Isn’t this just the darlingest little video? The other evening we bought some red wine which turned out to be quite lackluster in taste to say the least, bitter almost actually. So we simply cut up a handful of ripe rosy plums and plunked them into a glass jar with the wine and some fresh squeezed lime and popped it into the fridge to chill for an hour or so. Add a spin of beautiful 45′s played on the front porch and the wine became an elixir for the gods ~ and those wine drenched plums were plumlicous to spoon into your mouth afterwards as a little extra treat.

Last night I arrived home after being away and was greeted with sooo much love I practically cried for all my blessing in my life. My daughter and her best friend baked me a platter of angel food cupcakes decorated most magically, my son had cleaned the fish tank and stacked firewood for autumnal evening backyard fires and my dog ran around me in excited circles until I leaned down for her wet cuddly kisses.

Today I am so enthused to tackle a zillion things ~ shopping for fresh vegetables for green smoothies, cleaning out the little red cabinet in the kitchen for a fresh improvisational decorating and even popping over to the local thrift shop to see if I can find that very special ‘something’ I have ‘always wanted’.

My studio is calling to me ~ I am tired of the pictures on it’s wall and all are coming down today ~ going to leave it bare like a blank canvas until some new magic presents itself. Oh and I can feel a tiny tingle of ‘fall’ in the air today in the sparkling sunshine promising cozy strolls along the beach with snuggly sweaters and fingerless mittens (so I can take pictures of course)

My heart is very full ~ filled with pure offerings I am longing to share and my creative nature is feeling utterly improvisational these days. I am thinking I will peruse Emily Carr’s schedule for a creative class in something completely new to delve into this fall ~ perhaps a glass blowing class or silversmithing as I have been sketching ideas for rings I would love to make.

a little beauty to share with you and download this song ~ it’s stellar I promise you:) oh! and not to be biased or anything but this interview is rather delightful:)

listening to 45′s on the porch chosen most perfectly by an enthusiastic dj ~ which is beyond magical and I am on a quest to buy some 45′s of my own now ~ and perhaps a sweet little box with a nifty handle to carry them ~ don’t you just love that adorable vintage toy record player?

Well I am humming along summer’s way this week exploring the billowing corners of my heart, lime snowcones and drive in movie theaters (with 98 cent onion rings no less!!!) Not to mention splashing in pools of sunlight while flirting with lots of girl and boyness.

I feel like such a quivering vessel as inspiration runs rampant in my mind and am over the moon counting the days to teaching at Liz’s retreat (which is almost full, YAY!!!) ~ as well, my first run of  the ‘art of living cheerfully’ course was a brilliant success, and I am presently wading through a waiting list and preparing to add a second class in September to be the most accommodating I can be. I feel positively grateful for all your enthusiasms, support and wonderfully kind emails so thank you so much for being such sparkling gems in my life.

Here is a fabulous dose of heavenly heaven for your listening pleasure ~ Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio show ~ download them all ~ they are beyond wonderful although I particularly cherish ‘love’ and ‘laughter’ and ‘dance’ of course. Who doesn’t love dancing after all?

Wishing you pinpricks of magical summer days, skipping stones and spinning freshly cast dreams with some renovating gusto:)

*photo of maddie by david pohl*

getting a few of my favorite things ready for my trip ~ a very special and wildly expired box of time zero film for my sx70 polaroid camera, my holga and some most fabulous film for that (fuji reala 120) a book, some pustifix bubbles because you just never know, and my alkaline booster water drops …and sunglasses so i don’t squint

this weekend
I swept floors
washed windows
hung sheets out to dry in the sunshine
(smelling like the sea)
made avocodo green smoothies
and lemon squares

along the way (sunshine alley)
I found a yard sale
tablecloths with roses, silver spoons and eggcups
lace napkins ironed just so
two green depression glass containers
with delicate tin lids
perfect for my earrings
and also
a Christmas elf made of china, chipped,
which I brought home for 25 cents

and there was pie
at the farmers market
(raspberry rhubarb)
which I scooped up
wearing a vintage skirt
on sunday of course

i have new freckles
and sunkissed skin
and a summer smile
wider than the widest sea

the other day
i left a gift on my best friends porch
windchimes made from recycled glass
I pulled the chair under the beam
and stood on tiptoe to hang them up
the sun spinning on the crystals
(this made her so very happy but
not as happy as me)

and now

i am packing
my wild open heart
into a satchel
with film and cameras and
paper umbrellas
(just in case we have drinks on the porch)

looking forward to roadtrips
waterfalls and campfires
collecting seed pods and feathers
reading books by the lake,
good mornings and ignoring clocks
which is always most important

oh
and I found such a pretty cabin on flickr ~ and asked most kindly the universe to gift one to me:) ~ and this post is positively beautiful and exactly ‘so’

well..I am wishing you kisses under waterfalls, magic off the beaten path and fresh homemade pie with your morning cofee ~ until next we meet!

