The Creative Caravan

Seriously Syria: Palmyra

2012-02-23T21:03:00.004-08:00

"The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines."

~Charles Kuralt

Monday, July 30, 2001.

Today we left Damascus and headed for Palmyra. One thing that is cool about travelling in Syria is that the buses go all the time. It seems strange to me that these countries with relatively small populations can sustain this type of traveling! The downside to this in particular in Syria, is that when we arrive at the bus station, we are met by 100 touts who scream names of cities at us or run alongside us asking, "Excuse me where you go?" This is because there are different bus companies competing for travelers. As soon as they're bus is filled up it can go. You would think we be sitting there all day, but actually, we never had to wait more than 40 minutes at a stretch.

So off to Palmyra we went, though we both felt more time could have been spent in Damascus. Though we were not too keen on more Roman ruins, apparently Palmyra is a serious top place to visit, as well as being UNESCO site-a designation Jerash in Jordan doesn't have. However, I think that this is because Palmyra has a far racier past than cousin Jerash.

Pompeii conquered the rest of Syria in 63 BC. Instead of wasting his troops energy by talking them through the desert to Palmyra, the town became a buffer zone between the Roman and Persian Empire.

In A.D. 130, Hadrian declared Palmyra a free town so the people of Palmyra were free to govern themselves. In A.D. 217, Rome gave Palmyra the status of Roman colony, so the Palmyrenes did not have to pay taxes and had rights which were on par with those of Rome. At this time, the citizens changed the name of Palmyra to Palmyra-Hadriana to show their gratitude.

Palmyra became an important city on the trade routes between Rome and the empires of the East. Petra's demise was Palmyra's fortune and more and more trade routes felt under Palmyrene control. However the peak of Palmyrene was when Rome granted Palmyrene King Odenathus full control over all of the Roman forces in the area. This was because he rescued the Roman Emperor Valerian from Persian kidnappers. But Odenathus was murdered in 268-2266 A.D. and his queen, Queen Zenobia assumed the throne for her infant son. But Zenobia was no idle queen and set about expanding the Palmyrene kingdom. Within five years her armies controlled Syria, Egypt and Asia Minor up to and including Ankara. Mints in Alexandria were making coins with her image and Zenobia had taken to calling herself Augusta, the Roman Imperial title.

Obviously Rome was a little pissed off and Emperor Aurelian retaliated. By A.D. 272, Zenobia's trips were defeated and Palmyra was captured as Zenobia tried to flee. She had to ride in shackles in Aurelian's victory parade. She lived out the last of her days as a prisoner in Italy. Palmyra never regained its previous splendor. And in 1089, an earthquake toppled most of the city and the place was pretty much abandoned after that.

The first day we arrived we really wondered what the big attraction was. This place was no more than a village with cement houses, sometimes painted, kids on bikes, a few chickens. Having arrived in the midday, all sane people had retreated indoors to escape the heat. And what heat it was! Was finding this oasis in the desert all that great? After we checked into our hotel- Al Afqa Hotel, run by a larger than life manager named Mehren, we wanted around the little tumbleweed town, ate dinner and returned just before sundown where we took a taxi up to the Mamluk castle to watch the sunset.

I met a Canadian archaeologist who knew my Roman art history professor from UVic. The discussions I had with her further confirmed that leaving the political profession of art history to go to linguistics was a good one. We watched the sunset, went back to the hotel and joked with Mehren, and retired to the room for the night

Tuesday, July 31, 2001.

Today we got up and headed to the museum and organized a ride of the tombs of Elahbel and the three brothers. Since we had time to kill, we headed out to the ruins which were surprisingly close to where we were staying. I think over all we didn't really see anything that we didn't see at Jerash, though Palmyra seemed more of a city where Jerash seemed like scattered ruins. Of course we had our usual host of totes and camel drivers to bargain for. I told one guy I really hated camels and he kept chasing me down show me his camel wouldn't bite! I have had enough of the furry flatulent beasts!

After a quick jaunt down to the colonnaded street, checking out the nondescript ruins we headed back in the heat the museum where we met our driver and another Canadian named Tim. Tim was a budding archaeologists you had been on a dig in Turkey. He was way more energetic than us in the heat, running to the top of nearby ruins donning his Indiana Jones hat and peering into the corners with a heavy duty torch. So the first tomb we went to see was the Temple of Elabel. Because these tombs are the best, they are locked and shown only four times a day.

The temple of Bell was built in 103 A.D. for four brothers and their portraits are painted on the wall. But on each side of the temple seems to be a filing cabinet for the dead. Four floors, nine recesses, each could hold nine corpses, that's 324 bodies in this one alone! This was done for profit so you could be buried in a tomb even if you couldn't afford one.

One interesting thing was that the spaces were so narrow it was obvious and later confirmed by our Indiana Jones companion that the Romans buried their dead sideways. The tomb of the three brothers was underground and had funerary statues.

Tim bartered for several minutes for a Kafiya. He got the guy down to 70 Syrian pounds-very cheap! But he didn't have the correct change. So he borrowed 50 pounds off René and promised he would find her and return the money. After he got out of the taxi he stuck his head back in and said he promised and he even did the scouts sign! We trusted him!

He did pay René back by leaving an envelope of money with Mehren at the hotel. When Mehren saw the piddly amount of cash in the envelope, he seriously blew a fit:
"You'd think he left you ten million dollars, with the fuss he made about getting this envelope to you! I should go out there and find this guy and crack his head!" Luckily our Indiana Jones was already out of town.

We were hungry at this point so we decided to go for a walk and check out the Pancake House, a restaurant that came highly recommended by the traveller's we had met. We were having a hard time finding it until a man on a bike drove by and called out,

"Pancake house?"

"Yes!"

"Follow me!"

This was the Iad, cook, owner, manager and full blown-entertainment. After we ate, he invited us into the cool and quiet backroom to hang out with him and his son. René ended up talking to Iad, who drilled her on all sots of topics in order to kill time and I played a strange little card game with his eight-year-old son Mohammed. Iad's wife Gina was currently in Romania with their youngest son and he was left alone with Mohammed for the summer holidays and it was driving him crazy! Mohammed had a fixation with everything mine and carefully checked out the contents of my bag: my camera, backpack, passport, and sunglasses. I took some photos of him wearing everything including my shoes!

We left to catch the afternoon sunlight on the ruins but not before promising to return for a free dinner! And it was a good dinner-couscous with lamb and tomato- the most expensive thing on the menu! There were no other customers and we spent a few hours there. But I have to admit I got bored listening to Iad ask René when she was planning to come back to Palmiyra and offered to help her find a job in Damascus so they could see each other. Not that I want the attention René gets from these men, but it was getting ridiculous! So I bugged Mohammed and we built our own fun.

Soon Mohammed and I were bored with each other and we waited and watched Iad fawn over René and Rene laugh it off for bit longer. He did tell us his grand plans for the pancake House which was basically to become as big as McDonalds is in other countries. (No McDonald's in Syria.) We were only allowed to leave after we had tea with Iad's parents Where he introduced René and told them her life story, ignoring me completely! We also had to promise to come back for breakfast even though in my opinion it was a large pain in the ass and I had had enough of Iad.

Wednesday, August 1, 2001

This morning we packed, checked out of our hotel and carried our luggage over to the Pancake House. Iad had sent Mohammed to sleep at his grandfather's and he himself had pulled up a mat Arab style and was asleep on the floor of the restaurant when we arrived. He got up, not a morning person, and staggered around the kitchen making us a really nice send off breakfast. We had pancakes and coffee, and more of the same conversation as the night before. Rene asked and lots of questions about his wife. He answered but didn't talk too much.

He then drove us to the bus station, bought our tickets to Homs, got on the bus and booted two poor boys out of their seats to wait for the next bus. He then reorganized the front seats so we didn't have to sit next to any swarthy men. He asked us if we had made arrangements with the hotel we wanted to stay at in Hama, and we told him no, but it would be okay. Lucky for us, Iad called ahead and booked us a room, as he knew it was often full and there was no where else decent to stay in Hama!

Then we finally said good bye to Iad, the Pancake Man, me feeling a little guilty and sheepish for scoffing so much at him when he really was quite generous, thoughtful, kind, and did a lot for us.

-To be Continued!-

xxMelanie

Seriously Syria, Last Day in Damascus

2012-02-05T22:09:00.000-08:00

"Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will- whatever we may think."

~Lawrence Durell

Sunday, July 29

Today was our day to do the rest of the old city. Aside from wandering aimlessly through the streets, we went to see the Azzam Palace next to the great Mosque. It was a nice large space with displays of Arabic life portrayed by a bunch of identical manikins, male or female, punched out of the same mould. It was like seeing an Arab version of the Dionne Quintuplets! They did have a nice Koranic display, with six Koranic lines written on a seed and a whole chapter written on an egg. You could see through a magnifying glass that the script was perfect- Not that I would ever want to do that but it must take skills!

After we had gone through the palace, we try to take a rest and drink some water on the sidewalk in the old city. Should I say "try" because a small battle ensued with the vendors located in a fifteen foot radius. "Come to my shop lady!" "Wait, okay, we just want to relax and drink some water." "Come drinking my shop!" Wait! We just want to relax and drink some water!" "Drink in my shop! Wullah, it's more comfortable. You no buy. Just looking! No charge for looking! I give you good price!"

One man sent his friends to tell us to that if we were smart, we'd come to his store because he would give us some free watermelon. "Nothing is free!" we told him. We did end up having tea with one family of a man who ran three shops on that street. They told us that Watermelon Man was a very bad man. "Why?" I asked. "Do you have neighbours in Canada?" "Yes," I replied. "Are they all good?"

Next, they brought out a little wire puzzle and Nae and I had to get a little ring off the wire structure. I had seen it before in Taiwan even though the men insisted that it had been invented by Bedouin man in the desert. As we try to get the ring off, we attracted an Arab crowd of such a mass that the men who ran the shops tried to take the game away to disperse the crowd.

"No!" We told them, determined to solve the puzzle. "Go make some sales!" We laughed. We eventually did solve the puzzle, with a little help from the father of the store. Each time we made motions to leave, the teapot would be refilled and we would be invited to look at one of their other shops.

Eventually we did succumb and followed one man into his own private warehouse. The warehouse was a four story building with a courtyard and fountain. There were more authentic Turkish wall paintings painted by the people who built the edifice. René and I saw guesthouse potential!

Even though we repeatedly told them that we had no money, they continued to show us room and rooms full of old stuff, swords, teapots, rugs etc. and offer us tea. The boy showing us around decided to be our self-appointed guide for the rest of our stay in Damascus. We had to work carefully to extricate ourselves from the situation without being rude.

On the way out I happened to glance under a chair. "Is that cat dead?" I asked.
"No no! Not dead! Sleping. Just watch!" One of the boys moved the chair and poked the cat, but it didn't move.

"Oh, what a pity! This cat was playing just two days ago! Never mind, pull up a chair and drink some tea!"

We practically ran out of the shop after that, and so ended our days in Damascus.

-To be continued-

xxMelanie

Seriously Syria: The Great Mosque of Damascus

2012-01-31T18:04:00.000-08:00

"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit."

