London Chalk Artists

London, Ontario is a very active place, especially in the summer. Last week, an entire downtown street was closed off so that a group of chalk artists could recreate Michelangelo’s brilliant Sistine Chapel.


I wasn’t surprised to find Axl doing her part for this project.


I think that there were about ten artists in total, working on the main body of the artwork. The outside border was drawn using the help of many London teenagers who had volunteered their time for this enriching experience. They did a great job!


Three of the artists were from California. This project had a number of sponsors to pay for the artist’s time, travel and accommodations – at one of London’s finer hotels. One artist told me that when this project is complete that she’ll be flying to Texas for another project and then on to Mexico for another week. She is a teacher and she spends part of her summers arting on city streets around the world!!!

Of course – LOL! – I took advantage of this situation to spread around some of my art. The next day I returned with a handful of my peace Stik-ers and I gave each of the three artists from California one of my art prints.


I shared with them the story about my global art attack – Peaceflowers From Around The World – and they agreed that it was indeed a fun and exciting project. One artist drew a peaceflower for my collection!!! Thanks!

They had four more days of drawing ahead of them. On Sunday, August 02 the final art was to be completed for the community unveiling. That Sunday would also see a one-day chalk art competition beginning. Anyone who had registered could draw whatever they wanted and then these artworks would be judged. I was excited to see all of this completed art, once Joanne and I had returned from our weekend trip to my visit my parents and sister.


While we were there my mom told me about an interesting place, not too far away. This whole region is very unique, having been formed by the glaciers 10 000 years ago. About three miles away from where I grew up, there is a hill that is high enough so that you can see both Toronto and Barrie’s lights on a clear night!

The place that my mom told us about is found along a small stretch of the Bruce Trail – famous around the world! The trail begins in Tobermory – the most northern part of Southern Ontario – and it winds its way for a several weeklong hike to Niagara Fall – the most southern part of Southern Ontario. Of course, the trail has many points where people can gain access if they just want to explore small areas.


This part of the trail has a lot of cracks and crevices that are really interesting to see. With all the open rock surfaces, the trees have to really work hard at securing their roots. I think it’s really cool to see all the roots winding this way and that, grabbing hold of the rock.


And here’s Koly enjoying himself! You can see a small vertical stripe of white paint on the tree, jut behind Koly. These markings are found every twenty feet or so, along the trail, so that people won’t get lost.


After a relaxing time with ‘the folks’, Jo’ and I headed for home. The first stop that I wanted to make was to see all the completed chalk art. Unfortunately the clean up process had already begun. If this artwork remained I’m sure that the next few days would have seen a few car accidents as people tried to drive and look at the art at the same time – or a tourist might jump in front of a car to get a photo of the art!!! I could have taken photos of the finished Sistine Chapel art – it was still visible – but it had lost its brilliance and I didn’t think it would be right.

Fortunately, the artwork created for the competition was still in good shape and I took a lot of photos!!! This is less than half of all the art that filled two city blocks - - -


All of these artworks were created by artists young and old and you can see that they were all created with magnificence!!!!


Even this silly one – LOL!!! I call him Bicky cuz he reminds me of a Bick’s Pickle!!!!

Thanks to Nature for being a constant inspiration to artists!

Thanks to artists for being a constant inspiration to us all!!!

Jim

Vancouver Island – Summer 1992

With another cold chill to the air today – to remind us that it’s still winter – I decided to dig thro’ some old hiking photos to make us all feel a little warmer.


Ahhhh! Summer! With a T-shirt and a blue sky… There, I’m feeling a little bit warmer already.

A few weeks before this photo was taken in the mountains of British Columbia, I had graduated from a Toronto college, sold almost everything I owned and bought the camping gear that I would live in for the next few months. I went wandering…


It’s a little hard to notice, but the T-shirt that I’m wearing in the above photo is from a restaurant in East Lansing, Michigan called “Bilbo’s” – inspired by J.R.R. Tolkiens novels. Menu items included the Tom Bombadil Sandwich and Ent-chiladas! This photo always reminds me of what a landscape might look like in the Shire. I’ve always called this photo ‘My Hobbit Trail’.


It took many hours to meander alongside a mountain trail to reach it’s upper plateaus, and the distant vistas made it all worth while.


This was the area where I saw my first-ever Bald Headed Eagle. I knew that any attempt at taking a photograph would prove unflattering (who wants to see a dot in the sky) so I simple soaked in the scene with my mind and imagined what the eagle might be looking for as it was whisked away by the breeze.


Throughout this mountainous region there is so much to see. I’m sure that I could have taken the same trail, day after day, for my entire life and still see something new, every time! Occasionally I would stray off of the path to investigate sounds that I would hear in the forest. This photo is of one of my discoveries. I was walking over a small bridge that crossed a calm stream, yet I could hear the sound of falling water. Just a small distance away this waterfall was hiding.


It’s hard to say which I like better: 1) The view from the top of a mountain or 2) The view from the bottom. LOL!


This is the one-and-a-half man tent that has spent many nights under the stars.


This is the same lake as the above photo and this lake is on the top of a mountain. You can tell because there are no mountains to be seen at all – just clear blue skies for miles and miles…

I hope that you’re feeling a little warmer, now, too!!!!

Jim

Listening To The Growing Grass

We had our first thunderstorm, last night, and boy oh boy! did it come down. Joanne and I opened the curtains in our living room so we could watch the bolts of lightning as they streaked across the sky. I guess that this was our first sign of spring.