In the coffee shop this morning (one pound organic breakfast blend) the boy in the lineup behind me sang along with ‘banana pancakes’ and it was so charming ~ his girlfriend wore a dress the color of mint julep and I could tell they hadn’t even brushed their hair yet which seemed to me the most perfect thing in the world.

I have a simply divine little notebook I carry in my velvet satchel ~ it is by paperblanks and the cover is dedicated to the fabrics of the jacquard loom silk weaving tradition of france and I cannot tell you how happy it makes me feel to pull it out with my pencils and write in it…

In this green (saffron, wildberry, gold, silver beaded) notebook I jot down snippets (don’t you love that word? ~ ‘snippets’~ ) of life I see and overhear ~ quite often ‘found’ in coffeeshops.

So this morning, which began albeit a bit grumpily (there really is nothing worse than waking up and finding you have no coffee in the kitchen) soon transformed into a glimpse of such cheeriness in the coffee shop humming along to banana pancakes.

My beautiful friend Darlene is preparing to launch her new photography course ~ and having benefited and blossomed from her generous and patient and inspired teachings with the camera I cannot testify enough how bountiful this course will be ~ there is bound to be lineups at her registration door so be ready!

Today…I am enamored with these portraits just ooooozing lovely love ~ they feature the talented Laney with her beloved taken by Michelle Stone Photography and I am so pleased as Laney is working on a ‘conversation’ for us:)

Oh!!! aaaaaaand I am impatiently thrilled as Liz’s retreat I am teaching at (polaroids and poetry) is filling up ~ I can’t wait to spend a weekend with a soulful gathering of artistic women in the effervescent Pacific Northwest. I have been working on little ‘goody bags’ for my class and getting a bit carried away I think.

Happy Thursday beautiful world!

“…to be led calmly down the stream of time
to the ocean of futurity, which has no boundaries.”
~Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Paul & Virginia, 1849 ~

This past week I felt a lot and wanted to share a lot with my friends, my children, the world around me. Eight evenings, three friends, two children (and also their friends), one love, a rabbit, a dog, blossoming freckles, the sky, sea, rainy summer mornings and homemade Irish oatmeal, hundreds of seabirds swooping past, laying on our backs staring up into the warm languid summer sky.

I unplugged myself from the internet this week preparing meals in the slowness of the everyday, taking long meandering beachwalks, listening to music, delving so deeply into the reason for things whilst swimming in a tranquil pool of strength, grace and love with incredible, active emotional openess.

Taking my time.

The most beautiful things in the whole wide world are so simple really. One morning spent wandering along Commerical drive, shopping for fresh produce which found it’s way into a gorgeous evening meal spent with dear friends ~ we lit a fire in the backyard, guitars were played, voices ringing gently into that good night. I thought I would cry from happiness ~ (perhaps I did, I can’t help it sometime’s I do.)

Just an hour ago I wandered into my garden ~ things are growing here, raspberries, blackberries, wild cherries and chocolate mint. I feel as if this is something tangible ~ that I can hold, turn over in my hands, gather deeply in my heart.

Remember this post? I think I found my little shelf ~ a tumbled, bleached, and most beautiful piece of driftwood which I will put up in my studio and fill with treasured sea bottles and shells and whatnot. I like that word ~ whatnot.

I am feeling generous, loving, real, beautiful, personal, unfettered, joyful and wholesome after this week ~ and keep smiling in the middle of a sentence.

As I type I am listening to Neil Young (harvest moon) and contemplating the quiet sanctuary of my moroccan mint tea. There are flecks of gold spinning through the leaves in my garden (I can taste them in the raspberries)

Later I will watch summer rearrange the sunlight as the pendulum of the sun swings west.

hurrah for sneaking into neighbors yards and making films of myself on a trampoline looking like a total geek

This weekend…well this weekend has been so perfect ~ not in the way that you might imagine a marching band strutting past with much pomp and fanfare but in it’s own way quite spectacular. I wore a pretty vintage summer dress and went for a bicycle ride down at English Bay, picked wildflowers and admired the lovely summer blue sky, had a glass of wine on a rooftop terrace (and wine always tastes better on a rooftop terrace) went to yoga classes everyday (and pleased to say I am far more graceful in a yoga class than on a trampoline), delved into an insightful discussion which illuminated the recognition that my heart is always willing to explore unknown territory and places the ego doesn’t want to go (yes) and I am so thankful for this, tasted the warm summer rain on my lips and felt so infused with all the peaceful, passionate, momentum of life bubbling inside of me.

