da · vinci · journals

Well, the confounded infernal combustion machines have begun their thunder and clunk at my window, at 7a this morning; Who knows what they're deconstructing now?

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Here the Crows Have It! ~ (first, allow me to offer the following poem about another natural occurrence similar to construction equipment outside my window) CROWS :
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"A Far Cry From Africa" ~ inverted pencil drawing by Lucan Charchuk
See also "A Far Cry From Africa"
http://beauxdesarts.livejournal.com/6677.html
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CROWS !!!
There you have it,
The crows have it!
They bitch and bawl,
Crow and caw,
From atop of every gable and wall,
Trash bin,
Fence and log,
Treetop and crows nest; Pterodactyl call,
They herald yet another dawn; Yawn… a gathering of crows
Yammer and yawl!
Caw, caw, caw!
It’s enough to drive anyone servile
It weakens their victims; we cringe –
A gang of crows, are plotting a murder
They are casing the neighbourhood
Looking for clues, in piles of refuse,
Gathering trinkets for their roost
Thereon begins
The scavenger-kill; Crows,
Swoop, fell and strike!
Shadow on victim
Bordering on
Aggravated assault.
Claw your hair, peck your eyes out!
The crows, The Caws!!!
Crows ~ Lucan Charchuk Art 2005
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Crows by the Gothic Archies ~ Rapscallions rap scat!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AWgssRWMD6o

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This is the first day I am awake without pressure of task and deadline, heading into next week, which I perceive will be challenging. The more we play with others, the more song and dance there is. So I will take this time to begin a response to your (Norm's) knock-knock invitation, "What are Canadian values and why do we value them?"
See Also Spirit of Place ~ The Great Canadian Landscape
http://beauxdesarts.livejournal.com/6515.html
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Take me to Odessa on the tongue of the Black Sea, lapping at the waves on the shores of her femininity...
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Contempt for Potemkin ~ Remember the Battleship?
"It isn't so much a port as a chic, unique, cosmopolitan mix of beauties and beasts..."
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"Don't pretend," she says. "We are the best-looking girls in the world and you know why? Potemkin!"
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"What's it got to do with him?"
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"When Potemkin conquered these lands from 1783 to 1791," she replies, "he found them almost empty and embarked on one of the biggest campaigns of settlement and cultivation ever since before the railways opened up the American West, attracting settlers from Germany to Corsica, England to Sweden. That's why the girls here are so fine – Potemkin's diversity!"

Sailors From The Battleship Potemkin/ Workers From the Railway Station/ Odessa Angels
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Take me to Odessa on the tongue of the Black Sea, lapping at the waves on the shores of her femininity...

http://www.odessaglobe.com/publication-en.php?id=194
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Speak to me of days gone by and equanimity! Then Atlas shrugged...

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In the Lion's hollow jaw, the women were swept out to sea...

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Odessa Street ~ Odessa By the Sea


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The Battleship Potemkin (1905) ~ Sergei Eisenstein (1925)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_Potemkin_uprising
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Bungalow/1204/potemkin.htm
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not so romantic anymore...

"Ship in Odessa Harbour" 1852, Ivan Aivazovskiy (1817-1900)
http://www.russianpaintings.net/doc.vphp?id=738

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Odessa's shipping port - nothing is sacred these days

Crimes of the Heart in Crimea...
http://odessa.russian-women.net/

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The Problem ~ Rising Sex Tourism
KIEV, Ukraine -- Students from several universities dressed as prostitutes to draw attention to a problem many Ukrainians say is tarnishing their country.

Protesters hold posters and watch a performance during a demonstration in central Kiev, July 30, 2008. Demonstrators of an organisation Femen called to denounce the notion of sex tourism in the country.

"We are not for sale:" a group of Ukrainian women gathered in central Kiev to protest against the country's burgeoning sex tourism industry.

The women - students from several universities - dressed as prostitutes to draw attention to a problem many Ukrainians say is tarnishing their country.

