Canoe

                           

2024 was the year of the canoe in these parts.

It began as an idea for a sixteenth birthday gift for number-one-grandson Jack, and idea leapt into action in the middle of the summer, roughly four months before the big day.

Let me just say, right off the bat, that this was all Doug. 

He did insist, (repeatedly), that we would build it together, but from the downing of cedars in our woods, running them through the sawmill, cutting them into strips, routing many many sixteen-foot-long strips, building the strong-back, etc. etc., it was all Doug. 

I suppose I was useful in the conceptual process and the encouragement department. Occasionally I was asked to read a passage from the manual to "see what I thought". And in the later stages, there were a number of times when four hands were needed, (though these are undocumented as I was also official photographer).

I would describe the process as slow and methodical, but also deeply satisfying. 

Meditative. Spiritual.

Repetitive, rhythmic and quiet, working at the edge of the woods with the chickadees and red squirrels, sometimes within arms reach, going about, as they do, the business of surviving.

I thought, more than once, that it was strangely akin to the process of art-making. 

Akin to it, not only creatively but also in timeline, if I'm thinking of one of my large works. 

As most of my works on canvas include canoe imagery, this gave me an odd sensation. 

This canoe was real.

Tangible.

Different, yes, yet oddly similar, even as far as using many of the same materials - wood, cloth, varnish.

On a cold and windy late November morning, we drove a few miles east to the Ouse River, to give her a test run.  She behaved as she should - light, balanced, nice to handle - the icy waters of the Ouse staying firmly, wonderfully, thankfully outside of the canoe.

It is a thing of beauty, this treasure. 

Built with Doug's own two (and occasionally four) hands, it has now been handed on to Jack.

With love.

Anne Renouf

          

D'où Viens-tu Bergère

 

"D'où viens-tu bergère?"

Where are you from?  Where are you going?

This lovely old nativity scene came with my parents from the U.K. 

when they immigrated to Canada in 1951,

with my two eldest brothers, 

Andrew, 3 and Simon 1.

It was constructed by the daughter of their dear friends and neighbours Godfrey and Hildegard Koenig,

a young teenager named Hildy.

I don't know enough about how or when the Koenigs arrived in the U.K.

except that they were Austrian, and given the timing, I imagine that they came just before or during the Second World War.

The crèche is comprised of 

paper figures mounted onto wooden shapes cut with a jigsaw. It would have been a lot of fiddly work.

Fiddly work that has held up for some time, at least most of it. A few of the minor characters have been lost along the way. It has moved a fair distance.

I have calculated that it has been assembled by someone in my family for

seventy-five Christmases, 

and has travelled from:

Taplow, England

to 

Toronto, Ontario

to

 Auckland, New Zealand

to

Don Mills, Ontario

to 

Peterborough County, Ontario.

"Where do you come from, shepherdess, where do you come from? 
I come from the stable, I have just been walking there;
I have seen a miracle happen this evening."

❆

D'où Viens-tu Bergère

D’où viens-tu, bergère, d’où viens-tu? (bis) —Je viens de l’étable, de m’y promener; J’ai vu un miracle ce soir arriver.	Where do you come from, shepherdess, where do you come from? (twice) —I come from the stable, I have just been walking there; I have seen a miracle happen this evening.
Qu’as-tu vu, bergère, qu’as-tu vu? (bis) —J’ai vu dans la crèche un petit enfant Sur la paille fraîche mis bien tendrement.	What did you see, shepherdess, what did you see? —I saw in the manger a little child Placed very tenderly on the fresh straw.
Rien de plus, bergère, rien de plus? (bis) —Saint Joseph, son père, Saint Jean, son parrain, Saint’-Marie sa mère, qui l’aime si bien.	Nothing more, shepherdess, nothing more? —St Joseph, his father, St John, his godfather, St Mary his mother, who loves him so well.
Rien de plus, bergère, rien de plus? (bis) —´Y a le bœuf et l’âne qui sont par devant Et de leur haleine réchauffent l’enfant.	Nothing more, shepherdess, nothing more? —There’s the ox and the ass who are in front And who warm the child with their breath.
Rien de plus, bergère, rien de plus? (bis) —´Y a trois petits anges descendus du ciel, Chantant les louanges du Père éternel. *traditional French Carol	Nothing more, shepherdess, nothing more? —There are three little angels come down from heaven, Singing the praises of the eternal Father.