Tag Archives: Sue Bland

Nest

This January, I began to weave a nest in a hawthorn branch, using wool I have long cherished. As any self respecting bird will tell you, fingers are not the best tools for creating nests, especially when working with the unforgiving thorns of a hawthorn! I have many tiny hawthorn pricks on my fingers!

Each new year, I have the fun of sharing a creative project with a group of friends. We meet over Zoom for three consecutive weeks. We have created paper fairies, imaginary homes and art maps to set our new year off to a good start. This year one of us had the great idea to create nests from whatever material we had on hand.

A nest seemed an apt project for these perilous times. A safe place of rest. A refuge in a world that seems to have gone mad!

Despite the prickle of the thorns, I became totally absorbed in weaving the nest. I eventually used a needle, which, after all, is something like a bird’s bill. The bottom of the nest is padded with soft silk, topped with downy feathers.

Sweet Dreams little Birdwoman

Why a hawthorn branch? In part because I feel a bit thorny. RRRRR-rrrrr. The news is making me thorny and cross. And, hawthorns are good for our hearts. My heart needs soothing. The thorns keep the nest safe from certain kinds of dangers.

The sky in my imagination has been filled with birds and birdwomen in flight these days. I loved sketching them – some birds with women passengers and some birdwomen also! Out of this collection came the birdwoman who inhabits my nest. In the photo below, you can see both the nesting version and the flying version of my birdwoman. Aren’t her cloud slippers to die for?

Here is what I imagine:

My birdwoman is taking care of an egg – a sky coloured egg the size of a small chocolate Easter egg, but soft and smooth like an opal. She is keeping the egg safe and warm. Other birds and birdwomen, her friends, help her. They stay nearby, and all take turns sitting on the egg to keep it warm and safe. They tell each other hilarious stories and sing, sometimes lullabyes and other times sea shanties. They snack and are partial to chocolate fondue.

The egg is where I ask myself: What matters most in these menacing times? What remains real and true?

Inside the egg are dreams, wisps of ideas, questions, colours, uncertainties, loose strands and possibilities. The egg is a tender place.

Here are some wisps….

Humour and laughter.

Listening to the earth, staying close with the earth.

Compassion. Especially for those who fight to just survive day to day. That our compassion and our awareness changes the way we conduct ourselves day by day by day, even if incrementally.

Turning the news off for a few days.

Imagination.

A voice whispering: The land is waiting for those who know how to watch and listen, for those who are open and know how to dream. Listen to the whispers of the land. Be silent for a while.+

Be silent for a while.

Keep your ear to the ground.

Enter fully the joy of making bread from scratch, the mixing by hand, the kneading, the washing of dishes in hot soapy water, the smell of the bread baking, the steam rising from the first cut.

Joyful resistance. Generous resistance. Dance and resist!! Saying I refuse.

My friendship with you.

Cartwheels.

The times are urgent, let us slow down.^

How we do things is as important as what we do.~

Dream…

Notice that the hawthorn branch is shaped like a bird. Thank you, Marina, for noticing this over morning coffee!

Thank you +Sharon Blackie, ^Bayo Akomaolafe, ~Leanne Betasamosake Simpson who expands the sentence above when she writes, “It became clear to me that how we live, how we organise, how we engage in the world – the process – not only frames the outcome, it is the transformation. The how changes us.” from As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance, page 19

Creek

“SongLines”, Paper collage and watercolour on watercolour paper, 10″ x 22″

During “Immersed in Nature: A Retreat at Valley View Farm“, a weekend hosted by my friend Debra and I in late August, we considered and explored line, shape and colour. The lines, shapes and colours that called to us as we explored the natural world.

Much of my preparation for this weekend took place at Pheasant Creek Coulee, a few miles south of our farm. As I sit by the large stone I have come to know as “Grandfather Rock”, I am drawn by the shape of the creek, by the way that it winds and weaves. Again and again, I have drawn or painted or sketched the creek as it sings and curls its way through the coulee and the hills in which it resides.

“Pheasant Creek Coulee”

During our retreat, I began to play with the shape of the creek, starting with watercolours and eventually adding metallic papers – candy and chocolate wrappers, cigarette foils, origami paper. And there my own simple exploration of line, shape and colour sat for several weeks. I kept thinking “song line”…. it seemed the curves and rhythms of the creek were both outside me and singing deep within my body.

Collage- shape, line, colour

I knew that I wanted the feeling of hills around the creek but not necessarily something representational. I began to play with shapes and contours, with different shades of rusts, browns, coppers, gold…..I wanted to capture the feel of the place, the movement of the hills, the way that this place sings within me, how it feels like treasure.

