THE TREETOPS STUDIOS - SAANICHTON

NEWS FROM THE TREETOPS STUDIOS - 2005

31 December, 2005

Autumn Lights   

By now you must have realized that we take lots of pictures. Most are reference shots, some get used in shows and other promotions, a few get put up here in the Studio News, and a very few have made it to gallery walls. The Studio's own photo archive actually goes back 70 years. We have John's father's negatives and prints that reach back to his boyhood around Kelowna in the 1930's.

The past autumn has been great for photography. There have been fewer storms than usual, more clear bright days and lots of cool crisp nights. The trees have put up some of the best autumn colours in years. Not up to the brilliant reds, yellows and golds of the Ottawa Valley, but a great show of the siennas, golds and bronzes that are the natural tones on the south Island. And with less wind the leaves hung on, literally, for weeks. On our regular walks John photographs the ornamental plum, below left, for its bare branches and trunk in mid winter and for the blossoms in the early spring. This display of bronze and sienna was a rare treat.

Sometimes we don't even have to go for the walk when the lights are this good. The image on the right above is the late autumn display on the wild cherry that grows in Graham Creek ravine twenty feet back from our sun deck. (You see why we are The Treetops Studios. John's design workstation is almost in those treetops.) Behind the cherry are the mossy, white trunks of a stand of maples farther down the ravine. Behind the maples, a screen of red cedars grows at the bottom of the ravine beside the creek. In the summer the sun can't get down into this part of the ravine. In the autumn the leaves thin out and the low, slanting, sunlight and the returning rains bring the mosses back to life. This year the leaves on the wild cherry held on long enough to make one of those Group of Seven screens across an illuminated backdrop. Definitely a 'paintable'. John collected about a hundred images over three days of shooting.      Top

New Wraps   Here are some more of Elaine's new designs. The image on the left below should prove that the 'Shrug' is not just something that older ladies wear when they are all tucked up reading in bed. But, this is definitely a shrug. It is designed to keep bare arms and shoulders warm on cooler evenings, too cool for our gossamer wraps but not cold enough for a shawl or cape. This model drapes to cover to mid-back and mid-forearm.

The pale blue fabric and the studio pieced and quilted accent cuffs, in batik cotton and silk, are intended to complement a colourful silk or cotton print evening dress. Other combinations of colours, textures and accent are certainly possible. Your custom wardrobe is our best product. So Contact Us. Bring in 'the dress' you are going to wear for 'the occasion'. We'll design and produce 'the fabric' and knit 'the wrap' that says who you are.

The light weight brown poncho on the right above is a textured knit in a soft wool blend. It is bit heavier than its partner on the left and intended for indoor-outdoor or travel wear. The original design was for a medium length one-panel cape. Elaine reworked the design for greater convenience in shops and vehicles. The front, normally open in our cape designs, has been closed. However, the front edges could be left open and finished with crocheted looped bands. Then a decorative cord, bold or subtle to suit your fancy, could be threaded through some or all of the loops to convert the garment from a shawl to a cape as the occasion suggested. In this case Elaine has used a classic white stripes decoration to accent the flair of the garment.    Top

Autumn Shows   This autumn's shows and Christmas fairs were our best ever. The big items in Elaine's new lines drew lots of attention. One customer paused for the camera in both the West Coast Two tweed look vest and in the new ruana.

Usually John does not participate in the craft fairs and the Christmas season shows. (Unless we count 'load the van, unload the van, set up the racks, ....' sorts of participation.) For at least the past seven years his work outside the studio has been almost entirely on commission or as demonstration pieces for guild shows. Nevertheless, by the time of the last show Elaine was running low on stock. So, three sculptural bowls went onto the tables. And went off the tables in a few hours. We must be on to something there. Or maybe we set the prices far too low. Either way, he is working on designs for his own 'new line' of food safe sculptural bowls and table centrepieces for the 2006 season.    Top

Restoring a Table Throw   Yes, I know that I said that we do not do restorations. But then along came this heritage table throw ...  . The owner has a photograph of it covering the table at a 1942 wedding in the Swedish community in Calgary. The bride, the present owner's mother, and groom are about to cut their wedding cake.

