Widow's Endorphins: Lilac Lane

Widow's Endorphins: Lilac Lane: There are two seasons in Toronto:  Winter and Construction.  The balconies of our vertical village are undergoing a major transformati...

Lilac Lane

There are two seasons in Toronto:  Winter and Construction.  The balconies of our vertical village are undergoing a major transformation, and the unavoidable drilling is in the mega decibels.  Fortunately, there's a quiet street not far away, that is worlds away from the noise!  A lifetime away...  

You know the lilac trees are nearby, even before you see them.  Their fragrance fills the air.  Breathing the sweet, rich perfume instills a deep sense of calm.  It's a fragrance that awakens long forgotten memories of childhood.

 

I can hear the sound of my Dad whistling, for the four of us to come home, that Mum had dinner on the table.  I can see him, standing on our tiny porch - still wearing his crisply ironed white shirt, but having removed his tie - the early evening sun shining on him.  He was VP of BCIT, yet a down to earth family man with no pretensions.   

  

 

He planted the lilacs, next to the old pear trees that had been on the property before our home was built.  It was where he found the frail robin which had fallen out of its nest.  He brought the robin into the house, and placed him in a cloth lined shoebox, before leaving for work.  That day, we fed him bread which had been soaked in warm milk.  We found the old hamster cage, which gave the young robin a little more room. 

The robin grew, and weeks later, we took him camping with us, driving in a packed station wagon all the way up to Barkerville, in Northern BC.  The robin would fly freely around the campsites, and always return to rest on Dad's shoulder, or my little sister's arm.  When we returned home, he was set free for the last time.

Walking down "Lilac Lane", I was set free.  My heart soared like the birds.  The stress and upheaval of life, disappeared.  I am ever grateful to my Dad for teaching me how use a camera, and more than that, being able to appreciate the beauty that is always just steps away from us.

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widows Endorphins Photographic Images Inc.

Widow's Endorphins: Fashion Show: Spring 2019 (and 2018) Collection

Widow's Endorphins: Fashion Show: Spring 2019 (and 2018) Collection: You'll forgive me for feeling like Cinderella these days.  There's something magical about taking a photograph of beautiful flow...

Fashion Show: Spring 2019 (and 2018) Collection

You'll forgive me for feeling like Cinderella these days.  There's something magical about taking a photograph of beautiful flowers, using the image in designing clothing, and seeing it come to life as an actual garment. 

One sunny day last week, the birds, bees, butterflies, and squirrels were excitedly gathered, while I was hanging the dresses and draped kimono for a tiny fashion shoot, under some of the very cherry boughs I photographed last year.

After photographing the clothing, I continued taking pictures of the amazing cherry blossoms.  Lost in the blissfulness of flowers and creativity, time just floated like a butterfly! 

The photographs are now the floral fabric prints for bodycon dresses, flare dresses, draped kimonos and peignoirs, available in my Art of Where shop on-line.  In the days to come, I will be adding more clothing.  For now, here are the links to the newest additions in my shop:

http://bit.do/AOWbodycon

http://bit.do/flare-dress
http://bit.do/drapedkimono
http://bit.do/peignoirs

I love this image of blossom covered branches reaching into the blue sky.  I've called this design - wait for it - Cherry Blossom Branches!  Laugh if you must, it sings of Spring!  I have introduced this design as a flare dress.  Other clothing designs will follow. 

These Japanese cherry blossoms look so much like an impressionist watercolour painting, yet, they were taken with my camera.  This series is called Cherry Blossom Impressions.  It is available in bodycon and flare dress styles, as well as a peignoir.  Peignoirs are very versatile, in that they can be worn in the bedroom, at the beach, over a pair of jeans, or over a cocktail dress such as the bodycon dress. 

This image is a new favourite!  It's called, Japanese Cherry Blossoms Blue Sky!  The photograph already looks like Japanese floral fabric.  I love the vibrant blue of the cloudless sky, and the abundance of pink blossoms!  So far, I have only designed bodycon and flare dresses using this image.  More will be coming!

This image, was taken last year, and is only now being used in clothing designs.  The series is called Wedding White Cherry Blossoms, and is available only in bodycon dress, draped kimono and peignoir designs.  Both the kimono and peignoir may be worn as light jackets over the sleeveless dress.  The peignoir belt and trim are shown in black, however, they are available in cream.

