Nicole Gustafsson, kindred spirit

The Naturalist's Study

Terrarium Tree

I came upon Ms Gustafsson's work at just the right time, I think. Summer has not yet given up the ghost but Autumn is on the verge of charging in with gusts of wind, ripe squash, and the yearly explosion of copper and crimson tree-tops. Not all of Nicole's work is autumnal but a lot seems to fit in with this, the best of all seasons.

All's Well at the Schoolhouse

The Conservatory

Blue Tree Books

Hare House (in the rain!)

Oh, the colours! They're so lovely. Trees growing in unlikely places, terrariums, lanterns, rain. I can't help but be smitten. I want to get all of her card-sets but I won't want to give any away.

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Lanterns. A detail of a larger piece, I think.

 

Mountain of a Molehill

The Geologist's Study

Whomping Willow

Weathering Summer

Source: Photo by Daniel Cooper

I keep getting caught in summer storms. They inspire terrible ambivalence.

On the one hand: ecstatic relief. On the other: electric anxiety.

I love them. I love the wildness of them, and the way the sky churns like an upside-down sea. I love the trickery, the reversal of day and night. I love the rain. It falls as if weighted with lead, as if thrown down. I love the feeling that the earth is drinking deep, slaking enormous thirst. I love finding myself in the minuscule shelter of a bus stop or a parked car and listening to the percussive music of it.

I both love and fear the sudden zig-zag of lightening, and the wide-eyed counting before the thunderous boom that inevitably follows.

*

I was coming home on the bus the other day when one of the more violent storms hit. The stress is a bit amped up at that job lately (not necessarily a bad thing, but an adjustment to be sure) and the atmospheric pressure did nothing to help. That particular time I escaped getting soaked, but not getting panicked. The flash and boom were simultaneous and I sat there, peering out through the fogged window at the sheets of rain chanting Faraday cage, Faraday cage, Faraday cage, willing myself not to touch any metal surfaces.

*

Traveling in Montreal is precarious enough without fear of electrocution. Those bridges, especially the Champlain and the Mercier, seem set to crumble and I hold my breath as we cross them even in fine weather. When we must cross during a storm - oh my. My pilot is unflapable, but I am all aquiver. I want to pray for safe passage, but to whom? Sometimes being a non-believer is a real bitch.

*

Yesterday, another storm. Fierce, but fast. It was gone halfway through my commute. I was sitting, looking out at the sky as we inched along. The clouds over in the direction we were headed seemed greenish and odd. As if another, stranger storm was up ahead. Traffic was immobile. I pulled out my earphones to see what I could hear. Sirens, actually. Off in the distance. We got closer, eventually, and those weren't clouds.

A fire was clearly raging somewhere in my neighbourhood.

Shortly it became clear that getting out and walking was the quickest route home.

The fire turned out to be at the end of my street, a couple of blocks from my place. An old, abandoned motel was burning. The main road passes in front, and was blocked off and full of red trucks. Hoses snaked along all the roads around it, water pluming out trying to reach the dancing flames. A sizeable crowd had gathered, snapping photos, filming, observing. Our local security officer held court in their midst. I see him at the library sometimes, he's quite a character. I can just imagine him waxing nostalgic about The Great Blaze of '11 in the near future.

*

Today was the first day since spring that felt cool. Yesterday I wore a little jacket in the morning. Two days ago I saw a leaf fall. It was still green, but in tumbling from that branch it signaled the very start of the end.

Summer, with its relentless heat and lashing storms will soon be over.

Rosaceae Fragaria

Fragaria sp. "Parker Earl" by Deborah Griscom Passmore c.1892-1909

June is a fragrant month. You catch their perfume before you even see them: every corner market sets out baskets of edible rubies. Heavier than they look, and bursting with juice, it is best to eat them immediately lest they spoil before you taste them.  Grass sprouts all vibrant and wet, only to be mowed down, releasing that familiar green scent. Flowering trees wave their blossoms above the sidewalk, bathing pedestrians in botanical pheromones. Wild rose bushes grow thick with thorny protection and produce deceptively insubstantial flowers which can, none the less, send out powerful apian invitations.

