Sculpture Heaven: A Vehicle for Departure, 1986

The art gallery in London sponsored a short walk around the gallery neighbourhood Saturday. A dozen people showed up for the walk and lecture. I was surprised by the very small turnout.

The work pictured stands on the gallery grounds. It is called Sculpture Heaven: A Vehicle for Departure, 1986. It was done by Stacey Speigel who described his work as "an urban prayer wheel" reminiscent of Tibetan Buddhist practice. The entire work can be rotated. I

Inside the piece, covering the floor of sculpture, are dried autumn leaves and pieces of acetate cut into leaf shapes. These plastic leaves were decorated by children with prayers from 180 different religious texts.

A lot of this explanation stuff runs completely counter to everything I was taught when studying art: First in Detroit at the Art School of Creative Studies and later at Ryerson in Toronto where I took a class taught by Ken Carpenter, a professor from York University and a well respected art critic with ties to Clement Greenberg. Carpenter was easily one of the finest professor I encountered during my years of art study.

Some day I will blog on why such lengthy explanations giving the why of a piece of art supplied by the artist are thought by many to be suspect. But today, I will simply share a photo of the piece with you and a little background.

Cheers!

Farhi name decorates London downtown

Note the name, both on the sign and on the building: Farhi. Landlord Shmuel Farhi may be the biggest landlord in downtown. He certainly owns the greatest number of buildings. This building, the old Bell building, is one of his and it sports his usual large sign designed to attract tenants.

The Farhi name decorates many downtown structures. If Farhi has his way these signs will not fade away after 210 days as the present city bylaw stipulates. The landlord would like to see a change in the city bylaw restricting how long signs like his may stay up, and how much time must pass before they can be reinstalled. The limit now is seven months up, five months down.

One more look at an abandoned apple orchard

I don't know the exact reasons for this orchard in southwest London being abandoned but I do know that it is not an uncommon event. Growing fruit is tough. I understand it can be especially tough in Ontario where a warm early spring can encourage fruit trees to blossom only to be hit with a destructive late frost.

I believe we had more orchards when I was a boy growing up in Southwestern Ontario. I know we had far more canning operations back then. Today there isn't one cannery taking fruit this side of the Rockies. (I know this was true a couple of years ago. This info could now be out of date.)

This apple is for the birds and insect pests. No one will pick it.

It must be summer; The lilies are blooming.

At first, I thought these were tiger lilies, sometimes known as ditch lilies because they often grow wild in the ditches beside our Ontario highways.  But tiger lilies have small, dark dots and the petals do not have ruffled edges.

Still, they may be cousins to the  tiger lily. I don't know. Maybe someone will comment and clue me in. If they do, I'll add the info to this caption.

These lilies were spotted blooming along the riverside road bordering the Thames River in Springbank Park. Springbank is one of the finest parks, of its type, that I have ever encountered anywhere. Londoners seem to really appreciate the place. It is a love affair that has gone on for more than a century.

Hens and chicks can survive almost anything

One of my most popular posts featured a picture of hens and chicks in flower. If you're curious, check it out. The flowers are most certainly weird.

Hens and chicks are native to southern Europe and yet they survive the Canadian winters in London, Ontario, and are not fazed by the hot, dry, Southwest Ontario summers. These plants are resilient. Heck, mine have now even survived being brutally walked on and energetically jumped on by my granddaughter. She meant no harm and no harm apparently was done. Amazing.
I love the way these succulents cover the ground with clusters of rosettes.  The largest rosettes are the 'hens' and the smaller ones springing from them are the 'chicks.' But these birds do produce flowers which sit on the top of tall, erect stalks that can tower up to a foot over the foliage.

My hens and chicks appear to be getting ready to flower. Each time they do this, I think, "Weird.

In the middle of some of the best farmland in Canada: An abandoned orchard

An abandoned orchard in South London

London, Ontario, likes to brag that it is situated right smack dab in the middle of some of the best farmland in Canada. Plus, we usually have ample rain keeping crops healthy and growing and our summers are long and hot --- very supportive of agriculture. Southwest Ontario is the ideal location for a successful apple orchard. Or at least it should be.

Sadly, fruit orchards right across the southern part of the province are being abandoned, bull dozed, ripped out, with the land growing its last crop: A subdivision.

The abandoned orchard shown is but five minutes from my South London home. When I moved here in the early '90s, there were orchards reaching for kms along Southdale Road. My wife and I used to buy fresh baked fruit pies from a couple of places that also sold the locally grown fruit.

Today many of the orchards are gone with houses occupying the land. Some of the other orchards are simply abandoned. The pies are but a memory.

Why there is no money in maintaining these orchards and reaping the bountiful crop of fruit for as long as possible is my question. Something is wrong. It is not just the pushing of the city into the surrounding country that is killing the orchards. More is at work here. Maybe the fact that there are no longer fruit canning plants in Ontario could have something to do with it. The market for the fruit may be as withered as the trees themselves.

I know that the last canned peaches I bought for my granddaughter came from South Africa. The last fruit cocktail I got came from China.

One of the hottest days of the year

Today is one of the hottest days this year. At three o'clock it was about 33 degrees Centigrade, or more than 91 degrees Fahrenheit. And, as it often the case in London, ON, it was humid. This meant that the humidex number was much higher: 40 degrees Centigrade or 104 degrees Fahrenheit! If you were going to do something outside, the morning was the time to do it.

Splash pad picture from my files.

This young woman was spotted in mid morning taking two young children to the neighbourhood park. Both little ones had on wide brimmed hats and they rode to the park in a flag shaded wagon. My guess is that they had sun block applied to their bare legs and arms.

The city has been advertising that the splash pads are open providing relief from the heat and the wading pool at Springbank Park is also open.