Photographs and Designs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Inc.

Widow's Endorphins: 40-Thousand Views!

Widow's Endorphins: 40-Thousand Views!: My heartfelt gratitude to readers around the world, who have now viewed the pages of this little blog 40-thousand times!  Your support...

40-Thousand Views!

My heartfelt gratitude to readers around the world, who have now viewed the pages of this little blog 40-thousand times!  Your support and encouragement have meant the world to me...and opened up a whole new world!

Thank you to each one of you, from the first person who read my work and liked the pretty pictures, to those of you reading right now!  I started Widow's Endorphins as a way of using creativity to help me through grief, after the death of my husband.  Through writing and photography, I found me again.  The me of years gone by, when I was a laughing schoolgirl.  The romantic and sexy me.  The powerful me.  The stoic me.  The strong me.  All of me.

Love, humour, sadness, compassion, curiosity, wonderment...we all share these.  I think it's why the blog is read around the world, by both men and women, gay, straight, widowed, married, divorced, or single.

Flowers are rejuvenating and restorative...they both calm and energize us.  Endorphins are natural pain and stress relievers, and that's what flowers and floral photography do for me.  I know from your comments, that the flowers put a smile on your faces too.

In the dead of Winter, when everything is grey, a bright bouquet of parrot tulips, and a quirky story lifts the spirit.  When the stress of life exhausts you, meditative colours and words of inspiration and courage are there in the blog.  Flowers have their own personalities, and evoke emotion.  They're romantic, sensuous, dramatic, playful, demure, sweet, or ethereal. 

The blog has given me space to be creative.  I think of a concept, bring all the elements together, photograph them, and write something about the images.  I'm never bored, taking photographs, writing the blog, making greeting cards, designing clothing. 

This past year, a collaboration with Vancouver based, Stolbie Brand, led to marijuana leaf inspired clothing designs, as I turned my camera lens to the beautiful graphic lines of the Canna leaf. The peignoirs and kimonos have been really popular.  Last week, the leaf appeared on mens' t-shirts for the first time.  I've never stopped creating floral dresses and peignoirs.   

 

The abbreviation for Widow's Endorphins is WE.  We did it!  We did this together!  Thank you for reading, and thank you for sharing!

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

Widow's Endorphins: Mum's Clothesline

Widow's Endorphins: Mum's Clothesline: A sunny day with a light breeze...my Mum's idea of a perfect day to do laundry.  When we were teenagers, my sisters and girlfrien...

Mum's Clothesline

A sunny day with a light breeze...my Mum's idea of a perfect day to do laundry.  When we were teenagers, my sisters and girlfriends would roll our eyes at our mothers when they'd even think of wasting a perfectly good day doing housework!  We'd overhear our Mum on the phoneline with a neighbour, or calling across to another neighbour, as they each hung freshly washed sheets on their clotheslines, "it's a beautiful day to do laundry!"

At night, when we'd climb into our beds, we'd inhale the fresh, sweet scent of pillow cases and sheets that had been drying in the sunshine en plein air, and drift off to sleep, silently appreciating all that Mum had done for us that day.  Sweet dreams are made of such simple pleasures.

Iconic images of clotheslines, whether filled with brightly coloured shirts and dresses fluttering in the breeze, large white sheets hanging straight on a windless day, or frozen longjohns on a clothesline in February, always bring a wave of nostalgia, and a smile.  The clothesline is near and dear to the entire Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, where clotheslines dance like ribbons across the fields of coastal towns and villages. 

I have long wanted to do a clothesline photoshoot.  They're hard to find in both the city, and the suburbs, where bylaws prohibit them.  I envisioned a farmyard, with a cotton clothesline strung between flowering trees, and pretty coloured clothing held on with wooden clothes pegs.  Romantic, homespun, comforting, and joyful. 

I found the perfect location, in a small grove of Japanese Cherry trees...I just had to photoshop the tombstones out of the pictures.  The passing security guard stopped his car, to make sure that I wasn't a homeless person setting up camp, and realized the tea towels wouldn't have kept a squirrel dry.  It did look odd.    

