Picks of Canada

The Santa Parade this year was lots of fun with a touch of snow at the beginning adding to the festivities. The first set of picture are available here(comments are appreciated). But please be patient there are hundreds more and they will be posted in the next few days.

The bands were there!

UofT Engineering Band

The Banana Gals and Guys were gathered together.

Dog-gone It - I can’t tell what these guys and gals are up to:

The Carrot carrying Beauties were Pretty as can be:

The Purple Court of Santa Princesses were all lined up:

Kids of all ages are ready and waiting:

So its time for a parade - marching through:

With lots of swirling color:

And Santa, a bit nippy-cold, too:

Note that all of the Santa Parade Pictures, literally hundreds, will be available here:
Santa Parade Pictures.

Trent Hill’s is the name for Eastern Ontario counties that the Trent River Basin wanders through from Peterborough via Hastings through Campbellford to Belleville and Trenton where the Trent river empties into Lake Ontario. Anybody who has traveled through this area knows the massive glacial tills that shape this countryside - farms that follow the grade, roads that curve and glide, and woods and massive mounds that abound.

For scores of years this countryside has attracted cottagers, hunters, campers, fishermen, outdoors people, and retirees. Quietly it has also built up a natural community of artisans across many crafts and disciplines. Spirit of the Hills is an artist group that taps into that vigor. You see it also in the cities throughout the area like Cobourg, Campbellford, Port Hope, Wooler and Warkworth where festivals and shops have added a new creative vitality to the area.

Take Warkworth for example. It is a town that features the Maple Syrup Festival, Long Lunch, Warkworth Western Fair and Rodeo, plus The Perfect Pie Competition in early November. And in town there are a whole bevy of new boutiques and shops such as those shown above like Back Talk Cafe, BeesKnees, The Eclectic Mix and the One Hundred Mile Diner.

In turn the One Hundred Mile diner is featuring a Spirit of the Hills artist, Barbara Bickell. Its Barbara’s art work that I would like to bring to you now.

And in witty and whimsical fashion, we start with the three crows of a piece shown just below called Times. Now I have it direct from the artist that the dancing whimsy that you see in this piece is deliberate. “It catches some of the spirit of myself and my two sisters - and our early dancing days”. Its certainly a great introduction piece to the whole exhibition of paintings. This painting injects the intellectual animation that pervades Barbara’s works - a time box of flying images below our line of cheerfully dancing crows embodies that intelligence. It is a statement about Barbara’s artistry.

Just below are two matched Fall Maple boughs easily found in the Trent Hills countryside - even I have a number of pictures that capture this scene. But not quite - running in the top third of both paintings is a bright river of light. It has living lava glow on the left and a sense of revelation with intrigue to be discovered on the right. This is another hint of the ideas flowing freely in Barbara’s works.

In the next series of paintings shown below, Barbara treats us to some seasonal views of the Trent Hill’s landscape with a difference. First there is a common cool hue reveling in the layers and forms that the countryside takes as it dons its various seasonal trappings. In the middle piece, Barbara makes explicit the the different layers and viewpoints in time. There is a touch of rhythm and repetition like in poetry and song here - as if a Courier de Bois had paddled through and left an echo sentiment and view which is replayed in a changing landscape scenes

Finally, there are reed like slalom gates in the blue rectangular waves that emerge in this heartbeat image. One can easily conjure up a Fibonacci series of ideas and sentiments from this savvy image. I liked it so much I adopted the same style in putting together the paintings from Barbara’s show. However, this is only a sampler of what Barbara’s show has to offer. There are a dozen more paintings on exhibit. So if you find yourself traveling Ontario East, take an excursion up and off the 401 at Brighton or Colborne exits and see what Warkworth has to offer. And do stop by for an intelligent bite with Barbara’s show at the 100 Mile Diner in “downtown” Warkworth. And for wine fanciers, there is the Oak Heights Winery 5 kilometers due West or the WestBen Theater for a musical treat in Campbellford just up the way.

You can contact Barbara by email or at 905-797-3007  and see more of her art works on her website.

THEx never fails to fascinate.In the past 4-5 years I have seen great shows at the air-conditioned Ricoh - Hollywood on Ice, the Rodeo, and a wonderful Circus. But this does not even touch the Bandshell Entertainments, The Iams SuperDogs Show or Hypnotic Wizardry. And I haven’t mentioned the Midway Rides. Maybe I am getting a hopeless case of Midway nostalgia in my senior years ? Is it the Toronto water ? Or maybe my penchant for freebies at the Ricoh Centre which on a hot August afternoon, the Ricoh is a welcome cool Oasis. This year THEx had a Rodeo back at the Ricoh on show. Not bad an idea given that the Horse Palace is adjacent to the Ricoh Center.

