Displaced parts

Last night it sounded as though the racoons were tearing each other apart. The dogs went mad listening.

There is no substitution or comparison for seeing the faces of those I love. My comfort wanes and the noises outside are more foreign and I crane to feel something familiar and so I listen to the fan, loud as an engine, bouncing off the ceiling and onto the bedspread.

The river (and long drives)

The river has shown me things. I love you river. Even though you're a bastard for refusing to warm up (do you know how warm the sea is these days?).

*White butterflies. Only white.
*A flat boulder in the middle for me to lay far enough away from walkers that I could pull my bikini into small shapes that no respectable girl should.
*A blue heron. It flew low all the way from the far bend in the trees that line the water up past me to where I couldn't crane my neck. I could feel its air.
*Precise red lines on my thighs where the river water ended and white thighs blinding above.
*Fish that first gathered, then suckled, at my toes. Why always toes? Such a cliche.
*A heat that dried my wet face before I could wade back.
*The point between shock and pain where numbness of the limbs translates into a very nice something for the mind.

Along with a desire to be in wide spaces, I want to be in new wide spaces. And a long trip on a long road is the only way to get there. Pack a handful of money and a fistful of maps and my partner and some underthings and drive and drive and drive.

And then there was a watercolour calendar

I forget many things: memories, names, leashes, shoes, faces. And birthdays. I forget many, many birthdays.

I'm not much one for tradition, and I know I can show love to those I care about and be clumsy and forgetful at the same time. I know I will be accepted regardless (thank you, loved ones). But for even one year it would be nice to be that woman who sends a card to arrive on just the right day and imagine from afar the smile that lights lips.

Because, really, while I don't require my people to remember my day for me to value their perfection, when someone has gone out of their way to take a minute letting me know they remembered, it really is rather magical.

While I may never be this always-remembering-woman myself, I've made a birthday calendar to bring the possibility one step closer. And I've made it cute so I will be tempted to fill it in. Certainly I will forget where I placed the calendar and be no further ahead, but then maybe not.

If you'd like a larger version of the jpeg so you can print at home, I'd be pleased to email you one (my email address is found in my profile). Then you can tack it to a wall, run your finger down the column each month, and let your loved ones know how glad you were that they were born....

xo,
WHP

Alleyways and blackberries

These aren't exactly from our garden ... but they are from the alley directly behind the apartment, so I figure it's nearly as though I made them myself.

How a person picks blackberrries can say a lot about them, I think. For instance: I skip entirely the section of branches bowed with berries directly in front of me and immediately delve into the shaded parts of the bush. The deeper, the better. I get scratched. My clothes get torn. But they must be better back there, yes? No.

While this habit of ignoring the good in my immediate vicinity will probably forever remain in my picking habits (a bit of a challenge isn't a horrible thing when it's this easy to get a bounty of fruit), I am getting better in other parts of my life at looking down at my feet every once in a while and seeing just how much abundance I have around me.

I am learning that harder does not always equal better. That searching can be a habit rather than a source to bring you more. That the grand things just over the horizon just turn into things at your feet when you get to them.

And the things at your feet right now can be so damn good.

Fine art giveaway: 8 x 8 contemporary faux-polaroid canvas print

Four days left to enter the contest for a chance to win this 8 x 8 original WHP print! (Giclee printed on thick, textured canvas with the sweetest little faux-polaroid border.) I hope you do....

To enter: look here.

I'm extra glad and bubbly (as you can see, by posting about it twice) to be giving away this print -- it's one of my favourites from my moody Croatia set. I printed it early just to make sure it came out perfectly. Let me tell you: it came out perfectly.

The blacks are so saturated and the image is so dreamy it can nearly be whatever you see in it rather than what it actually is. It has a fall tonal range to it, but even through all its muddy edges, it strikes me as fresh each time I look at it. And the polaroid borders, well, I'm in love and I can't seem to print without them. I'll have a hard time parting with this little bugger.

If you have a penchant for contemporary-leave-a-taste-in-your-mouth-art, then this might be well suited to that blank spot on your wall. And I would love for it to hang there.

(PS: If you tweet or facebook -- or do any of those other social media whatnots -- about this contest and let me know the link in the comments section, I'll put you in for one extra chance to win.)

Bonne chance!

xo,
WHP

WHP giveaway: four of twelve (a home from your past)

Enter to win this 8 x 8 giclee print of a WHP fine art print. Printed on thick textured canvas (hello lover) with faux-polaroid borders (well, aren't we contemporary). It looks mighty fine floating in a large frame.