The throw is a true heirloom, hand worked over months or years in cotton. It measures 57 inches by 85 inches, ample space to set a dozen conformable places at a broad old-fashioned table. There are 336 of the larger rosettes. In the days of big families, limited resources and poor lighting it represented a large investment on the part of the women in the bride's family. As you can see from the way it lies across our table, the standard problems in a very large crocheted work; tension, spacing and alignment have been avoided by skilled hands.

The restoration involved a delicate cleaning to rinse out the 'greys' and several dozen spot washings to lift off stains without creating white areas. That done, Elaine marked the failed stitches in coloured yarn and sat down for several sessions with the best available lighting. The throw had been well cared for. Most of the damage was ordinary wear and tear, typically due to stress on the crocheted chains linking the large rosettes together. For the most damaged area John helped by redrafting the linkage pattern and a possible order of work from an undamaged area.

We did not know about the photograph of the wedding party while we were finished the restoration. The client arrived to collect the piece with the photograph in hand. But with the work done, Elaine had decided to present the restored table throw to her by spreading it across our - much smaller - dining room table. We put on the two Victorian compote dishes with dried flowers as an accent. The client suffered a mild 'memory moment'. Top

Happy New Year Everyone   Well, there we are folks. It's New Years Day morning. Another good 'old year' at The Treetops Studios expired a few hours ago. Since the 15 November update a long time friend and colleague, and recent leukemia survivor, has retired to the Victoria area. He had come out earlier in the fall, to stay with us while he found a place to settle into. He vowed that he would be back for good before winter struck Ottawa - in time to attend the Stuart McLean concert on Sunday, December 4th. The tickets were for the three o'clock performance and Don arrived on the ten in the morning flight. That's precision work. I keep apologizing to him for the amount of rain we are getting after the glorious autumn he experienced. He keeps mumbling something like; 'It's no' snow!'   

Here is one of the great sunsets we had in that clear weather. Let's think of the old year as having gone out in this fall's blaze of colour rather than the last several days of wind and rain, even if it's 'no' snow'.

And here comes the future. Or at least two small parts of it. This smiling hug is composed of Nicholas and Caitlin, our grandchildren in Ottawa. The picture is from our son Charles. He and his wife, Jacki, are experimenting with their first digital camera. Watch for more images in 2006.

And that seems like a good place to call it a year. The very best wishes from all of us to all of you for 2006. Take care of the those you love and help someone who needs you.  Top

15 November, 2005

The 138th Saanich Fall Fair    Yes folks! We have been at it that long! Not us personally, of course. But raise a glass to The North and South Saanich Agricultural Society. The theme this year was "Hop along to the Saanich Fair", a celebration of bunnies of course. Bunnies are a good choice from the Studio's point of view as it has been a year of experimenting with premium yarns, including angora.

Elaine helps with the needlework division of the Fair's displays. And this year she demonstrated machine knitting again. The Studio also agreed to set up the display at the main entrance to the needlework room. With a lot of angora samples from Dianne Cross at Honeysuckle Studio and Arlene Baart at Arlene's Fashion Knits John laid out the educational display shown above.

The Saanich Fair is one of the turning points in the year at The Treetops Studios. It gives us a chance to show off some of the new things that we have been working on since Christmas. The needlecrafts section of the fair is quite competitive and the comments from our peers, the judges and the public help to keep us on our toes. Here are a few of our new items that attracted attention, and ribbons.

Have you ever wanted something as warm and comfortable as those quilted vests that the hikers wear under their rain shells? But something less dorky than wearing trail boots with your basic black and pearls? Elaine is continuing to develop her casual classics in knit woven fabrics. The vest at the left above is a new design, part of a series that Elaine has christened West Coast Two. The main fabric is a tweed-look, studio-produced, knit weave: a 'heathered' wool laid into a fine wool support. The result is a light weight hearth tone vest that shows a faint sage green shimmer as the wearer moves. The facings were designed by Elaine and our studio associate Heather Corbitt: studio-dyed cotton in earth tones and faint greens to complement the knit weave and then pieced and quilted to shape the vest to the wearer.      Top

The fabric on the right above is a one panel view of our second ruana. The colourway is simpler and cooler than the first ruana. The conception is not as 'arty' as the first ruana but it still got the approval of the fair judges.

