Category: Art

Puzzled

As my constant companion watches over with a keen eye, I slip the last colourful, randomly shaped piece of cardboard into the round, abstract work of art. A great sense of satisfaction and completion envelops me, as I document the occasion with my camera. A certain furry friend joins in the celebration.

cat sitting on top of a colourful round puzzle

In the fall of 2020, as many of us hunkered down for our first full pandemic winter, I pondered jumping into the world of puzzles, which seemed to rival the sourdough revolution in its popularity.

A lovely friend even sent me a stunning circular puzzle for my birthday. Which… proceeded to sit in my closet. Later it relocated to my new place, where it sat in another, albeit nicer, closet.

My life forged ahead, puzzle-less… until, nearly three years into the pandemic, the virus finally caught up with me. While recovering, I was inspired to start the puzzle. If my body had finally given out and let covid in, I might as well tackle the puzzle at last. It was time.

I figured I’d either love or hate puzzling. I tend to be like that with things – and in this case, I ended up really enjoying it… even though I started with a doozy of an abstract work of art for my first go around, and it took me about three weeks to finish!

I found the process meditative and relaxing, allowing my too-busy, always-thinking anxious brain a temporary respite from its ruminating. It also was satisfyingly cut-and-dried. The pieces either fit or they didn’t – no shades of grey to agonize over and ponder endlessly. And when the puzzle was done, it was clearly done: no ambiguity to dwell on and try to interpret.

Some have asked whether it was tricky to do a puzzle in a home shared with a cat. But Miss Sophie was remarkably restrained and disciplined. A full two weeks went by with her carefully observing my movements before she could no longer resist temptation and gently knocked a single piece off the table. Her slow-motion destruction was gentle and subtle, and I never found more than a couple of pieces on the ground each morning.

cat sitting in box beside a partially done puzzle — how did I get here?

cat sitting beside a partially done puzzle — how did I get here?

After the inaugural puzzle was completed, the friend who’d started me on this journey lent me another, this one fortuitously showcasing a work of art by someone I admire. It was much easier than the round one, and I whipped through it in less than a week.

I’m hoping this is a sign that 2023 will be at least a little less rough than the past year’s been, for me.

Wishing a wonderful New Year to all, and hoping it brings you all that you desire.

cat sitting beside partially done puzzle — also mine

Tags covid-19, pandemic, puzzles

Art Automattic Travel

BCN

I had the opportunity to visit Barcelona for a team meetup this month. Amazingly, bits of Spanish from my long-ago university days somehow managed to re-emerge in my brain, ocasionally even forming sentence fragments that seemed to be at least partially understood. For various reasons, I didn’t take as many photos throughout the week as I’d planned, but during our last day, we played tourist and the camera came out in force as we explored two of Gaudí’s masterpieces, the Sagrada Família and Parc Güell.

Tags Barcelona, meetup, Spain

Art

Lighting the Forest

A couple of hours east of Montreal lies a natural phenomenon called the Coaticook River Gorge. During the day, hikers cross its spectacular 169-metre suspension footbridge and picnic by the rushing river, itself a memorable treat. This time, we saw the area in a new light — or rather, dark. Foresta Lumina is a nighttime experience introduced to the forest by multimedia entertainment company Moment Factory, which used sound, video, and light to transform an already magnificent environment into something uniquely immersive. Here’s a taste.

Tags Coaticook, Foresta Lumina

Art Personal Travel

Hey, LA

Post author By Kathryn P.
Post date May 10, 2016
4 Comments on Hey, LA

I’ve been to Los Angeles a couple of times, but the most recent trip was over 20 years ago. On this visit, what struck me most was the disparity between rich and poor, highly privileged and not at all. Homeless people sleeping outside in a neighbourhood of multimillion-dollar beach homes. Expressive, colourful street art vs. sedate European treasures at the Getty Museum. Kids arriving at the art centre in a black smoke-spewing school bus that looked like something from the 1950s lining up alongside their preppy uniform-clad counterparts from a private school.

My recent trip was full of many contrasts like these, but since I’m usually too shy to take photos of strangers, all the images I have to offer are of inanimate objects. Here you go.

Tags getty museum, los angeles, privilege, street art

Art Personal

Photographing the Moon

I may be cynical about a lot of things, but the spectacular-ness of the natural world is not one of them. So last night, I went down to the corner of our street to stare at the sky for a while with my husband. And we took a camera and tripod with us.

Before the digital-photography era, I was pretty comfortable with a single-lens reflex camera. I knew my way around F-stops and shutter speeds. I even developed my own negatives and prints in the darkroom. When I finally gave in and got a digital camera before a trip to Australia back in 2006, I never learned how to apply the skills I had to the digital world, and sadly lost the ability to manually adjust settings on my camera. I rely on automatic settings and blind luck to get OK-looking photos, which is why I was so pleased to have some of last night’s shots turn out much better than I’d expected. Here’s a few, straight off the camera.