Once finished, I took this piece to the place that inspired it to photograph it. Seeing it in the coulee, amidst the rust of the little bluestem grasses, the gold of the aspen leaves, the shadows of the hawthorn and birch seemed somehow right, plus felt incredibly goofy (in a good way) and was just a lot of fun.

Putting Up Paper Preserves

At a collage PLAYshop, paper is everywhere. Large sheets are displayed on laundry racks, rolls on window sills, trays of coordinated colours – old wrapping paper, candy wrappers, envelope linings, you name it. Some of the paper is textured, some translucent, some brilliant and many hued, some flecked with gold, some shiny, some thin as tissue. The people who come to a PLAYshop already love paper. I ask them to begin by picking the paper that calls their name, the paper that brings their hand to their heart, the paper that won’t leave them alone…Sometimes people come with a plan but a piece of paper takes them in another direction. Occasionally, two pieces of paper lying in a particular suggest idea. Magical scrap baskets which contains yesterday’s rejected bits of paper are somebody else’s inspiration.

Tania started with transluscent paper but found she could not stay away from bold and brilliant colours. As she created whimsical jars of preserves to keep her spirit strong over winter, she asked us all “What would you preserve?” A prairie fall day, the hope of a rainbow, saskatoon berries, the buzzing of bees on sunshine… sometimes just a brilliant colour (the new green of spring) or a piece of paper that simply could not be resisted.

Tania’s jars of preserves – in process

I have enjoyed thinking about what we preserve and what we let go. Just today, I dug carrots – some will go in the cold room and we will enjoy this delicious root vegetable in another season. Maybe I will think of the smell of rotting apples and freshly turned over soil which I enjoyed as I dug them. Some of the carrots, I ate raw today, with a little dirt clinging to them, the freshness of their taste mouthwatering, their crunch loud!!

Preserves are meant to be tasted and enjoyed at some point. They are not meant to stay in their jars forever. Jellies and relishes, jams and salsas…. their colours, tastes, smells take us back to the warmth and abundance of late August.

Much of the paper collage art I create will not endure – the paper will fade, disintegrate, get torn. What matters most to me is the completely absorbed and happy world I inhabit while creating. Added benefit: Maybe for a few days or a few years, the piece will give someone pleasure.

Sometimes the art we hang becomes so familiar that we no longer really see it. The rice paper pieces are often in flux – they catch our attention as the light changes during the day, as the colours outside our windows change from green to oranges and yellows, browns and finally dazzling whites and purples and blues. The translucence of the rice paper sends shadows to our walls as the sun moves across the sky. They look completely different at night, especially from the outside of your home. The art itself is ephemeral, a glimmer, a sheen, always shifting.

Rice Paper Birds on a winter’s day

In a sense each of us who created something at the PLAYshop were “putting up preserves” for a winter day. For Janet, the vision of dragonflies on a summer day.

Janet’s
dragonfly panels. First time playing with paper!

For Liz and Karen, a flower garden that can offer light and colour on winter’s coldest day.

Liz’s flower panel

Karen, the speed demon, with her first try at a rice paper panel

For Darlene, the elegance of a tiny perfect golden flower and birds in flight.

Darlene holding her bird panel and her exquisite miniature cards

Darlene’s rice paper bird panel

For Jocelyn, a fanciful hummingbird.

Jocelyn and Liz with their birds

For Tania, the abundance of her own amazing imagination – taking form in jars of preserves., some of the jars unable to contain all their contents, bursting with possibility, and sometimes even with flight…

Tania’s jars of preserves – almost complete.

Mornings at the Coulee

I have been thinking back to Julys of years past, a tumble of days at the beach, bonfires at night, gardening, packing and unpacking from camping trips and so much else. Sometimes I would manage just one trip down to the coulee to see the amazing July wildflowers and I would dream of the day that I could spend much more time there in the company of the flowers, and get to know them better.

Unbelievable, but that time has come! With an (almost) empty nest and no faraway trips planned, I have been slipping down to Pheasant Creek Coulee at 6 or 6:30 many mornings and staying for a few hours until the sun gets too hot. I bring a thermos of ginger tea, a knapsack of watercolour supplies, some sage to start with a smudge and not much else. When I am done, I pick wild Saskatoons from the bushes at the top of the hills. It is my version of paradise.

Prairie Coneflowers

Poached Egg Woman and the Wolf

Although I know I am rich in the things that matter most, sometimes living life as a full time artist is living close to the edge – the financial edge, that is. With the help of L.A Louve, Poached Egg Woman takes this tongue in cheek look at money worries.

This is the first of five parts to a saga. I have no idea where it is going from here! One part at a time!! Keep posted!