Just off to the lower right of the ruana illustration above you can see a 'something blue' and another first place ribbon. The illustration below does it more justice. It's one of a line of decorative cushion covers that Elaine has been working on through the early part of the year. Her aim is to create small accent pieces that will add interest to a room decorated in soft colours and woodtones - most of the rooms in our home - without becoming a distraction. The prominent button band is an accent within an accent - if that is possible. The cushion covers were also produced in a warm red colour for other decorating schemes as well. And, for the record, that is another first place ribbon.

The image on the right above is a 'one-off' sweater and bottoms combination for a toddler. In classic navy blue and a white chequered band it is clearly intended for a boy - for our most recent grandson, Jason John, of course. It got another of Elaine's seven ribbons at the fair this year. (Is that a comment on the times we live in? The girls have to go to the fair to get their own ribbons now.) The set will go off to JJ in the Christmas box to Bowmanville next month. But don't tell him. We want it to be a surprise.    Top

Lost, Stolen or Strayed!!!

 

Have you seen this ruana?

At the end of the summer we discovered that it is missing. We're not sure what has happened to it. It had been shown several times at local events here. It may be in the Studio, hiding from us or engaged in a long conversation with the well-tailored bunny. It may have strayed into someone else's stock as a show was packed up. And, even on the Saanich Peninsula, things do get lifted from time to time. If you have it, or see it, or know where it is, please Contact Us.    Top

 

 

Restoring an Afghan   Very little of the fabric artistry of the Treetops Studios is devoted to pieces that are 'just for show'. Durability is a design issue. Our products are intended to be worn or to be in daily use in the home, and to look great at the same time of course. In these circumstances, accidents and wear and tear are facts of life. Given the age of many of the items in the Studio's home collection, Elaine does a good bit of repair and restoration in the normal course of things. Elaine curated one show of "Quilts: Old and New" and in another, The Treetops Studios' two contributions were both restored heritage mats that are in daily use in the Studios.

That said, we do not normally accept commissions for restoration work. Then this really interesting afghan appeared. It was knitted entirely in wool, panel by panel, as a set of cream, black and dove grey bands. The 'S' motif was then stitched into the black bands and the floral patterns embroidered over the cream bands. The panels were then assembled into an afghan body, a looped black band crocheted along the ends of the panels and a long fringe knotted through the loops in the crocheted band. The completed afghan is large enough to cover a double bed or the back of a full-sized sofa.

The afghan dates to the middle of the last century. The quality of the knitting, crochet and embroidery is excellent. What caught our eye, however, was the clever illusion created by the way the piece has been worked and assembled. The base knitting is done in a stitch that displays very distinct vertical threads which appear to run from top to bottom on the surface of each panel. At first glance, it looks as if the fabric of the afghan was woven in one piece on a very wide loom. The bands would have been warped in their separate colours. The impression has been created deliberately. The fringes change colour to look like the knotted ends of the warp threads. Then, the width of the assembled afghan and the amount and style of embroidery suggest a woven tapestry technique. John was captured by the image of a large vertical tapestry loom with the whole afghan as a work in progress.

Elaine recognized it as a knitted assembly from the start. The tearout, across two panel ends and their fringing, was the obvious problem. Fortunately, the owner has a small cushion cover worked in the same pattern and in yarns similar to the afghan. She was willing to sacrifice it for the sake of the larger piece. Rather than attempt to pick up all the broken ends around the tearout and, in effect, darn the work back together, Elaine decided to cut away most of the damaged area and insert a patch, made up of pieces cut from two panels in the small cushion cover. That, in turn, involved unpicking the embroidery in the area and then re-embroidering portions of the 'S' motif and the green leaves to complete the patterns to the end of the restored panels. Finally, Elaine picked up the live end of the crocheted band, ran it across the ends of the restored panels and knotted in the missing portions of the fringe.

Along the way Elaine encountered that bane of restoration work, the not so obvious problem. Over the years, the yarns in the afghan had suffered a lot from ordinary stress and wear. Several broken stitches in the middle of panels had to be picked up and darned. The panels themselves had been laced together with a running stitch rather than a knotted lacing. Where the lacing yarn had failed the panels were gradually separating. Lengths of yarn that were unpicked and put aside to be used in the restoration turned out to be so weak that they just pulled apart in her hands. Nevertheless, with patience and a bit more material from the small cushion cover the afghan was stabilized. And, at the end, there was enough left of the cushion cover for it be reformed into a new, if somewhat smaller, cushion.   Top

Sidney Fine Arts Show   The third annual Sidney Fine Arts show was the most successful so far. The number and quality of the submissions continues to increase. As a result, the jurying is becoming more and more stringent. Elaine did not enter this year. John sent a small ink and watercolour piece to the jury but did not make the cut. So sad. Next year.

