They shone just for me

I had the last two days off work and gloriously spent them in the Vancouver sun, seeing new parts of the city and old ones, sharing it with friends and also enjoying some time in the city alone.

My very short vacation has all too soon come to an end but it left me with a smile and a poem that loosely took its inspiration from this one:

The Orange by Wendy Cope

 
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

 
And that orange it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

 
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all my jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

The first time I read this poem (many years ago now), it also left me with a smile – and still does whenever I re-read it. My version doesn’t rhyme, doesn’t have the same structure, nor does it talk about oranges, but I think the tone is kind of similar.

The City by Charlene Kwiatkowski

It’s October
and the city is getting ready
for Christmas
“Let it Snow” floats over the waters
of Coal Harbour
origin undetected
but finds me at a bench
saying no
I’m not ready for snow
I’m still playing fall,
the changing leaves
a metonym for the city
changing all around me
and I—

am letting it.
Coloured by its colours
moved by its movements
and the way it smiled at me
today—
a new view
an old friend
a skytrain passenger flinging his arm back
for a rail and grabbing my nose instead
These rush hour accidents
these slow waltzes
in and out of connection
The sun lighting the mountains
turning their tall, Pacific faces
to mine without ridicule
for thinking that maybe, today,
they shone just for me.

Wheeling around Art

You know how I talked here about encountering art in places other than museums and art galleries?

The other day, my sister and I had a chance to do this by going on the Art Wheelers bike tour in Vancouver. It was a 2 ½ hour ride stopping at about 15 works of art, beginning in Coal Harbour, passing through Stanley Park, going along English Bay and False Creek, and then ending up in the Olympic Village.

I won’t list all 15 but I’ll share with you some of my favourite pieces.

1. Lightshed. Liz Magor

Location plays a big part in this piece. This ‘wooden’ shed sitting on log pilings in Coal Harbour recalls the area’s maritime history since freight sheds once sat here on wharves. I say ‘wooden’ in quotation marks because although that’s what the material looks like, if you go up to touch it, you’ll find it’s actually made of aluminum – including the barnacles crawling up the posts. According to this article, the artist likes to challenge our assumption of the familiar, not just through an unexpected material but also through the precarious angle of the shed, as if it’s about to collapse. I would love to see this piece at night because apparently a silver light shines from inside it, lighting up the windows. It gives the illusion of habitation even though the out-of-reach doorway means whoever or whatever’s inside remains inaccessible to us.

2. Engagement. Dennis Oppenheim

It’s hard not to notice these gigantic engagement rings standing about 30 feet high in Sunset Beach Park. American sculptor Dennis Oppenheim made them, who also designed this interesting bus station in California. Oppenheim likes to leave his works open to interpretation, and many have interpreted this piece as a political message about same-sex marriage given that both rings are ladies’ rings and they’re situated in the West End, Vancouver’s gay community. The angle of the rings tilting away from each other also speaks to the precarious balance in marriage, but also in any relationship. This piece would be another great one to see illuminated at night, where the ‘diamond’ part of the rings shine.

3. Khenko. Doug Taylor

This kinetic sculpture hanging over the False Creek pathway gets its name from the Coast Salish mythical term for Great Blue Heron. Addressing sustainability, this piece celebrates the return of this bird to the False Creek waterway, which was a main industrial site in the city’s early history. Notice the combination of man-made, heavy mechanical elements and the grace and lightness of the bird that actually flies through this wind-powered device.

4. King and Queen. Sorel Etrog

King and Queen highlights the relationship between man and machinery. King is on the left; Queen is on the right—a regal looking pair sitting in Harbour Green Park. Despite their rigid steel parts, Etrog makes these figures inviting through the curvature of their multiple laps (a favourite for children to climb on) and their humanized features like rivets for eyes. I like the play between the forms’ formality and casualness, just sitting in the park like all the other Vancouverites enjoying the sunny evening.

5. Time Top. Jerry Pethick

This 1940s-style spaceship standing along the False Creek shoreline evokes time travel, as if it just washed up from another world. We saw it at low tide, but depending on the time of day, its bulbous feet can be completely submerged, changing the way we interact with the piece. I’d imagine it could also look like a spinning top bobbing along in the water. This piece literally underwent some ‘time travel’ itself. It was submerged for two years in the ocean by Gibsons, BC, where it was also given a low-level electrical charge to attract sea life to its bronze surface. I love how the colours of Time Top echoed the colour of the water when we were viewing it, blending it with its ‘natural’ environment. Unfortunately the artist passed away before he saw the completed work.