July 2008

A quick trip to the garden and...

VanDusen is hard for me. It's a beautiful space, but in general I'd rather find my artwork in nature rather than taking pictures of someone else's artwork. Gardening, the act of rearranging a found scene, such as removing a stray blade of grass, is considered an insult in macro photography. So obviously I'm conflicted when I visit VanDusen because I need to find photographs that are powerful in spite of the gardener rather than because of it. So far, I'm not having much luck.

My employer wound up giving us a few days off without much warning. A fire in an electrical substation knocked out power in some parts of downtown Vancouver for up to 4 days. Still under the belief that I would be back to work in "a few more hours", I took a morning off to go wander around VanDusen. Pretty much as soon as I entered I ran into an artist in the garden.

The garden was putting on a Sculpture in the park event and Claire Murgatroyd was one of the artists exhibiting. Her piece is three way cross between a wheelbarrow, a park bench and garden irrigation system and I'm sure it will make a brilliant piece in the right garden. She asked me to take a photo of it. Conflicts abound. I took a stock photo, but I also tried to capture a piece of "found art" from it. Sadly, I think her work eclipses mine, but it was a fun challenge.

I spent a bit of time wandering more of the garden and took a few snaps, but harsh summer light isn't particularly flattering. (Or I'm just making excuses.). Either way, it was a fun morning out.

Eric's Stag

Unlike his boozy friends, Eric has always been a bit of a gentlemen. We studied dirty arts like Engineering while Eric got a dignified degree in English. We went straight into the rough and tumble world or selling out to corporations while Eric chose to travel after his studies completed. It goes without saying that his stag would be similarly dignified.

Our first destination was the Hastings Racecourse for a little action with the horses. Jeremy rented us a few booths and we got down to being gentlemen and the task at hand - making money! We had some help with the betting and after a few rounds we got the hang of succinctly asking for our wishing to be translated to paper.

We each had our "program" - a way of shaping the odds to our favor without curtailing our winnings. We debated the wisdom of crowds (they knew how wasn't going to win, but they didn't always do so well on who was going to win).

Well, you can take the man out to the park, but you can't always take the park out of the man. We took public transport to the local science center and partook of gentlmen's outdoor games - a bit of Bocce and a crumb of croquette.