Sketches: part one

this post is the first in a series of responses to a child's notebook found at the Edmonton Reuse Centre

I'll confess, I'm not exactly sure how to begin. I've set myself the task of writing from these sketches, but I don't know just how to tackle it. I could tell you what I see in this picture - a sun in the top left corner, where every child seems to place the sun. Why is it that the sun belongs in the corner? I couldn't tell you, though I did the same when I was younger. The sun has a darker spot, its rays wisp delicately in the direction of the cloud, as though brushing it away from the summer day spread out below... I could go on, but really, I'd be just giving you what's already there. You can see the butterfly and the tulips - it's not abstract art, it doesn't need interpretation in that basic sense. And as far as children's drawings go, the content of this one is pretty traditional - I myself drew many of the sort. Tulips are a preferable sort of flower - easy to identify, and without the pain of too many individual petals. There's a reason this child didn't choose to draw daisies. 

But why do so many children choose to draw this scene? I'm speaking from my own experience here, as a native Edmontonian - why, when we see snow drifts for more than half of the year, do we draw the tulips, who only appear for a month or two? It's not a phenomenon unique to children, either. I've been searching for poetry about Edmonton, and naturally, a lot of what I've found references the river. It makes sense - the North Saskatchewan is pervasive. But winter is pervasive too, and still, every poem I've read about the river has talked about it as a moving thing. No mention of its winter stasis, or even of the alluring ice blooms that appear as the weather begins to chill in the fall. Maybe I'm just not finding the right poems. But in the middle of the winter, as heartening as a summer picture can be, I think a winter picture is more heartening still. We need more to remind us that winter isn't just something to suffer through - that there's poetry and art in this season as well.

---

Between writing and posting this, I came across a bit of poetry that disproves my statement - a stark stanza about the river in icy times. Here it is:

The river runs past us - wearing the debris of snow, in spring.

It pushes ice up its banks with a terrible weight

rips roots from the ground, demolishes bridges,

washes out the footpaths that steal through

the valley like varicose veins.

[from Lisa Martin-Demoor's "City of Champions"] 

 I still stand by the last line that I wrote though - we need more.

 

 

 

Found Notebook

As I mentioned in my last post, one of the things I picked up in my trip to the Reuse Centre was a not-quite-empty notebook:

Most of the pages inside are blank, but about ten have pencil sketches that appear to be the work of a child. In flipping through its pages, I thought it might be fun to use some of the child's sketches to illustrate and inspire my posts for the next little while. Sort of a dialogue between me and the anonymous artist - what do you think? Watch for the first of the series, coming your way soon!

The Reuse Centre, or, Fun Finds!

I've been meaning to check out the Edmonton Reuse Centre, and I finally got around to it! For anyone with a crafty inclination, this place is a must. It has a stash of all kinds of exciting things - from books to old CD cases to scrap fabric to stationary. All the items are donated, so if you're cleaning out your house and want a good place to send some stuff, consider making a trip down there. You can check their list of accepted items to see what they'll take, and what you might be able to get if you're hoping to pick up rather than drop off! "Buying" at the reuse centre is super simple too - for $5, you can take as many things as you like!

To give you an idea of what you might find, here's some of the things I came home with:

• an HDMI cable, brand new
• some small notebooks
• these neat swan-shaped candle holders:

I would have come home with a lot more, but I traveled there by train (another perk - it's conveniently located right behind City Hall) so my carrying capacity was limited.

Perhaps the most fun I had there was in speculating about other peoples lives - it's intriguing to form a perception of someone (or of a city) by what they cast aside. One of the notebooks I picked up was not quite empty - it had a few sketches in it, evidently made by a child. Watch for more on those in my next post!