This afternoon I spent a few hours in my studio conjuring up new conceptions and pondering the idea that I will never truly understand the magic which brings new creative endeavors to life…there is always some mystery and an element of discovery mixed into this wondrous alchemy. Lately I have abandoned giving ‘titles’ to my photo’s ~ I guess I am hoping that all I wish to say is in them and I want to leave a window open for personal interpretation (if this makes any sense.)

Tonight I am making a DElicious wrap for supper …

Goddess wrap

roasted seaweed ‘nori’ wrap sheets
brown rice (cooked)
avocado
broccoli sprouts
lightly steamed collard greens
a mix of sauteed red onion, peppers, or anything you have available in the fridge (purplecabbage is particularly lovely)
goddess dressing

spread layer of avocado on nori seaweed sheet
add rice, sprouts, vegetables, collard greens, goddess dressing, feta cheese if you like and fold into a ‘cone’ and enjoy with a glass of coconut/mango juice

soooooooooooo delicous! and the nori wrap is so light and flavorful (sometime’s I find tortillas a bit heavy especially after a yoga class)

The beach is a mere 3 minutes from my home and I love to wander down with a book as the sun is setting to read ~ and OHHHH! I am reading such SUCH brilliant books ~ “Grandmother’s secrets (the ancient rituals and healing power of belly dancing ~ which I will discuss further in another post as it is a stunning philosophy and poetic ode to life) and ‘the art of racing in the rain’ which is sooo beautiful in the purest sense of the word.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhh! one more thing!

the winner(s) of my giveaway are…..Valeria and Shona ~ Please contact me with your address so I can send out the original polaroids to you!~ I took three similar shots of these lovely balloons (one with a spectra camera and two with my sx70) and i am feeling so appreciative of all of you so I thought I ought to giveaway two this week:)

aaaaaaaaand…a little Sunday happy music for you this week ~ have a good one!

this hill is so beautiful where I walk my dog by the sea, i love
to sit here while she bounces around chasing bunnies,
leaning into small meditations as balletic flecks
of seabirds swoop about the sky

one hundred percent dazzling

my polaroid was taken with a vintage spectra camera
~ and the softtone film I bought from The Impossible project
which is completely splendiferous I tell you.

today i am loving words
‘balletic…poem…leaping, petals and jazz too’
oh, and ‘guffaw’ due to my inclination for
loud, unrestrained bursts of laughter lately

and a new ‘conversation’ with my lovely and supremely soaring friend darlene kreutzer

Have a beautiful Thursday filled with unexpected magic!

I snapped this polaroid walking along Whyte Avenue after stopping for yam fries and fresh homemade lemondade ~ so sweet!

Oh Edmonton how I love you! I have just returned from such a perfect week visiting my friend Darlene and all I can say is it was utter ‘bliss.’ Now, what you may not know about me is I am not fond of the word ‘bliss’ (to put it mildly) Something about that word makes me cringe I have no idea why. Yes, I realize bliss suggests all that is profoundly happy, joyful, satisfied and spiritually euphoric but when I hear that word it just makes me grumpy.

And yet. This week was utter bliss and I said so out loud at least once if not more every single day much to my astonishment and amusement.

There were summer hot art garden fiesta’s in Darlene’s back yard (with delicous Sangria and Duke’s band rehearsing in the background) spring salad’s freckled with raspberries, whistle stops in tiny magical hidden cupboards, book shops and custard tarts ,river walks and ruminations, fabulous jazz shows and Aiden’s delicious wild blueberry sauce, sublime vegetarian restaurants, wandering into neighbor’s gardens and hanging out in bathrooms which always makes me happy, goodness knows why.

Oh! and I cannot say enough about this series we watched one evening which was a whole new level of astonishment all by itself.

Today I am back in my pretty home and pondering new ways to decorate which always happens when I visit homes that are beautiful and inspiring. Does this happen to you? You go away and stay somewhere that is so lovely and can’t wait to get home and bring a little of that inspiration into your own abode?