Walking through the city is a pleasure in June.

+++

Did you know that strawberries are not berries at all, but rather fruiting roses?

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Along comes July to wilt us all. The word on the street is "humidex". Bright greens fade in the field, waiting for August to paint them gold. The air is heavy with moisture, and blue skies quickly turn deepest purple - clouding over at a moment's notice, flashing with electricity and pelting the earth with rain. July's perfumery consists of sun-baked sidewalks, chlorine and the savoury saliva-inducing sweet-burnt scent of barbecued meat. Which is tortuous for those of us without access to a porch or yard. I'm always looking for things I can drench in bbq sauce.

The strawberries are looking puckered and soft at the fruit stands, and it seems as if their season is coming to an end. Don't pass those suckers by though, even when they look a bit sad they're still good for freezing, blending and baking.

This is what I plan to do with the ones sitting in my fridge - Strawberry cupcakes. Mine won't be to celebrate a birthday (well, I could celebrate a little, since I do know a couple of sweet July babies) and I may add coconut. I don't relish turning on the oven, but one of those sudden summer storms just hit so maybe it won't be so bad. Besides, who can resist... just look at them:



Photo from The Muffin Myth


* Edit to add: I made those cupcakes Tuesday and they were DELICIOUS! Sadly I didn't have a ripe banana so I used Earth Balance instead of butter because that's what I did have on hand, and I tossed in a bit of unsweetened coconut. Totally lovely. Needless to say, they're already gone.

I spy with my little eye



A springtime image by David Peterson of Mouse Guard


+ Some purple hyacinths in an old honey jar, next to the window. Stems reaching, flowers beginning to fold in on themselves, heady scent starting to fade.

+ A boy on the bus, with foot-long eyelashes which are completely incongruous with his thick stubble.

+ Unspeakably scary news from the other side of the world, of trembling earth and colossal waves. Just like that, out of nowhere, for so many people everything is gone.

+ A couple, on the corner, trying to take an arm's length photo. Laughing because instead they took video of themselves posing.

+ Pigeons bathing in the street-side lakes that had formed overnight, as the city temporarily thawed. Whole parties of pigeons gathering at the pool, dipping under the surface before popping up, feathers askew, spray fanning out around them.

+ An office, on a mezzanine, reached by spiral staircase, overlooking the library, inside of a museum, with a window looking out on busy streets and falling snow. A place where one catalogues 16th century dresses and 18th century books. In a word, heaven.

+ A café, done entirely in white. Blinding: stark, bright, white. White wicker, white tables, white walls. Glass cases full of tiny delectables dusted with the green crumble of crushed pistachio. Customers wearing tweed and cashmere, sipping espresso from tiny white cups. A small white dish with two maracons.

+ A chunk of ice, hanging precariously over a doorway. Water dripping continuously. Will it shrink, or will it fall?

+ A suitcase, open on my living room floor. A passport, a pair of strappy shoes with height (I have to practice wearing those...), a sun hat, a book. A trip I would never have planned, but am grateful to be invited on.

+ An accidental glimpse in the mirror beside the coffee maker in the office kitchen. Dressed this morning by going: what is on the top of the pile? Grey cardigan it is. Hair coiffed at desk, after removal of hat + coat, and pulled back into a static-defying ponytail. Make up? Not really. But in that glimpse: rosy cheeks, happy eyes, as-if-on-purpose hair with just the right flyaways. How many times do we look in the mirror and not want to change a thing? Not often enough.

+ A paperback in my purse, for reading on the bus. A great cover. Purple, naturally.

Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions by Neil Gaiman

Saturday Outing

After the rain

We are getting quite the crop of rainstorms this summer in Montreal. Sudden and deliciously terrifying! So different from the slow, steady rain I grew up with. These were taken on my walk to work at the library this morning.