"Lots of foreigners come here for sex, and to put it bluntly sex tours are now being sold. We don't want our country to become a big brothel. It's a shame and it's shameful," says one of the protestors.

Prostitution is illegal but widespread and largely ignored by the government.

Ukrainian police estimate there are approximately 12,000 prostitutes in Ukraine, with 4,000 working in Kiev alone.

The former Soviet republic may lag far behind Thailand on the list of sex tourists' favourite destinations, but it's moving up - thanks in part to the easing of visa restrictions on American and European Union citizens.

Ukraine is one of the largest exporters of women to the international sex industry - a damning statistic.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, almost half a million Ukrainian women have been trafficked into sexual slavery abroad - and now increasingly at home as well.

Source: News Radio 600
http://blog.kievukraine.info/2008_08_01_archive.html

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The Solution ~ Students Protest Ukraine's Sex Tourism Industry
KIEV, Ukraine -- Good -looking women can be a country’s greatest attraction and biggest problem – at the same time. This seems to be the case in Ukraine, which is becoming a prime European destination for sex tourists.

Protesters hold posters and watch a performance during a demonstration in central Kiev, July 30, 2008. Demonstrators of an organisation Femen called to denounce the notion of sex tourism in the country.

Eight skimpily clad female college students held placards reading “Ukraine is Not a Bordello” in many languages on Kyiv’s Independence Square on July 30. They were protesting the advent of increasingly more sex tourists coming to the country.

The 50 -person, awareness- raising show – complete with male ballet dancers acting as pimps in flashy suits – caught the public’s eye and brought the issue to the forefront.

“This is insulting to us [women] and it harms the country’s image since we’re increasingly becoming a country of destination for tourists whose sole purpose is to have sex with our women,” said Anna Hutsol, the leader of FEMEN, a loose- knit women’s movement of mostly female students who organized the provocative demonstration.

“We take this issue very seriously. We are pushing for legislation to forbid sex tourists from entering the country. We are sick of men looking at us like pieces of meat,” Hutsol added.

Non -governmental organizations like FEMEN are not the only ones who have noticed the new sex tourism boom. Government officials, public relations professionals and those in the entertainment industry are also starting to say something needs to be done to counteract the trend and Ukraine’s image as a haven for sex tourists.

“Ukraine has a competitive advantage, simply put, our women are the best in the world,” said Vasyl Myroshnychenko, a partner at CFC, a strategic communications, government relations and investment consulting firm. “What Ukraine needs to do [to improve its image tainted by corruption, sex tourism and other problems] is to conduct a positive image campaign with systemic, consistent and coordinated support from the top.”

Hutsol says Ukrainian women are already equated with prostitutes abroad – an image that adds headaches to women seeking visas and facing embarassing interviews with foreign embassies.

Some observers attribute the increase of sex tourists to the government’s visa regime relaxation in 2005.

“There’s a definite correlation between the new visa -free regime and visitors to my club, as is true in other places in Kyiv such as, Arena and Avalon,” said Ray McRobbie, director of entertainment and marketing at River Palace, whose night club is reputed for short- term matchmaking.

It is virtually impossible to track the statistics of so called “sexpats” traveling to Ukraine, however.

“The growing amount of sex tourists entering Ukraine has not escaped us, but it is very difficult to measure their numbers,” said Andriy Shenin, an expert at the state tourism administration.

In 2007, 23 million foreigners visited Ukraine, according to the administration, up 22 percent over 2006. The vast majority of foreigners came mainly from former Soviet republics. However, the greatest rise in the numbers was from the European Union and other non -CIS nations. That category showed a 96 per cent rise, or 725,000 more visitors.

