Wisdom at The Crossroads, the Podcast

“Pink at Ponemah” offers an invitation to park yourself on a sandy beach on a shimmery summer day no matter the season. In today’s episode we step into Canadian cottage country to find connection in community. We take a pause, find ourselves pretty in pink and learn a simple way to leave our own marks on the world.

We learn how to celebrate our creative missteps by making a mistake feel intentional and we continue to explore the backstories of my work in art.

The meditation that begins at 10:55 in this episode’s recording will help us to ease into a peaceful moment.

We get into the pink and seek to experience ease when we allow ourselves to dream and are encouraged to come back to ourselves. We invite the light around us to become the light within.

Life is lived in the Details. This one introduces my solution to a creative misstep. When I dropped my painting panel and snapped a Eucalyptus leaf embedded into the gesso, I chose to. celebrate your it. I painted it aqua in an effort to make my accident appear intentional,

Welcome back to the podcast. I want to thank you for sharing your valuable time with me.

Last week, feeling the need for a bit of a break I picked up the March edition of Health magazine. In it Editor Liz Vaccariello wrote in the Editor’s Note about her own writing process. I totally resonated with her admission when she said, “I think better with a pen in my hand”. I was grateful to know I am not alone in my comfortable ways, even though I might prefer a pencil. It was a reminder of how a few simple words can connect us to each other.

Liz went on to explain, “If we read to know the world, we write to know ourselves``

While considering this podcasting adventure I had wondered how my visual medium as a painter and textile artist would translate as an audio experience, I am working it out and hopefully making connections. Thanks to those who have reached out to tell me how my stories and meditations or reflections have made a difference so far. Liz’s editorial note seemed to capture the essence of what I am trying to do as she continued.

“When we share our experiences we invite others to not only feel what we felt but to find themselves in our stories” and that is essentially my hope for you, that you will find something of your story within mine as we continue to explore the backstories of my work in art.

In today’s episode we will meet, “Pink at Ponemah” from the shores of lake Winnipeg, a painting that hangs by my front door at home. It is a small acrylic on panel that welcomes guests indoors. I’m finding it funny as I write about it and only now realise that it’s not until we really explore the reasoning behind the ways we curate our personal spaces that subliminal motives become clear. I am now realising the 2 sentinel trees that are the primary subject matter in the painting, welcome visitors to our local Ponemah Beach. Hanging where they are, they are facilitating that same action at home. I guess it really is true` life imitates art, imitates life.

This little gem is only 12” x 30” and was painted on a cradled board back in 2005.

Ponemah is part of the smallest municipality in Manitoba . The Village of Dunnottar sits on the western edge of Lake Winnipeg’s South basin. An inland ocean on the Canadian Prairies.

We didn’t call Ponemah, in the smallest municipality in Manitoba, our summer home until several years after this piece was painted but even then I think I was beginning to understand the Canadian connection to place. Canadians are an endearingly outdoorsy bunch who embrace where they are whatever the weather. Sometimes we push ourselves to get active in spite of it. This phenomenon is particularly prevalent where water bodies abound. Lake Winnipeg is the sixth largest lake in Can, sailors, water enthusiasts and cottagers who reside and play along its extensive perimeter.

We were initially guests here, at the invitation of friends who had invited our family to share a weekend at the cottage which had been their families’ weekend experience since the 50’s. As broad as the types of recreational properties that exist in Canada there are an equal number of endearing terms to match. This family calls their place the cottage while others are known to reference their summer homes as the camp, the cabin, the lake or the beach, to name just a few. Everyone it seems takes ownership by prefacing the title with the word “our” or “my”. That is, our cottage, our cabin, my lake, our beach.

At the bottom of their street on the lakeshore at Ponemah stand a pair of weathered Willows that act like sentinels inviting the community to play on its sandy shore. It’s a beach well known to cottagers in the area, a once well-kept secret. In recent years the neighbourhood is welcoming new and unfamiliar faces to our little cottage neighbourhood on picnics and day trips. We are an easy commute from the city and have been garnering added attention since Pokémon planted some virtual characters on òur` point. Bridal parties have discovered our unique swimming piers make a spectacular backdrop to their wedding pictures with vast and expansive prairie skies as a backdrop. Social media too is sharing the seasonal magic of this quaint little beach community.

The lake for me is a magnet. Water is my elemental home. I swim weekdays year round at the YMCA. When it is minus 40 with a wind chill, getting dressed to drive and get into the Y takes some effort. Our winters may be brutal but our summers are glorious and being by water body in July and august for even just a weekend day trip is the goal of so many of us. As an ex pat Australian who grew up by an ocean, Lake Winnipeg`s shallow wide basin is prone to variable weather and rolling storms that acts as a surrogate ocean for my family. There are of course no salt crusted eyelashes to squint through after a swim and no swell to surf unless there is a crazy storm, but in the middle of a continent I am so totally grateful to be able to look out at that ever changeable horizon and feel at home. When we did purchase what my now neighbour squared described as `Mr Pool`s Cottage, a long neglected log cabin we have smothered in love and major efforts to salvage its quaint stature while bringing its interesting building practices up to code. My husband said to me as we walked along the lake shore on a breezy afternoon that season, “We just breathe better here don`t we”, and I agree. We feel the stress dissolving as we leave the city and by the time we arrive we have already relaxed into that beach hair don’t care state of mind.

