Skeena Spring

The Skeena is at its lowest level right about now but countless waterfalls stitching the steep mountainsides and rocky cliffs are beginning to set a Spring & Summer melt into motion.

Zipped into Rupert today to drop off a painting for the Icehouse Gallery's exhibition 'Legacy and Lace' celebrating the town's 100th anniversary. Thought I'd enter 'Unrequited' as a statement on the economic conditions of the region following the decades of boom and optimism from the last century. The husband had been exceedingly grumpy about this yesterday, declaring it a complete waste of time but he insisted on driving us in because he'd just changed my tires from snow to summer and didn't want to risk one flying off and plunging me into the Skeena.
He said there had been far too much joking about it to leave it to chance.
One of the assistants at the gallery was Dolly, formerly of Dolly's Seafood Market so the husband pre-ordered a small halibut for a month from now. He requested 20 to 30 pounds which I tried to ammend to 'more like 20' slightly alarmed at the prospect of possibly having to buy a $300 fish.

This is the famous Car Wash Rock, so named for the near steady run of snow and water onto the highway below. (uncharacteristically dry at the moment) We just missed having an oncoming train travelling by at the same time a few mere feet to the right which, when combined with a logging truck in the opposite lane is an experience seldom matched in much of modern travel. This section is representative of the old highway and there's just no wiggle room so that how it stays.
An icy cold, sometimes hair-raising blast from the past.

Home Sweet Home Studio

Here's the art room, looking more organized and comfortable than I've ever before been able to arrange it - the result of a week's worth of sorting, stashing and trashing of lessons and materials. Now I'm just waiting for inspiration to kick in...

I do have several folders of different compositions and barely begun pieces that I could tackle, along with TwinB's cigarette pack pieces. All that's required now is for me to commence with the 'early to bed' approach to life.

BC Book Prizes Tour 2010

The provincial tour kicked off today in Terrace and Kitimat. Four authors gave readings from their nominated books and there's the oh so effervescent Kari Winters, author of a toddler's book in the background assigning hats to various victims to represent characters in her little piece. She made a special point of inflicting the melting ice cream cone on Eden Robinson.
I love writers. They're so much fun.
I can't wait for the day when I stop being a ridiculous fan-girl whenever I'm in the presence of published writers. And next time I'll go easy on the coffee so maybe I can converse without being such a blithering idiot.
At least I managed to present the right book to it's author for signing this time...

Kitimat Art Club - A Last Hurrah

Two decades ago when the Art Club consisted of a couple dozen very active members we would fill this room and those pegboard panels were rented out the moment they became available before the spring and Christmas Craft Fairs. The room would be buzzing with anticipation as we set up in the morning and at closing around 4 o'clock, happy customers would come by to pick up their purchases from Jane and Des. (they were the hot commodities) Somewhere along the way we fell out of favour with the Craft Fair programmer at the time*, the club grew older and older...some members died and others moved away so our exhibit didn't happen for several years. The present - and far more agreeable/accomodating - programmer asked us to fill this room again to make up for a lack of vendors so here's our probable last hurrah since the husband and I aren't keen on moving those stupid panels from point A to point B anymore.

I shouldn't complain because today I was the hot commodity selling 4 paintings in about 4 hours which makes me a happy(ish) camper.

BUT I'm thinking it's time to move on...gonna find me a gallery.

*mentioned this to a First Nations artist at a table in the big gym and he responded 'well who didn't fall out of favour with her??' Was kind of fun to compare experiences.

This Just Seems...Wrong

Well - if you just happened to find yourself in the market for hundreds of GE Microwave Problems - here you go! You're welcome.
I tried typing in Anal Prolapse and Bloody Stool to see if the search engine would give it the 100s/1000s treatment but apparently it's more sensitive than that now.

Huh...it won't even try to tell me that there are 1000s of singles waiting to meet me in Fraser Lake B.C. anymore.

Where did they all go??

A New Mourning

This is the happy part...my Mom has befriended a homeless fellow who lives beside the lawn bowling clubhouse. He can't tolerate 'inside' anywhere so lives completely 'outside' even to the extent that he's found a grocery store that will fulfill his food needs without him having to go into the store. We all found his birthday wishes to our mother very special and we're oh so proud of her late in life ministry to various crazies and homeless. Our family is very afflicted with mental disorders so she is uniquely equiped to visit with the un-housed and those on psych wards.

NOW...the sads...the wife of our close friend has been diagnosed with an ultra rare form of cancer and she's only 33....the Mayo clinic has only seen about 76 of this type of cancer so far and it's rather aggressive....and to make matters even better her oldest son who's 15 has a mood disorder - of course he does, he's from Km@- I mentioned to her it might be a good thing that I don't cry because everyone has been crying around her or not looking her in the eye and then I ended up shutting down and getting morose...could only do an artificially pleasant expression on my face at best.

Damn.

Imagine you're Siri Keaton

Don't have to.

I am Siri Keaton

and I love this place because it's home and it's shown me so much but it's freakin' hard and it never stops hurting.

Semi Annual Commute

I don't normally travel at this time of year so the mountain/glacier vista on our regular route looked more magestic than anything I've ever seen...though maybe it's on par with the mountains along the Skeena in November. It was like flying over some fantasy realm of impossibly high mountains layered in ice and snow. The plane flew at 22000 feet which may be lower than I've experienced before, giving us a more impressive perspective.

I was returning from my mother's 80th birthday which went well thank goodness. I arrived a couple of days early to help a sister-in-law with the preparations for a 90 person dinner. Wasn't quite able to keep it from turning into a Cinderella scenario but I hope I smoothed over some issues and lightened the load a bit.