~Kalil Gibran

Saturday, July 28, 2001

Today we slept in. Perhaps we need it, we didn't sleep well in Amman. We had a hot room on the roof so we kept the door open since we seemed to retain a lot of heat from the day. All of the people who paid to sleep on the roof slept in sleeping bags on mats on concrete right outside our door, which meant we had to step over bodies to get to and from the shared bathroom. We were tired enough we slept right through the call to prayer which is happening later and later as fall approaches.

I did get to chat with some young Canadian girls who just came back from Beirut. Apparently Lebanon was too expensive for a shopping spree, so they came to Damascus. Bags and bags of spices, pestles and mortars (stone), three gallabeyahs each, miscellaneous water pipes and four or five pairs of shoes each, they were the souk merchants wet dream! None of them knew the Canadian exchange rate, and didn't seem to care . All the money was spent and they were heading home to Montreal. I can imagine the theme party these four would have!

And so after a lazy morning start We finally made it to the Ummayad Mosque, known to me in Art History as the Great Mosque of Damascus. This is Islam's most holy building outside Mecca and Medina, making it the most important Islamic building that a non-Muslim can enter in the world. First, a bit of history. This site has seen many temples. The first being dedicated to the Aramaic God Haddad. The Romans identified him with their God Jupiter; Some Roman ruins remain between the mosque and the souk.

Next, the Byzantines converted the temple into a church dedicated to John the Baptist. When the Ummayads came to power, they destroyed the Church and found John the Baptist's body in the process. They kept his head for good luck and made a little green dome enclosure inside to house it. (But I am assuming he was found with his whole body- but what did they do with it? Did they really need to save the space it would take to house a whole body?)

(Side note here: when we arrived in Istanbul and went to the Topkapi palace, we were lucky enough to see the OTHER head of John the Baptist. Who knew JB had two heads?!!? I feel doubly blessed. )

And of course there are the Byzantine mosaics of lush trees and improved fantastical versions of Damascus. Apparently at the time of building there were no skilled mosaicists so they just hired Byzantine ones- kind of ironic since the Ummayads had just cleared away all the Byzantine rubble. It was the Ummayads who made Damascus the center of the Islamic world and the Abbasids who took it away to Baghdad. I'll get into Damascus history later on right now I just talk about her experience at the mosque.

We ran to gauntlet of the souk which now, being Saturday, was in full throw and we couldn't walk a minute without hearing, "Welcome to my shop!" "Where you from?" Finally we arrived at the mosque and headed for the ticket office. There René and I paid our 50 pound entrance fees, and because we are female, we got fitted with dingy, unattractive sackish brown monk-like robes. (René described them as grayish-brown hospital gowns with hoods) Once fitted in the somewhat hot annoying ugly outfits, we headed to the mosque. Maybe it's just the tourist area, but I didn't find the people we met to be very friendly. Upon entering and wandering around the mosque, I felt a little intimidated. Some of the looks I got especially from other women had me checking that I was properly done up and my head was covered. Perhaps it's because I am a foreign woman with no attached husband. At least that's the most logical reason I can think of.

The mosque's courtyard was very beautiful, and when I saw the Byzantine mosaics everything I learned in Art History flooded back to me. It's funny. When I studied in Art History, I always had the idea that I would like to visit these places one day, but somehow it seems impossible. It was a very satisfying feeling to be standing in front of those mosaics and know again I had come full circle.

Unfortunately my freaking robe kept getting in the way of taking photos. It was a particularly windy day and either my sleeve blew in front of my camera lens or the wind tried to blow the hood of my head and my ankle would be exposed under the ankle length robe if I were facing the wrong way. As well I had a really annoying young guy (dressed in head to toe denim), 'psssting' me if I were to fall out of line in this regard. Of course Denim Man did it to all the foreign women running around and like he did with me, he smiled and try to pick them up after he had finished chastising them for not having their necks covered. (But this feature wasn't built into the robes, so I felt he just have to live with it.)

So even though I took the photo with great difficulty as my feet were burning on the sunbaked marble tiles as well, I got my Byzantine Mosaics in the end.

And I got a slight feel of what it must be like for Muslim women on a day to day basis, especially in Damascus. The women here were few and the ones we saw were in full purdah; not even their eyes visible. A lot were in head to toe black and had their eyes and nose covered. Many women who were covered but didn't wear black wore tan trench coats over their dresses. How anyone could wear that in this heat was beyond me. Omar told me it was the woman's choice what she wanted to wear and that they chose to cover. Standing there in the Great Mosque of Damascus I decided there must be serious social pressure for the women to cover- probably most enforced by other women. I know now why there aren't many Muslim women photographers! Damn sleeves keep getting in the way.

René and I went into the mosque and to my surprise the inside was austere compared to the outside. there were cushy rugs all over the floor and people were either lounging or sleeping. I eyed René suspiciously as lounging is her new favorite hobby- after Dahab she can practically sleep anywhere at anytime! But this makes for a boring travel partner so she didn't sleep in the mosque. In the middle of the interior there was the large green domed enclosure holding poor John the Baptist's head. Rene and I sat down next to a group of women and apparently a little wrinkled lady kept getting giving me hell behind my back, but when I turned around she just stared. Apparently whatever I was doing wrong was not dire enough to let me in on it. I was really beginning not to like Syrian women, based on the little contact I had with them. René had also been complaining a lot about being elbowed pushed and shoved in the markets as well.

And so hot and a little bothered, but still happy to have been able to see the Great Mosque of Damascus, Rene and I continued on. We went to the mausoleum of Saladdin but this was largely uninteresting. I mention it only because it was there I realize that Denim Man was following us. He had there been the one chastising us in the mosque. With some fancy footwork near the entrance of the souk we were rid of him! The rest of our day was fairly boring. We had our shoes fixed as all this traveling has really put some miles on my Birkenstocks, my only pair of shoes at the moment- My other leather sandals didn't react well to the day at the Dead Sea and are now unwearable. (But it was so cheap we got everything fixed- even things that weren't quite broken yet! I got new soles on my Birks for twenty five cents Canadian!) The most memorable part of this night was our discovery of tasty lemon ice-like a soft slurpee-only for 10 pounds. The lemon ice vendors sure make killing continuously scooping frozen ice into cups- usually they're sold before they melt in the 40+ degree heat. I would always watch for him to scoop a fresh one and I would scoop it for myself, yum!

-To be continued-

xxMelanie

Seriously Syria: A Telling 2001 Adventure

2012-01-29T01:06:00.000-08:00

"You can't make war in the Middle East without Egypt

and you can't make peace without Syria."

~Henry Kissinger

I've been following the news of the tragedies happening in Syria and it's been breaking my heart to say the least. Since I have my journals back from the WanderLust! Exhibition I cracked open my Syrian Journal and had a good read today. I haven't actually read my books in ages and since Nick Bantock and his wife Joyce had spent some quality time with them before the exhibition went up, I also wondered what they had read! I never wrote these journals for other people to read, though I don't think there is anything too personal in them. But reading them is like having a visit with a younger version of myself. It makes me a bit sad I haven't kept journals of all the places I've been to, but at least I have these ones.

Rene and I went to Syria pre-9/11 in 2001. I seemed to remember it being a wonderful place with beautiful architecture and friendly people, my journals tell me things long since forgotten. It still is a beautiful place and I'm praying for a quick end to this nonsense over there. I don't want this blog to be political though, But I've decided in light of my frustrations I would publish the Syrian part of my

journal here. I don't have my pictures though. They are in a box at my parents house in slide form, waiting for a day I find a good way to switch them to digital. But I will include the pages of my book to show you instead.

This journal was part of a three month trip from Egypt to Turkey. My first time in the Middle East. I hope you enjoy it! I'll publish a day at a time for brevity.

Saturday, July 28th, 2001

This afternoon we arrived in Syria. We changed money by going in the back of a news stand on the street and up several flights of stairs to a little office on the fifth floor. It seemed a little weird to be going upstairs to the store room to a little office in the back; I got the idea that the other business was just a front for the real moneymaker: changing travelers cheques. What we really didn't know then but know now, is that Syria has a serious black money market, and as we strolled through the souk a few hours later, we couldn't walk 10 feet without someone offering to cash travelers cheques, change money or even give us cash advances on Visa!

We had taken a taxi there, and though we really had no choice but to go with this taxi driver, (we were spoken for, no one else would take us) he turned out to be a bit of a shyster, especially when we figured out he set the meter at triple of the going rate! And while we were changing money, of course he left the meter running. This was just as I suspected, especially since he kept insisting we sit and drink tea with the moneychangers. Idle, idle, idle.

Once we arrived at the hotel, we had a big problem as he wouldn't accept a 500 pound bill for 322 pounds. He had seen us change money and knew we had nothing smaller, and no one in miles willing to change it. A small scene ensued, and in a giant huff he took our 300 pounds and forgave our outstanding 22 pounds. And so he should have! The ride should have cost us about 100. We generally are careful not to get shafted but it was our first 2 min in Syrian public, and I guess no travel story would be complete without a scam or two.

We checked into the Al Haramain Hotel, and thank God they had a room for us because according to our guidebooks everything else was the flea pit or a brothel in Damascus, and not a lot in between or better. After we dropped off our stuff we headed out to finally eat! We went to a little hole in the wall restaurant and ate like vegetarian queens, as both of us were afraid of the meat we saw hanging rock in the window. People (all men- I guess women stay home to eat in Syria) chomped away at chicken carcasses and rice all around us. I went for the hummus and pita once again after we finished, we went for a stroll in the souk.

The Souk is like a large covered neighborhood huge market selling anything from spices to car parts. This day was Friday, and though most of the shops were closed, there was still a lively trade of all sorts of clothing and Max Factor makeup. Nae I walked through to the old city, checked out what we were going to do the next day and then went for ice cream back in the souk.

Apparently this place was famous and all of Damascus for quality ice cream. Nae and I ended up in the wrong line; we wanted to order, instead we got to pound the doughy looking ice cream with the really heavy wooden paddle. Of course we weren't as strong as the guy working there and our feeble attempts brought smirks from him and giggles from us and the other customers in the restaurant.

The ice cream was a bit too slimy for my liking, but it was worth stop and the time to soak in some Syrian ambiance. The place was filled with families, all eating the same vanilla ice cream under two huge portraits of the late President Hafez Al- Assad, a gray-haired evil looking man with a comb over and his son, Bashar Al-Assad, who is the current president -an unattractive man who seems to be frowning behind sunglasses in every portrait we saw of him.

A happier portrait next to them showed our jovial Jordanian King Abdullah receiving his luscious portion of slimy vanilla ice cream. We missed our happy King! At least in Jordan Abdullah and his babe-a-licious wife smiled, welcoming you to Jordan. The late King Hussein was good looking enough to hang on the wall without his kingly status. But these two in Syria! Sheesh! Scary!!!

-To Be Continued!-

xxMelanie

Okanagan Originals: The Slide Show Experiment!

2012-01-08T12:19:00.000-08:00

There is a reason I surround myself with smart, creatively thinking people.

Obviously this page is an experiment in progress! (Apparently I'll need to change the width of my blog to make this work properly, But I'm going to save that for another day.)

I learned how to embed videos tonight. Hence the reformatting of my blog to fit the video format.

Eww, blogger, you need to work on your uploading of videos. This looks terrible!

As you know, my paintings have been pirated and can now be found for sale all through the tourist areas of Istanbul, and by more than one Turkish company. Obviously protecting my images is important. But setting up a new website is time consuming and expensive, and frankly I don't have the time right now.