Elaine and John volunteered at the show. John designed both the jurying layout and the final show layout. This year the show moved to commercial modular display units, away from the wood frame and pegboard modules of the previous shows. That, plus continued improvements to the lighting in the main hall at the Mary Winspear Centre, allowed him to design a sense of space into a large and very well-attended event. Enough space to tie up our symbolic 'show boat', the reminder that the show's host town, Sidney, is still a small working seaport.   Top

15 August, 2005

Knitting Out    The annual Saxe Point 'Knit-Out' by the Victoria Knitters' Guild was 12 June this year. Elaine set up as a demonstrator for machine knitting and showed off some of the knit wares the Treetops Studios produces. Once again the Point was breezy and the day a bit overcast.

The demonstrators and vendors are set up, in the shade and out of the wind, behind the hedge in the left picture above. The conditions were not great for photography. But, a flowering border had started to bloom out of a cover crop of lamb's ear. There was just enough light for a good image and the composition suggests a painting. A good day for all, and lots of public interest.    Top

July is to Dye For   We started planning a dyers' month early in the New Year. Elaine has been knitting off a lot of trial pieces of knit-lace fabric in fine white cotton yarn. She had done a bit of dying at the 2004 Designer Retreat at Rancho Santa Fe. And she had spent a day painting with dyes on cotton at our Associate, Heather Corbitt's studio. John has an interest in indigo dying, partly because the deep, cool blues and blue-greens are traditional backgrounds for design work in the decorative and the fabric arts. There is much more to indigo than blue denim.

Now, you can deduce several things from the image on the right. The least important is that we save all those white plastic food containers just for occasions like this. They are great for mixing dyes, paints, stains, and other chemicals, rinsing small objects, etc., etc. Since they are moisture, stain and vermin proof a lot of things get stored away in them too. They work in the freezer and, with a little caution, in the microwave. And they are free and easily disposed of when their lives are finished. Build up a small stock of various shapes and volumes. Write on them with a Sharpie®.    Top

Far more importantly, you can see that Elaine is painting with the dye mixes. Some of the cotton scarves were dyed to a soft golden brown and then painted. But most were used in their original white and then painted with the colours available from a standard red, yellow and blue palette. We get our dyestuffs, Procion MX in this case, in bulk from Opulence Silks & Dyes in North Vancouver. The big swatch card with the colours from simple 1:2:3 portion mixes are on the wall at the upper right of the image. John did the premixing and made up the swatch card for ready reference. And since that window lets in the afternoon sunshine there was no lack of natural light.

Elaine knitted the cotton test pieces on the Brother 970. The patterns were standard knit-lace designs that come with the knitting machine. In the case of the test piece shown in the image on the left, the pattern suggested a 'flowers in a row' motif. Elaine chose a colourway of greens, browns and bright primaries.

The dye sessions were a great success. The plastic sheeting on the wall behind the work table, Elaine's gloves and apron and lots of room to work kept the mess under control. Six of the test samples that Elaine produced were up to Studio show standards. And, the powerful interaction of lace patterning and motif dying on light weight cotton fabrics led to several 'out of the box' what-if sessions in the summer studio coffee breaks. (There is a door just out of view beyond Elaine's left shoulder. That door leads onto a small pavée set among our kitchen garden plots. Saanichton summers are bright but not oppressive and there is usually a downslope breeze there. Two comfortable chairs, a big folding sun umbrella, something cool to drink and a few biscuits ....)     Top

Artisans 2005   The Community Arts Council of the Saanich Peninsula took the plunge this summer and extended its 'Artisans Show and Sale' by two weeks to cover the four weeks from mid-July to mid-August and more than doubled the floor space taken up in the Mary Winspear Cultural Centre. The reward for the Peninsula arts and crafts community was the most successful show of quality crafts and decorative arts in recent years. Over 6000 attended, 80+ artists exhibited.