Police told Korrespondent, the Kyiv Post’s Russian language sister publication, that some 12,000 prostitutes operate in Ukraine's $700 million sex industry. The figure is comparable to the annual profits of RosUkrEnergo, a Swiss registered intermediary company that supplies Ukraine with gas, but pales in comparison with Thailand’s multi- billion dollar sex industry. The Interior Ministry’s press service said this number is “very high” for Ukraine where prostitution is prohibited under law.

Hutsol said police figures heavily underestimate the situation. Low student stipends and the capital’s high prices are pushing more young women into prostitution, she added.

“Most women I spoke with are ashamed and do this out of poverty but some also do it out of material desire,” Hutsol added.

A 45 -year German businessman who runs a sex tourist web portal says there are too few well- paying jobs for university educated women. “They see luxury cars and houses and they want it now so they either compete for sugar daddies or willingly sell themselves,” he said.

One example he gave was about a smart, open minded recent graduate who works for an insurance company, but who also services VIP clients at a rate of $2,000 per month. He calls it the “I want everything and I want it now” mentality of young women from 19 to 22 years of age. Prices for their services start from $20 for oral sex and can run up to $5,000 per hour for VIP clients, but usually fall in the $100 -$300 range.

The German portal owner said Ukraine’s proximity to Europe and its relatively inexpensive prices makes it a good destination for sex seeking enthusiasts. His site contains 32 sub directories for Kyiv alone billed as “everything you need for a pleasure weekend."

"The girls here are tall and slim, and getting them into bed is easy. Moreover they are fun to party with,” he said.

The party can be booked on line. A two- day sex tour advertised runs $1,250 -$1,600, depending on the type of girl and her English speaking skills. The site offers confidentiality and discreet billing, private cottages outside of Kyiv or apartments in the capital, round -trip transport to Boryspil airport and discounts for longer stays.

Lack of moral values is also cited as a factor driving Ukraine's sex business. Barely legal girls released from state -run orphanages and boarding homes are especially at risk, said Iryna Konchenkova, head of the international non- profit School of Equal Opportunities. Her organization combats child labor, child pornography and trafficking.

“Morals are not instilled at the state operated orphanages. When I speak to the older girls at these institutions, all they talk about are cigarettes, cars and so on without realizing how much they cost or how much they have to work to purchase them,” Konchenkova said.

This materialist approach leads them to prostitution as the fast track to acquiring the things they want, Konchenkova said pointing to street children and rural residents as two other at risk groups because of their low educational levels and lack of parental guidance.

Hutsol is concerned that the Euro 2012 Soccer Championship will bring an influx of male sexpat tourists.

“We are developing an action plan leading to the 2012 cup. We are a fast growing organization with a strong network and so we’ll build on this to hang social billboards on city life which will feature photo sessions with famous people, and partner with other organizations doing similar things to build a strong coalition,” Hutsol added.

Source: Kyiv Post
http://blog.kievukraine.info/2008_08_01_archive.html
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Trip to Odessa by the Sea

Kickin' Down the Cobblestones
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Feeling Groovy...
http://www.deadprogrammer.com/category/odessa-trip
Apartment Dweller
http://mjbiphotojournal.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/glimpses-of-odessa-ukraine/
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Crimes of the Heart in Crimea... I hesitate to think for how these images were paid.
http://odessa.russian-women.net/
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hell's bells elle your one hell of a belle!

she walks in beauty with the night... byron

http://mural.uv.es/mapicas/WalterCrane2.jpg

Naked, you are simple as one of your hands,
smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round:
you have moon-lines, apple-pathways: pablo neruda

"Love is the emblem of eternity: it confounds all notion of time: effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end."