On another note, people have been asking which original paintings are still available after the exhibition at the Penticton Art Gallery and Cafe NeverMatters this past summer. I'd post them, but I am reluctant because I don't like the look of the watermarks all over my paintings. My friend Peter in the U.K agreed. So he suggested an idea worth exploring. Why not make a slideshow?

So here is my slideshow of original paintings which are still up for grabs. I admit, I did this through imovie and it's not as clear as I'd like it to be on blogger, so I uploaded it on to Youtube as well. (Seems to be an issue with blogger.) In the meantime, I'll keep looking for good slideshow software if it seems this is working out. Ultimately, I'd like my own website but this is something worth exploring in the meantime.

I would love it if you would drop your feedback/ advice/ brilliant ideas about the slideshow. Do you feel you get a good sense of the paintings? Is it annoying? Would you rather look at the watermarked images for the time being? Is it brilliant, creative and innovative and you wish you'd thought of it yourself? (Truthfully, I'm still not sure what I think.)

Thanks!

xxMelanie

The Last of the Turkish Prints!

2012-01-06T14:48:00.000-08:00

The Hamam Ladies

Blog: New Paintings in Istanbul!

Only Five prints left for Sale

at Java Cafe, Sultanahmet, Istanbul!

(And that is it for the 2009 Turkish Series!)

My sister and I and a few of our terrific friends at our first show in Istanbul!

I had a really good summer.

After I collected my paintings and prints from the Wanderlust! Exhibition The Penticton Art Gallery, I took inventory of which paintings I had left. Strangely enough, I sold the rest of the Turkish series between the two shows I had this summer, but I still have a few of the Okanagan pieces. An employee of the gallery remarked, "Maybe we are too close to the Okanagan stuff. The Turkish series is far off and exotic, and beautiful. I'm not surprised you've been cleaned out."

So it's great that the Turkish paintings are all gone, though I admit sometimes I feel a little sad when I think I won't see a painting again. I know it's the business and I'm happy to part with work for two reasons: It makes someone else happy to have it and I am inspired to paint more.

But the Istanbul series was painted at a really spectacular time of my life where I was surrounded by wonderful friends in a wonderful, inspiring city- a bit of a golden age for me, where I got back into art full time and did some hard thinking about what was really important to me and where I wanted to be headed in the future. Ironic that I'm hoping my future will lead me back to this fabulous city that has lost a few of the golden friends over this hiatus, but still contains some people I miss greatly. I'm really hoping that the stars align and I am able to return- there is still so much left for me to paint!

Anyway, on that note, I have just received word that there are still a few Turkish prints in Istanbul for sale through Java Cafe at 55 TL each. If you are in the area or are going to the area, or knows anyone in the area, there are three prints left: Click the blog link under each picture to take you to the links where you will find more info about each piece.

Contact Virginia Lowe @

Java Cafe in Sultanahmet

Peykane Caddesi, Su Terazisi Sok 9A.

Sultanahmet, Istanbul

Turkey

(Again, sorry for the over watermarking, but if you'd read my piracy blog you'll know why!

Still working on a solution for that one!)

The Bosporus Ferry

Blog: New Paintings in Istanbul!

The Sultanahmet Bird Feeders

Blog: Birds Birds Birds!

The Umbrella Ladies

Blog: New Paintings in Istanbul!

The Fish Mongers of Kadikoy

Blog: New Paintings in Istanbul!

xx Melanie

Commitment-phobe: How not to be one in 2012!

2011-12-29T09:50:00.000-08:00

Unless commitment is made,

there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.

Peter Drucker

Damn! New Year's is happening in China right now and I'm missing it!

Commitment. It’s so final. You make a decision that feels like you are taking yourself out of the good life and putting yourself in commitment purgatory. The future looks dismal and bleak, like a tattered sepia photograph from the Depression era. The thought of the commitment being so forever, so final, and you get the sweats. Your stomach churns. Panic. Then comes the negotiating- your mind with yourself. One more little fling won’t hurt. Just one, then I’ll commit to my commitment forever. And then the next thing you know, the whole pack of cigarettes has been smoked, that bag of Oreos that was full twenty minutes ago is now empty and no, you didn’t go to the gym everyday like you’d promised your 2010 self.

Yes, it’s the time where New Year’s resolutions are upon us. I, like everyone else, probably didn’t stick to my commitments I made to myself last year. I think I wrote them down but somewhere in the three full house moves I made this year (yes three!) they were thrown out with the trash, which is where they belonged, because I didn’t commit to them anyway, it seems.

But in July, I decided I wanted to be a little more proactive about my health. One thing I could do is cut out sugar. Sneaking a Starbucks cookie in with my afternoon coffee had become a bad habit. But cutting out sugar forever? It seemed so final. So not fun. Because sugar is in everything. Sauces, soy milk, breakfast muffins. Everything.

At the time, three things things happened.

One, I watched a Ted talk: "Try something new for 30 days" by Matt Cutt: (It’s only three minutes, worth the watch!)

Two, My friend Keveen Gabet of Korakor launched his own 30-Day Challenge. (I guess Keveen watched the same TedTalk!) And here I decided to join Keveen’s 30-Day Challenge and I cut out sugar for 30 days. I put a calendar on my fridge and marked off the days one by one. Truthfully, I stuck to it and the month flew by. And I felt great. I even kept it up for quite a while, though Christmas has certainly killed that! (Time to cut out sugar again.)

Three: I was working in a language school in Gastown and I was teaching a lesson on future tense in a grammar class. I like to tie my lessons into something that involves the Vancouver community so students can learn as much as they can about their social environment and since Lululemon originated in Vancouver, and yoga pants are everywhere, I printed off Lululemon’s goal setting worksheet for homework in preparation for the next lesson. I told the students I would do it too, so we could all see what each other’s goals were.

Boy, was it hard! The students furrowed their brows over the sheet, not because the English was difficult, but because none of us had sat down and tried to figure out our 1, 5 and 10 year goals. We couldn’t finish in class time, but we all agreed it was a good idea to take it home and finish it as a general exercise in whatever language worked best.

But Lulu’s goal setting sheet wasn’t a 30-Day Challenge, nor was it a New Year’s resolution. Instead, It was a way to check in at different times of the year to make sure you were on top of your goals. After all, the person you are today is a direct result of the person you wanted to be in the past. So wouldn’t it be a good idea to get a very strong and positive picture of the person you’d like to be five and ten years from now?

So here is my 2012 New Year’s Resolution:

I’m not making any New Year’s Resolutions.

New Year’s resolutions are too big, too broad, too final and simply, too restrictive and boring. Instead, I challenge myself to fill out Lulu’s goal setting sheet in my sketchbook- something I have with me all the time and won’t lose. And I will do this four times a year when the seasons change. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, because these are times of renewal, just like New Years.

And second of all, I am going to start with monthly challenges- Which means my challenges will be 28, 30 and 31 days long. Otherwise, I may fall off my track and not start a new 30-day challenge for a few weeks. Just being honest here! I’m not perfect! This way, if I do fall off my track, I have a definite date to start again.

So here is to 2012! And to goal setting all year round.

(Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to cram all the chocolate in I can before January 1^st. Juuuust kidding!)

Link to Ted Talk

Link to Korakor

Link to Lululemon goal setting (PDF goal setting sheet found here. I challenge you to fill it out, even just once!)

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Happy New Year!

xxMelanie

Yarn Bomb Victoria!

2011-12-28T10:03:00.001-08:00

Improving the Urban Landscape

one stitch at a time!

(Except this one is at the beach, so not purely urban.)

Just before Christmas I took off to Victoria to visit friends for the weekend. After a lovely coffee at Ogden Point with my friend Kelly (after a lovely breakfast with the Morley-Brucker family! Oh how I love this vacation thing!), I found this bee-yooo-ti-ful yarnbomb on the beach at Dallas Road. Oh Victoria, I really do miss you!

One of the coolest yarn bombs I'd ever seen with my own eyes. Kelly had never heard of yarnbombing, but had seen one before so she was also quite happy to have stumbled across this little gem. I'm sure if I had been able to spend more time in Victoria I would have found them everywhere, as it seems like a very Victoria thing to do.

xxMelanie

Introducing Naramata Chronicles!

2011-12-04T14:47:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to MyNaramata and

Craig Henderson, Author of Naramata Chronicles

on a job well done!

Craig Henderson is the hard working journalist/writer behind MyNaramata, which over the years, has become the indispensable go-to website for anyone remotely interested in all things Naramata. Lucky for me, Mr Henderson is also a fan of the Creative Caravan and I'm honoured not only to be included in this book about Naramata, but my artwork is on the front, back and middle of the book as well! Yay Craig! Yay me!

Craig took some time out of his schedule to send me my own personal copy last week and I am really amazed at how great it looks and what a fantastic job he did choosing articles and essays that reflect the spirit of Naramata, past and present. Certainly a few of you will be receiving books from me for Christmas!

I'd tell you what was written about me inside, but I'll let Craig tell you himself. Here is the link to the book along with the Url to where you can buy it through Pay Pal. there is also a great little video that visits all of the great people of Naramata who are included in the book.

Links:

Naramata Chronicles (The book!)

Naramata Chronicles Youtube (The Movie!)

Naramata Chronicle's Link to PayPal (For the hopelessly impatient!)

Look I'm in print! Just like Edna Ferber!

Thanks again,Craig!

xxMelanie

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-07T22:22:00.000-08:00

There are few who'd deny, at what I do I am the best,

For my talents are renowned far and wide,

When it comes to surprises in the moonlit night,

I excel without ever even trying.

With the slightest little effort of my ghostlike charms

I have seen grown men give out a shriek,

With the wave of my hand and a well placed moan

I have swept the very bravest off their feet!

~Jack, the Pumpkin King

One of the only non-scary Halloween costumes I've ever had, made from scratch! In High school. I made all of those beads from white flour dough baked in the oven and painted. It weighed a tonne! I didn't win this costume contest because I refused to walk like an Egyptian. I was too shy. (Which is pretty funny, considering!)

Yes, I know I'm a week late, but that's just the way these two months have been.

Halloween is by far my favourite holiday, and since I don't usually spend Halloween in Canada, I decided that I would go all out celebrating my favourite holiday with style. Usually, I am a witch year after year, which is pretty boring for a creative type like me, I know. However, I only seem to have fun when I'm really really unrecognizably ugly. And this year, I felt like I wanted to switch things up and be some kind of nameless zombie.

My first attempt at being a ghoul with big help from my sis, the queen of ghouls. Together we transformed my friend Kevin from a Blues Brother (Lame!) to the beauty he is here. Kevin recently admitted hehad the best time being scary. (He was Captain Kirk this year. I tried to talk him into dead Captain Kirk, but he didn't go for it.)

So I eschewed the homework and went to Value Village sometime in Early October. I don't know Vancouver very well, but I know there is a Value Village out on infamous East Hastings. So off I went, trucking from ritzy Kits to Value Village East Hastings. The staff were in costumes, the customers too tired of waiting for dressing rooms donned costumes over their clothes. I was in search of a cheap white nightie that I could rip up and roll in the dirt. But sadly, there were none to be had.

My sister Rene cutting my head off many years ago! But don't worry, I'm immortal. It's hard to kill me.