The Redpath

I recently discovered the Redpath Museum, by way of a wonderful octogenarian who volunteers at the library where I work and who also volunteers at the museum. I don't know why it never occurred to me to ferret out a natural history museum here, when they are always huge favourites of mine, but then again I am part hermit.

A couple of weekends ago I finally had a chance to visit and I loved it. So much to see and soak up, I really just did a survey for future visits. As far as museums go, the Redpath isn't huge (although the collection is still impressive), and we managed to see it in under three hours, although we did not read all of the accompanying signs... or very many of them at all actually, so busy just admiring the artifacts. Anyway, as it was snowing on that Sunday (Snowing. In May. I'll just let that sink in.) going to a museum was a perfect afternoon outing.  

The building itself is worth the visit, honestly. The front part is behind scaffolding at the moment, but once you are inside, you are wrapped up in the 19th century. Perfect creaky wooden floors, molding on the walls and ceilings... the carved posts, the railings, the display cases, the old wobbly imperfect glass. Gorgeous!

You may not even notice the backdrop though, the collection is pretty captivating. 

The foyer has a perfect undersea diorama, with sea snails, cephalopods and cridnoids. It is showing the Ordovician period, waaaaay back when Montreal was submerged and tropical (which was nearly half a billion years ago).

Other foyer highlights included a giant clam (GIANT), a giant crab (even GIANTER) and a small case for their "Montreal: Ville de Verre" exhibit, which was a few (really neat) specimens made of glass. 

The first floor also has a "Back to the Sea" hallway (it truly is a little hallway) with a little mix of old and new.That's a juvenile mink whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling, and the skeletons of a leather back turtle and a seal on the wall. That giant thing that looks like part of a ship is actually part of a whale skull (I forget which kind). On the wall opposite was an icthyosaur fossil.  

Next you go up to the second floor, which is a treasury of shells and minerals, displayed in glass & wood cases, in a beautiful, bright room.

Which is lovely, but hard to concentrate on, because you keep seeing glimpses of this guy through the doorway, into the next room: 

That room is Dawson Gallery, and it is the money room. It's got all the dinosaurs and a lot of stuffed/taxidermy-ed specimens and a guy called Bruno giving impromptu tours.

One of my favourite things was this Irish Elk skull (not Irish, or an elk, really... taxonomists are so zany) but it is a bit hard to make them out in the photo. Also very cool: suspended from the (high! blue! Versaille-ish!) ceiling was an origami pteranodon. 

Next you go up a flight of stairs, passing an unlikely trio: 

(I totally need to tell you that I knew what kind of gorilla that was from across the room. 

Me: "Hmmm. That looks like a mountain gorilla. A young silverback I would guess."

Adrien: "Right, whatever. It's a gorilla. Look over here at this cool thing!"

Me: "No, it's not a lowland gorilla, they're more gracile and the hair is shorter. It's definitely Gorilla beringei beringei."

Adrien: "Hey, I think there's something neat over there..."

Me: (checking little card) "I knew it! An adolescent male mountain gorilla!"

Adrien: *rolls eyes*

I haven't been in university for thousands of years for nothing!)

Finally you go up to the top floor, the mezzanine or balcony, which houses their ethnology collection. Again, it was small, but really neat. They had real mummies, ancient Grecian coins, a Buddha statue, Samurai armour, musical instruments from Africa and a few other treasures. 

I am definitely going to have to go back. It makes me wish I had paid more attention to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, which we used to go to for class field trips all the time but which I didn't appreciate nearly as much then as I would now. I do remember learning about bioluminescence there though... I guess something sunk in. I'm obviously going to have to go back there too.

* The first image, of the outside of the museum, is from wikipedia, the rest are all from the McGill/Redpath website and are credited to Virginie Millien, Torsten Bernhardt, K. Dobbin.