This month: A dark dream of homes in eastern villages past (or is that passed...).




To win:

* The contest is open for five days: 7AM July 24th - 12AM July 28th.
* You can live anywhere to enter. I will ship to you free of charge. Promise.
* In the comments section, submit one sentence to finish the story excerpt below. (To read the full up-to-date version of the story, click here.)
* Be sure to leave your email information along with your sentence.
* For an extra chance to win, become a follower of this blog. But only if you like, please.
* Check back the morning of August 1st for the announcement of the winner.
* Hello delightful.

The excerpt:

"She walks to the post box once a week. Each week with the same sized envelope (held carefully, always, so not to be creased) and the same sized note inside. The words are always different. Her feet follow the patterns of the sidewalk; familiar with crests of cement where tree roots push upwards and the crevices where the earth has given way. This sidewalk is no stronger than me, she thinks. ____________________________."


So: scribble, please erase little, and submit to me ....

[Comments are now closed...thanks to all who participated! Next giveaway is at the end of August.]

New work and projects ahead

Note: skunk babies are cuter than human babies.
Secondary note: this makes me forget their danger.
This weekend is mine.
I will swim in the ocean; even if there is more seaweed than water.
Things to make: birthday calendar, themed photo booklets.
I will break out the palette and watercolours and my favourite brush.
Must buy paper.





Contest tomorrow!

Little sayings: volume eleven

I've had this hanging behind the curtain in my drafts for a long while now. For some reason, it feels less appropriate for me each time I look at it. Today I was about to delete it completely so I could stop trying to figure why it now feels cloying and untrue where it felt right months ago.

Then I thought: maybe it's perfect and appropriate for one of you.

The pleasure of pouring sugar

I like to fill my sugar bowl. Literally. This is no metaphor.

The level to which it satisfies me -- brown grains falling so neatly after one another, piling into a dune in the container -- I'm sure indicates something or other. But rather than sort it through and realize that my pleasure at watching sugar fall represents something deeply rooted and strangled in my past, I'll settle for not knowing.

...And keep a lopsided smile on my face once a month as I watch the granules empty from the bag and come together again in the bowl.

You likey the giveaway?

An interesting website, Giveaway Scout, crossed my path. They cull from internet giveaways around the globe (and update every hour). They seem to promote from the corporate to the crafty individual...within a few minutes I found a couple of items that were coo worthy. An interesting concept in an age when googling can take you hours (well, it takes me hours).

xo,
WHP

Sweet snap peas of sweetness

As you can see, I am very proud of the small things our garden yields.

These little beauties grow so fast, which works well for a girl who is impatient watching her strawberries take weeks to ripen. It took a lot for me to get these three into the house without eating them -- I'm usually crunching away the moment they're plucked.

Seeing as we have only one vine, we aren't entirely rolling in the bounty of bushel-fulls of snap peas. But it does grow an average of a couple of pods per day. If you were having tea with me on my terrace, I would share those two.

One for you. One for me.

Also: giveaway! Soon!

New work and water hoses under the stars

One of my favourite things to do in summer (and, in my opinion, one of the best parts of keeping a garden) is to water at midnight.

The heat is thick and in the process of settling into the earth for its brief respite. I am forced to take my time and be still. The water must stay in one spot to reach the deepest roots, and so must I.

This late, the neighbourhood is thinner in its mumbling. The bushes rustle with night creatures. If I'm lucky, the neighbour in the back is playing their cuban music and it flits through their open window and across the alley.

Hose in one hand. Wine tumbler in the other. The water cools the cement and the new air stumbles up my legs. A delight.

It is a tree. It is alone.

I'm sending orders out to girls with names like Polly and Emily. I feel like I'm the keeper of some adorable little dollhouse. I wonder if there will emerge a pattern in who is interested in my work and what their parents named them....

And here's something a little different. Well, a lot different. Stark and dry against the heat and sweat of these summer days.

New work

Infusing colour in a grey day.

Yesterday I swam. Finally. The river still has a current and there are holes deep enough between the boulders to immerse a whole body. I sunned myself on a rock high in the middle of the water and it curved with my body. Or my body with it.

With patience and a clear mind, something as uncomfortable as the surface of a rock can become a challenge to let go of. And for a while that rock felt like a bed. And then it felt like a rock again so I waded to shore and threw sticks for the dogs and watched them swirl and get caught in the current.

WHP interview

A very sweet interview with me from a talented creator and gorgeous friend here.

