Blue Chisel Prints

*Not* HeronRoad Friday today…

I interrupt my recent Friday programming to show, instead of a linocut from our 2016-2017 meanders through North America, this old one — from our 1986-1988 drive-about through Arizona & California.

The inspiration for this print came from a place we worked at, as newlyweds, in 1987: Wood’s Lodge in Mammoth Lakes, California. There, from April to November, this mountain, Crystal Crag, was our daily view.

My original linocut, finished in 2011 — the year of our 25th wedding anniversary — sold out years ago but it’s still one of my personal favourites. So many wonderful memories are held within it.

Now, I’m delighted to share that this linocut, with such deep meaning for me, was recently chosen for a greeting card by Art Angels, as part of their ‘North-American Series’ and travelled to New York, to be included in the recent ‘Shoppe Object’ show there. (If you swipe through you can see a little piece of the Art Angels lovely display at the show — more images from the show on their page.)

Thank you Art Angels Publishing for choosing this print for this particular group of cards and thank you for making the process so pleasant.

Where is your place of refuge?
The place where you can put your ‘monkey mind’ on pause and, for a little while at least, breathe deeply and let your worries and the world’s madness go.

For me, it’s here, in the wild hills around me, silent except for the songs of birds and maybe the wind dancing through the leaves.
Sometimes, randomly, I walk with a friend, or meet other people and their dogs, and we stop and chat and agree on how much beauty there is in this world.

These hillsides have provided inspiration for at least five other prints already — in truth, I’ve lost count —but I always see something new.
This ten-layer reduction linocut is my latest addition to the set of locally inspired pieces.

So…where do you go…to find peace?

Heron Road Friday…

Another hot day here today and the air & wind carry the smoke of wildfires burning close enough to make the mountains disappear behind a curtain of smoke haze. This morning, as I walked the doggoes, small bits of ash floated around me on the forest trail I was on.
So I’m remembering our stay at the place in this print, one of the very first to sell out: Sleeping Giant Provincial Park; still in northwestern Ontario.

We found some pretty stunning places in the year and half we lived on the road, but there are those that made a deeper mark. This was one of them.

We totally lucked out and got a spot right on the water — when the person who had reserved it had to leave early and offered it to us — and the magic continued from there.
One of those perfect soft summer evenings, kids laughing in the distance, green fluorescent crabs at the shoreline, Roland playing his accordion softly to a small audience gathered round. I still feel it all, even now.

Heron Road Friday…

And, so, Ontario — the province that was home for ten years after we emigrated to Canada. A lifetime ago, really, and most of my memories from those ten years are now just shadows of Toronto and the surrounding area.

Driving through the northern part of Ontario in 2016, I saw the landscape and scenery with new eyes. And it was beautiful.
Even through the sweltering heatwave of that July, Ontario went straight to our hearts. We understood why the Group of Seven were driven to create their works of homage.

This reduction print is inspired by one of the first places we stayed at: Quetico Provincial Park. There, a six km hike to one of the hundreds of lakes Ontario is home to, brought us to a silent sanctuary with small streams of chocolate-coloured water surrounded by trees and silence.

(Available for purchase on my website.)

Heron Road Friday…

Today’s road trip instalment is inspired by Whiteshell Provincial park in Manitoba, where we spent a couple of days. I didn’t base my print on any specific photo but, rather, the mood of a section of the park we tried to explore.

Truth is, we didn’t take a lot photos — we were constantly either hiding in the camper or on the move, trying to outrun millions of mosquitos and other biting things that plagued all us all, despite the heavy duty bug repellent we resorted to.

Stopping, even for more than a few seconds, was peril. A beautiful spot full of huge wild blueberry shrubs? Grab a couple and run on by. Fellow hikers met on the trail? Say ‘hello’ but don’t stop for more than half a minute. Always keep moving.

Never before, or since, did I experience such an onslaught of ravenous insects.

So, kind of a fantasy print, made up of the random impressions from a place in a province that was beautiful to look at but difficult to enjoy.



(Available for purchase on my website.)

Heron Road Friday…

This reduction print is again inspired by Southern Saskatchewan; this time by the Grasslands National Park, right across the border from Montana.

There are two sections, west and east, separated by a few hours drive, and quite different from each other as per the landscape. We stayed at both, hiking for hours through the wild grassy hillsides of one and past the hoodoos of the other, completely alone in the beauty all around us.

The sky was, again, a show-stealer, delivering the spectacular sunset that inspired this print and then, as night fell, a brilliant canopy filled with more stars than I’ve ever seen. Not surprisingly, since the park is the largest dark sky preserve in Canada.

This print is also sold out.

Heron Road Friday…

Southern Saskatchewan.
We met an older woman — her face a map of hardships faced and overcome — at one of those rural gas-station/post-office/grocery-store/drug-store/tire-store places, in one of those tiny prairie towns seemingly in the midst of nowhere. A dot along a country highway.

She said she’d lived in Southern Saskatchewan all her life but did visit British Columbia — my home province — once. Only once. She hated it.
‘Too many mountains; too many trees’, she said. They made her feel claustrophobic and starved for a sight of the sky. She couldn’t wait to get back home to the open sky and prairie.

We are, as Michael Singer writes, the products of our conditioning.

And, in rural southern Saskatchewan, it’s all about the sky. Marvellous and dramatic sky in Canada’s own “big sky country” where the heavens stretch, uninterrupted, all around you and where the clouds feel as if they might drop on you any minute.

This print, sold out now, is still one of my favourites.

Happy Canada Day!

This morning I will not be climbing the hill to the flag pole, as per tradition of years past.
Things change, my climbing partner is gone, the doggies have gotten old and it’s hard for them to climb the steep rocky hillside.
But what has not changed is my love for this country — still so vast and wild in so many places — and my gratitude for the life I have lived here thus far.

Heron Road Friday…

This, the sixth print in the series is, as last week’s was, inspired by Alberta.

We were heading south-east and nearing the Saskatchewan border. Camping in that part of Alberta is scarce as is, and it was the weekend at the start of summer. School was out.

At Kinbrook Island Provincial Park, a small island on a small man-made lake, we were in overflow, basically a parking lot full of huge RVs where, packed in as we were, other campers could look into our windows as we could into theirs.

The redeeming part was the long trail bordered by marshland where, in a birdwatcher’s paradise —over 270 recorded avian species — we walked for hours with white pelicans swooping past us and yellow warblers calling out to us.
There’s usually a golden lining, if you look for it, even when you’re camped in a parking lot.



(Available for purchase on my website.)

Heron Road Friday…

I’m guessing Southern Alberta is probably is now looking similar to when I took the photos I used as reference for this reduction linocut. It was just around this time, in June 2016, that we passed through.

This print, now sold out, is the fifth in my Heron Road series. There isn’t a huge dramatic story behind it. We’d left the Rockies behind us and an empty country road led us to a small private campground: an island in a sea of green. We were allowed to walk through for a while and I thought it was beautiful.