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Textile artists share individual gifts in project

Elizabeth Nolan
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Textile artists share individual gifts in project

The ArtSpring lobby will be a marvellous field of colour and texture through to the end of August thanks to the Island Textile Artists’ third annual exhibition.

The group has been working together for over 10 years exploring fibre and stitch, and are self-professed admirers of a challenge. Their members are Linda Counsell, Elna Gravelle, Bobbi Janowiak, Gillian Kidd, Danielle Manners, Joanie Paterson, Susan Paynter, Karen Selk, Karen Tottman and Janet Wheeler.

At this year’s show, viewers can admire various members’ individual explorations, such as Wheeler’s abstract works framed over soothing midnight blue fields. On the Moors is a lovely, three-dimensional landscape painting made from multicoloured fibres and puff paint, while Windmills of My Mind contrasts arcs of warm metallic stitching over cosmic blue felt.

The above are just a few examples of what the members are up to. However, an equally interesting experience comes from those works that don’t come with any name attached.

Although not identified as such, a group of 10 pieces near the box office can only be self-portraits of the artists. Most of these works, but not all, represent a woman’s face. They are labelled but only with titles, materials and techniques. It’s up to the keenly observant viewer to find the key and determine which style they feel represents which artist based on their other work.

A similarly entertaining exercise can be found just down the stairs near the elevator lift. A massive group display in two paired panels comprises 12 individual panels made by each of the 10 artists, who created one square based on the same theme and colour for every month of the year. Taking the time to look at this collection carefully is a worthy endeavour for anyone who is fascinated by the textile arts, and the ways in which individual artists put their unique interpretations into every step.

Each grid represents five artists on the X axis and 12 months along the Y axis. The vertical bars represent shifts on the colour wheel plus two design concepts such as “line” or “gradation.” Therefore, the viewer can start somewhere like Yellow/Line/Proportion and scan downward to see how five different artists chose to develop this combination of ideas. Or one can start from the far left of the grid and follow one artist’s horizontal line to see how they worked through each month’s challenge — and how their expression incorporated and adapted to the parameters given.

Intense viewing of the group project can yield any number of discoveries. But with the show up all this coming month, a lighter but ongoing appreciation of the show’s basic joys is also likely.

For more on this story, see the July 31, 2019 issue of the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper, or subscribe online.

Underwater photographer brings home prizes

Gail Sjuberg
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Underwater photographer brings home prizes

A Salt Spring photographer came home with three top prizes from this year’s Digital Shootout competition held in the Cayman Islands.

Ann Donahue was not the first member of her household to take up underwater photography. Her husband, Ken Sutherland, had to drag her into it, taking her on trips to scenic diving locales and eventually buying her first camera. It did not take long for Donahue to fall in love with shooting underwater, and she returned home from the recent competition with something to show for it.

“We started going to this event in 2005,” Donahue said. “I wasn’t shooting then, I was just going along with my husband and he was the one who was going for the photography. I was doing all of his editing. Then I got into the photo aspects of it.”

The Digital Shootout is a yearly competition held in a resort where photographers from around the world get to take their best photos to be judged by a panel of experts. The event is also a trade show, which showcases the newest gear from the expansive world of underwater photography.

“You need a specialized housing, and you need to carry your own lighting,” Donahue explained. “If you don’t have any lights and you shoot underwater, all you get is a blue. You have to have a housing with a tray and arms, then you connect your strobe lighting to that. Then it becomes a bit more complex.”

The two-week Cayman Islands event includes diving days, workshops on photography and editing, as well as a nightly roundtable discussion of photos taken by participants. This year’s event was the 18th annual edition, and a record number of female photographers took the top spots in the competition.

Donahue has come in second or third place in her categories before, but she has never taken a first-place photo. This year, however, she was named in third, second and first places for her work.