I would like to share with you a drawing, which I feel resonates with the dilemma of the Canada Art Bank to define Canadian culture and multi-culturalism as regards acquisitions. It is a sketch from a life model "Zaineb" from Zimbabwe. In the sketch she is resigned against a wall to some sort of disdain while her hands are transforming into wings in the manner of birds that fly freely around her. Let's call it "A Far Cry From Africa" in honour of the poem of the same name by Derek Walcott (with respect).
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A Far Cry From Africa
by Derek Walcott 1992 nobel prize winner
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A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:
"Waste no compassion on these separate dead!"
Statistics justify and scholars seize
The salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews?
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Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
In a white dust of ibises whose cries
Have wheeled since civilization's dawn
From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
The violence of beast on beast is read
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,
While he calls courage still that native dread
Of the white peace contracted by the dead.
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Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?
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A Far Cry from Africa (1962) ~ Derek Walcott (b. 1930)
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nap/A_Far_Cry_From_Africa_Wallcot.htm
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"A Far Cry From Africa" ~ pencil drawing by Lucan Charchuk

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For instance, I find it ironic that we Canadians idolize native art to the degree of such display as the Bill Reid bronzes at Vancouver airport, representing a "Canadian" face to the world, while our native culture continues to struggle with social issues and displacement; or that we are able to honour art and culture at all given the strife in the world at large.
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'Jade Canoe' (left), or 'Spirit of Haida Gwai' (Haida Gwai meaning islands of the Haida people) it again unravels stories as you voyage around it. The last picture here is of a detail tucked into the rear of the sculpture, the character of 'Mouse Woman' (right). She is the grandmother of the raven, who has been forced to shoulder the blame for many of her wilful misadventures.
Jade Canoe Bill Reid Sculpture, Vancouver Airport/ photo: Martin Goodman
http://martingoodman.com/soyouwanttobeawriter/2006/06/bill-reid-in-vancouver.html
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With the multi-cultural events that are sponsored here in Canada, such as Family Day and Canada Day celebrations, I thought it might stir our thoughts about what it means to be Canadian. I happened across an interesting article in Mwinda magazine, which I am inserting here as images (2 pages)
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The Absence of Color: What everyone needs to know about growing up African or Carribean in multi-cultural Canada... article Mwinda magazine Fall 2008
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*(click images to enlarge)
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It gives us insight into ethnicity from the side of the stranger in a strange land. For instance Charlize Theron is caucasian born in South Africa and the black community loves her for her (visible) diversity! Although the article covers mostly the basics, I found it fairly interesting. I am aware of our diverse multi-culturalism in all levels of Canadian society. So what does any one of us do with that? These are our mythologies, as Paul Simon chants, "... the myth of fingerprints". Some day I may choose to tell mine.
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A Short Portrait of Derek Walcott
Born in 1930 on St. Lucia, an island then belonging to the British Empire, but which became independent in 1979. St. Lucia has a hybrid British/French culture, having alternated as a colony of either England or France across the centuries. Walcott's ancestry is also mixed, with both his maternal and paternal grandmothers being black. His mother was a respected teacher at a Methodist infant school while his father died when Derek was only one year old. Derek Walcott's civil servant father had been an amateur painter, and the son has also devoted much of his grown-up life to painting, not to mention the many references to the great names in art all through his literary works. When growing up in Castries, the capital of St. Lucia, young Walcott attended St. Mary's College where his most important mentor was a painter, Harold Simmons. He soon took an interest in great European artists like Cézanne, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Walcott was a published poet at age 14, a dramatist at 16, In the 1978 play Pantomime, Walcott used only two characters, Robinson and Friday, in an ironic, modernized variation of their personal relationship that takes place on the island of Tobago. In his important, autobiographical collection of poetry, Another Life, 1973, he also speaks about the task of those who first came over the seas to inhabit the American world: "We were blest with a virginal, unpainted world with Adam's task of giving things their names."

A 1969 photo of Derek Walcott painting in Trinidad (left) and a self-portrait (oil on canvas, right) done in 1998.
Photo by Peter Ireson
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"Omeros" ~ The Homeric Works
From his early youth, Walcott had a great interest in both the sea and the Homeric world, calling the latter "an echo in the throat." Comparatively recently, he devoted two works to this subject: Omeros (1990) and The Odyssey - A Stage Version (1993). Omeros is a work divided into one hundred and ninety-two songs, written in a rhythmic blank verse with a richness of poetic metaphors and similes. In the French title, Walcott makes poetic pun in that mer evokes the sense of both "sea" and "mother," and "o" signifies the sound blown through a conch from the sea.

