Solstice 2017

Some leftover snow and lots of hairy frost made this morning special!

 

Solstice – sculpture at the Woodwynn Peace Garden

 

Solstice – 2016 at the Peace Garden

When “Solstice” was first installed at Woodwynn (last spring) I promised myself to be there at sunrise on the morning of the winter solstice. And today, with Deryk, I did just that. We arrived early. It was still very dark and we walked around as we waited for dawn, almost feeling the world turning under our feet in order to reveal that first glow in the sky. At first we heard an owl and then other birds awoke with different sounds. A flock of geese flew over and we laughed at the trumpeting noise. There were clouds today so when the light did appear, it gave a soft, shadowless feeling. There’s an infinity of moods in the Peace Garden. This morning was extra special.

As many of you already know, the sculpture was inspired by a quote by Albert Camus: “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” (as translated in Lyrical and Critical Essays, 1968)

Here are a few photos:

Solstice – sculpture at the Woodwynn Peace Garden

“Solstice”
by Elizabeth Wellburn, Samuel Houston
and Deryk Houston

These are photos of “Solstice” – our sculpture that has recently been placed in a very special location at Woodwynn Farms in the Peace Garden. It is placed in best possible spot to capture the first morning light on the shortest day of the year – the Southeast corner of the Peace Garden. Light flows through it at various times of day during other days of the year as well.

The theme of “Solstice” is transitions (seasonal or otherwise) that happen to people and to the natural world. The sculpture is steel, plexiglass and recycled glass (most of it kiln formed) and I created the translucent design using a glass on glass mosaic technique.

Sometime near the beginning of the construction of the Peace Garden (about three years ago) I knew I wanted to create a piece of art for that location and I wanted it incorporate the cathedral-like quality of coloured glass. I had a strong desire to express my ideas about the winter solstice – the shortest day but also a time of transition to a time of more light. Finding the inner strength to move beyond dark times seems to me to be what Woodwynn is all about. And the solstice is an important marker of the cycles of seasons that are so much a part of farm (and human) life.

An Albert Camus quote from Return to Tipasa (1954) inspired me:

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” (As translated in Lyrical and Critical Essays (1968), p. 169; also in The Unquiet Vision : Mirrors of Man in Existentialism (1969) by Nathan A. Scott, p. 116.)

I planned out colours to evoke the four seasons. The bottom left is winter – in icy blues with a few hints of berry red. Moving clockwise there is a panel with the pastels and fresh greens of spring. At the top the turquoise sky shines above colours that might be found in a poppy field or a watermelon patch. Amber and gold are next for autumn and then we complete the cycle with winter once again at the bottom right.

I worked with Samuel and Deryk to develop a structure to house the glass to have a sheltering quality as well as the feeling of a seasonal clock. I feel comfortable and at peace with the solid, rounded design. It serves as an archway over a natural stone bench that allows a visitor to sit and look down at the valley.

Previously this piece was installed in Nanaimo, near the Port Theatre and it stayed there for one year until it was time for us to donate it to Woodwynn. It is now in the spot that it was designed for and I am really happy to see it there!

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Glass and Steel Solstice

“Solstice” – our steel and recycled glass sculpture. We took it to Nanaimo yesterday and installed it (with lots of help from the City of Nanaimo – thanks guys!!).

I love the location, across the street from the Port Theatre and right on the waterway path that lead to Maffeo Sutton Park.

Here’s a photo that gives a bit of the idea of what it looks like. We’ll go back and take some more on a sunny morning soon and get the feeling of the light shining through.

Sculpture by Elizabeth Wellburn, Samuel Houston, Deryk Houston

UPDATE: Here are a couple of recent photos, taken at sunset at the end of May 2015:

And here’s my previous tweet with additional information.
https://elizabethtweets.wordpress.com/2015/01/21/planning-to-build-a-new-piece-of-sculpture/

As of April 2016, “Solstice” is now at Woodwynn Farms in the Peace Garden: https://elizabethtweets.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/solstice-sculpture-at-the-woodwynn-peace-garden/

Smoke in the air

This is how it looks these days. In the middle of the day. Wildfire smoke from hundreds of miles away drifts over to Vancouver Island and what should be a bright morning is a dull murky surreal kind of experience. Our hearts go out to those who are experiencing worse.

That being said, the Woodwynn Peace Garden is in good shape – we had a great volunteer party yesterday from St. Andrews School. These folks tackled all kinds of tasks and helped us feel that the overwhelming fall cleanup is not going to be so overwhelming after all.

