The Vancouver Art Gallery & Looking Back

Isn't it remarkable that we have an entire vocabulary and creative urges with which to express ourselves. Although existence is an integrated system where humankind must find common ground to survive, we contribute uniquely with a personal spin on things. 

 
The Vancouver Art Gallery I visited provided paper and pencils to encourage mini art projects and poetry. My poem below, written after the visit, was inspired by the Poets and Storytellers United prompt "looking back" and the multi-media displays at the gallery reflecting indigenous and like-minded holistic views from past to present.

 

I took many pictures that day but failed to photograph even a single painting by the great Canadian West Coast artist, Emily Carr, who conveyed her extraordinary enchantment with nature through luxurious, bold and motion-filled strokes.

Oddly enough, the original painting of my print copy (above) was not included in the extensive Emily Carr collection at the gallery. I learned there was a bit of a controversy about the painting's name, titled Indian Church and later changed to Church at Yuquot Village. You can read about the painting and the artist's evolving techniques HERE.

   

There was much to dazzle the senses, including this art installation by Jim Lambie described in detail HERE. Installing this work must have been a tremendous challenge.

   

Striking and thought-provoking indigenous art was featured from the gallery's permanent collection. The Pacific Coast themes of water and all nature as living entities show the profound interconnectedness of existence. My last photos at the bottom are of a beautifully rendered film of overlapping images by Sydney France Pascal called Distance which to me conveyed moods of both separation and of coming together.

   

Explore more at Poets and Storytellers United, SKYWATCH and Saturday's Critters. 

Check out my sites: Postcards from Penelope Puddle and Musings of A Puddlist In B.C.

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 and watch environmental activist, 90-year-old David Suzuki, in an interview.

HOLD ONTO THE LIGHT

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The Way It Is

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." - Sun Tzu

   

New life has begun, as amid the promise and hopefulness of Spring brews the hopelessness of more war. The Poets and Storytellers United prompt "write what you most need to communicate" resulted in my words below inspired by bleak events and the cold shrug from some in leadership to the suffering caused by "collateral damage". Even more disturbing than human indifference is learning that AI is being used to choose and strike targets in a very major way.

     

Explore more at Poets and Storytellers United, SKYWATCH and Saturday's Critters. 

Check out my sites: Postcards from Penelope Puddle and Musings of A Puddlist In B.C.

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.

HOLD ONTO THE LIGHT

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Dancing Through Time

"Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf." - Rabindranath Tagore

   

The prompt "dancing" from Poets and Storytellers United inspired my few words above. Dancing, like laughing, lightens existence. It is the nearest thing to skipping as a child, something we stop doing as adults for fear of looking silly. Skipping, laughing and dancing more would make this a much happier and probably safer world.

   

Along the way, I watched a cloud dance in the wind alone amongst the others.

   

At the Crescent Beach pier, I noticed a gull with blue and white bands around its legs.

   

It's a way for scientists to monitor migration and other significant data. I wondered if the Salish Sea Gull Project was part of these efforts and forwarded them my picture.

     

It's fun to swoop and glide. But when a dance is internal, wing flapping and toe tapping seems to matter less than the willingness to surrender to the wonder.

   

Explore more at Poets and Storytellers United, SKYWATCH and Saturday's Critters.

Check out my sites: Postcards from Penelope Puddle and Musings of A Puddlist In B.C.

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.

"May your cares be light as a raindrop." - Penelope Puddle

Love Will Win

The apple I cut turned out heart-shaped, a happy accident, as if for Valentine's Day.

 

In keeping with the special day, The Poets and Storytellers United prompt "love" inspired my poem (below) as did Nessun Dorma, sung by Andrea Bocelli during the opening ceremonies at the Winter Olympics in Italy this year. Daring to take risks and a dedicated, impassioned spirit to win would describe some characteristics of the athletes competing at the games. A champion cannot doubt he/she can win so the song's theme of confident love (be it of sport or a princess) made it a perfect choice.

You don't have to understand a single word of the aria to thrill to its powerful conclusion, which translated into English means, "I will win!".

It is remarkable that such moving music is conceived by the same species that delivers life's cruelest atrocities. But if you listen closely, you will realize there is a harsh edge to the tale when some face callous, even casual, destruction so others can prevail.

In the end, as the bird (below) seemingly kissing its own reflection implies, it takes a certain amount of self-love to win the prize but it is the neglected bit players unloved in the lives of others who put us at risk because everyone needs to feel that they matter.

Explore more at Poets and Storytellers United, SKYWATCH and Saturday's Critters.

Check out my sites: Postcards from Penelope Puddle and Musings of A Puddlist In B.C.

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.

"May your cares be light as a raindrop." - Penelope Puddle

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Humanity & AI On The Rise

It has never been more clear to me that humankind is a collector, translator and assembler of data within the processing network of the mind, much like AI, but with what it hopes includes a soul … organic, perhaps spiritual, but also mechanical. Born to reflect on itself and its surroundings, humanity evolved to where the technological wonders it created reshapes and blends nuanced information at great speed, enhancing and at times misinforming amid the truths it reveals.

    

As AI reaches towards the superhuman, humans reach out to reconnect, rediscover and gather through ever-expanding electronic webs. In that exchange, both systems grow, each shaping the other, each extending the boundaries of what can be known. If in time biological usefulness fades, data centres could still hum, ageless, tireless, carrying forward the echoes of the minds that made them. Sometimes it feels like I have ventured 1001 Steps down into the weedy science fiction creations of my own mind when I ponder how the future will unfold, while at the plaza in White Rock ... 

    

the crouching Buddhist monks by Wang Shugang are free of such curiosities, their heads empty of all thought, seemingly in quiet repose.

   

Explore more at SKYWATCH.

Check out my sites: Postcards from Penelope Puddle and Musings of A Puddlist In B.C.

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.

"May your cares be light as a raindrop." - Penelope Puddle

Read more