The book cover of "Omeros" (left), using the painting done by Derek Walcott (right).
Copyright © 1990 Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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In Omeros, Homer himself appears in a row of different shapes. He is the blind Greek poet himself, the blind popular poet Seven Seas, the African griot or rhapsodist, the famous American painter Winslow H o m e r (with his paintings from the Atlantic Ocean), Virgil (the Roman counterpart to the Greek poet), and a blind barge-man who turns up on the stairs of the London church St. Martin-in-the-Fields with a manuscript refused by the editors. Even the personalities correspond to the Homeric ones: Philoctete, the wounded archer; Major Plunkett, a contemporary Philoctete; Achilles, here the son of an African slave; Hector, a fisherman; Helen, intentionally made into a very commonplace and approachable young Caribbean woman. Walcott's post-colonial world, a world where many slaves had classic Greek names, in many different ways corresponds to Rome and Greece.
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A Single, Homeless, Circling Satellite: Derek Walcott, 1992 Nobel Literature Laureate
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/articles/mjoberg/index.html

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"What are Canadian values and why do we value them?" ~ The Spirit of Place
I thank my friend Norm for this reference on this gray cloudy day, a poem titled "The Lonely Land" by AJM Smith.
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What happens to the heart and soul of the place of our origin when a wanderer in exile travels to a new land?