(photo is altered because I didn’t ask permission from the volunteers.)

We harvested a lot of sage, so more herb bundles are forthcoming! It’s gratifying to see how tidy the labyrinth looks after the trim and removal of weeds. Also wonderful to have the fragrance in our home when we work with the herbs we have gathered.

 

 

The sage has been trimmed several times over the summer – it came back really well around April after a serious cut-back in late January- early February. I know this from my iPad photos. Thank goodness they are date stamped! Lavender and Poppies were beautiful in mid-June. We started collecting poppy seeds in early August and there seemed to be about 2 or 3 weeks to harvest these as the pods didn’t all form at quite the same time. We definitely left some to self-seed, as they did last year after first arriving all on their own – well actually likely with the help of birds! Thank you birds!!

The lavender had been cut way back in the fall. We harvested lavender from about early July till the end of July and were perhaps a bit late with some of it. There’s some second growth right now – so we have a bit of everything including a dozen or so plants that we didn’t harvest earlier and are now cutting to collect the seeds, which seem pretty abundant.  

The four stages of lavender – buds (probably a bit early to harvest as dried flowers but okay for culinary use, to dry for soap, etc.), flowers ready to harvest for dried arrangements, flowers at the point when they’ve really been left a bit too long to harvest – and seed pods!

I realize how much value there would be in really keeping a log of farm events. This blog could serve the purpose if I was a bit more dedicated to it 🙂

Right now, early September after a very dry summer, it’s of note that the sage and lavender has survived with watering basically every other week (the trough of sage needed weekly watering or better but that’s to be expected since it’s quite shallow). The apple trees, blueberries, kiwis and strawberries really needed weekly watering and in general they got that.  We know we have some serious learning to do in order to prune the apple trees to allow apples to form in the best possible way. And we’ll be training the kiwis for the first time this year – they are ready to have wires to follow along the sides of the arbor.

All in all – it’s been a summer of hard work and lots of reward!

And there will still be weeds to pull till we get to the hard winter. That is to be expected and as along as we more or less keep up, it is manageable.

 

Snow Day at Woodwynn Farms

I couldn’t stop taking photos this morning!

The Road To Woodwynn Farms.

 

 

Today was pretty special out at the Woodwynn Peace Garden!

Glass on Glass Mosaics

Here are some of my glass on glass mosaics.

I gotta right to sing the blues

New as of January 2018 – I am now represented by the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria rentals program https://aggv.ca/art-rental-sales/ 

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You can contact Sooke Harbour House, for information about my work available there.

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“Made for Each Other”

“Made for Each Other” 18” by 25.5” $450

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Another Star

“Another Star” –  20” by 18” $395

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Stay as Sweet as you Are

“Stay as Sweet as you Are”  – 20” by 18” $395

 

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Royal Garden Blues

“Royal Garden Blues”  –  7.5” by 11”  – $110

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Rain Check

“Rain Check”  11″ by 13″ – $120

 

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“She Did All That in One Afternoon?”

“She Did All That in One Afternoon?” 15” by 22”  $375

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“Stop and Watch the Sunset”

“Stop and Watch the Sunset” 14” by 27″ – SOLD

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“That’s Envy My Dear”

“That’s Envy My Dear”  14” by 27″ – $420

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“Around the Corner”

“Around the Corner” 30” by 12” SOLD

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At any given time, my glass mosaic work may also be available at SideStreet Studio or the Chemainus Theatre

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Here’s my bio…

GLASS: Elizabeth melted her first piece of glass about ten years ago at a workshop in the wonderful “Starfish” studio that used to be on Yates Street in Victoria, BC, Canada. Since then she has been passionate about glass as an art form, with a special interest in recycled materials and she has attended the Pilchuck school (founded by Chihuly) near Seattle.

Elizabeth’s work is created from discarded bottles, chipped serving dishes and old stemware along with other small scraps of glass from any source she can access. Discarded windows or old glass shelving from heritage houses are often used as her ‘canvas’. Her translucent glass-on-glass mosaics look wonderful when light can flow through them, but they are also effective against a wall with light shining on them.

Elizabeth’s studio is in her home. One of her favourite “precision tools” is a sledgehammer and her kiln runs most days of the year. She makes her own plaster molds to add details (such as hearts, insects, seashells and musical notes) to her work.

CURRENT WORK: Elizabeth’s mosaics are usually named after titles or quotable lines from jazz music, movies and plays. She has been awarded public art contracts in Richmond and Nanaimo for large-scale mosaics and her largest piece, titled “Solstice” can be viewed at the Woodwynn Peace Garden in Central Saanich. Elizabeth has volunteered at Woodwynn Farms with her husband, Deryk Houston, for the past three years.