I started looking at old crappy stained wedding dresses, but all the dresses were too expensive for my tastes or strapless, and since I would be going to high school in this, I figured I'd better cover the boobage up. I did find a hot pink merangue dress though, which was so hideous I decided I could do something with it, but it wasn't really what I wanted. But the price was right and I didn't have time to keep looking.

Considering this was Halloween in Taiwan, I think we pulled together some great Costumes. Rene was te Queen of death with her Skull crown. We made kids cry! And we loved it! (One of the secretaries kept my black tooth goo for me and gave it to me a few days after Halloween becuase she was afraid would use it all up on Halloween, hence the clean teeth here. I still don't understand her logic of not giving it to me on Halloween!)

As I stood in line, I saw a man with stringy long hair wearing a big frilly wedding dress over his clothes. He was tall and skinny and the dress actually fit him quite well. What a costume! He looked absolutely ridiculous in it. He saw me admiring the dress so I gave him a thumbs up.

"I totally want your dress!" I called over the tills at him.

"Really?" He shouted back. "I found it in the alley in a box. I'm trying to trade it in for some warm clothes over the winter."

The UBC costume contest labelled me, Old Zombie crow bride. I don't like the bride bit, I don't think it looks like a wedding dress anymore. I took it in myself with some real Sally Nightmare before Christmas stitches!

Before I knew it, I was in negotiations over this dress. The guy was happy to sell it to me if I bought him some warm clothes. Our deal was almost made until the Value VIllage people stepped in. They wanted the dress. It had beautiful beading and lace sleeves. "This one won't go for cheap," The employee told me as she unzipped the dress down the homeless man's back.

I met this guy on the bus! He says he knit the helmet and beard himself.

Man after my own heart!

But honestly, the dress stank, and was ripped up one of the seams, and was missing a few beads. So for shits and giggles, I asked her to ask what the dress would cost as is. Ten minutes later, I'd bought my first and only wedding dress for 40 bucks with tax. Before I left the store, I found the homeless man searching through the coat section.

Japanese girls in the boat bathroom! We had good times.

"I just paid forty bucks for your dress," I told him. "Make sure you get your money's worth!"

I took the dress home, threw it in the wash machine and once it was clean, I dirtied it up again. By the way, Coffee grounds stain up a dress to make it look dirty quite nicely! Though you need to keep the dress out of your bedroom for the first week if you have any plans to sleep.

The whole Enchilada!

I wore this dress once to my practicum high school, once to a boat cruise with the language school I worked at this summer, and again to UBC where I tied for first place in the Education department's Halloween Costume contest! (I won a twenty dollar gift card! Woo hoo! Thanks, ESA!) When it was time to put the dress away, I was kind of sad not to have a reason to wear it again till next Halloween. (Or unless I get married this year! I've already got a dress!)

I'm Jack! The Pumpkin King! And I just can't wait until next Halloween,

I've got some new ideas that will really make them SCREAM!

And I carved probably one of the scariest pumpkins I've ever made. So sad to see them rot over the next few days. My Jack-o-lantern was so scary my roommate said he had to turn the face away while he ate dinner. Yes! Success.

One of my favourite pictures! Mainly because my friend here has no eyes.

I'm not sure where I'll be next Halloween. But you can be sure that if I am still in Canada, the old Zombie with the crow will be out haunting the streets of some town, this time next year.

And I just can't wait until next Halloween,

Cause I've got some new ideas that will really make them SCREAM!

Happy Halloween!

xxMelanie

Kitsilano Yarnbomb Spotted!

2011-10-10T16:27:00.000-07:00

As you know, though I am a pathetic knitter, I love a good yarn bombing. And I especially love yarn bombers who yarn bomb trees across the street from my house, in the yard of Kitsilano Community house!

Happy Thanksgiving~!

Melanie

Post Wanderlust: Where to now?

2011-09-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

Melanie Mehrer: Wanderlust!

September 16- November 6th, 20011,

Penticton Art Gallery

It's fall and it feels like a turning point.

The closest thing to having my name in lights!

But the question is, What's next?

Quick recap: This weekend I attended the opening of my first public art gallery show at the Penticton Art Gallery alongside an artist I would list as one of my inspirations, Nick Bantock, whose retrospective took up residence in the Main Gallery. We had an extremely successful opening, And Director-Curator Paul Crawford said it was the second biggest turnout ever in his history of working at the gallery.

My Travel journals on display: The first time they've seen by the public.

"The only opening to beat you were the Tibetan Monks." He informed us over dinner.

Nick, Joyce (Nick's wife) and I decided we were okay with being beaten by Tibetan Monks. (Which if you think about it literally, is a pretty funny visual.)

The Wanderlust exhibition in the Toni Onley Gallery:

Nick's retrospective is behind the right wall in the main room.

Sometimes when I find myself in bizarre situations, I like to stop and take a mental photograph of where I am and thing of all of the experiences, moments, turn of events that brought me to these moments. Sitting with the Bantocks, at my favourite restaurant in Penticton, talking about art and yarn bombing and Tibetan Monks seems all absurdly natural. I told NIck that when I went to University in Victoria I worked in a tourist gallery that sold his stationery sets. Even though I barely had two nickels to jingle in my pocket, I bought myself a set and poured over the images. When the letters were written and the postcards sent, I put all of my important letters and postcards in that Griffin & Sabine box. If you told me back then that one day I'd be breaking bread with the Bantocks I would think you were absolutely bonkers.

Artist Melanie meets Nick Bantock. Oodles of fun! Nick and Joyce are super. If I had money to burn and knew where I'd be next September, I'd jump on their artist's retreat in Spain. (Link at bottom of the page)

Anyway, at the dinner table Nick and I chatted a lot about his alter egos, the characters in the books he writes, Griffin and Sabine and the new WasNick Blog he's been writing. He is like an animated version of his own books, slipping in and out of character as he retold stories, and shared his insights with me.

High school art student Melanie tracked down my high school art teacher and invited him to the opening. It was great to see him after all these years. I'm now four years older than he was when he was my teacher. When I was in his class, my goal in life, oddly enough, was to be a high school art teacher and have a show at the Penticton Art Gallery.

So over the course of the next few days, I started thinking about myself and my alter egos. We all have them, and truthfully, I've never given them much thought. But the opening on Friday night for me was very much a time where I slipped into a very old character- one I haven't seen in years, as I had my old classmates, my parents, my relatives and my high school art teacher all in attendance- I was the 38 year-old version of my 18 year-old self.

Cousin Melanie, Niece Melanie, and Daughter Melanie with my family.

And then there is my exhibition itself, hanging on two parallel walls, facing each other like dance partners waiting for the music to begin. Someone told my mother that if you stood in the middle and looked at both walls, the left with linocuts of Taiwan comics and the other side with paintings of Turkey and Canada, you might think there were two different artists, yet they are both me at different times of my life when different things were important and parts of my character and understanding of the world were different too.

Abu Dhabi Melanie was represented! My good friends and former coworkers Maureen and Rachel happened to be in the right hemisphere at the right time. These two were an amazing support team for me when I was really down in the Emirates and I will never forget their willingness to put up with me at that time. Cheers to you both!

It's hard to put words to it but looking at the art there on the walls made me realise that what I do is interesting and appealing, but it's also very safe. I don't usually start anything until I've thought it al the way through to it's successful state. What was that? Safe? Not usually an adjective you would associate with someone who has travelled the world over like me.

Taiwan Melanie was also at the Opening with Taiwan friend/roommate Scott and his wife Ou. Scott had to gingerly step over most of the Taiwan prints which were drying in rows on the floor of our living room for weeks. He said it was really cool to see the same images hanging on the gallery walls 12 years later.

But if one were to look closely at my art, you'd notice that there is quite a bit missing from the UAE chapter in my life. What never made the artist's talk is that I left the Emirates at the lowest point of my life and safety and contentment is what I needed at the time. And Turkey handed that to me on a big Turkish tea platter complete with tea and sugar. And so my Turkish paintings were painted out of that necessity for safety and security. The Canadian paintings have been a big part of that healing process. It didn't really hit me until I was in the middle of my artist's talk.

My high school classmates! Not only was it an opening, it was a reunion!

Very cool to see everyone and strange that twenty years have passed since I have seen some of these people. Once zitty teenagers, we are now teachers, artists, designers, wine industrineers, mature university students, scientists and computer software engineers. New versions of our past-selves.

A friend of my mother's filmed the artist's talk I gave on Saturday, and in trying to edit it I have had time to watch myself answer on-the-spot questions in the gallery without too much thought and I've had time to think about some things. If I had to answer some of those questions again, a few days later, I'm not sure I'd be so quick to answer. I still don't have answers, if fact, I'm not even sure I have questions! But something is a changing. I feel like I'm going in a new direction, and I'm not sure if it's up, down or sideways, but it certainly isn't the linear left and right path I have been on lately.

I can't categorize which Melanie I am around Paul- He knows them all. Paul Crawford, Director-Curator at the Penticton Art Gallery is also a close and personal friend who has infiltrated my university days, my Taiwan days, and is an honorary member of my family. We haven't always gotten along, and because of that, I think we have a really strong friendship. As Rumi Says, if you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?"

And then there is the present fractioning of who I am which really gets to the heart of my recent feeling of Schitzophrenia: Me as an artist, Me as a teacher, and me as a prospective Art teacher Candidate in the UBC education programme. I've been trying to imagine myself as this future art teacher, opening up students to different ideas, to be open, explore their creativity and get them moving in new directions they never thought possible.

The wall of Canada!

The wall of Taiwan!

Lucky for me, (The Grand Poobah of "Me"s,) knows that I've got time to figure out which path I'm going down next while I take this programme. Where I'll be this time next year is a giant question mark for me. Maybe I'll be teaching, maybe I'll be back living in my parent's backyard. Maybe I'll have spun off in a new direction I never anticipated. (I'm kind of liking that last idea.)

Until then, I think I'm going to put the paints away for a bit, focus on school, draw inward, and see what happens when I stop being all the "Me"s I think I need to be.

Hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.

~Ralph Ellison

Links to Wanderlust! Videos on Youtube:

Paul Crawford introduces Nick and I to the public at the Opening at the Penticton Art Gallery

Wanderlust Artist's Talk:

Clip 1

Clip 2

Clip 3

Links to Nick Bantock:

The Spain Workshop: The Trickster's Hat- A Cocktail of Art, Intuition and Mischief..

The WasNick Blog

Nick's Website

xxMelanie

Publish Post

MyNaramata: World Travels in Gallery Exhibit!

2011-09-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks yet again to MyNaramata & Craig Henderson for their article on my upcoming exhibit,

Wanderlust! At the Penticton Art Gallery.

You can see the article in its original form here:

MyNaramata: World Travels in Gallery Exhibit!

Here is the article below.

Thanks, Craig! The show opens next week! See you there.

xxMelanie

10th September 2011

World Travels in Gallery Exhibit

Editor

A Naramata artist is celebrating her first exhibit at a public art gallery.

Melanie Mehrer’s Wanderlust exhibit opens Friday evening September 16th ( 7 – 9 PM) and an artist’s talk has been scheduled for Saturday, September 17 at 1 PM at the Penticton Art Gallery.Currently, Melanie divides her time between Naramata and Vancouver, where she is completing an education degree at UBC. Upon graduation she hopes to find placement as a high school art teacher. In the past, Melanie attended Okanagan College as a visual arts student and later transferred to the University of Victoria where she completed an honours degree in art history with a focus on Islamic art history.

