THOUGHTS ABOUT THE FALL GARDEN ON A SUNDAY MORNING


I imagine I can sense the earth’s vibrations in my fall garden, something profound about the perennials dying back this time of year. Something about dormancy, rest. I look at the yellowed hostas, the bared earth where the fall crocus spread their waxy-cupped blossoms just  a short time ago. I look at the little slope by the back fence where Loren and I planted tulip bulbs last week and in my mind’s eye I can see those bulbs, their pointed tips doing whatever it is they need to do, sitting in the darkness four inches beneath the surface of the soil. And I imagine brilliant reds and yellows in spring.

I think of the words in an email from the local yoga teacher whose class I go to on Monday mornings: To pause, to rest, to breathe, to begin again. My garden knows better than I do how to do those simple things..

Printmaking II


On my second day of printmaking, I learned how to add colour to the prints I made the first day, and how to do chine collé. First I had to make a template that I could use for adding colour. I placed trace paper over one of my prints, drew the outline of the edge of the copper printing plate (so I would know where the edge of the print should be), and decided where I wanted to put the colour. Next I stuck clear packing tape over the trace paper so that I would have a stiff template to work with to make cutting easier. After I decided where I wanted colour (I chose red), I cut out those areas with an exacto knife. I cut out only a few small shapes in the template.

I placed the template on the copper plate and taped the edges to hold it in place. With red ink on the roller, I rolled it back and forth over the areas that I had cut out. Only a few small shapes appeared on the copper plate in red ink. I placed the plate on the press and then came the tricky part of placing my black and white print on top of the plate to print the red areas. Tammy helped me - well, she did it to show me how. We again covered it with news print and the felt pad and I rolled the press. This is what I got.

Now about chine collé (“chine” means thin paper and “collé means glue). Chine collé is method for bonding a thin, delicate paper, which is more receptive to delicate details than heavier paper) onto a heavier paper. Also, this method allows a background colour for the image which is different from the colour of the backing. You can also do collage with this method of printing.

I used one of my red prints from my first day of printmaking, cut out the image, placed it on a sheet of fine thin Japanese paper and from Tammy’s collection of wonderful papers chose two sheets from which I cut a rectangle and tore irregular forms for a collage. I assembled the pieces for a composition.

Next the pieces had to be soaked in water and sprinkled with wall paper past so they would stick on the paper when I rolled it rolled through the press. We put the cleaned plate on the press, placed the pieces of paper back the way I had originally arranged them on a thin sheet of paper, placed newsprint over it all, and then down came the felt overlay again before I rolled the press. Out came what I think is a beautiful collage. This is it.

                                          This is Tammy.

PRINTMAKING
For years I have been wanting to explore printmaking, so I contacted a fine local printmaker, Tammy Ratcliff, who agreed to give me an individual workshop. What an interesting experience! I enjoyed the process of making mono prints, and I want to see if I can describe the steps in a way that makes sense to someone who has not worked in this medium.


Tammy showed me some prints so that I would have an understanding of what would be possible. She explained a few things and then “threw” me into the work. I sat on a stool at a table that was covered with a sheet of glass. Using a tube of ink in a caulking gun, she squeezed ink onto the glass and spread it around a bit with a scraper. To coat the roller, she rolled it through the ink. I learned to roll the roller in the ink until the ink looked velvety, then I was ready to roll ink onto a 6 x 6 inch copper printing plate, back and forth to coat the plate evenly.

The next step was drawing into the ink on the plate. I experimented with different ways of making marks on the plate: pencil, Q-tips, cloth, paper towel stretched over my finger. I had wanted to incorporate words into the image, forgetting that the words would be reversed. So I tried to write backwards, which didn’t work. I wanted to write “The Word” but the “d” turned out to look like a “b” and I decided to forget about putting text into the print and just explore the medium. Then it became fun.

After I made a drawing, and tried to make different textures in the ink, I decided to try printing. The press is like a table with a glass top that has a roller fixed to it, with a big metal wheel that looks like a steering wheel on a boat. We put the copper plate on which I had rolled ink and then made marks in the centre of the glass. The cotton-rag paper that had been soaked in a container of water, went on top of the copper plate. We covered that with several layers of ordinary news print to protect the inch-thick felt pad that covered the surface of the press.

Next, it was time to turn the big metal wheel counter-clockwise to make the roller roll across the inked plate, and then back again the other direction. We lifted off the newsprint, and then lifted the print off the plate. It was time to see how my marks in the ink translated onto the paper. I had my first mono print! But that was not all. We placed a very thin Japanese paper on the plate, and printed another, which is called a ghost print. Here are some samples of my first day of printing.

TWYLA THARP

I just finished reading Twyla Tharp’s autobiography, “Push Comes to Shove.” Tharp is an American dancer and choreographer. She began dancing early in life as a result of having a mother who was a musician, who pushed Twyla into dance. Her mother, who changed the spelling of “Twila” to “Twyla” because it seemed to her a name more suitable for a celebrity, decided from the time her daughter was born that she would become famous. That tells you in a nutshell the origin of the impetus for Tharp to work with an intensity and focus that did lead to her fame in the dance world.


For me the excitement of the book lies not only in Tharp’s determination and hard work to develop her dancing but also in her honesty in looking at how her personal life affected her work and how her work affected her personal life. She drew on her personal life to create dance sequences, and expanded her understanding of herself through her dance.

It was her life as a parent that took the brunt of her commitment to dance. Tharp admits that her son did not get much parenting except when he was with his friends’ families. When he was eleven years old, he told his mother that he loves her but that she’s weird and he asked to go to boarding school. Tharp was relieved because she could not give him what he needed and still do what she wanted to do in dance. (I think she was a better dancer than mother.)

