Lupins bloom at A. Y. Jackson Park
June 16, 2009 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment
Lupins bloom at A. Y. Jackson Park in Manotick, Ontario. A member of Canada’s Group of Seven artists, Jackson lived in Manotick, south of Ottawa on the Rideau River, from 1957 to 1962. “It’s probably hard for anyone looking at my landscapes today to realize that I was once regarded as a rebel, a dangerous influence,” he once said. Group of Seven Art
‘Free from blame’
June 14, 2009 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment
“Nothing stands up more free from blame in this world than a pine tree.”
- Henry David Thoreau, 20 December 1851.
Please wait to be seated
June 14, 2009 | Filed Under Black and White, General | Leave a Comment
“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?” - Albert Einstein
WestFest
June 13, 2009 | Filed Under General, Portraits | Leave a Comment
WestFest is an annual celebration of artists in the streets of Wesboro, one of the most vibrant areas of Ottawa. Run entirely by the community on a not-for-profit basis, it has become one of the National Capital’s best known festivals in a few short years, including “music, visual, literary, performance art, dance, spoken word and theatre.” It happens each June and everything is free. WestFest
Modern Times
June 8, 2009 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in. - Leonard Cohen
The Rose
June 7, 2009 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed that with the sun’s love,
In the spring,
Becomes a rose. − Bette Midler
1964
June 6, 2009 | Filed Under Black and White, General | Leave a Comment
To live outside the law, you must be honest. - Bob Dylan
Tiananmen
June 3, 2009 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment
This photo was not taken in Tiananmen Square, the famous landmark in Beijing, but half way around the world in Ottawa. Yet it made me think of an anniversary article on Tiananmen Square by Jim Munson, now a senator in the Parliament of Canada. Munson was a reporter in Bejing on that fateful day - June 4, 1989 - when an estimated 2,500 protestors were massacred by the Chinese military. “Twenty years later I have so many unanswered questions,” Munson wrote for the Ottawa Citizen. “What happened to the young woman standing on the steps of the Great Hall of the People yelling, “Long live democracy”? The television censor who cut our feeds to Canada. What does he do now? The young soldiers who engaged (colleague Roger) Smith and me in a shoving match 24 hours before the massacre. Where are they now? The undercover police we had to beat back with a tripod. Are they middle-aged and content? What memories do they have of that day? The older couple who stopped me as I ran towards the square and said in broken English, “Please tell the world what is happening here.” Are they enjoying their old age? A frightened general sitting in the passenger seat of a government car being berated by ordinary citizens - did he live or die? And the young man captured in photographs who was arrested for standing bravely in broad daylight in front of a tank column. Will his story ever be told? History was made in Tiananmen Square during those warm weeks of May and June. But too many unanswered questions remain. I remember the people and the events I witnessed. I know what happened in Tiananmen Square. I was there.”