Elaine did very well. Four of the six dye-painted cotton pieces mentioned above sold during Artisans. Not just content with the experiments in cotton laces, she has been trying out different ways of presenting very loosely knitted wraps and shawls. The yarns have varied from synthetics to fine natural fibres with just enough wool or synthetic in the spin to hold such a loose fabric together. A rack of some of the examples showing at Artisans is at the right. (The rack is part of set of five, designed and produced in The Studio - of course - from surplus yellow cedar. Strong, versatile and very light.)

And John helped with the design and setup of the show - of course.    Top

Gossamer & Clouds   Elaine's experiments with very light and open knits have actually been going forward for two years. The experiment with the fine cotton knit-laces that we used for this summer's July is to Dye For is only one of the lines she has been exploring.

The second line in this year's experiments is just as interesting. Last year Elaine produced a series of light weight shawls and wraps. It turns out that a waist-length to knee-length cape, shawl or wrap can be machine knit as a very loose mesh and still be warm, attractive and stable. The items sold well and the experiment has continued into 2005. The key is the yarn again. The designs work best if the yarn is so loosely spun that the long fibres 'loft' - spreading away from the core of the yarn to fill the spaces in the knit mesh with a soft down. Without the loft, the fabric would look, and feel, like a fishing net. An elegant fishing net, but still a fishing net.

Here are three examples of Elaine's short wraps from the 2005 season. Terms like 'gossamer' and 'light as a cloud' come to mind. Even the largest pieces of fabric weigh only a few ounces. There are technical issues of course. A very attractive, and very lofty, cashmere or angora tends to shed fine fibres on to the surface of the garment it covers. The openness of the knit also lets the colour and texture of the garment worn under the wrap show through, albeit showing through a gossamer mist. The owner of a gossamer-knit wrap has to have a good idea of the ensemble she is going to wear it with.

There are challenges for the designer as well. The gossamer-knit fabric is probably too loose to be cut up and assembled to a pattern - the 'cut to fit' process for knitwear. The alternate is 'knit-to-fit', which is typically more time consuming although less wasteful when higher quality and more expensive yarns are being used. Fortunately, the gossamer wraps are much easier to fit than most of the rest of a wardrobe.

Perhaps you were wondering where Elaine's inspiration comes from. Some ideas are just bolts out of the blue of course. Literally? Well, perhaps. John has been collecting images of cloud formations over the Saanich Peninsula. Does this one look like a very open and misty gossamer fabric? The photograph was taken from the sky directly overhead during one of our 'out-of-the-box' what-if studio coffee breaks this summer.    Top

10 June, 2005

Treasurers & Travelers    John is now the Treasurer of the Community Arts Council of the Saanich Peninsula. It's a fairly arduous job as the Council is the umbrella grouping for the visual, performing and literary arts among the 40,000 strong community up the Saanich Peninsula. And strong is the word. As many as 10% of our households have at least one 'resident artist' or crafts person - from the full time professional with an established international reputation to the middle school student writing her first serious poetry this summer.

But that isn't keeping us from enjoying the late spring on the west coast. Or farther afield, for that matter. We just had to put the new minivan through its paces. The old one had been coast to coast three times and at 160,000km it went off to an honourable retirement - traded in for one just like it but seven years newer. Then the road took us to Edmonton and back. Read on.

Gardom Lake Machine Knitters Retreat 2005   We started this year's retreat with a visit with John's brother Michael and his family in St. Albert, just northwest of Edmonton, Alberta. Then back over the Rogers Pass to the bible camp at Gardom Lake, near Enderby, BC, that we use for the annual retreat. The project for this year's retreat was a 'no-sew' sweater or jacket. Once again, it was a 'good group'. The facilities and meals are excellent, the weather was cooperative and there must have been the best part of a hundred turtles sunning themselves around the pond beside the lodge every day.

And then there was the celebration of it all!

Sandy Lightfoot joined us as the instructor this year. Wife, mother, successful professional designer, doll maker, painter and twenty plus years a machine knitter, Sandy's participation would guarantee a great retreat anytime.

This time was truly special. Six years ago Sandy was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. There aren't too many ways home from there. But Sandy and family and friends and a lot of healthcare workers found one. This retreat was her 'coming back', her first big machine knitting event since being declared cancer free. And Sandy, you did it very well! Here you are demonstrating a point, and probably putting many more hours into the lessons than you should have. We all thank you, and wish you all the best.