Before and after her formal education, she has been a consummate traveller and artist.Melanie describes the upcoming exhibit:“This will be an overview of the work I have done over the past fourteen years. You will see LinoCut collages from Taiwan, Blankets from Shanghai, My travel journals from the Middle East, Thailand, Cambodia, Cuba, Dominican Republic and a few from India, mosques from the United Arab Emirates and my paintings from Turkey and Canada.”Read more about her background and upcoming exhibit:

Melanie Mehrer: Wanderlust

In recent years, her art has been featured frequently at Café Nevermatters, and at the Naramata Christmas Craft Fair. MyNaramata.com has featured several past articles on her Naramata scenes:

Naramata Peacock fowl make Faire Debut

Bears inspire artist

Chasing Geese captures Naramata moment

Cafe Nevermatters Art Exhibition, July 2011

Recently, Melanie wrote on her blog about her curiousity of ancient paint mediums, perhaps inspired by some of the First Nations pictographs found in Naramata:

In the beginning there was Ochre

Pirated in Turkey!

2011-09-05T12:28:00.001-07:00

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
~Confucious

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine living in Turkey sent me the following picture:

Paula had been shopping with her parents in Sultanahmet and found my paintings printed on a tin of olive oil soap. Thinking I'd be flattered, She snapped this photo and sent it to me. I admit, The first time I saw it, I laughed, it was so surreal. But then the realization that my work had been stolen and someone else was profiting off my images sunk in. I was in a horribly bad mood for a few days and felt really miserable about it. It wasn't a nice feeling.

I work hard at what I do. I also don't make a heck of a lot of money at it, but I do it because I like to do it and it is slowly building and growing and becoming something important and special to me. So to see someone blatantly rip off my image, stick it on an olive soap tin and profit from my hard work, well, it sucks.

Some people say I ought to be flattered that someone thought my work was good enough to be pirated. I do understand that line of thought is the positive way of looking at this, and I am all for positive thinking. But at the same time, If I have a really nice camera, I wouldn't be flattered if someone coveted it enough to steal it. It's still my camera, and it's mine, and you don't have the right to take it. Period. Why should it be any different with artwork?

So then I did something I am still not entirely too comfortable with doing. I watermarked the hell out of my images on this blog and on my Facebook page. I realise this isn't going to stop people from erasing the watermarks with an image tool in Photo shop, but at least the pirates will have to work hard at stealing my images from now on. But the truth is, I don't think it looks good and I'm not entirely comfortable with this as a solution.

I have gotten some really great advice from a lot of knowledgable people and I think the best solution to this problem is to eventually move my blog to a site that doesn't support the right click save option. I'm not sure when I'll have the time to do that with school coming up, but I will be looking into it in the near future. Until then, the crappy watermarks have to stay.

My sister Rene was recently on vacation in Istanbul and I asked her to suss out the damage for me. She sent me the following pictures. Apparently my stuff is for sale all over Istanbul, The Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, the shops in Sultanahmet and even Galata Tower area. "The Bosporus Ferry" is a big seller on the tin, and "Life in Sultanahmet" is a big seller on the tile.

Here are the photos Rene sent me:

A typical nice bath shop in the Grand Bazaar. In fact, I have bought presents for people in this exact shop. My pirated olive soap tins are on the three tiered table on the right.

My Latest Hagia Sophia Painting, except someone has removed the birds, cut and pasted a billion little stars and filled in the bushes (badly, in my opinion) on the bottom. (Note to Pirates: Bigger stars, less stars enlarge the moon next time! The bushes are pretty crappy too! Next time, ask me, give me credit, we'll work something out!)

Is it just me, or does my little ferry stand out on the centre of that board?

At least I look good up there with the great masters! That's Ingres below my little ferry; One of the paintings I studied in art history.

Now I know how Louis Vuitton feels!

This one apparently is a big seller. A Painting I actually painted for myself. That's my neighbour and my landlord in our neighbourhood. the shop keeper asked my sister what she was doing taking pictures of his product. She explained that this was my painting. He said, "The man who is doing this is my friend. I thinks there is nothing you can do. My friend is alone man. Your sister help him a lot."

A very blue "Life in Sultanahmet." Cropped badly as well.

But you can own the whole thing on a tile for 38 Turkish Lira. My only self portrait, that's my sister and I under the umbrellas.

This was a little study I did for the bigger Hagia Sophia paintings I did later on. Funny to think it was painted a few blocks away from where it's on sale now.

But here is the blatant nasty bit: This guy is signing them and passing them off on his own! But there is an email address, and he will be hearing from me very, very soon. At the very least, I'd like him to put my name and blog address on there. It's only fair that I get recognized for my own work.

Until then, the ugly watermarks will have to stay (sad face). Even if it means my blog will be shared less around the web.

So here's what I have learned and hope for the future:

1. I can come to some kind of amicable agreement with these guys and at the very least get the recognition I deserve.

2. I will consider getting a website that does not support the right click save option, because I don't like the look of the watermarking.

3. I've shied away from allowing my paintings to be on products because I was told it could cheapen the images. I actually think these products look pretty good. (Aside from some crappy editing- I can do a better job!) If I move to Turkey next year I will create my own line of product and hopefully put these other guys out of business! (Watch out, Turkish pirates, it's only a matter of time before I'm back in Istanbul looking for you!)

4.Perhaps in some round about funny way this is the universe's way of telling me, I’m good at what I do, and if I didn’t feel the confidence to make product like this before, that confidence has just been handed to me on a big Turkish Tea Platter.

I'll keep you posted on what happens!

Special thanks!

To Paula for alerting me that my work is being pirated in Istanbul.

To Jonathan Lewis and David Kelly for their valuable advice, and

to René for trekking around Istanbul and snapping photos on my behalf.

Link to article, Watermarks: Protecting your images or damaging your business?

xxMelanie

Wanderlust! Exhibition opening at the Penticton Art Gallery

2011-09-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

Penticton Art Gallery (Toni Onley Gallery)

Melanie Mehrer: Wanderlust

Artist talk Saturday, September 17 at 1 p.m.

Opening September 16th

I'm very excited to announce my upcoming show at the Penticton Art Gallery! The Press release came out this morning and somehow it's all very surreal and real and exciting.

You can see the press release/ artist statement from the

Penticton Art Gallery Website here.

I will be showing in the gallery next to Nick Bantock, who is the creator of the Griffin and Sabine Trilogy. I have owned all of his books and stationery sets and poured over his images in the past. I even have all of my special papers and postcards in a Griffin and Sabine box Somewhere in my boxes of things packed away for literally decades now. My travel journals, which were largely inspired by Griffin and Sabine will be on display as well. I never though tin a million years Nick Bantock would actually see them one day!

This will be an overview of the work I have done over the past fourteen years. You will see LinoCut collages from Taiwan, Blankets from Shanghai, My travel journals from the Middle East, Thailand, Cambodia, Cuba, Dominican Republic and a few from India, Mosques from the UAE and my paintings from Turkey and Canada.

So with that, I invite you to come to the opening

at the Penticton Art Gallery on

Friday, September 16th,

7-9 pm. See you there!

xxMelanie

Little Bow-Wow Series: The Crying Girl of Kyoto!

2011-08-21T16:29:00.001-07:00

There really is a perception that if you know the ballet studies, you know Degas. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Like Picasso, Degas was a relentless innovator in everything he did -- in drawing, in printmaking, in photography.

~Edward Saywell

I'm gearing up for the big show at the Penticton Art Gallery in September. (More info to follow) but in the meantime, a month of cutting paper has finally come to an end for the "Little Crying Girl of Kyoto." It's a run of 20 artist proofs, 19 of them will hit the public soon.

(I have to keep one for myself, don't I?)

Here's how she was created:

First, I carved this block in Taiwan about ten years ago, but never had the time to print it properly. I even brought this block to Shanghai where it sat in my shelf for a few years, then in a box in Canada for a few years. When I was offered a show at the Penticton Art gallery, I went to the Okanagan, went through my boxes, and found the plates I had never printed. (More to follow! She's not the only one I haven't finished!)

So I printed her, and began collaging coloured acid-free paper over her. The pieces will be printed over one more time so it's best the colours bump up against each other instead of overlapping, because the ink has more of a change of getting where it needs to go.

Prints ready to be glued on!

This is pretty much how it's done. Yes, it's tedious.

Some pieces are reallly small!

I made twenty four collages, so to get to this stage took me about a month. Still, I have no idea how it's going to really look until I print it.

Time to bring the plate out again!

The plate itself took me a few weeks to carve out.

A non printed and a printed version.

Twenty four prints later, I have twenty nice ones and lost four.

This is to be expected with printing!

I love pulling prints off the plate. It's like Christmas!

After such a long wait Did it work? How does it look?

Yay! I like it!

Only three plates to go! But I assure you, I won't be printing 20 this time!

The Penticton Art Gallery opening is September 15th.

I hope to see you there!

Previous Blog Post on Linocuts...Click here!

xxMelanie

Most Fascinating People of Naramata, 2010!

2011-08-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

Home is the place where,

when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

~Robert Frost

I just realised today that I had never properly blogged to thank Craig Henderson and MyNaramata for voting me one of Naramata's most fascinating people of 2010! I once made the joke that it's not hard to make the list of most fascinating of your hometown when only 20 people live there. But it's just a joke, Naramata is full of really interesting, eccentric wonderful people, and I am honoured to be part of such a list of such a community.

On a recent trip back to the Okanagan, I was walking home from the coffee shop and ran into my old classmate from Naramata Elementary school, Josh Wood. He was parked in the middle of the intersection of Ritchie and Third, chatting away with an old gentleman, a relative newcomer to our little town. I suppose I found it amusing to see him parked in the middle of the road like that, chatting away. Such a Naramata thing to do, and as a kid I remember riding my bike around similar discussions happening on the pavement.

"This is John, He's my uncle." Josh introduced his friend as I wandered up doorside.

"Uncle-uncle or Naramata-uncle?" I asked.

"Naramata uncle." He grinned.

And that is the great thing about being local from our little town. No matter how far I go or how long I stay away, I'm always a part of the Naramata family and they will always be a part of me. And I'm proud to be part of a list with such interesting people! (I used to babysit #7 on the list, Alyson Jones, and I can confirm she's been awesome since she was eight!)

Thanks again, Craig (Who also happened to be voted citizen of the year!)!!

(see the original article at MyNaramata here, with working links!)

27th December 2010

Most Fascinating People, 2010

Editor

~ THE YEAR IN REVIEW ~

Here’s a rundown of some fascinating local folks who made our news during 2010.
Their contribution to the rich mosaic of the community helped make Naramata a special place to live. Or, in some cases, their upbringing in Naramata has influenced their lives in the world beyond our local boundaries.

