BirdBrain Designs

falling in love with Portugal part 2: Lisbon

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We had four glorious days in Lisbon at the start of our holiday. My son and I got there early in the day so had extra time to explore the city. We walked up the steep streets to an art store I wanted to check out, Ponto das Artes Chiado. (Ironically we found a second location about 3 blocks from our apartment in Alcantara–but more on that later.) The views looking back were spectacular. 

I fell in love with the sidewalks, seeing rug border designs everywhere. 

Our apartment was a couple of blocks from the LX Factory, a reimagined art and design space in a former industrial complex. The Ponte 25 Abril Bridge which spans the Tagus soars overhead.  Below  is LX Factory with the landmark bridge in the background and my sketch from an outdoor cafe. This is where, we found a second Ponto das Artas store.

   

This is the view of the Tagus from our apartment windows.  You can see the pillars of the bridge on either side of the photo. It totally dominates the area, in some cases just skimming roof tops. Below you can see the bridge from the distance of one of the seven hills in Lisbon.

And finally a photo of the spectacular colours of Lisbon. The white stonework set against the blue of the sky, the yellow walls and the clay-red roofs. This is the Augusta Street arch, Virtutibus Maiorum: to the virtues of the greatest. 

falling in love with Portugal: part one, Ericeira

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I’ve just returned from 11 days in Portugal, travelling with my older son and family. We spent a week in Ericeira Portugal, a small village about 45 minutes up the coast from Lisbon. And before I knew it, I had fallen in love with the place–the landscape, the food, and the warm, helpful people. Ericeira is an active fishing village with all that entails–the boats and nets, the protected harbour with the gnarly old men playing chess, the freshly-caught fish. But it is also a surfing spot with wonderful low-profile facilities for surfers from around the world. The coastline has been designated a World Surf Reserve–such a wise move on Portugal’s part. 

We stayed right in town and enjoyed what it had to offer–outstanding seafood, an excellent grocery store, surf shops, cafes, magnificent beaches.

I had lots of time to sketch and our airbnb had two (!) balconies from which to view the many red-roofed buildings and the ocean! My favourite cafe was right by the sea wall and it served a delicious Galao in a very sketchable mug–the colour of the tiled rooves, of course.  

There were lots of narrow streets with great shadows and geometric shapes. Many, many of the buildings in town were painted with blue stripes on the corners and bases. It was a hard blue to capture.

Here I am sketching on the top balcony with the Atlantic peaking through. How perfect. And below our first meal in Ericeira, octopus. Fabulous! 

first two hooked pillows

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These are the first pillows made from my hooked villages. Each one has a fabric frame around it, a fabric back and closes with an invisible zipper. The hooking is inspired by the work of Ton Schulten.  I love how he uses values and geometric blocks to build his landscapes. You can read the story and the evolution of the work here.

reset and inspiration on Lake Ontario

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This past weekend we spent a beautiful afternoon on the shore of Lake Ontario. We ate our lunch on the beach and I had time for a quick sketch of another tenacious tree. It’s been a while since we have been out to that gorgeous isolated expanse and the colours and textures of the day have remained with me.

I had taken an extended, unplanned break from the studio, leaving all leather and sewing firmly under wraps and was actually looking for a way back in. I have a list of projects but nothing inspired me to actually thread the machines and start. The colours of the day on the lake held the key. When we got home, I pulled out my box of remnant leather pieces and began building some pouches in the colours of the day–shoreline and sky. The small Strand collection of pouches is made of leather remnants with salvaged cotton linings–mostly from the Textile Museum sale. It feels good to make useful things of beauty from left overs. 

I find this size of pouch, approximately 7″ x 4.5″, very useful for travelling. My passport fits in comfortably and I like to keep different currencies separate and also to save receipts, tickets etc. I often take two or three along in my backpack. These pouches will be in the online store soon. Send me a note if you are interested.

Houses, Houses. Hooked house runner–the process, the questions

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The first side of the hooked house runner is all but complete. You can see how much I drew on each side, hoping as I hooked that I’d find inspiration for sky and border. At one point I thought half circles would work for the border, but I didn’t like them at all. I’ve decided to do rectangles of teal, turquoise and related colours on the two longs sides and something different for the shorter sides. Possibly circles. And the sky? Still waiting…

I do love hooking houses. If you follow the blog you know I’ve been working up to this, doing smaller studies. I use mostly remnant strips and small pieces. I pin together 2″ strips of related colours to keep a little order in the chaos and that forms much of my supply basket. I love what happens when the supplies are scarce–just a line of red, or a final strip of a favourite wool, placed just so. Somehow it makes things more thoughtful. And it’s a crazy thing, but I’m emotionally attached to my wool–it often has a history with me–someone significant dyed it or it came from another project that I laboured over–or the colours combined perfectly in the dye pot. By using it again here, I capture a little of the magic.