If you want to keep up with an artist and a survivor, go to Sandy's Pattern Pantry.    Top

Sketching & Stretching   John goes up to the Gardom Lake Retreat with Elaine even when there are no side trips to Edmonton. There are accommodations for couples and it's a good way to stretch out after the three winter months in the studio. John and Sandy's husband, Fred, helped with some of the heavier chores involved in running a retreat, took photographs, and, sometimes, stretched out in the soft chairs in front of the fireplace with third cups of coffee. But most of the day they were off following their own interests, appearing back in the camp for the evening meal. You meet the nicest people ....

John made his social calls on the Community Arts Councils in Vernon and Salmon Arm and then took out the camera and sketch bag. The weather was excellent. One day was spent in a drive from Enderby to Kelowna and back photographing how the low springtime sun plays on the arid hillsides in the Okanagan region. Another morning was taken up by an old barn on the road into the camp.

The rest of the time went for close up sketching in the bush around the camp itself. With the sun low and bright the sketches concentrated on how the play of light on bark textures helps to model the tree trunks.

SPAC Show 2005   The Saanich Peninsula Arts & Crafts Society held its 53rd annual show on the May Day weekend this year. John designed the general layout and produced the interior signage. Elaine ran a three day demonstration on machine knitting.

John showed a small watercolour, plum blossoms in a decorative Oriental style, which attracted no attention at all. But Elaine showed something totally new from our Studio. We titled it 'Ruana' from the source of the idea in traditional Celtic woolen capes and ponchos. The rest of it is definitely 'out of the box'. 'Ruana' is a mid-thigh length woman's poncho. We started with a dozen different wool blend yarns in varied colours and textures. The blues, greens and earth tones we chose are our first essay in designing with a palette based on the colours we see all about us on 'The Island'.

Elaine knit-wove at the loosest setting on her Brother 970 machine. She set the machine to knit a web of fine cotton onto which she laid the wool blends. As the carriage passes back and forth, knitting the cotton mesh, the woolen yarns are caught up and 'woven' onto one side of the fabric. The photo - 'Ruana' on display at the SPAC Show - does not do justice to the fabric. The observer sees a 'substantial' woolen garment. But, if the fabric is held up to the light, it is almost as open as the loosest practical knit and much stronger and more durable. And the wearer knows that is cool, comfortable and weighs less than two pounds.

The show Jury liked it too. The flash of gold at the neckline is a 'Jurors' Choice For 2005' seal.    Top

'Air Miles Granny'   When we moved out here in 1994 to take care of John's mother we left all of Elaine's family behind in the Ottawa area. We also left our two children 'back east', following their own careers; Angie as an accountant and Charles as a biochemist. John's family are orcharders in the Okanagan Valley, so we regained some friends there and whenever Elaine feels the need she flies back home for a nice long visit. As the time passed the kids followed the jobs trails and won spouses and families of there own. They could easily have ended up on the west coast. But, as it turned out, Angie and Reg and their four are settled in Bowmanville and Charles and Jacki and their pair are back in Ottawa. We find that we drive back east to visit about every second year. And Elaine, aka 'Air Miles Granny', flies out at least once a year as well.

This May's flight took Elaine to the Ottawa area, including joining her family for Mothers' Day, and then off to Bowmanville for the christening of Angie and Reg's Jason John Ball. At a sturdy six months, the most recent grandchild survived the attentions of the assembled adults. As only brides and babies do, he won the day with a smile, or two.

Elaine and JJ are on the left above. Elaine's mother, Yvonne Rouleau, on the right above, is a recognized knitter as well. She and Elaine's father spent a few years near us on The Island. One of her receiving sets has won the rosette as Best Needlework at the Saanich Fair. They are back near Ottawa now but m'mère still sends out a box of knit and crochet goodies for the Christmas season shows.

When we, or just Elaine, are visiting in Bowmanville we stay 'off-site' at the Willow Pond Country Bed & Breakfast out in the open country a few miles north of the town. As it happens, Elaine's visit coincided with their annual promotion, a luncheon and show for local artists. Elaine had been invited to participate after our visit last fall, so a big box of Treetops Studios items had made its separate way to Bowmanville. No sales, sadly, not even an offer for Elaine's plastic travel tea mug - left foreground. But you cannot pass up a chance to show in the Toronto market. With a great venue, a nice pace, lots of new contacts, and good company all round it was great day - and who knows what may come of it. We're at that stage in the life of studio where we are starting to get repeat orders and 'word of mouth' inquiries from well outside our local market.