  

Do you love tea towels as much as I do?  This "laundry" includes some of my favourites.  The others were in the wash!  Really!  

On the far left, the blue and white checkered tablecloth, which along with a matching yellow and white tablecloth, was bought one Sunday morning years ago, at Toronto's St. Lawrence flea market.  The tablecloths had once covered tables at a restaurant in Muskoka.  They retired from cottage country on the lakes, to my home in the biggest city in Canada.     

The beautiful peony tea towel is printed from one of April Cornell's paintings.  If you're familiar with Montreal-based Cornell Trading, you'll know of the Founder's eye for beauty, whimsy and practicality.  A tablecloth version of this, appeared in a recent issue of Victoria Magazine.   

The small, lace fringed handkerchief belonged to my Dad's Aunt, who lived and worked in a three storey brick house in Pembroke, Ontario.  She owned her own hair salon.  A buxom woman, she always had a hanky in her breast pocket.  She had hankies for Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Canada Day, and Thanksgiving.  She had plain hankies, lace hankies, polkadotted hankies, scalloped edged hankies, and embroidered hankies.  She had hankies with roses on them, hankies with violets, and hankies with forget-me-nots. 

The lovely rose covered, pink bordered tea towel is imported from England.  I did not go there.  It came to me, via the Royal Horticultural Society and a local shop.  The Society has a wonderful slogan on their label, sharing the best in Gardening (with a capital G).  Just makes me love that litle tea towel all the more.  

Remember when tea towels had tourist maps, interesting facts, poems and jokes printed on them?  You can still find a few!  The Empress Hotel tea towel on the far right, is a gift from a dear friend who dropped in for tea at the Empress in Victoria.  The tea towel has their recipe for scones printed on it...those scones are famous for a reason!  

This blogpost and photographs are in honour of my Mum, who if she could have, would have been right there in the cemetery hanging clothes on the line, laughing with her crazy rebel daughter with her Canon Rebel camera.  Or, she would have been home doing the real work of hanging clothes on the line.  It was a great day for it!

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

Widow's Endorphins: The Birds and the Bees, and the Flowers and the Tr...

Widow's Endorphins: The Birds and the Bees, and the Flowers and the Tr...: There's so much life in the cemetery!  I've spent the past two days photographing the pink blossoms of the Japanese cherry tre...

The Birds and the Bees, and the Flowers and the Trees...

There's so much life in the cemetery!  I've spent the past two days photographing the pink blossoms of the Japanese cherry trees in Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery.  In the quiet, you can hear the birdsong of Orioles, Robins and Cardinals, and the soft buzzing of bees.  Butterflies silently flutter from blossom to blossom.  Ironically, Mount Pleasant is one of the most restorative places in the city.

The Sakura blossoms are divine.  The transluscent petals of each Japanese cherry blossom range from snow white to pink, with deep pink buds.  The Japanese love standing, sitting, or lying down, under the boughs, looking upwards into a sky of pink and blue.  It is breathtaking.  They even have a word for flower viewing: hanami, from the Japanese word for flower, hana.  Like cemeteries, hanami reminds us of the fleeting nature of our lives on earth, to mindfully observe each moment, and celebrate life. 

It's in looking upward, that we see the birds, the bees, and butterflies - collecting twigs for nests, searching for nectar, and pollinating the flowers.  I walked blissfully through my own real-life Disney movie, almost expecting a bird to click my camera for me, while a butterfly posed.

  

 

I heard them, before seeing them.  A brilliant mango-coloured pair of Orioles, with black and white wings.  Until yesterday, I had only seen orioles in books.  They flew from branch to branch, never resting for more than a few seconds.  Their song was pure, and clear.  There are two in this picture...the second one is to the left, and slightly below the one in the centre.  

I love the gentle hum of Honey Bees and Bumble Bees, shaking the pollen from flowers, as they bury their heads deep within each blossom.  They're happy workers, ensuring our food supply.  The Canadian Association of Apiculturalists likes to point out that honey bees are responsible for one out of every three bites of food we eat. 

Wandering through the acres of trees and flowers, my heart sings!  Morning turned to afternoon, as I lost all track of time.  My upturned face is now sunburned!  Sunburned, and smiling!

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