When I took Koly outside, this morning, I noticed that almost all of the snow was gone. Just a few very small patches remain and one large patch on my front lawn…


… the remnants of ‘Mount Jim’! In January I told you that story – http://bitsandpeaces08.blogspot.com/2009/01/mount-jim.html . Every time I had to shovel the driveway, I would pile the snow onto Mt. Jim – to make this tobogganing hill higher and higher for my neighbour’s children. With all the tobogganing that went on here, the snow became more and more compact and now it’s like a big block of ice, slowly melting…

When Koly and I made it to our backyard I noticed that I could now see the mess that I will soon have to clean up. It’s always a little messy in the spring, with fallen branches and what not.


It’s hard to believe, now, but in another month or so this patch of brown dirt will be full of life and colour. After our first summer here I quickly learned not to plant any of the vegetables that I love – the squirrels just destroyed them. Last summer I changed my plan and planted just a small amount of root vegetables – carrots, radishes, parsnips and potatoes. With the remainder of the garden I began to expand the flowerbeds – day lilies, bleeding hearts, hollyhocks, lily of the valley, peonies and many different species of hostas. Last fall I planted several small patches of spring bulbs, in between the summer perennials so I’m really excited to see how the garden will look this year!

With spring in the air, I wanted to share a story about something that I learned about Nature – just a few years ago.

Joanne and I were living in Nova Scotia in the spring of 2003 so that I could work on my cross-Canada art project entitled ‘Canada: Glorious To Be’. This is a link to that project on my official website - http://www.bitsandpeaces.com/Canglointro01.htm . This is a link to my youtube video interview from Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, 2006, which explains this project very well -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp3iPj_Kefc&feature=channel_page .

We were living in a small house that was built into the side of a hill. The rest of the hill was covered with trees and it was a very peaceful place to be. It was about this time of year and I was taking Koly outside for his morning walk. It was a very quiet morning and I was enjoying the silence and freshness of the spring air. Then I began to hear some strange noises…

At first, I could hear a few noises coming from here and there along the forest floor, just outside our house. As I began to look for the source, I focussed my listening even more and soon it sounded like the entire forest floor was alive with a symphony of strange sounds. It got louder and louder, as the morning sun rose into the sky. My eyebrows danced across my forehead with wonder – I still couldn’t see where this noise was coming from. It sounded like thousands and thousands of little ripping noises – like an entire school full of children, all ripping pieces of paper at the same time. I had to investigate further.

I walked into the forest, sat on my haunches and listened. The noise grew ‘til it was like thunder in my ear and then I saw it. At first, it surprised me, but after a few moments I noticed this phenomena surrounding me, with movement all around. The forest floor was coming alive and it moved in steady patterns. I was listening to and watching the grass grow!!!

Let’s think about this for a moment… Think about a forest in the autumn season. The leaves are changing colour and falling off of the trees. The leaves fall to the forest floor. Then winter arrives with several feet of snow piling up through this season. Spring brings warmer weather and the snow melts, leaving a very flattened layer of pressed leaves on the forest floor. These leaves are damp with the melting snow, at first, but as the sun dries the ground these leaves begin to dry as well, creating a thin solid layer on the forest floor. Underneath these leaves are all the grasses and spring flowers that will soon blossom and during this time they are reaching up for the sun’s light. They have to push their way through this layer of dried leaves and as the dried leaves are moved aside they begin to make small ripping noises as their surface is punctured by the growing grass.

It doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery, now that it’s solved, but at the time it seemed very new to me. I had simple never noticed this natural occurrence before. Since that time I have been able to hear the grass growing every single springtime.

It’s amazing that there are so many wonders that surround us every day that go unnoticed until we take the time to listen and learn.

Jim

Winter Wonders

I know that not a day goes by without a magical moment provided by Nature. Many people fill their lives with all sorts of things to keep them busy and this, often times, distracts us from being able to witness these magical experiences. This is the story of the moment that I witnessed yesterday afternoon…



Joanne and I were taking Koly for a walk through the park that is just a few blocks away from our house. We noticed that one large area of this park had recently flooded (during the two days of warm weather and lots of rain) and that the surface of this water had frozen (in the few days since the rain – when the temperatures dropped again).


This flood zone filled the space of more than two football fields and when the sun broke through the clouds, a blinding glare reflected off the surface.


Over the last two days, the flood water levels have been slowly dropping. When the water drains, the ice on the surface of the water begins to crack and break off and this can be quite an interesting event to witness. I stood at the edge of this frozen water, surrounded by many trees and fallen branches when I first heard it. It sounded like a small cascade of broken glass.

When the ice formed, it froze to the trees and now that the ice sheet was loosing elevation (mere millimeters at a time) there was a lot of tension between the ice and eventually it would break away from the tree, causing the sounds. In between the sounds of these smaller events – that only occurred at the base of the trees – were the very loud cracks that would echo through this area. These sounds were caused when long fractures within this frozen football field occurred. These sounds didn’t occur very often, but when they did it was really something unique to behold.

I have seen similar events, throughout my life and I still marvel at these occurrences, but this was not the magical moment that I wanted to share with you.

We continued our walk around this great frozen field and then I saw it…


Triangles in the grass. I have never seen anything like this before. There was a small puddle of water – maybe only an inch or so deep – that had frozen over top of the grass below. The thickness of the grass, depth of the puddle and elevation of the water in the puddle had all worked together to create this magical display of Nature’s architecture.


As we continued our walk, I scoured the ground for more examples of this phenomena and found none. I thought that it was interesting that our meandering path through this park had led us to possibly, the only small area where these conditions existed to create these geometric formations of ice crystals.

Moments like these are very special in my life. I always feel that, somehow, I was led to these places for the soul purpose of learning. During these moments, I can hear an old Native prayer being spoken in my mind…


“O Great Spirit, whose breath gives life to the world and whose voice is heard in the soft breeze – make us wise so that we may understand what you have to teach us, help us learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock, make us always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes, so when life fades, as the fading sunset, our spirits may come to you without shame.”

Jim