Serious Painting & 'The Year of the Brush'    Now, what do you suppose John was doing while Elaine was back east? Well, painting of course. Serious painting. The hallways, the stairways and the livingroom. They had not been done over when we first moved in and they deserved a sprucing up.

Meanwhile, down in the studio, the lights are on, the rolls of Western and Oriental practice papers are ready and the reference books are close at hand. John, with lots of help from Andy Lou, has started his 'Year of the Brush' project. The Oriental brush can be a very expressive tool. But it requires patience, determination, a self-critical stance and hours of 'practice, practice, practice ...'. The nearest equivalent may be opening up a volume of Sevcik's studies and taking the cello bow in hand. And, like the bow, the brush does not always do just what you intended. An 'interesting' effect appears and you switch over to the; 'How did I do that?' and 'Can I do it again?' mode. That well-tailored bunny has appeared again and opened a door that you hadn't even noticed was there.

The year has started with brush and ink studies of rocks and trees, a traditional entry point for a Chinese artist. Some of the earliest studies used the material sketched and photographed at Gardom Lake this spring. Here, I am trying to catch the way that the glare of direct sunlight on the bark of birch and poplar trees changes the quality of the visible detail. Success would be to convey both the sooty blue-blacks of the texture of the trunk as well as the far more subtle effects of sunlight and shadow. We're not 'there yet', but it's a hopeful journey.

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15 April, 2005

Springtime and 'Studio Time' in Saanichton    January, February and March are the 'quiet time' here at the Treetops Studios. But after six or eight weeks the rains and wind have let up and the bulbs and flowers are coming out. We start trading our mid-afternoon studio coffee break for a long walk around the village. Or we choose the 'scenic route' when errands take us into town. The digital camera slips into a pocket and off we go. May we share a few moments with you? Our 'picks' for this season are some crocus and a japonica.

Oil Painting With Victor Arcega, Part 2   If you go back to last year's Studio News, you will see that John had started painting in oils with Victor Arcega at the Victoria College of Art. The rest of 2004 was taken up with basic studies in colour and brush handling. For Christmas, Elaine made him another present of eight weeks of intensive work in 2005. This time the sessions were arranged by the Saanich Peninsula Arts & Crafts Society and held in one of the studio spaces at the Saanich Fair Grounds, very close to our studios.

Each Monday morning session opened with a relaxed 30 to 40 minute open critique of work done at home on the previous week's assignment. Then followed a short tutorial by Victor on that morning's topic. By week three the rest of the morning had evolved into a group 'paint in' on each topic with lots of standing back and discussion. As always, with a good teacher, a good group and a good site, a lot more gets learned than is being taught. In a focused environment things like positioning the model, anticipating the movement of light within a room, and the basic routines for getting ideas on to canvas or paper stick in the mind, much like pigment stains hands and aprons. The mornings closed with a short discussion of our 'homework' from this session and preparations for the next week's topic.

John has found that it takes at least of ten, and better twenty, hours of studio time over the following week to get the most out of a good instructor in this sort of tutorial routine. Questions about pigment mixes, brushwork or the influence of underpainting, which could be no more than a fleeting, "What if ...?" during the Monday session become an hour or two of "Well, let's see." back in the studio. As in 2004, every hour on the road reveals more road ahead - and many more of those interesting side paths. But, as an interim report, here are a pair of 'works in progress' from the 2005 sessions.

Quadra Island Retreat 2005   As the weather promises better and better we venture farther afield. For the second weekend in March Elaine and April Mills drove up Island to Campbell River and across on the ferry to Quadra Island for the annual machine knitting retreat. Judging by the smiles below, good times were had by all. (Or is that just squinting at the glare of some unexpected direct sunshine?) The project for this year was a short sleeved pullover, with a focus on variations in finishing the neckline.

Elaine took the digital camera along too. She captured the rural scene below and brought it back to the Studio for our 'Patterns & Paintables' file. I'll probably resist the temptation to replace the small house with some sort of 'rustic' wreck but the steep downslope perspective should be interesting to paint.