In no particular order:

Melanie Mehrer
She travels and works abroad and then returns home with a global view. Naramata seems to ground Melanie, and she pays it back to the community through the whimsy of her art. Whether its peafowl, dogs at Manitou, bears in trees or pruning orchardists, she has captured it all over the past year.
http://is.gd/jx8ww
http://is.gd/jx8HF
Melanie is a prize-winning photographer too:http://is.gd/jx8Y0

Taylor Cook
Naramata’s favourite saxophone player took a break from his classes at the University of Toronto in February to embark on a BC tour with his quartet:
http://is.gd/jx9o6
He was back in Naramata this month and performed at the Naramata Christmas Concert:
http://is.gd/jx9Oq

Russell Cannings
Throughout 2010, we followed the adventures of former Naramata resident Russell Cannings as he set out to break a bird watching record. By early October, he had done it!
http://is.gd/jx9ZG

Wayne Holland
With Naramata’s most varied vineyard, Wayne is a winemaking artist: http://is.gd/jxavV

Kevin Rudolph
With the completion of a commercial kitchen, Kevin was full steam ahead with making his famous BBQ sauce:
http://is.gd/jxaLQ
We checked in with Kevin later in the year:http://is.gd/jxb8I

Marlene Moloney
A gifted artist in glass, working from a creek side studio, and the first western Canadian member of a prestigious guild of glass engravers:
http://is.gd/jxbiz

Alyson Jones
Interviewing Alyson made me comfortable with the term ‘baby catcher.’ She and partners Marijke and Christy operate Willow Community Midwives:http://is.gd/jxchH
Marijke and Alyson recalled a working adventure in Africa in an article we posted last March:http://is.gd/jxcxm

Rob Van Westen
In July, Rob was amid cherry season when he heard that His Honour BC Lieutentant Governor Steven Point wanted to give him a wine award. Rob invited the LG and his diplomatic delegation of two dozen to the cherry orchard. Rob and Tammie were gracious hosts, and Rob even had a chance to slip in a suggestion that the vice regal consider making an award to honor family farms:
http://is.gd/jxcKa

Oscar Lopez
Oscar with wife Kathi and son Nikolas settled into Naramata in 2010. The two time Juno Award winner would like to compose a Naramata theme one day in future. In the meantime, they are enjoying the tranquility of their new hometown:
http://is.gd/jxdFK

Jan Vozenilek
They moved from Naramata last summer, but this cinematographer and his family added much to community and to school life in the two years they were here.
Jan made a second trip to Midway Atoll in 2010 to make the world aware of a growing plastic crisis in the Pacific Ocean:
http://is.gd/jx4Ao

The Vozenilek family were invited to give an inspirational talk in Penticton last January:http://is.gd/jx58R
Many people enjoyed reading about Jan’s work during the Olympics with the Czech media team:http://is.gd/jx5sQ
And, some of his video work of a laid back summer day in Naramata was shortlisted in an international documentary effort:http://is.gd/jx5J6

RCMP Corporal Dan Moskaluk
A devastating earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010. Naramata resident DanMoskaluk, the RCMP media liaison for the southern interior, has strong emotional ties to Haiti, after two United Nations tours of duty there:
http://is.gd/jx68X

Chris Cornett
In January 2010, local photographer Chris Cornett was nominated in the Business Excellence Awards. It was a great honor for this photo veteran:
http://is.gd/jx6CH

Ashley Hughes
This former Naramata resident was thrilled to be in the Olympic torch relay, and so close to home was a bonus!
http://is.gd/jx7h5

The Cast and Crew of My American Cousin
Sandy Wilson’s classic movie filmed inNaramata celebrated its silver anniversary in September. Our hats off to all local people involved: Sandy, Guy, Jake, Nikos, Jacquie, Alexis, and others:
http://is.gd/jx7KK

Happy New Year, and we look forward to introducing you to more fascinating Naramata people in 2011!

Gastown Yarn Bomb Spotted!

2011-08-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank the yarn bomber who conveniently installed this Canuck-inspired yarn bomb outside my work last week. Monday morning, I get to see if it's still there!

Sadly, I missed a great opportunity to photographed quite a large yarnbomb installation happening across the water from the bike path I take to work. I suppose because it was so large it was easily spotted. I'll provide the link to someone else who blogged about it begrudgingly (when I find it again I'll update this blog), because I would have like to have photographed it myself! (Update:Weird Vancouver sculpture yarn bomb HERE!)

I also took a photo of a yarnbomb installation in Seattle, though I'm pretty sure the city gave their okay for that one.

Here's to yarnbomb hunting!

Previous blog on the history of yarn bombing Here!

Cool Vancouver sculpture Yarn bomb Here!

xxMelanie

The Cherry Chomper!

2011-07-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

A big thank you to Black Eligh who included a detail of "Life begins in an Okanagan Cherry Tree" in her fabulous Canadianparents.com blog, "The Daily Bite." I'm super honoured to share the link to her blog with you!

Blake Eligh's Blog post, The Cherry Chomper"

xxMelanie

Art Exhibit at Cafe NeverMatters now Open!

2011-07-05T17:41:00.000-07:00

For the month of July, My paintings from the Okanagan and Turkey will be hanging in Cafe Nevermatters Cafe and Bistro at 340 Robinson Road Naramata.

Stop in for a coffee or a glass of wine and tell Angelo I said Hi!

(And while you are at it, check out the nicely decorated walls and bathrooms!)

Prints of "A Day at Elephant Island Winery" are also available through the Elephant Island Orchard Wines Tasting Room and Gift Shop.

A big thanks to MyNaramata for writing a small write up about my show at Cafe never Matters and how it related to Elephant Island as well. The article is below, but if you'd like to read the article at its original source, please click here.

Thanks again, Craig!

Link to Cafe NeverMatters

Link To Elephant Island Orchard Wines

1st July 2011

Café Art Show

Editor

Angelo Albano of Café Nevermatters helps artist Melanie Mehrer hang one of her series from Naramata life.

Melanie’s art will fill the café for the month of July. She’ll have many of her funky and whimsical pieces of local life and lore on the walls, as well as some of her work depicting life in Turkey, where she lived in 2009.

Angelo and Melanie are holding a recently finished piece title ‘A Day at Elephant Island.’

Melanie says she is inspired by the way the local winery supports many community and charitable programs and events. This acrylic ink drawing depicts Elephant Island’s crew in the process of making the winery's latest champagne, Pink Elephant.

Also, shown below is a piece featuring Angelo behind the café counter. Angelo says he loves featuring an eclectic mix of local artists on the walls of Cafe Nevermatters.

Here are the previous articles on the work of Naramata’s Melanie Mehrer:
http://www.mynaramata.com/cgi-bin/show_articles.cgi?ID=1346&TOPIC=0
http://www.mynaramata.com/cgi-bin/show_articles.cgi?ID=910&TOPIC=0
http://www.mynaramata.com/cgi-bin/show_articles.cgi?ID=470&TOPIC=0
http://www.mynaramata.com/cgi-bin/show_articles.cgi?ID=512&TOPIC=0

A Day At Elephant Island Winery!

2011-06-22T23:07:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Elephant Island Orchard Wines...
There are no elephants and there is no island but the vanguard spirit does rein supreme here.

Classic wine making traditions fused with a dose of fun, a passion for fresh, local fruit and a love of challenge are the foundations of our wine portfolio.

Wines to amuse and to amaze...
Expect the unexpected and prepare for a flavor voyage!

~From The Elephant Island Website

A Day at Elephant Island Winery, 11x14" Ink on Watercolour paper, June 2011

This spring, I was hanging out in Cafe Nevermatters (known to me as Angelo's Coffee shop) when I had the pleasure of finally meeting Miranda Halliday face to face. Miranda's name has popped across my computer screen several times since returning to Canada since she is firmly committed to supporting the community of Naramata and other charities in various ways. (For Instance, Elephant Island Winery has a line of $25 bottle of champagne for sale, where 100% of the proceeds go to the Children's Hospital of BC. How could you not buy a bottle? I did!)

Miranda's grandmother was an architect and built this funky little house on the property she bought as a retirement investment. Miranda's Grandfather was convinced the property was a 'white elephant" hence the name "Elephant Island Winery. Even though the day I visited the winery the discorging was happening in the parking lot, I really wanted to paint this little building!

Miranda had seen my work in few charity auctions, and so she invited me up to Elephant Island Winery, (which she owns and runs with her husband Del), to see how some of the ways their fruit wine is made at Elephant Island. Luckily, my time in Naramata coincided with the rather exciting process of discorging. (Removing the sediment from the aged wine in barrels and moving it to bottles for a longer fermentation period. See? I'm learning!)

The dosaging of the wine- (say this word like you are French- dosaaaaging!)

So I spent a little time watching the dosaging and discorging of Elephant Islands' latest 'Pink Elephant' Champagne. I quickly ran around and snapped some photos of things I'd need later for information for a painting, and one of the girls working on dosaging (adding cassis to the apple wine with the syringe) happily explained what they were doing. It looked like a pretty fun process and she explained it enthusiastically! I didn't want to be underfoot for too long, otherwise I would have paparrazi-ed the place. I love that Elephant Island is a small family run business and still do things in small scale assembly lines. (Love that machinery too!)

I love the wine puddles!! I didn't paint them in this time, but maybe next time!

1. The bottles are first hooked up to a machine which pumps them full for sparkling apple wine. Then the workers add cassis with the syringe- often through a funnel because the wine tends to bubble over when the cassis is added. This makes big wine puddles everywhere!

For some reason I think it's totally appropriate that Elephant Island uses pinkish coloured machines.

This is Del, Miranda's husband, manning the machine.

2. Next the bottle are corked on the big pink machine.

3. After the corking, another little machine adds the wires that will hold the champagne cork in place.

4. The corked bottle is shoved into the holes of the next tiny box machine to add the foil that will cover the wire and the cork.

5. The newly bottled Pink Elephant wine is placed into wine boxes to be sold to people like me!

I'm excited about doing reflections in water!

It looked like so much fun that I wanted to get on some boots and rubber gloves and just be part of the fun.

On a personal note, I love Elephant Island wine, which is entirely made of fruit. Not only does it taste amazing, it's completely different from grape wine, so I love the fun of it. The blackberry wine is amazing! The dessert wines are awesome. But Elephant Island uses fruit exclusively, so this Okanagan girl is excited that there are still plenty of orchards around Elephant Island so the cherry trees of my youth are still around! Yay fruit!

The three bottles of wine my friend Eric bought on a subsequent trip to Elephant Island.

This painting will be made into prints and will be available through Cafe Nevermatters and Elephant Island Winery once I am organised (by the end of this week!) I'lll update this blog once I have more information.

Thanks again, Miranda!

Link to All things

Elephant Island Winery

Until then, I am just getting everything organized for the Cafe NeverMatters show, which will be hung on July 1st or 2nd.

See you there!

xxMelanie

The Vancouver Riots and Nathan Kotylak

2011-06-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

The good kind of fan. This was taken on the day of game six. I love how the excitement of the Stanley Cup brought different communities together. I thought these guys looked awesome. I was sad this guy asked me not to do anything nasty to this picture, like draw something racist on his face. I was shocked he felt the need to mention it. I guess we aren't the harmonized society we'd like to think we are. Ps. Sikh guy, I love this picture. Thanks for posing for it.

I freely admit this is going to be a bit of a contradictory post. Here it goes.

Though I enjoyed getting caught up in fever that overtook Vancouver in the first six days of the Stanley cup playoffs, I am not a fan of organized sports in general. Hockey is a dirty game full of sanctioned violence and thuggery. It wasn’t so long ago that Todd Bertuzzi of the Canucks was encouraged by his teammates to punch Steve Moore in retaliation for a mean hit dealt to Marcus Naslund. And we all knew it was coming and cheered. When Bertuzzi hit Steve Moore too hard, he ended Moore’s NHL career. And we all booed. In this way I find hockey a little schitzophrenic and so I don’t really support the NHL in general.