It’s always interesting to follow the development of an idea. Here are two small studies from December 2016, the start of my hooked house mat obsession. I’m at the gallery tomorrow, so I’ll take my stand and a pile of strips from the turquoise/teal bin and see how much progress I make on the border. And who knows, maybe amid the paintings on the walls, I’ll get inspiration for the rest of this piece. 

sketching in Provence June 2018

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It’s a couple of months since I came home my trip. I’ve talked about the time in Glasgow, London and Avignon. But I haven’t documented the best part–6 days sketching in Provence with Shari Blaukopf. We were based in Fontaine de Vaucluse and sketched each day in the surrounding villages and countryside. It was a wonderful week. Here are a few of my sketches.

The following sketches were done at the monastery in St. Remy where Van Gogh spent his last years. We all loved sitting in the lavender field behind the monastery and sketching inside the ancient building. Both inside and out it was a deeply moving place.

Among many highlights, the sketch below is the most meaningful one for me from the whole trip. Late in the afternoon, four of the class members along with Shari hiked up to the Source, the beginning of the many rivers and streams which flow through Fontaine de Vaucluse. I was expecting a waterfall, not the deep, dark and somewhat spooky pool and surrounding caves. We climbed over the barrier and sat at the edge of the water to paint. For an hour we were silent, caught by the spell of the place–the mystery, antiquity and great beauty. When I look back at the sketch I can reenter that world–the intense and almost meditative quality of the sketching experience. 

sketching in Avignon june 2018

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Here are a few more sketches from my trip to France in June. After London we took the Eurostar directly to Avignon where we stayed for three and a half days before heading off to our sketching course in Provence. We stayed right in the centre of the old town. The weather was perfect and we wandered around the narrow streets trying to capture the views. Lots of perspective challenges.

update: latest hooked piece and two books that arrived this week

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It clearly has not been a summer for posting on the blog. I have been posting the occasional photo on Instagram but that’s it. We have been at the cottage a lot during this very hot summer–a beautiful spot with some connectivity, but not to do more than send a text or make a call. Definitely enough, and I like it that way, but the blog which takes a solid connection for a length of time, has been neglected. 

Is it time to give up the blog? I don’t think I am ready to do that. I like the record it provides for one thing. The first post was over 7 years ago! And I like the space to expand on ideas and show my work. Even if my readership has diminished. Even if I am not regular about it. Even if it’s just a place to record my thoughts. This is the latest village finished. I have put it in a woollen frame and plan to make it into a pillow. 

A closeup showing the frame…

And two books which arrived in the mail this week.  The small one is Canadian quilter Judith Martin’s poem/photos of her stitched piece called Not to Know But To Go On. The second is an artist new to me, Jean Claude Roy, whose dramatic paintings of Newfoundland are deeply moving and inspirational.The title of the book, Fluctuat Nec Mergitur, which means She Is Tossed By the Waves but Doesn’t  Sink, is a gorgeous phrase, one that would also suit Judith Martin’s lovely work. I encourage you to seek out both books.

july 2018

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Since I got home from France on July 2, I have been at our cottage. I still have much more to post about my almost two weeks in France and I will do that. But right now I want to talk about July and the lake. The cottage, a 1950’s former hunting cabin, is on a small island in Canadian shield  country. When the whole family is there it is crowded, chaotic, laughter-filled. But most of the time it’s quiet with room for thinking, rug hooking and painting.

I have had my kayak for 35 years and it was not new when I took it over. It’s faded red and white with a maple leaf insignia. It feels like an extension of me. I aim to take it out every day, on the big part of the lake when I want a challenge, but mostly in the back bays and inlets. A time of contemplation. Some of these trees have worked their way into my hooked pieces.

A glimpse of a perfect summer afternoon with cousins…

And while there I’ve been working on a study loosely based on the village in Provence where I was in June. What I like best about hooking at the cottage is that my materials are scarce. I have only my bag of ends and some additional 2″ pieces. I need to make ‘do’ with what I have and I love the problems that creates and the solutions that emerge. This is almost finished and the larger piece will begin. I’m taking a landscape course at the end of the summer so I need to be ready with the bigger work for that.

Two great fibre exhibits on my holiday

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I was in London when the Fashion Textile Museum had its exhibit of the work of Orla Kiely.  I’ve long been a fan of her work and it was so interesting to see her process up close–pages from her sketchbook and samples of her clothing and bags.

Here is my sketchbook page from the day. 

Then, totally unexpectedly, I stumbled into an amazing textile sculpture show in Isle de la Sorge in Provence. Next to our sketching site was La Fondation Villa Datris and inside and outside were amazing fibre sculptures. From Sonia Delaunay and Sheila Hicks to others I had not been introduced to, this was a thrilling exhibit. The museum staff were incredibly welcoming and I wandered happily taking photos both in the gallery and in the amazing garden. 

I was particularly interested in the work of El Anatsui who “has managed to turn salvaged materials into a mainspring of the creative process. His work questions global commercial exchanges, the destruction and the transformation of materials, symbols of events that spread across the African continent.” (quotation from museum notes)

And in the garden the sculptures of Odile de Frayssinet who winds polypropylene rope on wire frames and then uses fire to give her pieces “skin with a half-animal, half-plant appearance.” (museum notes)