Oh the little buds of lettuceses

Hello lettuce. The parts of you that have not been holed by the slugs are delicious. Thank you for instigating my imagination when it has a hard time getting beyond takeout. And thank you for making me proud enough to want to photograph you and in effect giving me something to train the lens on.

New work and juice on elbows

I eat nectarines over the sink and in the backyard -- wherever I can lean and let the juice run rivulets down my arms and practice being joyfully undignified.

New work and attempts at water

I have been to the ocean filled with seaweed. I have been to the river where a pregnant woman bathed and it was ice. I have been to the lake with a small island on the mountain to the left and there were black flies like carpet and drapes. I have been to the lake with the red bottom on the mountain to the right and there remained a crust of ice.

I will swim before this month is through. And it will not be in a pool or in my bathtub.

Polaroid and picnics

We spent a night on the wide, flat rocks with the ocean grazing our feet. The tankers shone in the open water and behind: the city in its sturdiness and the bridge with lights that twinkled and swayed.

We ate cold meats, braised kale with sesame, potato salad, basil hummus, and rosemary bread. We toasted women that are important with a bottle of California white. Wine always tastes better when it is a gift. And when it is cold and the air is hot.

The seals ducked along the length of the shore and flies swarmed as the light waned. And it all made me want to return here, to Riske Creek where the only sounds were wild and the locals woke with the dawn and everything looked like it had been standing and sagging for one hundred years.

New work

I am stuck with the dark and the humid and mustard and bronze. Keeping the distance at just the right level of obscurity to barely see what there lies and leaving enough room to imagine something that lies there not.

little sayings: volume ten

New work

A new favourite. This one I see large. One entire wall. A warehouse. Dark. With natural light. In slants. From the missing shingles way up in the roof.

Ink, paper and purpose

im·bue (m-by)
tr.v. im·bued, im·bu·ing, im·bues
1. To inspire or influence thoroughly; pervade.
2. To permeate or saturate.
3. To stain or dye deeply.

Thrift store love: bud vase

I have been on a quest for tea bowls. When I talk about my lust for a handsome set of tea bowls people narrow their brows. So I will explain.

What is available, in abundance, are those tiny green tea cups. I have found aplenty and I think them sweet, but they are not what I am looking for. What I am looking for is something about four inches high, three inches wide, with a heavy bottom and thin lip. If only I was a potter.

A mug with no handle. An invitation to wrap your hands around heat. The picture of my not-yet-acquired tea bowls conjures images of woolen socks and rain storms and novels where you stop to place your finger to read a sentence again because it was too full the first time to get it all in. All the while balancing your tea in the palm of one hand.

But while I was looking for tea bowls, I did find this bud vase, which I promptly brought home for two dollars and stuck plum-full with the first bud/branch in the garden I could find.

I know you're out there my perfect tea bowls. You're mine. Just as soon as I stop being distracted by the purchases of other wares.

There is basil in your windowsill ma'am

Basil. Dearest basil. I will do more with you in the future. I will one day shake you into a cocktail -- as I have promised -- instead of mint. I think I'm delaying because I am uncomfortable being overwhelmed.

Can you tell me please why you make my windowsill smell vaguely of cat pee when you smell so good and entirely different when crushed and torn? I do not have the time to crush you indefinitely to counteract this strange habit of yours. I don't like crinkling my nose at you so often.

But thank you for making ho-hum tomatoes into something spectacular. That truly is a talent.

p.s.: Please don't tell me that smell is, indeed, from one of the cats. I would rather pretend. Thank you.

little sayings: volume nine

And the winner is ....

Congratulations to this month's winner of the 8 x 8 faux-polaroid giclee print: Kylie!

She finished this month's story excerpt with:

"A single tear danced softly down her pale cheek and then gently landed on the envelope, sealing it with her love."

Oh the collaboration, the collaboration. I love it.

Please visit the 25th of July for the fourth instalment of the twelve giveaways for a chance to win this dark and moody little bugger.

Turmeric under nails

Last night a dear friend served me dinner with her hands. Her fingers dug deeply into pots on the stove and laid my meal to plate.

By the end of the evening, both our hands were stained yellow from pulling apart turmeric and basil prawns. On her bed I listened to drafts of her recent songs. Her voice is an early morning stream; I wanted to fall asleep right there. We leafed through photographs. We speculated.

What a lovely thing to wake up late in a morning to such a visual reminder. Eyes open. Fingers stained. Laughter remembered. My fingertips reflect the hue 3/4 of the way down this print.




I'll update you later in the day on the winner of the contest. Stay tuned my dears!

First, I have Canada day relaxation to partake in; I wish all my fellow mounties a lovely, celebration-drenched day.