I promise to share pictures ~ next post!

aaaaaaand

there’s the zen guy!

This weekend was spilling over with bountiful things as I slip into the dance of springtime ….washing windows and hanging windchimes, baking bread and attending evening gatherings, yoga and meditation on the beach at sunrise, wearing my emerald green fisherman pants (feeling quite beautiful), singing in the car with the windows down, reading under plum trees on a sun dappled magenta blanket and chasing a very silly rabbit around the house.

Mother’s day made me cry in the best way possible with the ohsobeautiful hand hammered bracelet my son made me in his shop classs and my daughter inscribed with ‘persisting stars” which they gleefully presented to me when they took me out for curry. I bought (yet another) jade plant (I love them so much) and strung chili pepper light on my studio porch whilst sipping my first mango smoothie of the season.

Today will find me in my studio scanning photo’s, organizing my desk, sending off revised proposals and daydreaming out the window (which I have an abiding affection for doing) I am so thrilled as The Impossible Project are so incredibly and generously donating film for my ‘open to exposure’ project ~ these lucky children in my polarid project get to shoot with the new px 600 film! I am so excited with the Impossible Project’s support ~ it’s like a little magic carpet ride of enthusiasm:) The ‘open to exposure’ project starts in July and I can’t wait to dive in and see what the children come up with.

Oh! Last night I was curled up ever so happily reading my very favorite book “Absence and Presence” when I stumbled on these words by Pablo Neruda’s wife Mathilde, speaking of visitors to their home in Isla Negra…

“His worktable in Isla Negra. When visitors come to the house for the first time, I show them this table and say to them, “Pablo wrote his poems here ~ he was exceptionally fond of this table.” They look at it, sometime’s with surprise, sometimes with indifference. It’s no more than a poor table. In the main, the people who visit the house don’t see the things that Pablo loved most because these are the simplest, those of least material value. He loved and always looked for stones made smooth by the action of time. Roots fascinated him ~ he had many pieces of wood that he found in the forest. He told me they were small pieces of sculpture. This house was for him a dream universe. Only he understood the true value of his objects. I, as his shadow, understood also.”

I cannot tell you how I felt when I read this little passage, it resonated me with so deeply. I also collect wood (mostly driftwood) which I have piled up in my home and consider to be art for my soul. And let me assure you I would never have been indifferent to Pablo’s desk ~ in fact I am certain I would have made love on it right then and there with my beloved as a passionate ode to the spirit of Pablo.

This made me think however about my own home and the things in it which are so beautiful and meaningful to me. I imagine many of the contents would also be completely overlooked by visitors as there is little that is ‘astonishing’ at first glance. So I am thinking today I will shoot various flotsam and jetsam in my home that make me feel so satisfied ~ that are sacred to my soul and share them with you in my next post.

It is Monday ~ I love Monday’s as they generally find me puttering in my studio thinking up all sorts of marvelous ideas. Today will also find me packaging up this polaroid which was won in my draw by ‘Brooke’ ~ please e mail me Brooke with your address and I will send it off to you in the mail.

I seriously loved this draw and have decided with great fanfare to have another on Sunday for the image you see posted above which I shot for ‘Words to shoot by’ ~ this week I was absolutely spellbound by the sensual portraits shot by Jördis, they are incredibly alluring.

Happy Monday!

I have a little porch off of my studio upstairs that is really beautiful
if only because it is built right into the branches of an apple tree.

Until this afternoon I did not have anything on this porch with the
exception of an old indian rug, and since the porch is partially
covered with this beamed roof I love to sit outside in the morning
for quiet meditations/morning coffee/bird symphonies.

This afternoon however I got it into my head to pot some purple basil
in these clay pots I found abandoned on a walk down Sunshine alley
leading (as all alley’s eventually do in crescent beach) to the beach.

Whilst I was potting I brought my portable record player up to the porch
and played Duke Ellington’s jazz party which I cannot say enough about, it
really is that fabulous.

Of course I had to snap a polaroid and was so happy with the apple green
leave’s reflection on the record as it spun around and around and around.

Such a happy afternoon. Music. I love it so ~ what music are you listening to?

*****I took two of these d’appled jazzy polaroids ~ slightly different but beautifully similar. Simply by leaving a comment I wil enter you in a draw on Sunday and the winner shall receive one of the original polaroids as a little gift. Just because I’m in that kind of mood today:)