Is There Snow Where You Are?

Here's the view out my window yesterday morning about 11 a.m. As you can see, the ground is pretty much bare, the roads certainly are, just the odd bit of snowbank residue to remind us that we some snow a while ago. What you can't tell from the photo is that there was a bit of a windchill going on, it was probably about minus fifteen Celsius at the time.
By contrast, you may have heard that a few areas in the U.S. Northeast got some snow over the past two days. "Snowmageddon", President Obama jokingly called it. My friend Heather in Virginia sent me these photos. This first one is what her backyard looked like yesterday morning around the time I took the above photo, after they'd had the first day of snow on Friday:


Here's the same swing after the second day of snow:


Wow, that's a lot of snow, isn't it??!!! It sure is pretty though.

Jersey Boys

I'm off to see the musical "Jersey Boys" today with my mom, my sister and her friend. We're all quite looking forward to it, it's supposed to be a great show. I love the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, don't you? My favourite song of theirs has always been, "Who Loves You". Or is it "December 1963"? Perhaps the title track from "Grease"? Maybe "My Eyes Adored You". Oh dear, tough choice. Ask me again after I've seen the show - I might have made up my mind by then!

A Visit to the White House

Our sleeping TTC collector is really getting around - last week, he was on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, this week he is visiting the White House.

A Collage Creation

It's Thursday night, so I must be somewhere taking a class. :)

Tonight, I'll be at C1 Art Space (Queen and Ossington), enjoying week 3 of 4 sessions on collaging and mixed media. So I thought I'd share this collage I made the other night, which is the result of our first week of instruction. I call it "Looking Within".

During the first class, our instructor Sandra had demonstrated putting pictures behind cut out images. I found myself with the yellow piece in the centre, which looks (at least to me) a bit like a spider web, wanting to put the eyes peeking out from behind it. I found another set of eyes and then a third and the words "look" and "vision". The theme of self-examination just sort of grew from there. Mostly because of the text I used, which are various quotes on the topic. I have a book of quotations and looked for entries on "seeing" or "vision" but "self-examination" was the closest thing I could find. For example, the one shown in the closeup photo says "Observe thyself as thy greatest enemy would do, so shalt thou be thy greatest friend." (Jeremy Taylor)

A Present from Holland

As part of the Remains of the Day class I signed up to take with Mary Ann Moss to learn how to make shabby journals (see details in my blog posting from back on January 20th http://cynfulcreationscanada.blogspot.com/2010/01/london-calling.html), we have a Flickr group to share photos of our creations and a Yahoo group for emails.

Some people in the Yahoo group have kindly offered to swap goodies with other group members and I contacted a woman named Annelies in Holland when she sent out an email to say she would be interested in exchanging ephemera.

I wasn't entirely sure what to send when I put my package together for her. My understanding was that we would send each other paper goods, vintage or new, with which we could make the pages for our journals. So I put together a collection of items - pages from old magazines and children's books, brochures from local attractions, a Toronto subway route map, used security envelopes with some of our Olympic stamps on them, in honour of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia (which start in just NINE DAYS!! So exciting!), that sort of thing.

Last night, I was delighted to receive Annelies' package for me. Talk about a celebration of riches. It kind of made me laugh to see what she had included, as some people might think some of things were better intended for the garbage or recycling bin - newspaper pages (in both Italian and Dutch), labels from canned food, security envelopes that she would have received in the mail. To me, they are a fascinating look at how people in another country live their everyday lives, the same but different from ours. What makes these commonplace items even more exciting, most of the writing on them is in a completely different language (Dutch or in the case of that newspaper page, Italian), which just makes them all that more exotic.

She sent me an atlas page of Holland, some beautiful paper napkins (see photo above of the one with the fancy cutlery on it), foam flowers and loose postage stamps (now why didn't I think of that?), various sheets of decorative paper, both small and large. One of the very best things she sent me? Chocolate -yum!!

Even better than the chocolate are the photos of windmills that she included - so Dutch, so perfect! I had sent her a picture of Canada geese that I had taken years ago but it just doesn't compare to the lovely photos she sent.

Many thanks to Annelies for her generosity in sending me this treasure trove of goodies. I can't wait to use them in my journal pages.

Never Mind Those Groundhogs

Did we really need a bunch of furry rodents to tell us we're going to have 6 more weeks of winter? I think not. All we have to do is step outside and it is painfully obvious, although today seems almost balmy by comparison since there is no wind.

On the positive side, my dear friend Heather is celebrating her birthday today and I wanted to send her my best wishes for a special day. Sometimes she's a bit shy, so I thought this photo of her hiding behind a menu in Puerto Vallarta last January would be best to use. Then again, I could just use this photo of the two of us together one day last summer.

Happy Birthday, Heather - love you!!!

199 Days to Go!

As you can see from the counter on the right, I will be in Paris in only 199 days. I'll be exploring the sights with Kate McKinnon and if you'd like to join us, just click on the link to the right to read all about our plans for France and Spain this summer and then contact Kate to let her know you'd like to come along.

One of the places I'm looking forward to going back to see more of is the Louvre Museum. The building itself is so beautiful, it could be an exhibit all on its own, even if it were totally empty.

Of course, it's not. It's full of fascinating things, like the Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. It's funny because people are so fascinated by the Mona Lisa, which is actually a rather small painting mounted on a special wall in the middle of the room surrounded by an airtight, completely secure enclosure that they don't let you get too close to and often somewhat obstructed by the tourists clustered in front of it, that they are a bit surprised when they turn around and a huge painting directly opposite to it that takes up virtually the entire wall, the Marriage of Cana by Veronese. There are about 50 other paintings in the same room, if you happen to notice them and of course, numerous others throughout the museum.

You can also walk through Napoleon's apartments, which are quite ornate and almost gaudy, as if Napoleon shared a decorator with just slightly better taste than Liberace. One can also find sculptures, beautiful stained glass and all sorts of other works of art and antiquities from around the world scattered throughout this former palace of the kings of France.

My favourite of all I have seen so far in the Louvre is this sculpture, known as Victory of Samothrace, which literally stopped me in my tracks as we were passing through the hallway in which it is located on our way to see something else. I'm not entirely sure why I like it so much but I do. That's the thing about art, you don't have to know what it is, who created it or what it means, you just know when it speaks to your soul.