Widow's Endorphins: Ruffled Feathers: Year of the Rooster

Widow's Endorphins: Ruffled Feathers: Year of the Rooster: The crowing rooster announces the dawn of a new day.  The year is 4714, on the Chinese calendar. The year of the Red Fire Rooster.  Th...

Ruffled Feathers: Year of the Rooster

The crowing rooster announces the dawn of a new day.  The year is 4714, on the Chinese calendar. The year of the Red Fire Rooster.  There will be strutting, ruffled feathers and cock fights on this animal farm we call planet Earth.

Imagine a barnyard rooster, strutting proudly past his hens, his brilliant coloured feathers gleaming in the sunlight, crowing to all, that he is the greatest rooster - 2017 is his year!  In Chinese astrology, those born under the sign of the Rooster are people of action.  They're hard working, industrious, take initiative, are honest, loyal, sociable, and take great care of their appearance.  Rooster people are also known for bravery, and being terrific social organizers.  

They can also be pompous, egocentric braggarts, who love being the centre of attention. They can ruffle feathers by being hurtfully blunt.  They are also prone to acting on impulse, without thinking. When things go wrong, Rooster people are most likely to finger point, fault find and condemn.

The Red Fire Rooster has two elements:  Yin fire sitting on top of metal.  This is a combination that Chinese astrologers say will create tensions, explosions, and wars.  Unlike the Yang fire energy, Yin fire energy is unstable, and flickering.  A spark can start a major fire.  Astrologers point to the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, on a Yin Fire day of a Rooster year, and, to the tragedy of 911, on a Yin Fire day and Yin Fire Rooster month.

Just a note here:  the Chinese government is cracking down on fireworks this New Year, officially saying that it is because of severe air pollution, and the smoke from firecrackers and other fireworks adds to the pollution.  In past years, the fireworks have set off fires.

There is some good news for the Fire Rooster year:  it's a predicted to be a great year for restaurants, and anyone involved in cooking! So get out that family hot sauce recipe, and launch your business! Expect technological advancements this year.  It is also a great year for those in the beauty and fashion industry - the Rooster Year is all about preening, and looking good!

This is a year when the chickens come home to roost, a time when everyone gets what they deserve. Success will be the result of previous years' hard work and patience, not luck. 

While this is not a new era, it is a time when new ideas are coming into being.  The word, "computer" first appeared in 1897, which was a Red Fire Rooster year.  

While there may be a lot of doom and gloom in this year's predictions, don't be such a chicken!  This is your rooster wake up call!  Be confident (like the Rooster), motivated (like the Rooster), brave (like the Rooster), honest (like the Rooster), trustworthy and loyal (like the Rooster), and sociable (like the Rooster).  Work hard and be patient, and success will come your way. 

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated

That's an old (though not yet vintage) wooden rooster posing with a bouquet of flaming orange-red parrot tulips and yellow spider chrysanthemums. 

Widow's Endorphins: Chihuly, Pearls and a Coral Peony

Widow's Endorphins: Chihuly, Pearls and a Coral Peony: "Glass itself is so much like water", says internationally renowned glass sculptor, Dale Chihuly.  "If you let it ...

Chihuly, Pearls and a Coral Peony

"Glass itself is so much like water", says internationally renowned glass sculptor, Dale Chihuly.  "If you let it go on its own, it almost ends up looking like something that came from the sea."  Born in the Pacific Northwest city of Tacoma, Washington, he now lives and works on Seattle's Lake Union. The sea is a powerful influence on his work.

Chihuly is one of my favourite artists.  His work takes my breath away.  I was blessed to see his exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), here in Toronto, before it closed earlier this month.  In the quiet darkness of the gallery, I felt as though I was swimming underwater, through seaweed gardens, and pearly glass shells.  On that cold Winter day, the vibrant colour of the glass, and the energy of each form was both rejuvenating, and evocative of my own childhood and youth on the Pacific coast.

Dale Chihuly's early years in Tacoma, were spent on the beaches of Puget Sound, with a glorious view of Mount Rainier. He has wonderful memories of gathering sea glass, and finding broken pieces of Japanese glass floats washed up on the shore.

Curiously, he loves the Westcoast rain.  "I find the rain very creative.  Water is the one thing that I can assure you is a major influence on my work and my life and everything I do."  He says that when he's stuck creatively, just by being near the water, "something will start to happen".

