A lil beauty and delight

Wisteria vinegar

Roses in the fallow garden

A rose for my bedside. It smells magnificent.

A Proustian sense memory

My brother recently came back from a trip to Japan. He sent me a little package of souvenir gifts he picked up for me while he was there and one of them was a box of incense. He purchased the incense at a stall directly adjacent to a beautiful shrine he visited with an enormous buddha that was cast in bronze in three pieces and then brazed together. This same incense has been burned in this temple for centuries.

I burn incense every day and it is a ritual that I enjoy very much. I find joy in the thought that I am ritualistically filling my home with an ancient scent that has also been ritualistically burned in an ancient Japanese temple for centuries. That, to me is a beautiful thought.

Recently, my enjoyment grew. As soon as I opened the box, I thought the scent was familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Last week I put my finger on it. Before the incense is lit, it smells to me like old spice cologne. And now when I open the box and light up a stick I am transported to dating boys in high school in the nineties and I find that thought very amusing.

Little miracles/simple pleasures/small joys

lilacs

Earlier this morning, I was listening to an episode of the podcast On Being where Krista Tippett was speaking with the writer Ross Gay. The episode is an older one, from 2019, and is called On the Insistence of Joy. In it, Ross Gay was discussing his daily practice of finding joy and the importance of finding pockets of joy during troubling and difficult times. I felt my heart swell in my chest and I knew just what he meant. And I could tell he knew what he was talking about, hailing from Youngstown, Ohio and now living and working in Bloomington, Indiana. Two places, like this one where I live, struck hard by deindustrialization but located on America’s notorious rust belt.

It felt pretty dreamy to be listening to this podcast while walking with Poppy, feeding the crows, and foraging for feral flowers in the fallow garden. The florals I foraged for culinary purposes also looked pretty dreamy when I got home so I did a little photoshoot on the dining table in my living room that doubles as my home studio.

PS - Krista Tippett and Ross Gay were discussing his 2019 book, The Book of Delights. I haven’t read it yet, but I intend to!

A gift of wisteria

I was absolutely delighted to see this wisteria in the fallow garden this morning! This is a flavour I have been wanting to try and my chance has arrived. I’ve already started researching how to use it!

I also love wisteria because I usually see it blooming magnificently in California - the other place where my heart lives. When I saw this wisteria, I thought of a sunny lunch in Sonoma with my brother and sister-in-law (love and miss you both + C.!) in early April at The Girl & The Fig, a cold glass of local rose sipped slowly in the honey sun and figs as promised, served in my salad. On our way to the restaurant we walked by a large, luxurious wisteria sprawling across the front of a historic building, spilling down the left side. I stopped to snap some photos and texted one to a friend.

This memory drew up another memory from my bank: A dazzling day in Napa, fun, surprising, energetic and lively. A tree was dripping peaches onto a front lawn. I picked one up off the ground and inhaled its sun warmed and luscious scent. Took a big bite. My sister-in-law captured the moment with her camera and the woman who owned the house came out to greet us. She told us that her tree was bountiful and we should take as many of her big juicy peaches as we would like.

Years later, just about a year ago now, I wrote a poem about it.

Cucumber tree

Here they are! Yellow magnolia blossoms from the cucumber tree. I plant apped this tree yesterday when I visited the fallow garden and was delighted to discover that it was called a cucumber tree. How very lovely indeed, and the scent is mildly floral, sweet with a hint of melon. I took a bite from a piece of petal and it had a vaguely gingery flavour, not as spicy as the pink magnolias I have tasted. I read online, while doing a little research, that all forms of magnolias are edible and it is possible that magnolias formed a small part of indigenous and then early settler diets on Turtle Island. This particular magnolia is indigenous to Ontario.

I’m not certain what I’m going to do with these magnolia buds yet. I might do a little more research before I decide. The bloom that opened in my dish had petals just slightly ajar when I picked it but yawned open in the warmth of my apartment.