I invite you to consider the following journey...
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A.J.M. Smith ~ "The Lonely Land"
Here is reference to an essay about poetry I found on Arthur J. ~ You have to pay to read it all, but it looks insightful.
http://www.bookrags.com/criticism/smith-arthur-james-marshall-1902_5/
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In this intro to his essay Smith makes the comment,
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"… differences there are depend on the genre or the occasion, not on the time of writing…. The different voices and different modes called for by the different occasions should not obscure the underlying unity pervading even the most apparently different poems" ~ AJM Smith
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... my interpretation speaks of the timelessness of poetry, regardless of when it is written. The writings of Sappho two millennia ago can still have resonance today, maybe even more so as we separate ourselves from our lives in a technological nightmare. What makes AJM Smith Canadian? Is it being born in Canada, choosing to live in Canada via immigration, owning property or business in Canada, or like Walt Whitman, simply drifting twixt the demographic shores of diverse geography? I suspect that what makes any of us Canadian is our love of Canada, for Canada, with Canada, in all its majesty. As the title of AJ's poem would suggest, this is a lonely land, with vast expanses of terrain for those who have attempted to traverse it, by other than plane, and even then we get a vague picture of how vast and diverse Canada really is. Imagine the earth! I can't. This kind of consciousness is usually beyond me, except in poetry and also in film.
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THE LONELY LAND
--A.J.M. Smith
Cedar and jagged fir
uplift sharp barbs
against the gray
and cloud-piled sky;
and in the bay
blown spume and windrift
and thin, bitter spray
snap
at the whirling sky;
and the pine trees
lean one way.
A wild duck calls
to her mate,
and ragged
and passionate tones
stagger and fall,
and recover,
and stagger and fall,
on these stones -
are lost
in the lapping of water
on smooth, flat stones.
This is a beauty
of dissonance,
this resonance
of stony strand,
this smoky cry
curled over a black pine
like a broken
and wind-battered branch
when the wind
bends the tops of the pine
like a broken
and wind-battered branch
when the wind
bends the tops of the pines
and curdles the sky
from the north.
This is the beauty
of strength
broken by strength
and still strong
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An excerpt reading from “The Lonely Land”... in it you can experience the longing haunting quality of the voice of the reader as he speaks. This is the sound of the wilderness put to words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZQoAaXcXsw
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Albeit Smith is more of a romantic; in an essay about Smith, DJM Bentley believes Smith considered The Lonely Land to be “too romantic!” Can something be too beautiful or too romantic? AJM wrote in the time of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway, from the lost generation of romantic longings for dramatic adventure and beauty of experience. The haunting passages to me are reminiscent of the silence of the wilderness. The mood of "The Lonely Land" is like a preliminary to a Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," maybe like genesis in the bible, as if to say, 'where did all this natural beauty come from?' with a melancholy longing, smith explains how the "wild duck calls" like the call of a loon as time is lost "lapping in the water." This distinctly reminds me of being out at the lake on a cool summer day, with the breezes that pull, and the call of the wild. He speaks of the silent "smoke cry curled over a black pine", as if the longing is in the silhouette of a tree. It really hits deep in the core to those who may actually have experienced this unique solitude. It is not like sitting in a city apartment meditating to a nature CD. It is much more, tapping the feel of the air, the smells of nature, yes - sounds, but the spectacle! A visual feast for the senses! Even a poem can't convey the experience of the real thing, but it does a good job of hinting at it.
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Not of Things Only, but of Thought: Notes on A. J. M. Smith's Imagistic Poems
http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol11/bentley.htm
A. J. M. Smith's Revisions to His Poems
http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol11/darling.htm
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Spirit of Place ~ Follow the West Wind
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Red Maple, 1914, by A.Y. Jackson/ Westwind, 1916-17, by Thom Thomson
Which brings me to the reference you make to the group of seven stamps honouring the vision of this lonely land. And that is, I believe, what inspired the group of seven, who came to this wilderness as visual pioneers, trying to make sense of what lay before them as a veritable feast. The Acadians deemed it "Arcadie" or paradise. That feast is there in autumn splendour today and in our bountiful harvests. At every turn from every vista, this country shines loud and clear, "I am beauty! I am majesty!" And I don't mean that it simply belonged to 'the queen of e.' or that it is some jewel in the crown of royalty by possession. Our true north is strong and free, only to be tamed by those with the strength and determination to appreciate grandeur. Canada truly is a queen among queens, with realms in her kingdom only god can imagine.
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Lawren Harris pulls at the heartstrings of Canada to personify "the lonely land" not merely as it is seen, but as it is experienced
http://arthistory.heindorffhus.dk/frame-canadagroupseven.htm
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I perceive that this is what is at the root of the vision of the group of seven, which to me is best portrayed by Lawren Harris' austere motion of spirit. Not so much the description of surfaces and textures, but more of the spirit of the land similar in vein to Emily Carr's work. They two paint the loneliness in the silence of pictures loaded with different scenery, one of splendiferous colour. Canada is like a giant artist palette waiting to be captured to snapshots.
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Whereas Emily portrays the ’Spirit of place'. See the following for more Emily;
http://clicks.robertgenn.com/art-aging.php
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Essentially, I think that is what most artists are attempting to capture, 'the spirit of place' as witnessed in the moment of any of the group of seven. They all see and experience different things at a different level. to some it is purely about the majesty of nature, to others nature personified, and to others a reflection on their personal experience with time or place. However, they may come at it from other perspectives, such as object driven figurative narrative, or surface colour textural abstract, or highly recognizable physical features with personal identity such as that depicted in a Robert Bateman illustration even though he also works globally; In his own words, Bateman explains,