The swimming piers are a feature of our little cottage community. They are affectionately called stick docks and are built and dismantled each season. The neighbours celebrate with morning coffees and afternoon “tea” when the pier is finally ready for our gatherings and we declare it to officially be summer.

The little painting we are chatting about I named ``Pink at Ponemah` because it has a delicate softness about it that puts me in mind of a peaceful summer day, you know those days when you have been outdoors and the sun has blushed, not burnt your skin with that healthy glow. Use sunscreen people but when you do get a chance go out and enjoy that feeling of relaxation that reminds us we are lucky to be such a small part of an expansive nation.

**“PINK at PONEMAH”, Acrylic on Panel, 12” x 30”, 2006**

The sentinel trees that feature in the painting are the beginning of two rows of plantings that shade the back edge of the beach in the summer and take the brunt of the wind when it blows. You would have to imagine the shorter row extending to the right beyond the paintings composition to the point and a longer row leading you left parallel to the sandy beach walk along the shore in the opposite direction. `Sand is an invitation to walk here. Every walk is different. Most inspire me to pause to collect lucky stones with intrinsic holes perfect for summer pendants or beach glass weathered smooth by the action of water and ice. One year a beachgoer left messages written in sharpie on smooth and warm summer stones. I collected one that exclaims, `You Rock! I love that. It keeps vigil on the kitchen table year round to inspire all of our guests. What a lovely sentiment to find. I would urge you to make someone’s day next time you find yourself with a smooth stone and a pen in your hand. Write some small affirmation and leave it behind to be found later in the day.

In the painting there is more white than I usually incorporate but if flows with the idea of a whispy breeze and sets the scene for a bathing suit bleached with wear or a picnic blanket faded and softened with use. Embedded in the surface are some saved eucalyptus leaves brought in as bookmarks in a novel or clipped from a florists arrangement. Australiana, I am an advocate for it all. On the back of the painting I discovered I had inscribed, `Give me a home amongst the gum trees” which may have been an original intention for this piece and possibly also a reference to the iconic swimming flags on patrolled Australian beaches that are placed a similar distance apart. Remembering we bring to our work our own unique experiences. And though I have lived in Canada since 1991, our beginnings are always our beginnings and mine are clearly evident in my work.

Unusually in this composition I used some gold and silver leaf. I had some; I was playing with it as an addition and liked the subtle reference to reflections on water that felt so familiar to a part within me. Adding it made reference to the flash of silver we might see underwater or the glare or reflections on the water’s surface that keep our dark sunglasses in place as we tan. I love the metallic addition to the composition that flashes differently depending on the angle of approach and the time of day. The trees I have spoken of are a mere suggestion themselves cast as they are with a few loose marks that describe a breeze.

In the painting there is a distinction between areas where sand meets water, meets sky, but it is a suggestion and open to interpretation. Art and the making have taught me many things over the years. This little gem is no different. In fact as I was screwing in hangers on the back I remember I actually dropped the panel and wouldn’t you know it one of those sacred remnants of Australian, a perfect gum leaf embedded into the surface cracked clearly in half and left a weird gap where a lovely leaf form had been. Ouch that one hurt. The moment may have inspired an uncomplimentary word or two to escape. I don’t remember, it was in 2005, but knowing me I would not be surprised if it did.

So, what to do? Never one to disguise a flaw I do recall dipping my brush into a lovely aqua tube and filling the void with a startling contrast to that blushing pink I have already told you about. It was a perfect solution and a reminder, when we are presented with lemons, we should totally make lemonade.

This little piece was a great lesson in life and in art that I try always to remember. And that is, what we think as a wrong turn can actually turn into something to celebrate. It also reminds me year round that though the seasonal winds will blow and bring snow into my front door at times, there is always the promise that the sun will shine and soon I will be migrating back to our little beach with the hummingbirds and eagles to feel that blush of pink on my winter weary skin once again.

Gold Leaf detail “Pink at Ponemah”, 2006

My thanks extend to you today for tuning in to this episode. I hope the images are helpful and that you are finding something of your story within mine by listening in to the podcast, or catching up through this blog.

It’s all FREE content that I very happy to share with you. If my work or words inspire you please consider sharing the podcast with a friend or writing a review. You can listen to the full episode anywhere you get your podcasts.

This week’s meditation begins at 10:55 in the recording. I hope you are able to make time for a little self care.

please feel free to leave your questions or comments on the website or find me on instagram @mandartcanada. I would love to hear from you

Until next time, stay well,

all best

Amanda

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