Weather Worries

Last Monday I had a demo to do at the Port Moody Art Association, and we were being threatened with snow. While not a huge deal, if the Lower Mainland gets snow, then where we are (up on a hill in Burnaby) and where I was headed to, I would go through a few spots where snow would definitely be accumulating. The rest of Canada always scoffs at the West Coast for our complete lack of ability to drive in the white stuff, and while they aren't wrong, a significant factor they tend to ignore is that we don't have the snow removal budget or man-power that they do. Plus, we have LOTS of significant hills, something at least not an issue in the Prairies.

Anyhow, there was little snow, but TONS of rain. There were a dedicated group of about 30 people who showed up for the demo (thanks everyone who braved the weather!), and I think the demo went well. Of course, I'm still having issues with Speedball inks drying on the Plexi, but until I find something I can use as an alternative, I just have to keep cleaning & re-brayering. So here are some photos from the demo, and one of the prints that I did as part of the demo (rainbow roll & reduction all in one!)

Discussing carving tools & carving the block

Preparing the rainbow roll

Burnishing the paper to transfer the ink

Reduction & rainbow roll techniques combined

Our Black, White & Red, Revisited exhibition for the Printmakers Only Group was kind of a flop, but it looked so good! We all arrived on Friday to set up, and discussions about the weather forecast were uppermost in our conversations. We were due to have at least 15cm of snow fall but more like 20-40cm. We got the latter, if not more, over the entire weekend. We had a few bodies arrive and even purchase work early on the Saturday, but by lunch-time, the snow was flying fast and furious. So here are some photos from the thwarted exhibition (we had to wait until Monday to pick up our work, as no one was traveling on the Sunday, and few people could even get out onto the roads, which were not especially clear).

From our "theme" room

Beverlee McLeod's "Fish Farm" monoprint
body printed from plastic stencil wrapped in masking tape,
gelatin prints for the little fishes,
woven thread "net" containing the little fishes within the body, mounted on black paper

Patrick Hill Ladybug stone lithograph

Some of the POG crew at the show in the "secondary" room
guest Marilyn Dyer, POGers Susan Law, Bev Koski-Cooper & Mary Oscar

guest Marilyn Dyer & me with a couple of my block prints

So getting home from the show was a bit of a nightmare. A trip that should have taken a little over half an hour was a two and a half hour ordeal. You can see why:


And this was our truck after about 14" of snow over less than 24 hours:

As I sat here drafting this post, our power crashed. So it's been two solid days without power, which means, here at my Mom's, no flushing toilets, no running water, to go with the no lights, no computer, no TV. We finally had power restored this morning. Following the heavy snowfall, we had a "pineapple express" roar through, with I don't know how much rain, but a heck of a lot. Of course, on top of all of that snow, which resulted in this:

View of Cowichan Bay flooding courtesy of Beverlee McLeod