A Visit With Auntie

Patience, Grace, Humour

The work of my Dear, Paul Henderson. He sent me these yesterday. Thank you, Pawl.
And below, Paul and Rose.
We took a Sunday walk around the Victoria inner harbour in February.

BEAN

dear mom,

the lady who stuck those long pointy things in me was really really
nice. turns out she goes to yoga with auntie c. i feel pretty good
right now, good enough to pull stuffing out of tuck's mouse. chew on
a dirty old bone and sniff around outside. right now i'm hangin in a
sunbeam by the fire with trev. he's weird, he thinks he's a dog but
he's clearly not.

love you and miss you but don't worry i'm ok, gettin lots of snugs.

love m.
xxo

ROOM for a BED

My last one, in Montréal which I've been thinking of a lot lately.

I work with bedding in my installations, namely Blankety Blank and May Day.

See Anna Von Mertens exceptional, hand-sewn bed covers and coverlets

My Bed by Tracey Emin

Louise Bourgeois' below, and Seven in a Bed

SNUGS

The Little has endured some intense back pain this week. Tomorrow she flies to the city for acupuncture which will hopefully offer some respite. Auntie Chera will be her guide (Thank you, Chera). She'll see Dr. Helen as well and maybe we can sort out what the trouble is. Helen's guessing severe arthritis as a result of her fenestration surgery in 2006. On some level it seems unfathomable - she's only 3.

(Puppy mills and f'd up breeding aside) we found each other and can wake up in the night together when you've been woken up by pain. There are few things i'm more grateful for than the ability to give you love and words and a piece of roast beef to distract you then.

O Give Me a Little Love More

Borscht and chocolate zucchini cake for a Monday night supper.
And the Beloved Shakers eat apple pie for breakfast.
('Tis Heaven I'm Seeking)

ER, MINE

So, Janice tells me there are plenty of ermine round here, and that she received an ermine pelt as a present not long after she first arrived in Dawson.


A miniature portrait by Henry Hawkins from the late 1800's
of a Miss Vokis wearing a black dress, cameo at her corsage, ermine stole and a spaniel in her lap (peering up at her not unlike Elizabeth's ermine).

A captivating description of an ermine stole from the Powerhouse Museum Collection in Australia (of all places for an ermine to live -or be dead) (an aside: you can actually search for "Day Dresses" in their collection database!) Unfortunately no picture is associated with this record:

H6330
Ermine stole with white satin lining decorated with hand painting of forget-me-not flowers, 1920.

The ermine stole has historically been worn by both women and men (like the live Pantalaimon) ...in the middle ages it was with surcoats -those long overcoats without sleeves that HRH still dons for certain occassions.
Capes and mufflers similar to those in this drawing of 1844 female French costume followed, and of course it was a favorite for encircling crowns (Imperial Margarine) and gowns - -lay, liturgical and royal.

Pope Benedict was recently asked by an Italian animal rights group to stop wearing ermine and other animal fur - "it would be a praiseworthy example of Christian charity".

ERMINE

A few points from some current research on these all white, black-tipped tail creatures of the Siberian tundra and taiga (I wonder if they can be found in the parallel Canadian clime? I'll ask Tao):
The male reaches maturity at 12 mos. The female at 2 mos. Three to 13 young are born each spring/summer with each 'kit' weighing about 1/2 an ounce. The female takes sole responsibility for raising the young and with the exception of this relationship, she's a solitary creature, as is the male. They make several dens to inhabit rather than one, they're capable of standing upright on their hind legs for lengthy periods, they are fierce hunters and diggers and they're often called a Northern Weasel.

Ermines are emblems of purity, and it is said they would face death rather than soil their pristine coats.

Pet ermines were associated with the aristocracy as a result of their furs being acquired and their representation of chastity and virtue. Queen Elizabeth I (the virgin Queen) was painted by Nicholas Hilliard in 1585 as a figure larger than Jabba the Hut, with a little ermine gazing up at her. The Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo daVinci (1479 I think) is a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, a 17-year-old Milanese woman who was the current Duke's mistress. Of course, she's holding a white ferret rather than an ermine. I'm not an art historian but I s'pose the weasels were all lumped together in the middle ages, and maybe because the ermine is of Russian origin it wasn't differentiated as belonging to its rightful cultural mythology. o, the ever undervalued Slav (ironically this painting is part of the Czartoryskich Museum collection in Krakov).

And Volga, the demigod of Slavonic (pagan Russian) literature, could shift shape from bird to mouse to ermine. This reminds me of Pantalaimon, Lyra Belacqua's daemon (from Phillip Pullman's, The Northern Lights/The Golden Compass, 1995) who often took the form of an ermine while he and Lyra were in the North, curling round her neck to keep her warm.
A daemon (pronounced demon) is a person's soul which lives outside their body and takes an animal form. In childhood one's daemon changes shape to assume all the forms of that person's potential. As one ages her daemon eventually chooses one form that illustrates her nature.

(Charles thinks I'm a bat).

Happy Int'l Women's Day To My Best Ladies

Mum, Mavis, Angelique, Chera, Kendra, Janice, Sonja, Shary.
Misses + Kisses.

Ski Jackets

I won't bore you with details, suffice to say this week was super cruddy on most fronts.
BUT
this picture from Chera was the prefect remedy. Thank you, Cher. I LOVE THIS more than words can say.

Breakfast

crepes.
with Janice, Shelby, Ollie, Cher, Scott, Mindy and Wayne.
i'm a little behind ...have yet to finish the Vic trip but couldn't wait to post these -
1. Remains of cream and fruit bowls
2. Mindy and Chera

Queenswood

The Sisters of Ste Anne Residence where I stayed in Victoria.

Running

I found this recently while rooting through some things from my last trip to Holland.
It was pinned up in the bathroom where I was living in Eindhoven.

The Wicked Witch of the West

Children's

Hooks
- for museum tours (also at the RBCM)
I had a multiplication chart in exactly this colour in my studio in Calgary, probably also in the ubiquitous Helvetica.

Brings to mind the Children's cubby and reasons to love it:
- compartmentalisation
- organisation
- SCALE
There are companies still making the same style since 1905.

Furnishings:
a little double desk from Bianca and Family