JJ, Toddlers and Table Legs    Our latest grandchild is getting on to six months old now. Angie and Reg keep us well stocked with baby pictures and have started to send out the short digital videos that their camera can make. The most recent video ends with JJ (It's really Jason John.) holding several spoonfuls of rice porridge in his mouth. The kids assure us that camera stopped because the memory chip was full, not because it then got sprayed with rice goo. You will pardon my including grandbaby pictures now and then won't you.

And that brings up one of those 'interesting' moments in life. A few days ago, as I turned away from the monitor, I noticed that the late afternoon sunlight was flooding into the dining room and illuminating the usually dark spaces under the table and chairs. (The dining room seems to attract unusual lighting effects. You can see a previous event in our 2003 Studio News.) Now, JJ isn't even crawling yet. But soon he will be. And by his second birthday he should be up and walking, and pretty secure on his feet too.

Now think about the world from the point of view of a toddler. Unless the adults are seated, JJ's view of the world is going to be through a screen of table legs and kneecaps. (Doesn't it make you wonder where the Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven got one of their trademark compositional devices? Take a look at Thomson's Northern River or Lawren Harris' Beaver Swamp.)

A few years ago I chanced upon a group of friends, our age, stopped in conversation in one of the malls up town. The daughter of one of them was present and she, in turn, had a two-year-old standing with her. After a few minutes with the adults I noticed that the toddler was beginning to fidget. Clearly, the affairs of adults were 'way above his head' and much less interesting than all the things he could see just out of reach. One gets bored with kneecaps very quickly. I hunkered down easily into a crouch beside him, prepared to learn some of the important things in his life, like his name and how to pronounce it. But he was a very wise child and experienced in the ways of adults. He knew that when most adults crouch down it is because they have dropped something interesting. He immediately dropped on to all fours and began to search the floor around us. At this point his mother intervened. I never did get his name. So I can't pass it on to the Registrar at Waterloo as a promising candidate for math or computer science - about 2018 perhaps.

And why not a painting taken from the image at the left? A humourous and fairly abstract: "JJ's World"?      Top

10 February, 2005

Starting up 2005 in Saanichton    Welcome back to 'News from The Treetops Studios' - the 2005 edition. (If this is your first visit, the 2003 and 2004 Studio News are in the Archive. Just click on the year.) We have made a few changes to the website setup. You saw the new gateway page on the way in. We just weren't sure that a new visitor could see all the choices:   to check the News, take the Tour or Enter the main site. And since we are starting to put more material up on the main pages we decided to add a What's NEW on the Website? link. It's set up like the Studio News, with the most recent additions at the top of the listing.

Preliminary Show Schedule    The Preliminary Show Schedule is available. It is early days yet and a lot of the details are TBA (To Be Announced) so check back often.

The 'Mats' Show    The Studio has a large collection of heritage craft items. Some of the needlework goes back at least three generations. This year we put two items in the 'Mats' show continuing through February at the museum in the Old Post Office on Beacon Street in Sidney.

In the picture at the left below, the larger of the two rugs folded in half on the rack is a 4x8 foot hooked green and white floral. It is done in wool and is based on a commercial kit. It was started as early as the 1970's by Mrs. Margaret Bury of East Kelowna. After her death it was finished by her sister-in-law, Mrs. Merrill Dendy of Saanichton (John's mother). Both ladies were well-known needlewomen and both the daughters of accomplished embroiderers who immigrated to Canada from Great Britain about 1900. The piece was refurbished at The Studios by Merrill Dendy's daughter-in-law, Elaine Dendy of Saanichton, in the mid-1990's. It has served as a hearth rug for at least 20 years and is presently in the home collection of The Treetops Studios, Saanichton.

The largest of the pieces in the photo on the right above, is 29 inches by 49 inches. This mat, hooked with strips cut from salvaged woolen fabric, is clearly inspired by southwestern American native patterns. The initials MED, those of Mrs. Merrill Dendy (1912-1994) of Saanichton, are hooked into the pattern. No commercial pattern has been recovered but since Mrs. Dendy was an accomplished needlewoman and dressmaker, and a capable weaver, painter and designer, it is possible that she created the design from published references. The piece has been a floor mat for at least 30 years. The woolen surface has held up well but the supporting mesh is becoming brittle. The mat is presently in the home collection of The Treetops Studios, Saanichton.    Top

Contact Us

Elaine Dendy e-laine@shaw.ca
John Oliver Dendy dendy@islandnet.com
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Revised 9 June, 2007