was fabulous and so much of it was about the creative process and living a creative life, all of which I could relate to.

We caught a train into Frankfurt and then settled in for a long train ride north.  I loved seeing the tiny narrow, paved roads that ran through vast fields. Stucco and tile towns filled with brick or timber-framed houses all seem to be surrounded by wild areas of trees (all of which are familiar) or fields that are green and just starting to grow. There are strict regulations that restrict urban sprawl,  so the feeling is either country or town.  Even farmers often live in the towns because there are abundant affordable rental accommodations.   Bicycle paths follow tiny rivers.  Occasionally there are large wind turbines or solar farms.

The bakeries are phenomenal:  Bread that is beautiful, fresh and delicious, dark loaves dusted with seeds, long white French loaves, and everything in between.  The butter here is much softer than ours and the cheeses all seem to be specialty cheeses, with distinct, tangy flavours. There is a wide range of wines but even the Merlot, on sale for 1euro/59 is excellent. 

February 20, 2023

 I grew up in Owen Sound on Georgian Bay, part of Lake Huron.  The landscape of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven was my childhood landscape and I even had an imaginary room upstairs from my bedroom with a glorious imaginary water view.    I loved rocky outcrops, white pines and cedar swamps.  Lake Huron is very large and you can’t see across it except in the inlets so it did have that in common with the Atlantic Ocean.  When I first moved to Nova Scotia, I loved living on Kearney Lake, a real water view.  As well, Chebucto Head was my favourite place to sit on the rock and watch the ocean waves.  When I moved to Portaupique, the scenery was extremely different.  It is flat and pastoral and there are vast areas of mud flats that are exposed and covered and exposed with each tide cycle. The tide is constantly coming and going.  It took many years before I could truly say that I loved this scenery.  One time we had a visitor to the gallery who had grown up here and now lives in Ottawa.  “How I miss this beautiful scenery” she exclaimed .  I immediately wondered if everyone internalizes their first scenery when young and then we spend the rest of our lives searching for reminders of it.  

My love of the scenery of Portaupique did gradually inch its way into my heart over a period of twenty years, bit by bit, tide-cycle by tide-cycle. When I started painting in this area, I usually avoided painting the Bay of Fundy landscape and I was attracted to the clusters of houses, the porches, the windows.  For the past thirty years, I have felt an affinity with the the coming and going of water and the expanses of mud and marsh.   When actually trying to capture it in a painting, I quickly realized that the tide affected the character of the painting. Thinking about what tide I want to portray is a crucial part of the early painting planning. If the tide I want in the painting is the tide I am looking at when I start, then I start the painting with the tide.  If the tide is not yet the way I want it, I start with the sky and foreground  and leave the water until later in the painting. 

Tomorrow, Jim and I are off to Germany for seven weeks. I will be posting sketches and word pictures on Facebook and on my blog (www.joylakinggallery.com) if you don’t do facebook.  If you are interested, I loved to have you along “vicariously”.  My high school art teacher, Bill Parrott, used to write me wonderful letters and he always said how much he enjoyed living vicariously through the eyes of his students. 

February 19, 2023

 I will be posting sketches and word pictures from Germany on facebook (Joy Laking or Joy Laking Gallery) and on the blog on my website www.joylakinggallery..com.  If you are interested, we’d love for you to come along with us vicariously. Xoxoxo

Painting on Denman Island July 6, 2022

 Yesterday, it was pouring rain, so I decided it was the day to do a closeup of foxgloves. I have no idea where this painting is going or if it will resolve. This maybe isn’t ideal for watercolours since going backwards and redoing something is not usually possible, however it keeps my interest high as I ammaking constantly making creative decisions. We were going to go to Chickadee Lake in the interior of Denman Island at four but it was still raining. At 5, it stropped raining and off we went. I had exactly one hour to paint. I followed my own good advice (that I often don’t take) and started with a vertical ink planning sketch of some big trees covered with mossy mounds of green. I realized that this wasn’t going to allow me to have any fun painting the lake and I did a second planning sketch (the horizontal). After that I was off. Sitting in Susie, this is what I captured in one hour. I know that I can finish it when I have time.

On the way back, Rosie stopped at a free shop to drop off some stuff. We should have one of these in Portaupique. Open twenty-four hours a day with no staff, you can drop off or take anything. We dropped off some stuff and left with an almost new stay and play, a couple of pink and green glass plates and I got two books to read on the way home, Ursula Hegi’s Stone from the River and Linden MacIntyre’s The Bishop’s Man!

Then we returned to Yolande and Rosie’s where they treated “us” (Robynne Murray a forever friend of Yolande’s and her partner, Jan, are with us from Colorado) to a wonderful supper of Yolande’s arugula rice balls and this gorgeous and delicious vegetarian sushi that is make on Denman. And Finlo was as sweet as ever, as we all took turns getting smiles.

84Jim Wyatt, Serena Lewis and 82 others

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March 19, 2022

 Had a painting week up the shore in Fox River. Lots of ideas cooking. AND I had a chance to try out my new painting chair, Susie. One of her namesakes,  Susan Paterson was with me and figured out a way to lower the front of the seat of the chair!

Okay