One of my crow friends visited me while I was selecting these blossoms and I startled it away when I fumbled for my camera to snap a pic. I received a “hello’ later on from a crow friend, when I was leaving the fallow garden and had exhausted my supply of crow treats.

I walked home in the rain with a smile.

Elderflowers, food of the gods

I love elderflowers. I love them infused in vinegar and I love them as a simple syrup to be added to fizzy water or in a cocktail or drizzled on a dessert. I stumbled upon the flavour in my early twenties when I randomly bought a bottle of simple syrup to try, attracted as much by the green glass bottle as I was by the name. Floral flavour profiles are one of my top tastes and I am very excited by this elderflower simple syrup. I tried this recipe from love & olive oil, I had a little taste and the flavour is already intense. I’m really looking forward to tasting it again in a few days in a glass of fizzy water!

PS - came across this excellent foraging website a few days ago, thought I would share it here!

Elderflower simple syrup in the making

Spring flavours

I have been watching the red elderberry bushes near my home closely for the past few weeks, anticipating their flowering. I absolutely adore elderflower vinegar and simple syrups and I have been eager to gather some flowers and get started with some spring favourites. Over the weekend I gathered some bunches of elderflowers, still blushing slightly pink here and there, and started a a few batches of elderflower vinegar. While I was at it, I also collected the last of the small spruce tips still wearing their little brown papers and made the tea for a spruce simple syrup. I had a teensy taste of the tea and it tastes great! Very citrusy and flowery, not too resiny or bitter. Very mellow. I think it’s going to make a tasty simple syrup. I wish I had gathered more in time for a jelly!

Gifts from fallow gardens

I have been foraging in a few fallow gardens in a flood plain I visit every day. Flower season has been bearing gorgeous gifts!

Grape hyacinth simple syrup

The Crows

I moved into a neighbourhood late last summer that hosts a murder (or few) of crows. This is active crow country and after I posted a video of numerous crows perched high in a tree in front of my place, cawing their hearts out, my thoughtful friend Leyla sent me this poem about crows by Mary Oliver.

I see them in trees, or on ledges of buildings,
as cheerful as saints, or thieves of the small job
who have been, one more night, successful—
and like all successes, it turns my thoughts to myself.

(An excerpt of Mary Oliver’s Crows)

I have found the crows to be fascinating and full of personality. I have made a daily practice of observing them and befriending them. I read that they will sometimes leave gifts for the people they like and I would be overjoyed if that happened to me one day. A person can dream.

Last fall, before my morning walks with Poppy, I began the practice of filling my coat pocket with freeze dried chicken or salmon dog treats (in a reusable ziplock cause p.u.), and tossing them to the crows I saw while walking my daily route. They grew bold with me quickly and started escorting me home, one crow flying low (at my knee height) alongside me on the road while I walked on the sidewalk with Poppy. I continue to feed the crows, they continue to do this, and I continue to be tickled. They also perch on wires above me and click and caw. They are not shy, they let their presence be known and will sometimes land directly in my path, surprisingly close, and caw their demand for treats. I always oblige because I am delighted that they interact with me. They swoop low over my head and saucily run close to me to snatch up the treats I toss. I am endlessly amused by their funny little struts.

In the winter, I added a verbal cue to my daily crow feeding practice and I began saying “hello hello” every time I handed out a treat. After a few months of this practice, one morning I heard a tiny, high pitched “hello.” My smile most certainly reached from ear to ear that day. Over the course of the winter, I received three “hellos.”

One morning this spring, I was walking with Poppy on my usual route and from way up above me I heard a high pitched “hello,” called over and over again. A man taking out his green bin a few houses down also heard and stopped to look up and see where it was coming from. I was looking around too, and I couldn’t see the crow who was saying hello, but I knew it was for me.

I think I might be getting a reputation in my neighbourhood. And not just with the crows! Hahaha!