The final chapter of the book is moving because of the way she ties together an amazing lifetime of work between the covers of a book. I printed out the following sentence and have it lying on my desk, reading it over and over: “How to protect and extend the lessons and beauty of that past without buying our own energies and imagination is the challenge for every artist.”

LANDSCAPING - and HENS AND CHICKS (the plants)

Loren and I have both become consumed by landscaping behind our house. I finally finished digging out the lilies and chaos along the side fence. Loren moved the pile of soil that was left from last summer’s foundation and drainage work. He hauled some of it away and some of it we’re using in terracing. We’re making a raised, flat area at the back and calling it our “mesa.”


It’s a lot of fun developing the area. One new feature in the garden along the side fence is a small mound of soil about four feet across where I am hoping to plant sempervivums, commonly called “hens and chicks.” I have discovered how much I like these little plants that seem to suit growing alongside of rocks. Sometimes they pile themselves on top of each other in a delightful way as they develop their succulent - what shall I call them - petals. Some grow in rounds with little “babies” sprouting out to the sides of the parent, hence the name hens and chicks. That’s exactly that they are like - a big fat hen sitting with little ones like herself circling round her, attached until they root and become a big ones like their “mother.”

Around the little hill of hens and chicks I am planting sweet woodruff. Working my way on farther along the fence will be ferns and astilbe to join up to where the hostas and Solomon’s seal are already thriving.

I sometimes ask myself what it is about all this gardening that I love so much. I’m not sure what the answer is and does that question even need an answer? I do know that one reason I love what we're doing is that it's a way of experiencing the joy of creating my own world, creating spaces like rooms that are alive.

THE WRITERS’ UNION OF CANADA
AND THE ONWORDS CONFERENCE

From the 26th to the 29th, I was in Toronto attending the Onwords Conference and AGM of the Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC). TWUC was conceived in 1972 and was formally begun in 1973 at the initiation of writers that included Margaret Laurence (1926-1987), Marian Engel (1933-1985), Margaret Atwood, Graeme Gibson and Andreas Schroeder. Now there are 2,000 members.

This year we celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of Public Lending Right, a program through which writers are paid a modest amount for the copying of their work in libraries across the country. The only reason the PLR exists is because members of TWUC worked extremely hard to gain the recognition that writers deserve to be paid for their writing copied by many people.

Andreas Schroeder, who is called the founding father of PLR, gave the keynote lecture, “The Untold Story of PLR.” He told the story of the endless work that was required – thirteen years of slogging - before Ottawa finally established funding for PLR, thanks to Marcel Masse in 1986. Unfortunately this money was, and still is, seen as a grant, rather than what it is: writers getting paid for their work.

No one expects plumbers or chefs or book sellers to work without pay. And yet, there is this strange notion that being published should be a reward in itself and with that reward writers should be satisfied and not expect payment. On the other hand, I have also encountered people who have the idea that if you have published a book you must be rich. Royalties to authors are generally ten percent of the selling price. So for my last book, “Perfect Red: The Life of Paraskeva Clark,” I get paid about $3.70 for each book that is sold. It took nearly ten years from the time I began researching for that book until it was published. Figure that one out. I’d have to sell a lot of books to get paid anything that comes close to being able to live on my writing life. And this is fairly typical for writers.

Industry Minister Tony Clement commented that as a way of cutting government spending, he favours getting rid of entire programs that aren’t as important as they were twenty-five or thirty years ago rather than cutting back on programs here and there. Given this government’s disregard for the arts, this is an alarming statement for arts workers. How does the passing of time reduce the value and necessity of the arts?

In a number of the workshops the impact of electronic media, including ebooks, was a recurring theme. For me, as for some other writers, this electronic world is somewhat daunting. Furthermore, establishing a viable system in which writers are paid a decent amount for their work seems extremely complicated. For example, the provincial government in British Columbia is spending millions of dollars to make ebooks available, but are writers benefitting? No.

Having a chance to talk with other writers, some of whose books I’ve read and love, is one of the great benefits of this conference. And hearing writers speak about a variety of issues in the panel discussions is also stimulating.

During the plenary sessions, I was impressed with the dedication and hard work of the leaders of this organization whose sense of humour and respect for each other set a positive tone for the entire conference.

In Praise of Hostas

I love starting a new garden. That is what I am doing around here. And yet, I know it is not entirely new, for someone, a very long time ago, planted borders along the sides of the back yard. In digging around back there among the weeds, I found a variety of perennials: violets, lovely small irises, periwinkle, sedum, fall crocus, way too many tiger lilies and something else that a local nursery told me is an old type of day lily. I like the evidence that someone else once had a garden here, even while I have the feeling that I am beginning a new garden. I’ve begun imagining the woman - I’m sure it was another woman - who planted these perennials and had the rocks placed there.

In April I wrote about the Star of Bethlehem (SOB) that had totally taken over during the years of neglect before we moved here. Over a period of a number of weeks this spring we managed to dig out the SOBs despite incessant rain for many weeks.

 On Saturday Andrea, my garden helper, called up and asked if I’d like her to come and do some more work. I was so delighted that she phoned. By the end of the afternoon she had completed clearing out the rest of the back garden along the fence and had planted hostas among the rocks. The hostas came from four clumps underneath the big black walnut tree in the middle of the yard.

I love hostas for their supreme endurance, their forgiving nature. They grow, regardless of how they are treated -  they certainly had not been treated well here and yet they endured. Now they have their own spaces and I know they will respond to the loving care they are receiving, each in its new spot.

So here’s to hostas and the pleasure they give us.