Tag Archives: George Bowering

Thinking About Al Purdy

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It’s -16…the sherry has been poured and it is not too early for Christmas oranges.  I sit down to the computer to write the second last post about summer. Dad agreed to take the drive to Ameliasburgh for the First Annual Al Purdy Picnic.  He knew that I wanted badly to be a part of the event at the A-Frame and so he attended with me.

We began at the community hall where we had our picnic lunch made by ‘the ladies’, a wonderful egg salad sandwich, cookie and lemonade as we leafed through Ameliasburgh history set out on the tables.  From there, we jumped on the shuttle bus and out to the A-Frame house edging on Roblin Lake.

From APAFA, this…

The A-frame house at the edge of Roblin Lake was built in 1957 by Al Purdy and his wife Eurithe, who had set aside $1200 dollars from CBC radio plays Al had written in Montreal. They bought a piece of land and a load of used buildings material from a structure being torn down in Belleville, then set to work, building from architect’s plans ordered from a popular magazine. As Al made clear in his autobiography, Reaching for the Beaufort Sea, in the first years they endured fierce cold and poverty and worry. “But Roblin Lake in summer, planting seeds and watching things grow; doing a marathon swim across the lake while Eurithe accompanied me in a rowboat; working at the house, making it grow into something that nearly matched the structure already in your mind. Owls came by night, whoo-whooing in a row of cedars above the house; blue herons stalked our shallows; muskrats splashed the shoreline; and I wrote poems.”

Today, the Al Purdy A-Frame provides for a Writing Residency Program, a wonderful concept that has been and continues to be supported by a large number of interested individuals.

The John M. Parrott Art Gallery is housed in the Belleville Public Library.  Some time before the picnic, I had picked up a small stack of second hand books on one of my visits. One of those books, and a real treasure of mine now, is George Bowering’s 1970 book about his dear friend, Al Purdy.

Al Purdy by George Bowering Toronto Copp Clark 1970I read this analysis of Purdy’s poetry during long nights, struggling with grief at the loss of Mom.  As I read, I became more and more connected to the poet’s words.  I was really looking forward to walking through the landscape and home that had been a part of his writing.

Dad sat on a fallen tree with me…and I knew that it wasn’t his absolute favourite thing to do that day…but he did it with me.  He was there for me…and more than anything else, as I sit here writing on a winter’s eve’  this is what matters most.  We listened to poetry readings…heard a few speeches and a little bit of music in the company of great people and Al’s wife, Eurithe Purdy.  Then, without terrific pomp, we toured the little house…looked out onto the water…gazed up through the branches of trees and then we left.

Thank you to all of the organizers for welcoming us and for sharing with me, a piece of the magic.

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Roblin Lake

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Eurithe Purdy July 27 2013

Eurithe Purdy July 27 2013

P1110936 P1110940 P1110942 P1110944 P1110949 P1110952 P1110953 P1110955 P1110956 P1110957 P1110959 P1110961 P1110962 P1110963Since leaving Belleville, Dad has revisited Ameliasburgh and took a whole collection of photographs from his stop at the Museum/Library.  I am so blessed that we shared that time on Mom’s birthday.  I will never forget that afternoon.

Look at What the Light Did Now

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Jen Hall came over to archive some work in the studio.  I’ve been really aching to get a couple of pieces out into the world, one inspired by a  poem by George Bowering (thank you, George)…
 
(a recent letter from George)
Hey, Kathleen,

 
I like your wolf in the snow
and I am glad that my words could have a part in it.
 
Hope to see them in the flesh, or charcoal, or whatever.
 
Well. Hope to say hello in person some time.
 
I am the way and the heavy.
 
  
George’s poetry is so powerful, that to have words of his sent to me via electronic mail also feels like poetry.
 

Thank you, George Bowering

 
and another by Paulette Dube (thank you);
 
Paulette shaped a heart-felt message for me as well, but it stays here, tucked in my heart.
 

Paulette’s Words Take Flight

 
…but, I didn’t want to send the paintings out of the studio until I had them photographed.  I’ve converted my old photo slides to digital recently and I realize that I used to tear out the door, often with wet paintings, in order to meet deadlines.  If I photographed my works, they were haphazard trapezoidal shapes of every variety; they were unfocused and they hardly qualified as an archive at all.  Here would be an example.
 