“Solstice” – my large sculpture at the Woodwynn Peace Garden

BACKGROUND: Elizabeth’s first post-secondary experience was in an art program at Langara College in Vancouver. Then she switched into education, obtaining an MA in Educational Psychology which led to a career in education technology. Information literacy and critical thinking are what she believes should be the main goals of education in this information–rich era, focusing on the things that make us human (like the arts) and allow us to connect in important ways. Several years ago she wrote a children’s book (“Echoes from the Square”) with the power of the arts as its theme. She has a very personal reason for creating mosaics from recycled materials — repurposing objects from the past. She believes there’s often a place for things that might otherwise be discarded if you look hard enough to find it.

 

End of June – Woodwynn Peace Garden

Something new from Deryk….  this one didn’t “get away!)

(We’re watching the movie “Big Fish” to celebrate.)

We had a warm spring so perhaps the timing will be different in future years, but this year, June was an amazing time of colour in the Peace Garden. The lavender bloomed all month and many of the sage plants bloomed as well. We actually expected all of the sage plants to flower but it seemed to be pretty random. Perhaps since they are still really relatively new plants (just a year old) it will take time for them to all flower or perhaps there will always be some plants that don’t flower in a given year.

 

Apple tree lane is thick with apples that are full size and quite red at this point and beautiful pink poppies appeared by magic near the meditation nest.

We’ve kept up with the watering. We’ve almost kept up with the weeding….

We never stop appreciating the beauty of the location and we are always grateful to be a part of the farm!

And there are interesting developments around the farm outside of the Peace Garden as well 🙂

 

Planning to build a new piece of sculpture!

A while back I wrote a blog post about a sculpture I was envisioning for a very special location at Woodwynn Farms in the Woodwynn Peace Garden:

The idea was based on an Albert Camus quote that truly inspired me: “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”  (By the way, I would love to know the exact source of this quote – which book, article or ?)

The sculpture was to be called “Solstice.” As it took shape, it became a collaborative piece – by me, Sam and Deryk and we proposed it for the recent Nanaimo public art call.

We are delighted that our proposal has been accepted! We found out yesterday that we are now funded to build the sculpture. It will have its first home in Nanaimo, probably at Maffeo Sutton Park where Deryk and Sam have had previous sculptures installed. As part of a rotating exhibit, it will be returned to us eventually and then it will go to Woodwynn.

The theme is transitions (seasonal or otherwise) that happen to people and to the natural world. It will be in steel and recycled glass. I originally thought that when it eventually moved to Woodwynn, it would be placed to maximize the light during the summer solstice, but as I stood at that location on the morning of winter solstice this past December, I realized that although less people may want to visit in winter, the effect of low winter light rising in the south would be wonderful. So our plan is to have it in the best possible spot to capture the first morning light on the shortest day of the year.

We are really thrilled to be able to add this part to the ongoing project!

http://peacesanctuarysculpturepark.org

A hint of what the labyrinth will be like with sculptures installed

Early Morning at Woodwynn

“The Children’s International Peace and Harmony Statue”, by American artist David Kocka was moved onto the site on Aug 2, followed by Deryk and Samuel’s sculpture “Points of Origin”.

Both are shown in the above photo, shot by me on August 3 (yesterday), early in the morning.

And I have found a quote that inspires me for the glass and metal sculpture that I’ll be doing with Sam. I’ve known for a while that it’s title will be “Solstice” and now I think an Albert Camus quote has to be part of it as well

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

To me this fits the spirit of Woodwynn Farms and it evokes the idea of transitions (seasonal or otherwise) that happen to people and to the natural world. Short days do get longer. Long days do get shorter.

I don’t know yet if this quote is from a book, essay or ? but I will find out. I’ve seen the quote online as both “in the *midst* of winter…” and “in the *depth* of winter” which of course is probably just related to the translation from the French. Either way is fine, and my hope is for the rising summer solstice sun to glow through warm-coloured recycled glass and convey a feeling of invincible summer. I am excited about this project. The location saved for the piece is perfect – a corner of the labyrinth perimeter where the view down the valley is stunning. I know Samuel will create a beautiful welded shape and I will have the fun of working with the glass that will be incorporated.

Today is a day for reflection on many things, and the Albert Camus quote can certainly be a good starting point.

Finally…. here is my own little thought today about the meaning of solstice…. “Sometimes time must turn around in order to move forward”