The sea is also the inspiration behind my own floral photograph of a coral coloured Peony (below).  I thought the carpels and stamens looked like corals and swaying seaweed.  The pearls too, are gifts from the sea, and the crystals sparkle like sunlight on the ocean.

Sand is used in making pearls, as well as glass.  A tiny grain of sand inside an oyster shell, irritates the oyster, and to protect itself, the oyster produces layer upon layer of Mother of Pearl around the grain of sand.

Sand is the beginning of glass, too.  Silica, or Quartz sand is combined with sodium carbonate and calcium oxide, and placed in a furnace at 2,300 Celsius (4,172 Farenheit) until it becomes molten glass, which is then blown and shaped into a desired creation.

The artist says, "I thought it was the hot glass that was mysterious, but then I realized it was the air that went into it that was miraculous".

I, and all photographers work with light.  As a floral photographer who uses only natural light, my work is all about light, and colour.  Chihuly is a kindred spirit, inspiration, and long distance mentor.

Chihuly is a master of light.  The light enters each of his creations, it lives inside and all around each translucent piece. "The designs are to bring out the light", he says.  

He is a master of colour too.  He uses vivid, intense colour in his pieces: indigo, purple, orange, coral, bright yellow, amber, fresh green, ethereal blue, gold and white.  Asked if he has a favourite, he says, "I've never met a colour I didn't like".

His love of colour goes back to childhood, with his brother and his Mom.  Viola Chihuly told a newspaper reporter, "I'd be right in the middle of peeling potatoes or something, and I knew just when the sun was about to set because I could see it from our kitchen window.  I'd clap my hands, which meant, 'Come on, we're going to run up the hill'.  And we'd tear up to the top, one of each side, me holding on to their little hands as they flew up there.  All my life I've been crazy for sunsets." She was also wild about flowers and flower gardens!

It was during his time in Venice in 1968, studying at the Venini glass factory on the island of Murano, that Chihuly discovered the glass blowing tradition of working as a team.  Until then, he'd worked alone, or with one other person.  He brought the tradition back to America.  "My Dad was a union organizer and worked with a team.  Maybe my knack for teamwork came from him."

George Chihuly was an international union organizer for the American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).  He died of a heart attack in 1958, the year after his eldest son, George Jr. was killed in a naval flight training accident in Florida.  Dale mourned the loss of his brother and father, by breaking glass:  he was arrested for breaking street lamps and the window of a police cruiser.  His mother urged him to study art.

Many people assume that Chihuly wears a patch over one eye, due to a glass blowing accident. While glass caused the loss of sight, it was from a car windshield, not a work of art.  "During a visit to England in 1976", he says, "I was involved in a serious car accident that sent me through the windshield, and caused deep cuts to my face, and the loss of sight in my left eye."

Due to the loss of eyesight, and depth perception, Chihuly became, "more of the director of my team".   He compares the teamwork involved in creating an art piece, to the teamwork of a movie director and crew.  He says, "working in this capacity enabled me to work in a much larger scale and I really began to push the material more."  The photograph below, is of his chandelier, hanging in London's Victoria and Albert Hall.

The three photographs below, are from an elaborate ceiling installation at Toronto's ROM, which you could actually view from pillows placed on the floor.  Chihuly refers to these as Persians.  Some say the linear panels in the ceiling, looked like Persian carpets.  "I just like the name Persian.  It conjured up Near-Eastern, Byzantine, Far East, Venice, all the trades, smells, sense.  It was an exotic name to me, so I just called them Persians".

I had the strong sensation of being in the sea, looking up through plants and fish at the rays of sunlight streaming down. The light, and the interplay of colours and patterns was mesmerizing.

Chihuly is one of few artists who encourages photographers to take pictures of his work.  There were signs posted on the walls of the ROM inviting people to take pictures, and I happily obliged.  Chihuly says, "I don't feel the work is really finished until it is photographed.  It dematerializes the object until I feel I'm looking at its real spirit, its other dimension.  That's why I don't collect my own art, only photographs of my work."

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.
Photograph of installation in Victoria and Albert Hall, London from Chihuly.com
Thanks to writer Timothy Anglin Burgard whose story, "Chihuly the Artist: Breathing Life into Glass" was my primary source of information, and quotes.

Widow's Endorphins: Anniversary

Widow's Endorphins: Anniversary: It's the day before the big day.  Widow's Endorphins, the blog which you are now reading, turns two tomorrow!  Since tomorrow ...

