Toronto Star
"Alert" is the fourth oil painting in a new series of miniature polar bear portraits. Meet Inukshuk, the big male bear in the Toronto Zoo. He's quite the character . I am familiarizing myself with these wonderful bears in preparation for working further on the fantasy series "Polar Bear Dreams". See the first painting of the series here.
Canada has put Polar Bears on a "Special Concern" list. Here is the Toronto Star article http://bit.ly/s9FZGu
If you live in Mississauga you may have heard of the Salmon Run Project, a call to artists to decorate casts of the Coho salmon to be displayed in the Civic Centre Grand Hall early in May. Mississauga is stepping up its support of the visual arts and this is the first project between the City's Cultural Office and the Art Gallery of Mississauga. But why salmon?
Three types of salmon inhabit the Credit River, the southern Ontario river that starts above the Niagara Escarpment and winds south through multiple Mississauga communities before it empties into Lake Ontario at Port Credit.
The Port Credit Salmon and Trout Association volunteers recently put 5000 young Chinook into a holding pen to acclimatize them to Lake Ontario. These 6 month old baby salmon are part of an ongoing project to increase the salmon population. About 85,000 salmon will enter the Credit River each year. Meet Sally, the salmon that tried to get away from that process here.
The Credit River Anglers Association, another great volunteer organization, has done fabulous work in protecting both the salmon and the Credit. Every year they collect the migrating salmon at a point in the river that impedes their journey, and drive them safely up to Norval where they are returned to the water so continue on their way. How impressive is that?!
At one time the Credit River was so thick with salmon, it was said one could walk across the river on their backs. However, by the end of the 1800's, their numbers in Ontario rivers had been dramatically depleted.
Despite efforts to reintroduce the Atlantic salmon, they are still very rare. Reintroduction of the Pacific Salmon, such as the Chinook, has met with much more success. The original call to artists stated we would be decorating casts of the Atlantic salmon, but what we all received was the Coho or Silver salmon.
Whatever "salmon" we work with, the lessons are the same, salmon are remarkable creatures, if we mess with nature it take a lot of time, effort, and good people to correct, and art, like nature, has the amazing ability to engage, educate and entertain.
Somehow, I forgot I did this oil painting. A gift to my son on his 18th birthday, it hangs in our house in the dining room - a room we rarely use (isn't a dining room table for folding laundry?). It shows him climbing, carefree, at about the age of four, on the War Memorial, located near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He is painted realistically, and static, while the figures on the statue are more "ghostly" and moving.
On the eve of Remembrance Day, I though I would share it with you. With all the gut wrenching news in the Toronto Star recently about Canadian War soldiers injured in Afghanistan, and some pretty heart-rending reporting on CBC radio as well, an image of youth, hope and peace can never hurt.
Note: One day, when I was working in this oil painting, a visitor to my studio mentioned her (great?) uncle had been one of the models for one the figures in this monument to peace.