Except the Canucks have played really well this year and this excitement swept over Vancouver. And Jerseys with “Luongo” “Kessler” and “H & D Sedin” were popping up all over the place. Fans attached flags to their cars and hung Canucks flags from their balconies. Conversations in supermarket lineups about how our boys were doing started to bring us all together here in disjointed Vancouver.

A painted window on the way to work.

As for me, I’ve lived for several years overseas and when asked here I am from, I say Vancouver for simplicity. But standing in Vancouver, it’s obvious I’m an outsider. No, I don’t know where that park is. I’m not totally sure where the Skytrain goes. I don’t know what all the great summer happenings in the city are. It’s been hard to make new friends here. This is a disjointed city, from what I have observed; more than half it’s residences come from somewhere else. Just look at how we form neighbourhoods by nationality. Vancouver is not “We,” it’s made up of “us” and a them and them and them.

So jumping on the Canucks bandwagon for me was a ticket to a party where I knew no one. It was that instant feeling of connectedness to a town which is famous for it’s hard, uncrackable shell. The Canucks lifted that shell and left us vulnerable. Open, friendly, excited and downright giddy. I really didn’t care if the Canucks won or lost I was just happy to be part of the team for once.

Even Lululemon got into the spirit and hosted good natured yoga practices to cheer on the Canucks on the lawn of their headquarters.

As a yoga practitioner, it goes against yoga philosophy to cheer for a sports team for the simple reason that if you align yourself with a certain group, you create and us and a them, when yoga is all about working towards union. If you see us and them, you see your group as more entitled and the other roup as being inferior, and in doing so you lose compassion for the other side. Whether it be Canucks vs. Bruins, men vs. women, blacks, vs Whites vs Asians vs. Arabs, or able bodied and disabled bodied, Christian vs Muslim, if we can’t identify with the other then we can’t feel true compassion and see this world as one. I get that, and generally, I agree with that.

But like I said, I’m not from Vancouver, and I haven’t lived in Canada for a long time. I have a hard time belonging anywhere and I admit it’s a feeling I long for. To belong somewhere. I haven’t felt this feeling in a seriously long time and so however constructed it may have been, I jumped on the Canuck bandwagon and rode it while it was going in a positive direction.

One the day of Game seven, I was working in the library downtown around the area where they set up the giant TV screens. It was a lovely party getting started outside as the students struggled to write their listening exams through the honking and screaming happening directly outside the library. (side note: out of 56 foreign students writing the exam, 21 of them wore Canucks shirts!)

Luongo, Kessler, Kessler and H. Sedin writing their listening exams to get into university.

Part of my shift was to sit outside the doors and make sure no crazy people tried to get into the examination room, as we were right next to the public toilets. Most people who came down were hockey fans needing to use the loo, fix the blue and green Canuck logos painted and peeling off their faces. Most people were excited. I calmed one older man down who was literally fretting and pacing we might lose this game, as if the Canucks were dying patients who might not make it through this next operation. Only once did a young group of men come down and I heard one laughing about two Bruins fans getting ‘the shit kicked out of them’ by a group of young Canucks fans. I did what most Canadians would do. I sat in my chair and gave them harsh dirty looks. What else can you do?

Positive pre-game excitement in front of the post office, where the riot apparently started a few hours later.

After work was over I headed to the non-alcoholized zone, where a lovely Indian lady peeked in my bag. But not my pockets, or my jacket pockets. Maybe I just don’t seem the type to riot, but honestly, I’ve had more thorough checks entering a shopping mall in Istanbul. I stayed for about two hours, taking pictures, enjoying the pre-game fun, sitting between family and young and old people, discussing our excitement for the game.

I can't help but look at the photo and know some of these people were about to make bad, bad choices. Unfortunately, the powers that be put the big screens on to the news before the game started, and the news showed footage of the 94 riots. A large part of the crowd cheered. That's when I decided not to stay too much longer.

But about an hour before the game started, the feeling in the crowd began to shift. The place was filling up and we were losing sight of the big screen. Someone short like me really didn’t have a chance. The father next to me was shouting at everyone that they were rude if they tried to push past him and his ten-year old son, using the son as an excuse to have more space in the crowd. The poor kid, with his peeling face paint and flag tied like a cape was embarrassed, yelling at his Dad that he could see where there was no way he could. This was a nightmare for him. So I chatted with him to calm him down as he got jostled and elbowed, asking him about his favourite players and what he thought of the past six games. But when I started getting elbowed and jostled, it was like my body made the decision to leave and suddenly, with no thought from my brain I was out of the crowd and my eyes were looking for an exit.

Taken a few days earlier when I was excited about the games. Not so funny now.

First I went to the library, which was fenced off at this point, but there was an openable gate there. When I asked if I could get out that way, an unobstructed stroll out of mayhem and to my bicycle, I was told flatly by security, no.

“So you are telling me I have to go push against the crowd out there to get out?”

The answer was a firm yes. Sigh. My mind had caught up with me and wasn’t looking forward to inserting myself into that swelling crowd again.

These people made their own paper-mache hats. The good kind of energy!

Long story short, it wasn’t pleasant, but I happened to get in the middle of an Indian family with several teenage daughters who were also trying to get out. I held back the crowd and pushed the girls in front of me so they wouldn’t be separated from their family. In exchange, I joined their posse to get out. A chubby man with an extremely flabby protruding stomach pressed so hard into me from behind we had full contact from my shoulders to my bum.

“You aren’t a fraterist, are you?” I joked. He looked extremely embarrassed but since I could see it wasn’t him doing the pushing I took deep breaths and focused on getting out of the crowd, and not on his genitalia mashed against my butt cheeks. I decided to chalk it up to taking one for the innocent teenage team in front of me. It wasn’t pretty though. The game hadn’t started and we were pushing against the group pouring in, a few choice words thrown our way simply for trying to get out.

We surged against the crowd a few times and I lost my breathe twice as I was mashed between the man behind me and the Indian girl in front of me. But soon we were out of the crowd and I was free to circle to block back around, hop on my bike and ride the seawall to my friend Eric’s house in relative peace to watch the game with a bottle of wine and some good people.

We lost the game. As we swilled wine and ate sushi, we acquiesced that the Bruins played the better game. But it was a beautiful night and Eric has a great view, we all stepped away from the TV and onto the balcony to watch the sunset. But instead, we watched plumes of black smoke rising from downtown Vancouver.

Plumes of smoke over Vancouver post game seven.

What came next was horrific. Idiotic. Moronic. Stupid. Embarrassing. Shameful.

Vancouver was grief-stricken.

A tank outside the library the day after the riot. There was a prom going on across the street hence the girls in prom dresses posing next to the tank.

One of the messages scrawled on the plywood covering broken windows downtown.

After spending so long overseas in less developed countries I have generally witnessed one thing: The more privileged a society you are, the more angry the youth you seem to have. Why are Canadian youths so angry? Why would this happen in a place like Canada? The early rioters that have been identified come from well-off families. Yet I’ve been in India where the people have every reason to be angry and dissatisfied with life and instead they sit down with the patience to sit through a three-hour Bollywood movie filled with singing and dancing and happy, beautiful colours. People throw their energy into surviving. That night Vancouver looked like a spoiled Veronica out of an Archie comic- stamping feet and throwing a tantrum because we didn’t get what we wanted. A cup that means very little. Not world peace, not equality, a metal cup.

Tonnes of Canucks fans donned their jerseys again and came downtown to clean the streets after the riot. These are the good people.

What I’d like to say is that bystanders egging on rioters should be ashamed. Just because you didn’t try to set a cop car on fire but you cheered and told someone to do it, means you are disgracefully guilty. Shame on you. The rioters should be held accountable, without a doubt. And I encourage anyone with a photo to send it into the police (even though I don’t think you should have still been there snapping away in a riot. You were obstructing the police from doing their job. ‘Nuff said.)

But where I get queasy is where stories like Nathan Kotylak, a seventeen year old water polo athlete with a promising career in front of him gets caught up in the mob and tries to light a cop car on fire. Nathan possibly threw away everything he’d worked years to build in fifteen seconds. His father, a well-respected physician accompanied him to the station when he turned himself in. He’s trying to make amends for his moment of disastrous stupidity.

I say, bravo, Nathan Kotylak! Without condoning the original offence, I see a young man doing his best to turn this around. I see a family doing it’s best to support their son in the face of all of this. Bravo family. I don’t see a family making excuses for him. This is truly brave, in my opinion. This will be a turning point in this young man’s life and I hope Vancouver as a community can support his efforts to make these wrongs into rights. As for the lynch mob who have chased Nathan’s family from their home, you are no better than the rioters. Please leave the judging and punishment up to the courts. Otherwise the dirty side of this situation continues. Because if we are incapable for forgiving, we are incapable of moving on.

A Muslim girl adds a prayer to help Vancouver heal, with a little peace sign.

As for me, I won’t be part of this lynching. Though you and I both agree that your actions were stupid, I stand up and applaud you in your apology to Vancouver, Nathan. And I hope when this is over and you’ve done your community service (because you know that’s coming) and taken responsibility for the damage you have caused, you still have the chance to become the leader you are already appearing to be.

The new kind of Canucks fan.

Let’s help him heal, Vancouver.

Link to Nathan's apology.

Well-written response from a police officer on scene.

Globe & Mail article: The sad, painful truth about the Vancouver rioters’ true identities

Angelo's Coffee Shop!

2011-06-12T19:26:00.003-07:00

Over second and third cups flow matters of high finance, high state, common gossip and low comedy. Coffee is a social binder, a warmer of tongues, a soberer of minds, a stimulant of wit, a foiler of sleep if you want it so. From roadside mugs to the classic demi-tasse, it is the perfect democrat.

~Author Unknown

Angelo's Coffee Shop! 6x9", June 2011

Ahh, I have toiled many a cold winter's day in Naramata chatting with Angelo at Cafe Never Matter's coffee & Bistro, Looking at this exact view- Angelo behind the counter, doing his thing, me at the table directly in front. Since winter is the slow season in Naramata, Angelo never minded me bringing my laptop over to the shop, having a cup of coffee and occupying a table for hours in order to get some work done. but truth be told, I did very little work in Angelo's coffee shop since we both ended up chatting the winter hours away, often between a scone Angelo decided needed to be shared.

Luckily, Angelo likes my paintings, which were hanging in the coffee shop at the time he purchased it last summer. He asked me if I'd like to have another show at Cafe NeverMatters in July, so for the month of July I will be occupying the walls of my favourite coffee spot in Naramata! This also means I've got a trip back to the Okanagan planned for the week before the Canada Day long weekend!

Last year I had my Turkish paintings up, and though I will have some Canadian repeats of last year, I've been trying to get more Okanagan prints up for this year. Two weeks before the show, I'm still painting! But I'm almost there. I hope Naramata likes what it sees!

I took this picture in a hurry, the morning I left for Vancouver. I just wanted enough information to do a little painting of Angelo in his coffee shop.

For more information on Cafe Never matters, Click Here.

See you in July in Naramata!

xxMelanie

The Queens of May!