The countryside all around Ontario is site of the Summer Dodge Rodeo series - so there are lots of rodeo players in the vicinity.And THEx has to be careful not to step on the local fairs and competitions or the big championship rodeo events occurring at the Royal Winter Fair.Also the Rodeo only has 1 hour for each show. So the Rodeo at THEx is more of an exhibition. There is calf roping, bronco busting, barrel races and bull riding among events. And they are all compelling match ups between man and beast. But for my money, the bareback bronco busting - well it puts the most hellacious of the Midway rides to shame.

Five Seconds of Bareback Bronco Busting
And I have proof - just see the above sequence of shots.. The pictures were taken with my new Casio EX-F1 camera which has the ability to capture full-size images at up to 60 frames per second. I had the camera set at a relatively low 3-frames per second so the shots above are 1/3 of a second apart going for slightly over 5 seconds. The rider actually stayed on for nearly 9 seconds. But what amazed me was that in the last four seconds I could barely keep the rider and horse in the frame(the last frame is the last I got most of both in the picture).

Partially that is because the horse and rider are moving towards me. And partially that may be due to the fact that my teeth and back could not stand the jarring. Just kidding. But I will tell you that my chiropractor would jump at the opportunity to serve some of the rodeo riders and hands. And in general, the jars and falls of calf tieing or bull riding are equal to or greater than bronco busting.

So if you get a chance to see the Toronto Winter Fair or the Rodeos out in the countryside (or at the Calgary Stampede), stop by and be prepared for some brash and bone jarring entertainment. These riders have not just a touch of bravado in them.

You know rodeo. Barrel racing, bucking broncos + bulls, calf roping - all lingerings of a vanishing way of life.  But the rodeo spirit has the visceral attraction of its sheer physicality. To be true there are  the mental scars of grave risk but a step away.  But the principal  theme is of man versus animal - animals that can be swift, fickle, graceful, cantankerous, powerful, ornery, and sometimes downright bestial.

A rodeo certainly catches your attention.

I got an education in rodeo courtesy of the show in the middle of the Summer in Warkworth ON. Now Warkworth is known for its culinary feasts - Maple Syrup Festival in Spring, LongLunch in late Summer, and The Perfect Pie Contest to offset the start of Winter mit Das Schmeckt Tarte - with Savoury  Tarts and Tasty Pies.

But Warkworth is also in farming country -  and so  a rodeo is part of the genes and make up of the countryside. And it shows with a strong turn out for both days of a two day rodeo sponsored by a hundred and one local businesses and Dodge Trucks.

Yank Wrestling at Speed

Saturday was gray and constantly threatening with the humidity hanging in the air.  Maybe that was why the calf roping was slightly off - only one roper in five was able to reel in a calf. However, when they changed to calf wrestling, then the going was much better. Stationed at the end of the ring, I could see the stampeding horse and riders - an outrider keeping the calf from straying. They come down the way very fast. And the cowboy is over in an instant wrenching the calf by the horns while digging his heels into the ring. One would think the creature would be down and out … but a couple managed to spring free. Still, one can see why a collar tackle is penalized in professional football.

Bucking as in Bronco

As you might expect,  bucking broncos and bulls are one of the most popular parts of the rodeo. The tension is palpable and you can see no one fooling around. Everybody is on the alert and scrambling for the fence if a bronco or bull gets too close. Thats where the clowns and beaters earn their pay. They distract the bronco or bull once the rider has been turfed -risky business to say the least. At the rodeo one bull rider was trampled  and had to be ambulanced away  with contorted ribs.

The Trials of Riding  Bareback

But the kids seem to be attracted. They start young by riding sheep bareback - that was amusing to see because the sheep are actually ornery and the youngster really have to hold on for dear life. For bull riding , teenagers take on younger bulls and as you can see  get a quick education in stay atop. I must admit - just getting into the cage with a bronco or bull is a knowing art.

Just Getting On Is A Knowing Art

The second half of the rodeo is pratfalls and horse tricks and tom foolery -> the clever horse that pulls off the riding blanket before his master acn hoist the saddle on. This visual trickery requires great timing by both horse and the “master” joker in the ring. It works remarkably well this evening. This is followed by barrel racing which is really the major feminine side of rodeo. But as you can see below horse and rider have to be working well together to get a good time.

Getting Around

There is a lot more to the rodeo - a small shopping faire right by with everything from food thru cowboy hats to all sort of apparel to catch your eye. But the merchant stands also feature jewelry, leather crafts, flower bulbs and plantings, even some delicious maple and chocolate fudge or advice on your crop insurance. In short, the rodeo is also a business fair as well - god knows there enough ads plastered and posted all over the ring. Yes a rodeo is like the corn dogs and pieces of pie for sale nearby - always expected, but also surprising on how filling they can be.

Toronto will see NuitBlanche the first weekend of October from Saturday night October 4th to dawn Sunday morning. What will be interesting to see is if the event improves over last year. Major Art institutions such OCAD, George Brown College, UofT,  Ryerson College, Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet, Thompson Hall and Mirvish Theaters (plunk downtown on University and Queen)to name a few barely had a presence or their presence was strangely muted. What will happen this year remains to be seen - this site shall have a post event report.