While sick in bed this autumn, I edited the following series of photographs from my summer vacation to Hornby Island. I'm especially happy with the way the colours flow throughout the series. Enjoy!
Arbutus: A Photo Series
One of the highlights of my vacation to the West Coast this summer was spending a couple afternoons and evenings wandering Helliwell Provincial Park. My backpack was filled with snacks, water, a sweater, and a Mophie juicepack. I would listen to my Wendell Barry audiobook while wandering along the beach, or through the forest, or across the cliffs. Regularly I would pause, under a giant oak tree or amongst a glade of arbutus trees, and pull out my book, a biography of George Herbert. And of course, my iPhone's camera accompanied me everywhere.
There are many arbutus trees on Hornby Island. The arbutus is my favourite tree. It is filled with character and with potential for images. This series of five images, all taken in or nearby Helliwell Park, was photographed with the app AverageCamPro and edited with VSCO Cam. I hope you enjoy.
Travels 2015: A Hornby Island Reader
Travels 2015 is a series of updates I originally posted on Facebook while on vacation. What started as a quick update and a couple photos transformed into a series of mini-essays that I would have posted on this website had it been up and running at the time. This one was written on August 7th, 2015.
As I shared my summer reading list with my family, I was asked "how much time are you actually planning on spending with us?" (Which isn't fair. They spent just as much time reading as I did. You should see the stack of booksIlona brought!) But true to form, the books along the left ('Select Letters of John Newton', a largely wishy-washy book by Annie Dillard, and 'A Brief History of Thought' [which Tim Keller calls "the one book to read to understand culture"]) have all been untouched. I'll probably get started on one or two of them as I travel.
On my iPhone you'll see an audiobook of Wendell Barry's 'Jayber Crow'. It's been a delightful listen, a story of a small town barber that's full of very real characters, well turned phrases, and an understanding of the human heart that progresses along with the story. It's accompanied many an ocean walk these past weeks.
Tim Keller's book on prayer is almost a compilation of thinking and advice on prayer from throughout church history. Very practical. And every vacation for the last six years has included at least one P. G. Wodehouse. They are the perfect summer combination of witty brilliance and mindless fun.
But my true Honby companion has been 'Music at Midnight', John Drury's fine biography of the English poet-priest George Herbert. It's a guide to bot his life and his poetry. Herbert's richly Reformed Anglican faith was actualized through struggle that resulted in some of the finest poetry in the English language. It was a joy to unpack its depth. It was also fascinating to uncover his life; he has an ambitious and successful academic career in Cambridge before poor health and inner turmoil brought him to lead a humble life as a village parson. I was struck by the way his struggles found their purpose through his writings, which tooka life of their own after Herbert's death, encouraging and building up many, many readers. It was a reminder to persevere in faithfulness, trusting that through Christ we will bear fruit, despite what we may or may not see today.
I hope you enjoy the series of pictures of the various vantages I viewed with this volume in hand.
P. S. Coffee Update: My aunt, who came up by car to visit us for the week, was kind enough to purchase a Moka espresso pot on my behalf, as well as pick up a bag of Fernwood decaf. How kind! My coffee drinking is restored.
Travels 2015: Notes from the Hornby Island Festival
Travels 2015 is a series of updates I originally posted on Facebook while on vacation. What started as a quick update and a couple photos transformed into a series of mini-essays that I would have posted on this website had it been up and running at the time. This one was written on August 4th, 2015.
Hornby is home to a thriving and varied community of artists, and one manifestation of this influence is the annual Hornby Island Festival. Despite the small size of the island and the family feel to the festival, the event has become a bit of a legend in the world, classical, and folk music scenes, having featured world-renowned artists. I'll never forget Colin Carr's two night performance of the complete Bach's cello suites several years ago.
This year all of the performances I attended were at The Farm, which is first seen at the bottom of winding road that begins high above on a steep escarpment. One then follow’s the road down, onto a gravel driveway decked with colourful flags. The farm's fields roll towards the ocean and are scattered with ancient oak, arbutus, and chestnut trees. The evening sun illuminates two giant maple trees, reminiscent of Bilbo's "party tree", under which the stage and seating are set up and from which giant spotlights are hung.
Only my parents and I attended the first event, a symphony orchestra. My grandfather bought the tickets but made the uncharacteristic decision not to come. "I refuse to attend outdoor symphony events. The symphony belongs indoors" he declared. That was a mistake, for he would have become best friends with the little spirited Irish conductor, who has taught and performed around the world and received a medal of honour from the Queen. (Both he and my grandpapa remind me of Bilbo Baggins in their age, stature, charm, and significance.)
After several satisfactory Mozart and Hyden pieces, the evening proceeded with a performance of Vaughan Williams 'The Lark Ascending’. It is a performance I will never forget. I was introduced to the piece through a David Crowder album, but until now have never heard it live. The sun was setting, the moon was rising, and the soloist, a lovely 20 year old fiddle protégé named Ceilidh Briscoe, stepped onto the stage.