2011-06-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

'But I must gather knots of flowers,

And buds and garlands gay,

For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother,

I'm to be Queen o' the May.'

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Queens of May! 11X14, Ink on Watercolour paper

As some of you may know, I am working hard to fill the walls of Cafe NeverMatters in July. Since I exhibited in the same cafe last year (which was then known as the Village Grounds) I'm doing my best to get some new work out so the people of Naramata can see some new paintings this year.

So after work I come home and paint, and when I'm not painting, I'm at work, and if I'm not exhausted I fit yoga class in there. But sitting and painting for long periods of time can be a little boring and sometimes I get bored of listening to music, or the radio. So for these special times I watch movies or Tv on my laptop. This month I've been watching/listening to the Tudors, and the lives of Henry the 8th and all of his unfortunate wives!

So it's not surprising that when I finished my last raft painting on May Day that I would be inspired both by all of the fabulous costume design of the Tudors and by the May Day celebrations in my home town. (Except these queens are young grade six girls and get to keep their heads when their reign of a year is over!)

May Day happens over Canada's Victoria Day Long weekend in May (Queen Victoria's Birthday). I have participated in May day as a flower girl, a Maypole dancer, a pole sitter (to make sure the maypoles wouldn't fall over) a contestant in the bike decoration contest and as a spectator.

In fact, I found this little video below which shows the celebrations of May Day and was pleasantly surprised to see the Soap box racing takes place next to the house in which I grew up- But then the next shot of the parade you can see my sister and I taking photos- I'm the one in the blue shirt!

MayDay Video courtesy of MyNaramata

I may do one of Maypole dancing but I haven't come up with a sketch I'm happy with yet. I decided wanted to do a painting that didn't involve a landcape and I wanted to capture the fun moments of May Day, which is really a celebration that summer is just around the corner. It's the first sunburn of the year, the first dunk in the lake even though we all know it's way too cold, dancing the birdie dance with your community of Naramatians at the Queen's Ball in the early evening. It's a great little celebration to acknowledge Naramata's colourful past. As I sit and write this from the depths of big city Vancouver I can tell you it's something hard to come by these days and it's quite special.

See you at Cafe NeverMatters in July!

340 Robinson Ave, Naramata

Phone 778-514-0054

http://www.mynaramata.com/show45b/Caf_Nevermatters

xxMelanie

The Raft at Manitou Beach

2011-05-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Raft at Manitou, ink on watercolour paper, 11X14", May 2011

Announcing My Solo Show

for the month of July at

Cafe NeverMatters Coffee and Bistro,

340 Robinson Road, Naramata BC!

(778) 514-0054

Stay tuned for more details!

Mallards! A staple of Okanagan Lake.

As a kid growing up in Naramata I lived for the summers, as we all did. I remember my parents scolding me for not taking my swimsuit of once I got home from the beach- But what was the point? I'd most likely head back down to the beach for a swim after dinner anyway.

The high dive at Manitou beach is long gone but our little yellow raft still holds court the same as it did when I was a child, and I still remember the pride I felt when my parents and swim teacher deemed me a good enough swimmer to swim out to the yellow raft without adult supervision.

(The first place I ever skinny dipped was behind the yellow raft, at night with my sister and friend Tiffany, our swimsuits carefully hidden on the beam under the raft in case any dreaded boys showed up and wanted to steal our treasured clothes! But you won't get a painting of that, I'm afraid!)

Diving for freshwater clams, maybe?

So to those who at one time or another dove off the little yellow raft at Manitou, this painting's for you! It will make it's debut at Cafe NeverMatters, Downtown Naramata, in July.

xxMelanie

Kids in a Cherry Tree!

2011-04-28T08:37:00.001-07:00

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Kids in an Okanagan Cherry Tree, April 2011. 11x14 " Ink on Paper

In preparation for the Cafe Nevermatters exhibition in Naramata this summer, I'm putting the Turkey sketches aside for a little while and focussing on Canadian/Okanagan themes. The next two paintings have to do with my childhood and growing up in Naramata (And arguably every childhood which has ever had the privilege of spending a little time in our idyllic little town.)

Since the painting is fairly orderly, I decided to add a little chaos with the birds- different colours, different angles, unlike the way I usually paint birds, orderly and in unison.

Summer for us really started when the summertime neighbours showed up. Grandchildren of Gramps who lived across the street, We'd spend the summers running around the beaches, jumping off the old train docks (which are sadly gone now) and stealing cherries and whatever fruit was in season for a quick free snack when we got hungry. We also stole fruit from the boxes at the packing house, which sadly met it's demise last week after being a landmark in Naramata since the 30's. But that's another story (and perhaps another painting!)

Reaching for that perfect cherry.One think I like about working with the transparency of the ink is that I was able to work that overlapping technique in the leaves successfully.

Strangely enough, I started out painting generic children, but as I progressed, the kids began to actually look like me, my sister, Tiffany Andrew and Billy- My sister actually pointed it out. It's funny how my subconcious can sneak into a painting from time to time! Undeniable!

Since the weather can still be chilly in cherry season (The first fruit of the year) The kids are in varying degrees of clothing. (The ones in shorts could be pushing the season!)

Though I will miss cherry season again this year (last year I was in the Emirates, this year I'll be in Vancouver, I think) I have enjoyed the frozen cherries my mom saved for me last year. There really is nothing like a fat juicy Okanagan cherry!

One thing we used to do is lay our beach towels on the ground and gently drop the cherries on it so we could take some to the beach. But often the cherries would burst upon hitting the towel, staining our lovely towels much to my mother's chagrin. (Come to think of it, it was probably the first form of natural dying for me!)

It comes as no surprise with the demise of the packing house that fruit is quickly being replaced with grapes for wine production, which is booming here in the Okanagan at the moment. But it's sad to see the fruit trees go; the Naramata Bench which is now famous for it's wineries were once a twenty minute drive of fresh spring blossoms, the first sign that spring had arrived. I think now there are really only two or three orchards that are in full blossom at the moment along the Naramata Road. The rest have been converted into vineyards already.

We also used to eat the cherries and spit the pits at each other. Kids will be kids!

The one downside of switching to vineyards is that we can't live off wine but we could live off fruit. But I can't blame a farmer in the Okanagan for wanting to make more money out of their crops. Being an Okanagan farmer can be a hard row to hoe, pun intended!

My sister says this little girl looks like me when I was young. But you couldn't catch me dead in a dress!
But I did have a bike similar to this (only blue).

Luckily there are wineries around such as Naramata owned and operated Elephant Island who make really delicious fruit wines. I was lucky enough to be invited by owner and operator Miranda Halliday to watch a discorging of Cassis and Apple sparkling wine/champagne yesterday. Mess, stained hands, wine puddles, machinery and rain gear. Melanie's painting subject heaven! Stay tuned for some fun drawing from my visit there in the coming weeks! It was super fun and I almost wished I worked in a winery for the sheer fun of it. Hell yeah, I could work a corking machine! And I've had the wine and it's extremely good.

And the ever loyal dog waiting for us to be finished and on our way for more kidly adventures in the Okanagan!

Now back to painting!

xxMelanie

Eyal and the Great Banana Adventure!

2011-04-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do-especially in other people's minds. When you're travelling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.

~William Least Heat Moon

So far untitled, though I do kind of like the title, "Eyal and the Great Banana Adventure." Sounds like a kids book series, where we are sure there are other Eyal adventures out there to be had!

Way back in 2006 I was sitting in my Shanghai apartment, sweltering in the heat. Having just ended my job and bored with summer in Shanghai, I considered taking a three week trip to Bali. Should I go? Should I stay? I looked up flights, and decided if there was a flight for 500 bucks, (unlikely) I'd go. Luckily, it was not the high season for Bali and three days later I was off to Denpasar! It was obviously meant to be!

Things seems to fall into place when I arrived in Ubud. I signed up for a random yoga workshop and had a brilliant weekend bending and Om-ing with Desiree Rumbaugh, one of the most inspiring people I've come across until this day. And there I met a girl. Some random girl, I can't remember her name, and it isn't important. What is important is that one day, while eating lemongrass and coconut sherbet in the Bali Spirit Cafe, this girl of no name introduced me to Eyal.

Eyal took this picture of me in Seminyak near the end of my spontaneous vacation. Coffee, beach in a foreign country, good company, a restaurant where I can be horizontal, this is my slice of heaven!

Eyal seemed very quiet, very shy, and looked like he just couldn't have been bothered to meet a new person since the book or newspaper he was looking at at the time was fulfilling every need. But he put it down, and we gently eased into interesting conversation. And by the end of the day, we were happily tromping together through Ubud's Monkey Forest! (I'm deathly scared of monkeys- with good reason. I am scared of getting bitten by one of the evil little things who like to grab shiny cameras, earrings, necklaces just for the sheer hell of it. But Eyal offered to keep me company, assuring me the monkeys would be sleeping having been fed by the morning tour groups. He was right!)

Eyal reaching enlightenment in Elephant caves. If I hadn't included these pictures in another blog, I would have lost them all when my hard drive crashed. (Still in pain over it several years later!)

Eyal was my new travelling partner. We chatted through morning coffee, explored the areas of Ubud and Seminyak with our good friend Ray who sadly died in a drowning accident two weeks after I left Bali. Eyal was experimenting with fasting and the raw food diet. I'm so sad my hard drive crashed and I can't show you the video of Eyal waxing on about the taste of a tomato after weeks of deprivation. (I'm sure Eyal's not quite so unhappy about it!)

Eyal and I, and Ray and Eyal.

Anyway, Eyal is really one of the coolest people I know, and sometimes cool people inspire me. I love Eyal for many reasons, but these are the things I truly admire about him:

1) He's always happy, even when he isn't. (He's still happy!)

2) Eyal tries everything.

3) Eyal gets inspired and passionate about things and shares his ideas with me. And when I get inspired and passionate about something, he's there listening and I feel he's right there with me.

4) I never know what Eyal is going to do next.

5) sometimes I think Eyal is more like me than anyone I know on this planet that I am not actually related to.

6) He makes me laugh. A lot.

Sketching and chatting.

Since Eyal lives in New York, we often spend long hours chatting on Skype, wandering around the house doing our thing. (Eyal once watched me cook dinner. I once watched a bald eagle that landed on his balcony in the middle of New York.) One night while chatting I did a crazy little sketch of Eyal, and decided to paint it for him.

Waxing poetic about the banana!

The story behind this is that when Eyal was on his raw food experiment, we once went hunting for the special Indonesian banana that still contains seeds that you can plant and grow a tree from. (Our regular bananas are so genetically modified you can't grow a banana from the seeds anymore, the banana tree has to be grafted, as far as I understand it.) They aren't very tasty bananas, and I imagine they are more like a plantain. In Bali they use this banana in ceremonies and it's not a very common thing to grow. We went hunting for it anyway, people telling us to talk to this person and that person, go this way and that way, and at the end of the day, we found the best source of information, Bananaman, as I liked to call him, who told us that finally, our journey had come to an end.

It wasn't the season for this type of banana!

In honour of Eyal, who loves adventure (the banana), music (the headphones), and travel (the skates) I painted this little painting this week for fun. Eyal is also wearing warm clothes because he lives in New York and just like me, HATES to be cold!

So now when I look back at that afternoon spent sweltering in my Shanghai apartment and I had the option to stay or go, I am so so so glad I went!

xxMelanie