Thursday, February 25, 2010

RESTING


Alan lying down - three weeks ago 18x24 bond paper

After a breathless  two hours of shopping for a birthday present for my pisces husband  and an urgent message from my daughter that we have the book she needs, which I miraculously find amidst the chaos of books everywhere, I am ready to platz.

This year we have been denied a snow day. Usually every winter, nature offers us a gift – overnight there is a huge snow fall – and we awaken to at least two feet or more of light or heavy snow piled against the entrance to  our houses. And the snow doesn’t stop, it continues. It is a signal to people like myself to stay in pyjamas. What is particularly exciting on these occasions is the mounting list of closures, early closures, cancellations. School children shriek inwardly and outwardly with delight, lazy folk like myself roll over in bed and stare out the window in pure admiration for this miraculous transformation of the landscape – mon pays c'est l'hiver:



A Field on a farm a few miles north of Waterdown - pastel 7 x 91/2 
three days ago - I'll go back there next week


This year it’s as though the snow hasn’t even begun -  Almost? not quite, the timing has been off -  it’s occurred elsewhere – I’m bewildered. We might get another five or ten more centimetres but that’s it folks – not enough to warrant a snow day.  Feeling cheated?  You bet. 


6 comments:

  1. Hi Marcia,

    Of course you can just say 'I'm having a snow day.' It snowed today in Toronto. Torontonians were talking about a 'storm'. Maybe I'll wake up in the morning and eat my words. But I'm an Ottawa girl. We used to dig forts for three out
    of the snowbanks beside our driveway. Just because soft flakes of snow are falling, people
    can't cry 'storm.'

    All that aside wow! You sure can freak us out.
    What an amazing figure, and then you throw a perfect landscape in just for fun. Love your work. But two images in one entry. You make me worried that you're planning on taking a snow day.

    By the way I'm on Reading Week squealing inwardly and outwardly.

    xoxoxoxoxoxoxBarbara

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  2. All your snow seems to falling to the south of you, yes? I do hope you get the snow your area needs.

    This is a beautifully expressive figure and a lovely landscape. You've been busy and not lazy at all!

    Guess you could stay in your 'jammies just because it's cold, right?!

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  3. Barbara how exciting! we crossed paths recently in the midnight ether.
    Well yes, it's true, I could call it a snow day if I wanted to, but it doesn’t hold the same gravitas as when the news team at local CHML 900 blasts it out early morning - the mounting lists of closures due to snow and dangerous driving conditions for all the schools from Junior K right through to Westdale Secondary to Mohawk and McMaster and everything in between including the local knitting clubs and church bazaars - so hamishe. That hasn’t happened once this winter.
    That’s right you were an Ottawa girl – and I was a prairie girl and remember snow being cleared off open skating rinks in the evenings and during the day my brother and I would ski on carless winter roads after school, the snow packed hard and slippery with Cocoa our dog running along behind us.
    In Guelph I remember how my dad seemed to relish any excuse to get out one of his snow blowers to clear a block of sidewalk outside our house and then the driveway - puffing on his cigar as he did so - the snow parting neatly into banks either side of him.
    I'm glad you like the drawing - I'll take that as an excuse to post more. In the meantime painting and sculpture seem to be on hold - in the meantime...

    xoxxooxoxoxox Marcia

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  4. Melinda,
    Forgive me for complaining as I do, shamelessly.
    It was snowing in earnest earlier. The cardinals in our backyard are bullying the smaller birds at the feeder. Do you know the book, by Turkish novelist, Orhan Pamuk called ‘Snow’. Yes it even snows in Istanbul.
    Hamilton is not really in the snow belt but is that any excuse? All joking aside – the farmers get nervous when precipitation drops below a level as it has drastically this winter.
    But Mrs Berry, the apple lady at the market from Brantford, was beaming this morning. All her fields are now solidly covered with snow and last night she jokingly told her husband to please turn off the lights – the luminosity from the fields is spectacular.
    It’s good in theory to lounge in one’s jammie but after awhile it gets boring. I insist however, that I am a lazy person, l must be open about that – there are other cards I can hold close to my chest.
    Thank you so much for your encouragement of my drawing - Melinda - that is my five finger exercise.

    xoMarcia

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  5. Hi Marcia,
    Thank you for visiting my blog, your kind comments and for introducing me to your work. It is wonderful! Your drawings have great movement and mystery to them. I also love your sculpture. I was at Guelph when John Fillion was there but never got the pleasure of being taught by him.
    Tammy

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  6. I love the abstract quality and loose expressive description in this pastel, lovely :

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