Jack’s Walk

A swampy mud bath ©voyager, all rights reserved

It’s been a perfect day – warm, but not hot with a deep blue sky full golden sunshine. The growing things have sprung to life in a million shades of green, and there are bright, colourful flowers in almost every garden. It’s been wonderful. Marvellous. Splendiferous. All the good adjectives and none of the bad. It’s the sort of day when you want to be outside, and our neighbourhood came alive this afternoon with activity. The gardeners were out gardening, the old men were out gossiping over fences, and the joyful noise of children playing filtered in from yards in all directions. I’m sure their mothers were grateful. Jack and I were definitely grateful to get outside. For the first time in weeks, it wasn’t a chore, it was a pleasure. I don’t want to jinx it, but the weather is supposed to stay nice for the next few days. If it does, this gal and her dog have some gardening of our own planned. It’s finally time to change from mittens to garden gloves. Hooray!

Tree Tuesday

We all know that trees dance, but have you ever thought about dancing with a tree? A ballerina from Vancouver thought about it, and went on to create Aeriosa, a vertical dance troupe that performs with trees.

Aeriosa is the only company in Canada specializing in vertical dance, in which performers spin and dance on cables from trees, buildings and mountains.

Julia Taffe is Aeriosa’s founder, artistic director and choreographer. Since 1998, she has choreographed more than 25 works for her company. She says dancing among the clouds is no big deal, adding that “fear is healthy.”

The key, Taffe adds, is to put safety first. Aeriosa works with a team of professional riggers. Before the Saxe Point show, the site will also be inspected by a “mountain safety specialist,” who will closely monitor the weather, rain or shine.

Taff has an interesting perspective and regards the trees as active partners whose needs must also be considered.

… she refers to it as an “interspecies” collaboration. Because trees are a living thing, Aeriosa takes care not to damage them — making sure not to snap branches or leave metal spikes.

“If we can’t do our work without damaging the environment, then we shouldn’t do it,” Taffe said. “Each tree is unique and you have to be able to respond to that with your choreography and your artistic vision.

I’ll pass on dangling from the top of a tree, but next time I’m in the forest I just might ask an appropriately sized tree for a waltz.

Story from The Times Colonist

I really wanted to see this performed, so I asked the YouTube and found this. It’s a beautiful form of dance.

The Art of Book Design: The Brown Fairy Book

Andrew Lang. The Brown Fairy Book, Illustrations by H.J. Ford. New York (etc.), Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910.

This week’s fairy book is brown and it’s filled with the wonderful illustrations of H. J. Ford. This book, along with the remainder of the series (which I’ll be posting), all have a few coloured full-page illustrations. There are a few things I’d like to note. One is the presence of nipples on a bare-chested woman in the drawing on page 111. In fact, I find most of the drawings more suggestive. The princess’s dresses are sheerer and nipples can be seen through them. These drawings are reflective of the societal changes that happened during the Edwardian Period. The drawings also include the usual lions, bears, mermaids and ogres, along with a wonderful cock.

I’d also like to note that thanks to a comment by Crip Dyke, I’ve linked the Andrew Lang Fairy Books. The links are at the bottom of the page near the links to the books online source.

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