My Recent Brush With Colour

“Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this?”
- Pablo Picasso

There are many places where I don't want to see graffiti. While most agree defacing buildings and fences with scribbles is unacceptable, such public displays are welcome in some corners and can appear more like art exhibits than vandalism. All the way down the 1001 Steps in Ocean Park, along a dusty pathway and through a tiny tunnel for walkers under a railway there's a pebbly beach where people spray paint for fun.

I've yet to catch a graffiti artist in the act but their colourful boxy designs on the grim gray cement transforms the spot into a happy place ... made especially happy recently because I didn't fall off the log when my daughter took pictures. (The bay was likely a key area for bringing supplies into the community by sea over a century ago.)

Later in Crescent Beach bright sunflowers stood straight as soldiers at attention.

Sea-hued creatures were on display tacked to a wooden gate.

Colour brushed against a plainly painted fence showing Mother Nature was artsy too.

See OUR WORLD to explore sights from around the globe.

Still the kid I used to be

Visit Postcards From Penelope Puddle and Penelope Puddlisms: BC Life Is A Whale Of A Ride to view more West Coast scenes.

Because the state of our planet is the most pressing issue of our time, link up and learn about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.

Paper Bag Princess Gowns & Mom's Homemade Dresses

Remember the beloved children's tale The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch? She had only a paper bag to wear after a dragon destroyed her castle and belongings.

The shallow prince whom she rescued showed his true nature by complaining she didn't look like a princess dressed in that bag.

Good riddance to the prince but here are some paper dresses any royal or awesome regular girl would be proud to wear.

I came upon these works of art at the Oakridge Mall in Vancouver.

Hopefully, they will end up in a local museum or someplace where more people will enjoy them.

The lovely regal garments made of paper capture the elements and majesty of the natural world.

The Langara College Paper Couture Exhibition by Vancouver design students explains what materials are used to create the clothing: "All of the dresses are made from a variety of recyclable white or brown paper, tissue, tapes, glue, spray paint, adhesives, paper twine, coffee filters, cardboard, string, thumbtacks, and other raw materials."

Realistically, a walk in a rainstorm would likely squash these garments into squishy mush. Minus the touchable warmth of organics, synthetics are more durable, although I was surprised to read in an article from Metro Vancouver and Oceanwise that " ... 71 percent of microplastics found in Metro Vancouver's wastewater treatment plant are fibres such as polyester or rayon from clothing or carpets. Every time a load of laundry is washed, these fibres escape the washing machine, go down the drain and enter a wastewater treatment plant."

Apparently, nearly 99 percent of these microplastics are filtered out but some enter our oceans and likely flow from our kitchen taps.

I suspect the paper bag princess would support a fix for this filtering gap. She might also tell us she managed nicely with one paper bag in her wardrobe whereas most Canadians stuff their closets with fast fashions. If you have a minute, watch what happens to our "cheaply made" disposable clothes when we tire of them HERE.

This Mother's Day I continue to safe-keep the home-sewn hand-stitched dresses my mom made for me when I was small. She passed away years ago but the care she took threads through the fabrics.

The white (left) is bleached flour sack; the burgundy-red is taffeta which I remember wearing proudly. I never considered wood pulp as material ... yet how gorgeous are the handcrafted paper gowns pictured above and below?

See OUR WORLD to explore sights from around the globe.

Visit Postcards From Penelope Puddle and Penelope Puddlisms: BC Life Is A Whale Of A Ride to view more West Coast scenes.

Because the state of our planet is the most pressing issue of our time, link up and learn about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.

Wearing my taffeta dress proudly

Bill, Hillary & Me

Bill, Hillary & Me

TURNS OUT the Clintons are not the two-dimensional caricatures they appear to be on the left. The event billed as An Evening With President Bill Clinton and Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver on Thursday humanized an ordinary couple who achieved the extraordinary. They spoke of everything from their relationship to this peculiar time in history when two plus two is not necessarily four.

The president’s hands had a slight tremor. His normally smooth southern accent sounded gravelly, perhaps due to age or some undisclosed ailment, but his ideas were sound and he had interesting tales to tell. You can check the Clinton Foundation to see what he and she are mostly up to nowadays.

Hillary was composed, thoughtful, humourous, confident but concerned about the unstable turn democracy has taken and how hate and untruths are magnified on social media. When asked about the key issue of our time she put the environment on top. Infrastructure and all humanity does from this moment on must have clean air and water components. The president offered hope that humans will cooperate the way ants, termites and bees do to fix problems ... once the instinct to survive kicks in.

The pair looked small from my vantage point but their larger than life status was not diminished inside the well of a stage set up to look like a living room within the huge arena. Before they arrived pictures of their lives were displayed on the screen. Not surprisingly, my favourite was the one of Hillary under an umbrella.

See OUR WORLD to explore sights from around the globe.

Still the kid I used to be

Visit Postcards From Penelope Puddle and Penelope Puddlisms: BC Life Is A Whale Of A Ride to view more West Coast scenes.

Because the state of our planet is the most pressing issue of our time, link up and learn about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.