"This one's for you Floss"

 


 



 




 



 

exploring an old house

 

Though my surroundings no longer include galleries or venues, I find myself abundantly inspired. What I come across in these small prairie hamlets seems to be the essence, and holds the heart, of what so much modern culture attempts to capture. I feel what I witness here is living truth, that has grown from the beginning all the way to what it has become. It is not a contrived construction, based on an idea of something fashionable, over aware of its boxed in persona.
Wishart does not emanate an "old fashioned" feeling of community and values because it has fabricated an imitation. It is pure remnants of history, simply slower to fade than elsewhere.

 

When I roam the abandoned houses and ancient tricycles and beds, I see completely unpretentious scenery. It holds no awareness that its beauty relates to a romanticized ideal. It lays open and raw, in honest gorgeousness, rooted in the lives of those who have passed.
The wood on these old barns has not been skillfully sanded to look 'rustic', for example, but rather has been brushed for decades by cows searching for greener pastures. For years it has seen harsh winters and fatal droughts that have faded and broken its wooden panels.

 

What I am trying to get at, in my convoluted way, is that despite the lack of common displays of culture out here, I have never felt so inspired. I feel that it is finally life's original truths inspiring me, instead of replicas of replicas of replicas. Everyday my eyes frame a beautiful showing for me and I am forever grateful for the quiet in which I am able to absorb it.

Here are some pictures and a video of an old house I found. This is a very old one, without much remaining inside, and it is in southern Saskatchewan not in Wishart, but it is beautiful nevertheless. I will also do some videos of the more crowded abandoned homes here in Wishart soon.
For now, I hope you are all doing well. I miss you very much.

 



 

 

some more photos...

 

 

 

 


 

videos

just a tiny picture post

I just love all this family truck cruisin' and choke cherry picking. I've decided not to leave here for a while, I just can't, at least until the New Year. We're fixing up the empty house next door for me to live in and there's already a drum set in the living room (we started a band!) and we're setting up a painting studio in there too. Jeff's going to teach me to throw pottery, and Tara's going to teach me to sew, and the winter is going to teach me to love wood stoves and long johns.
This is a short post because I need to run to the cafe to help out the lunch rush, but here are a few pictures. The first couple are of Jeff, Freya, Ruby and me on our way to pick berries at the other farm, and the last three are Freya, Iso, Ruby, Chuck and me relaxing in my trailor.

xo
hope you're all doing well

 


 


 


 

Wishart, Saskatchewan

I have only been here for four days but am overwhelmed with where to begin this post.Everything works differently here. Doors are seldom locked, seat belts in the bench seat of the trucks are forgotten. Many things are borrowed, found, and personally invented or constructed instead of needlessly bought.
The father of the family, Jeff, bought his pottery studio from the town for two dollars, for example. And the mother, Tara, views her cafe more as a volunteer service to provide the town with a cafe (the quiet downtown strip has only a handfulof operating stores) than a financially profitable investment of her time. I have never witnessed such a strong community. Here it seems to be the residents who truly run the town. Meetings are held frequently and actually bring about change!

 
I've been learning so much. I've been seeing the freedom that comes with living away from cities; of having nowhere nearby to buy too many things, and no policemen in town. It's amazing to see people successfully governed by community and shared values.But I've also been learning to harvest, make jellies, juices, syrups; and I'm learning to make salsa and extract honey from combs, and ride a tractor.
And I'm learning to skim the top of the bucket of raw milk to get thick cream for my coffee, and the kids are teaching me to run everywhere and use plants for lipstick and laugh to the sky, on my back, with kicking legs.

 
They are sweet, sweet kids.
Two days ago I found that Freya, the oldest, had put a vase of sunflowers on my table and taped one of her paintings to my wall. They borrow my scarves to tie around their necks or in their hair while they take me by the hand to show me this or that. And Freya will braid my hair, and Iso brings me pieces of fresh honeycomb oozing and dripping with honey to share. They bloom with imagination and patience and it's inspiring.
 
But there's really so much that I don't know how to cover it all, or what to pick to elaborate on. Do I write about riding on the back of the truck with the girls, our feet dangling to the dusty ground? Do I write about the living skies that make me look up like a country dweller on a visit to New York City? Do I write of the stories of the town's legendary characters that are spoken around the dinner table, or maybe the abandoned houses sold for fifty bucks that are still filled with books and ointments and wood stoves from the thirties.
All I can say is that everything here inspires me, yet calms me. I feel nuzzled into nostalgia and am appreciating my grassy knees and dirt dusty sweaters. I will write about things with more detail and focus in a little while I hope, if I ever become less overwhelmed by this intense beauty and community.
 

I hope you are all doing well.
If not I recommend a trip to these prairie fields!
xo
all my love
Laura

 

 


 

b.c.'s little nugget

We woke in late morning to fill ourselves up with mugs of creamed coffee and warm, velvet raspberries. The afternoon held a wash of clouds high, dripped with sparse rain, but we laced our boots anyhow, and donned our hooded coats to explore., explore.
We let the dogs lead our path through the tall, sun bleached grass, along the ridge of the mountain. We passed the sway backed horses, the home built by the hands and eccentric ingenuity of her father, the small orchard, all the way to the lookout from atop a nearby hill.
Framed between two trees, we looked out to the far off river that rushed through those layered mountains.
what a sight!



It can be hard to grasp so much transient and passing landscape though, as I travel through. The present can feel like an object held so close to one's eye that it becomes ironically blurred.
But I'm grateful for those rare times when I am able to separate and view my current experiences as a whole. It makes them more tangible and more beautiful to me. Life can suddenly gain a quality similar to nostalgia, since it is allowing glimpses at simplicity and wholeness, like our way of grasping the enormity of our pasts.
It's just wonderful.

xo