Daily Practice

It’s raining here today where I live and it is making me reflect upon my daily practices. It took me a very long time to find daily practices that would work for me, years of trying really. A daily practice is something that I longed for but could never seem to maintain. I suppose this is likely because I was forcing it rather than letting it come naturally to me. Now that I have been able to maintain a daily practice of some sort for several years, I have acquired a few and they have become some of the joys of my life, driving and supporting the peace of my daily rhythm. I have also incorporated my daily dog walks with Poppy into my daily practice. Perhaps this is why, on this rainy day, I feel a little restless postponing our walk, hoping for a clearing, hopeful for a beam of sun. On the days when Poppy’s walks are skipped or delayed, like on the days we were snowed in during the state of emergency in February, she looks at me as if I have committed the ultimate betrayal - tragic, huffing and oh so sad. Poppy doesn’t know it’s hard for me too! Especially on this day when I am waiting for some art supplies to be delivered so I can continue my daily indoor practice! Writing in my journal is my longest standing almost-daily practice, I am a life long journal keeper but now I need more! Physical exercise, emotional exercise and creative/intellectual exercise are the three keys I have discovered for maintaining a peaceful and satisfying daily life!

Colour and California

I was very fortunate to recently spend a month on residency in Santa Monica, California. I had a live/work space one light rail stop from the beach and a bicycle in a colour I love. I spent a tremendous amount of time at the beach and a great deal of time getting to know the city of Santa Monica. I have spent a fair bit of time in California, usually based in Los Angeles with a handful of days spent on the coast, usually Venice. I have a deep love for the Venice/Santa Monica boardwalk and make it a point to spend time there whenever I am in town. It was such a pleasure to base myself near this favourite place for the duration of my trip and visit LA proper instead. I walked, biked and rode the train everywhere I went, carrying a small foraging kit comprised of bonsai shears and pruning shears in a mesh bag. I would collect any botanical material that caught my eye after identifying it with a plant app on my phone. I would then place the mesh bag of botanics in my handbag to process when I returned to my studio.

Some of the inks and anthotypes I made

I processed the botanics I collected into inks. It was conceptually a sort of loose California extension of my Little library of foraged inks projects where I shared my botanical inks with the public in mostly organized spaces and once in the wild. In California I shared my ink with the public in Santa Monica during an open studio for Frieze Art Fair at the beginning of my stay. I shared the inks again at the end of my stay with a group of adults and children who first encountered my work during the Frieze open house and liked it so much they wanted to try it again! The group of about six children and ten adults painted with inks and made anthotypes with the bay door open on a bit of a blustery Santa Monica day. It was a pleasure to share my work with this group and the man who arranged the afternoon gifted me with five beautiful hand picked books focusing on botanical art, concepts, theories and stewardship practices. It was such a thoughtful gift. He also gifted me a cellulose (a type of plastic made from plants) fountain pen and mechanical pencil set from the 1940s. I was so surprised by these unexpected treats!

A gift of books. I found the vintage copy of California Spring Wildflowers at The Last Bookstore, one of my favourite bookstores in LA. I also love Skylight Books, in Los Feliz.

Many people were generous with me while I visited California and I have been telling anyone who will listen how friendly/lovely I find the majority of Californians for years. It is one of the things that keeps on bringing me back there, nearly annually, since 2012 when I went for the first time. This time I was put in contact with an artist called Kim Russo who also collects and processes wild pigments out of her home studio in Topanga Canyon. I was lucky enough to have Kim come for a studio visit with me and then on another day she took me into the mountains of Topanga where we gathered sour grass, oak gall and acorn caps to process into inks.

Sour grass I harvested with Kim in Topanga Canyon ready to be pressed in my flowers press

I also met a number of international artists who were concurrently residents at the arts complex where I was stationed. Cristallina Fischetti is a painter from London who also hosts a weekly podcast called Hype A on which she interviews artists about their artistic practices. Cristallina invited me to be the first guest from the arts complex on her podcast and we had a lovely studio visit followed by an on air conversation about my work and Unama’ki.

It’s good to be back home again in Unama’ki. But I do miss the warmth and proximity to the beach!

This residency was made possible with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.