To try describe the music that followed would be futile. Instead I'll just quote the poem that accompanies the music. Imagine music that supersedes these words in grace, poignancy, and tenderness.
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.
For singing till his heaven fills,
‘Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
to lift us with him as he goes.
Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.
My dad is not one given to displays of emotion, but the moment she finished playing he leapt to his feat, applauding, something I've never seen him do before. Both Mum and I joined him on our feet immediately after, followed by the rest of the audience. Dad told Ceilidh later that it had been a long, long time since he's heard that piece performed with such justice. (The composer, it turns out, was good friends with my dad's grandmother and composed a piece for her family to perform in Trinity College, Cambridge.)
The black and white photos are from last night's family fiddle dance. It featured one of the best fiddlers in the world, Pierre Schryer, joined by a first class Irish uilleann pipe player. It was such a treat watching the two of them perform together, effortlessly passing their ideas back and forth with joy and humour. Then the chairs were cleared away, the evening light was replaced with the light of the lamps that hung in the trees, and all the families, couples, strangers, and friends joined together for several hours of called English dances. Such rare fun. It brought everyone together. Imagine your dancing partner being, in turn, your sister, your mum, your auntie (who's teaching you the moves as you dance), a lady who could well be your grandmother (whom my mum dragged in from off the sidelines to join our family), and finally a little twelve year old girl who's shyness blossomed into a big smile as I give her a surprise twirl as we dance our waltz under the trees.
Travels 2015: In Which My Grandfather and I Traverse the Island
Travels 2015 is a series of updates I originally posted on Facebook while on vacation. What started as a quick update and a couple photos transformed into a series of mini-essays that I would have posted on this website had it been up and running at the time. This one was written on July 27th, 2015.
I've spent the last three days "adventuring" with my 92 year old grandfather and now have an arsenal of memories to share with my grandkids someday. Such as:
- Getting almost-scolded by the owner of Charcut for, a). standing on the rooftop balcony (my grandfather, to better catch the view) and b). bringing in outside coffee (me, because they didn't have decaf).
- Together doing a $700 grocery shop for 7 people before desperately catching two island ferries lest we miss the last ferry ride.
- Discovering that there is a Hyden string quartet concert beginning in 15 minutes and racing across the island to catch it.
And.... OYSTERS!!!!
I recently discovered these delicacies only to be told that my grandfather would catch them by hand in Cape Breton and eat them, alone, to the chagrin of his family. So I bought us 4 dozen and we ate half of them together, after learning how to shuck them (from the man at the COOP hardware store, where my grandfather bought lemons and heavy duty gloves). This was all done in view of the family, who watched us with chagrin through a glass window as they ate their boiled potatoes. (We offered them samples, many times, but each family member refused.)
So yes, vacation has been fun so far.
Meritt, Collected
Hornby Island, furtherest north of British Columbia’s gulf islands, is not only an almost annual visit of rest and vacation, but thanks to its outstanding beauty, it is also a place of almost annual artistic inspiration. In the dreary winter, as I was looking forward to the vacation, I read an essay in Image Journal on the artist Gala Bent. The writer mentioned that the illustrator regularly brings
“natural objects—rocks, pinecones—into her studio, not to draw them directly, but to feed her creative process by using them as objects for study. She sometimes contemplates them for years: one pinecone with two heads she’s kept since her time in Indiana. They are present in her studio as she draws, and also somehow present in her inner landscape. “I have a nutritional need to be outside,” she says. “So then when I go back to the studio, I feel similar in a strange way to the Song dynasty painters, where I feel like I’ve internalized the natural world and I’m bringing it back in my body.”
Her story of the two-headed pinecone recalled a beautiful black rock that I collected on a beach at Hornby the first time I visited, eight years ago. I picked it up because its colour, its smooth texture, and because the form of it in my hand pleased me. That rock has been a proud feature of my dresser ever since. Reflecting on this an idea struck me: what would it look like to daily collect such an object on my vacation and photograph it against the natural wood and light of our rented vacation home? There were so many interesting natural objects to be found on the beaches and in the forests of Hornby, so I would be sure to have plenty of inspiration. And the fixed limitations of the form would offer some sort of consistency to my endeavours.
Six months later, my ideas took form. My initial idea of shooting against the dark wood of the house proved challenging. The camera revealed flaws in the wood or glass that became distracting. A visit to the only art shop on the island yielded some expensive art paper, an extravagant purchase that worked well and resulted in what I consider to be the best of the series.
A quick note about the last three photos. Taking apart an arbutus branch was a fun challenge, especially as I added a new element one at a time. While colourful, the photo with the leaves and branch looked too much like a hipster’s outfit photo. I ended up posting the photo of the bark elegantly laid out, but looking back, I prefer the raw, wild texture of the piece of curling bark. Which is your favourite? Let me know in the comments below.