"I live on the pacific coast with its mighty forests of Douglas fir, red cedar, hemlock and other trees. However, equally close to our house is a forest of another kind. This is the mighty kelp forest (nereocystis luetkeana - 10' to 100' in length, edible). From my studio I can see, just breaking the surface, the floating bulbs of the bull kelp. When some is broken loose in a storm and washed ashore, it looks like great, translucent, tapered, amber plastic tubes, yards long, with a bulbous end mounted with very long, wavy fronds. High and dry they look sad and stranded but under water they are visually among the most exciting plants in the world, not to mention one of the largest seaweeds. They wave and undulate in constantly changing patterns like a kaleidoscope. The sun glows through them so it seems they are lit from within. They are always graceful. Their rhythms immediately bring to mind masterpieces of 'art nouveau'. I have snorkeled and scuba-dived through and around these kelp forests. It is always as visually thrilling as a visit to an art museum." ~ Robert Bateman
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Ocean Rhapsody ~ Robert Bateman
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Salmon Watch ~ Robert Bateman
http://www.picturethisgallery.com/robert%20bateman.htm
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Even photography that attempts to capture the spirit of place is equally spellbinding as envisioned in the quiet ambitions of Eric Kehler, a Canadian W.R. Photographer whose passion is the Ansel Adams-like thrill of capturing the 'vista'. Many photographers and even more tourists have tried to steal Canada's beauty, but to no avail, because for each glimpse they image, another thousand exist. Yes, this truly is a lonely land, a jewel on this lonely planet afloat in an even lonelier universe.
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Piluk glacier - this view of the glacier and its ice-melt lake was taken during an aerial survey of the region only a few miles north of Vancouver BC on July 12, 2004.
http://www.scenicart.ca/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemid=140
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So, maybe the question this brings up for me is, 'what is loneliness?' or possibly better 'what is lonesomeness?' or even 'who is loneliness?' Is it simply the silence of being? Can I as one single being of human consciousness comprehend nature's vast grandeur? Ruskin spoke of beauty as "grandeur in nature," as if it is somehow part of our imagination evoking great depth of experience. Ruskin also spoke of Turner's paintings in terms of poetry, with the naming of titles such as, "Snow storm - steam boat off a harbor's mouth making signals in shallow water, and going by the lead". I think this is akin to that theology and maybe to the parallel experience that nature is majestic no matter where it is experienced or who is experiencing it.
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Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), Snow storm - steam boat off a harbor's mouth making signals in shallow water, and going by the lead. The author was in this storm on the night the Ariel left Harwich, 1842, oil on canvas; Tate, London, bequeathed by the artist, 1856
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Even in Chinese watercolour landscape, there remains the perception that man, "the little red traveler," is dwarfed by the immensity that surrounds him, in which spirit speaks of nature’s grandeur with simplicity. Maybe this is not so personal or individual of an experience; maybe this is our “common shared experience” in our humanity.
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“Untitled Landscape” by Wu Changan (reminds me of a photo of Piluk Glacier?)
Wu Changan is a retired art professor. He taught Chinese painting for 25 years. Some of his works illustrate the "splashed ink" technique whereby details are added after ink has been randomly splashed on paper, thus transforming the work into an evocative landscape.
http://home.flash.net/~cameron/painting/wuchangan/wuchangan.htm
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In his “Chinese Watercolour,” Seattle Washington photographer Michael Jardine pursues that loneliness that I call spirit of place.
http://www.pbase.com/enthios/image/53545944
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So maybe we are not so much just Canadian (European, Chinese or Russian or Ukrainian or bloody French or British) as we are all humans touched by the beauty and grandeur of nature that (our land) composes in it's spirit of place.
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An art perspective by Lucan Charchuk Art, 2008
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Spirit ~ As Entity

I wish to present this as the first true representation of the spirit of a subject by an artist without archetypal, symbolic or iconic projection by the consciousness of the artist to the subject. The expression is pure in spirit, ie. unadulterated energy in as much as we humans are able to grasp. . .


Self-Portrait, Lucan Charchuk, lukecharchuk@canada.com
I hope you enjoy it !

Hey, I just found this cool web site...
Right-click to open page in new window:

http://teaattrianon.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html
Tea at Trianon
La Belle dans sans merci

IV.
"I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild." ~ John Keats
Right-click to open page in new window:
http://teaattrianon.blogspot.com/2007/05/la-belle-dame-sans-merci.html