Anniversary

It's the day before the big day.  Widow's Endorphins, the blog which you are now reading, turns two tomorrow!  Since tomorrow is Friday the 13th, I am taking no chances with this post.  Today, we celebrate WE, because who knows about tomorrow!    

When I was a teenager, walking along Vancouver's Robson Strasse (as it was called back then), taking photographs for my Saturday morning art classes, I would stop and peer through the window of a shop, with glass shelves displaying rows of golden tea sets.  Golden.
 

Years ago, my late husband came home from one of his Sunday adventures through Toronto's St. Lawrence Flea Market, with a big cardboard box.  Tucked between sheets of tissue and newspaper, I discovered two golden tea sets!  The same ones that I had seen back in Vancouver!  The teapot, and the slightly taller coffee pot, each had their own cream pitcher and sugar bowl, as well as cups and saucers.  Far from ostentatious, they are simple and charming.  I still feel like Cinderella when I look at them, and remember the man who always treated me like a princess.      

People who know me, are always amused that someone who drinks coffee day and night, is enthralled with teapots and teacups.  They are works of art.  Each design is unique, and is known by it's own name.  Like flowers, teapots and teacups have their own personalities.  They may be regal, or demure, playful, bohemian, or elegant and sophisticated.  

       

Looking at these photographs, it is hard to imagine that we were in the midst of construction yesterday, with no hot or cold water, and no heat all day.  Photography, especially floral photography, allows me to create lovely, quiet spaces, far removed from the day to day stresses of life.  These floral vignettes are shared with you.  

Nearly 14-thousand of you!  The blog has viewers peering in my computer window, from Brazil, Australia, Switzerland, Denmark, Portugal, China, Russia, India, the UK, the Ukraine, the US, Canada and many, many more countries. Thank you for your kind comments, and support of all my Widow's Endorphins projects, from greeting cards now sold in Toronto stores, to the draped kimonos and coffee mugs in my on-line shops.   

As little Teddy says of my toddler of a blog,  "Whee!  Weeze two!"

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

The cream coloured roses, the blush white ranunculus with their green centres, the snow white freesias with their soft yellow centres, and the blush pink tulips are from Toronto's Florigens Design.
Little Teddy is from the Gund family of bears.  The golden teapot is Bavarian.

Widow's Endorphins: Let the 150th Birthday Party Begin!

Widow's Endorphins: Let the 150th Birthday Party Begin!: Canada will officially be 150 years old on July 1st, 2017.  That hasn't stopped us from getting the party going now!  Canadians kn...

Let the 150th Birthday Party Begin!

Canada will officially be 150 years old on July 1st, 2017.  That hasn't stopped us from getting the party going now! Canadians know how to party.  Whether we're having kitchen parties, ice fishing, picnics, barbecues, barn dances, or street dances, we have fun with family, friends and food! 

The New Year's Eve fireworks on Parliament Hill ushered in celebrations, which will take place from coast, to coast, to coast throughout 2017.  Expect to see a lot of red and white, especially on February 15th, our National Flag Day, and Canada Day in July.  The Canadian flag with its crimson Maple leaf is recognized around the world.   

The biggest festivities are set for the end of June and early July, beginning with National Aboriginal Day on the first day of Summer, June 21st.  Three days later, on June 24th St Jean Baptiste, or Fete nationale du Quebec et de la Francophonie Canadienne will be a day of parades, picnics and music. Canadian Multiculturalism Day is June 27th, and Canadians will be celebrating diversity. There are surprises planned for Canada Day on July 1st.

Parks Canada is giving us a wonderful birthday present:  free admission to parks all year long!  You'll need a Discovery Pass.  The Government's official Canada 150 site has all the information on how to get your pass.  Here's the link: canada.pch.gc.ca/eng/1468262573081

There will be 40 tall ships anchoring in harbours in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.  Rendez-vous Naval 2017 promises to be a spectacular sight, for naval buffs and photographers.  You can even become a crew member on one of the tall ships!  You'll find all of the information by clicking on the link above.

For Canada's youth, hundreds will have the opportunity to travel the country.  Those selected will first have to answer the question, "What is Canada's greatest challenge or opportunity facing your generation?"  The contest opens in June.

Happy Birthday, Canada!

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Vintage Photos from Adams Family photograph albums.