Poor Quality 🙁

 
So now, I have no REAL history of what has come before, to even consider how all of that work influenced this.  See.  This is why I am excited that Jen came to the studio this morning.
 

Jen’s ‘Take’ on an one of my ‘old’ paintings.

 

Photo of taking Photos by Jen Hall

 
 
Little Wings and Feist
 
Hear it like a pounce upon a peak, oh
Look at what the light did now
Bear it like a bounce upon the beak, oh
Look at what the light did now
Land and water and bird or beast, oh
Look at what the light did now
Shiny little band or golden fleece, oh
Look at what the light did now
 
In my will I went ’til it’s wasted
Look at what the light did now
Taste the taste I taste ’til it’s tasted
Look at what the light did now
Bought it like a boast that burly beaming
Look at what the light did now
Got it like a ghost that girly gleaming
Look at what the light did now
 
Like a dead tree that’s dry and leaving
Look at what the light did now
Play it on me with grief and grieving
Look at what the light did now
I would finally fall to pieces
Look at what the light did now
We’ll meet soon as nephews… nieces
Look at what the light did now
 

And the Wolf Shall Lie Down With the Lamb: Isaiah 11:6

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Covenant Painting Inspired by Poet, George Bowering

I asked poet, George Bowering of Simon Fraser University if I might embed his words to the poem Wolf Between the Trees in my piece, representing the hope for peace, expressed in Isaiah 11.  His poem, published on this post, is an offering on the website, Canadian Poetry Online University of Toronto Libraries.  To my request that I use his words in the piece, George Bowering wrote to me,

Dear Ms Moors

I think I like what you’re doing.
So I’ll say sure, you can use “Wolf Between the Trees” in your art.
As long as I get a look at it somehow.

Best–gb

Wolf Between the Trees

George Bowering
From:   : Blonds on Bikes. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1997.

His wife, his wife,
his daughter, his daughter,
his granddaughter, her brother,
knelt in a circle
in huckleberry woods,
digging with fingers, under pine needles,
a small hole in which to place
smoking sweetgrass, optic moisture,
& by the grandson, his grandfather’s ashes,
gray Douglas Woolf, fine at last,
poured from expensive plastic bag
removed from official metal box,
taken from out a brown grocery bag,
his usual appertenance.

      .

Fifty steps from here
he wrote accurate prose
in his favourite ramshackle cabin,

juncos rescued from the cat & buried
under bushes, small daughters
didnt know what they were
rehearsing, now

his favourite knitted cap
has a rock in it, thrown
far as can be into the woods

as they call them back in New England
where few people came
to know he was from, gone
back there as well as here, wouldnt
you say?

      .

Now the women have a picnic,
sitting close as they can to the wolf in the woods,
huckleberry cider, jack cheese, bean & chile spread,
nothing from Europe, songs from mountain folk,
holed up in dark city, sitting firm
on clear prose, tears in all their eyes,
smiles on their faces, smoke from the sweetgrass,
no airliners in the sky, no
mote in that eye.

Below Nine Mile Creek, in Wallace,
Idaho it is 99 degrees. An old man in a see-through hat
leaned on the wall outside a bar.

I said when does it warm up? He replied
moving nothing but his toothpick,
wait till next winter.

      .

Doug will be up there next winter,
no romance, no spooks, meaning
no, he will not be writing a story, that is
over. If you want to visit, use your fingers,
open a book,
dig.

Intensity

Incorporation of Ash and Isaiah

In North Bay, Ontario, I climbed deep into a gully across the street from 42 Market Street to play…to imagine…to build imaginary kingdoms.  With all the moves that we had made and with a new one in the plan, I dug down deep into the pine needles.  I wrote my name into the soil, when I finally hit dirt…then carefully, I covered my name up with the soft needles, smoothing them over.  I thought perhaps, in doing this, a part of me would remain.  George Bowering’s poem gave me words that I needed when I first read it.  I’ve incorporated burnt ash and several match sticks…into the painting.  This piece is a many-layered piece that connects culture, narrative and covenant.