“It’s very competitive now, and my expectations are never super high. When they started naming, they go with third place first. I was ecstatic about getting third and the prize that went along with it. Then when they named me for second, then when they named me for the top prize, it was incredible,” she said.

Donahue is a retired teacher, and has been documenting coral reefs around the world as a way to teach people about the fragile ecosystems. She writes educational books for children on the reefs, and uses her photography to illustrate them.

“Everyone’s talking about the coral reefs disappearing and all this stuff, but we get to go to places where there are coral reefs that are still very healthy and teeming with life. I get to document that so people can see that and see that there’s all this beauty underwater.”

For more on this story, see the July 31, 2019 issue of the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper, or subscribe online.

Junior program keeps thriving

Contributed Article
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Junior program keeps thriving

By Marcia Hogan

Two big events are on the horizon for the Salt Spring Golf Club.

The Salt Spring Island Amateur Open runs the weekend of Aug. 9, 10 and 11. It is the 50th anniversary of this tournament and entries are coming from as far away as Sweden. 

Aug. 24 is the annual North South Tournament and Auction. This geographically challenged scramble is the club’s biggest fundraising event.  It is a true mixer, where many new friendships have been formed, and is open to all golfers. Donations for the auction are now being accepted at the clubhouse.

The most recent member event, the Adam and Eve Tournament, was won by Elaine Shaw and Harry Kirwin with a low net score of 61. Second place went to Gwen and Dick Newton at 62. Just a half point behind were Jill and Michael Thompson with a net score of 62.5.

In men’s club news, the winner of the Jensen Cup, for well-seasoned (over 70) men, was Bob Woodhouse.

The junior program continues to draw large numbers of keen golf students. For $10 on Wednesday nights, young golfers receive a short lesson, coaching on the course and a hot dog afterwards.

The club has been coaching 14 Special Olympics athletes to golf this summer. The wrap-up night was July 24 and Steve McHugh was presented with the Golfer of the Year award.

Winter storm damage continues to affect the golf course. While fairways and greens are in great condition, debris still litters some areas. Please note that new local rules will provide free relief from these new NO PLAY ZONES (not penalty areas), which are marked by blue stakes.

‘Dangerous passenger’ sailings could be created

Shilo Zylbergold
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‘Dangerous passenger’ sailings could be created

Back in the late 1980s, when the Hysterical Society still billed itself as “Comedy Night” and performed at the Valcourt Centre’s Off Centre Stage in what is now the Lady Minto Thrift Store, we presented a sketch where the BC Ferry Corporation’s head office was laid out as the captain’s quarters on a pirate ship.

I played Capt. Hook, the ferry corp.’s CEO pirate, replete with eyepatch, peg leg and a silver hook for claw-backs, and on my shoulder sat Polly, a stuffed pirate-hat-wearing parrot (whose voice was supplied by Mike Hayes standing offstage behind the curtains) who was the “brains” of the operation. Between Polly and me, we were trying to come up with solutions that would get the public off BC Ferries’ back and curtail some of the complaining. After having a couple of dubious suggestions rejected by Captain Hook (notably the “frequent floater point” concept and the “deckhand for a day” promotion), Polly hit one out of the park with her alternative to the build-a-bridge brainstorm:

“Okay, instead of spending all that capital that we don’t have on a bridge, aaaarrrrrr (here you the reader can supply your own pirate parrot sound), we take all the ferries in the fleet, line them up end to end, stern to bow, and weld them together. Voila! You’ve got a floating bridge. Drive on at one end and drive off the other. Aaaarrrrrr!”

Why am I raising the subject of ferries yet again? After all the irate emails and online comments, the late night phone calls from agitated spouses of ferry employees who have been offended by my critical parodies, and the dagger-like stares from those who take my jabs all too seriously, you would think I would know better than to poke the hibernating bear. Obviously, I don’t.

As everybody on the island knows, the decommissioning of the Vesuvius/Crofton ferry, the Howe Sound Queen, and its replacement with the smaller Quinitsa, has caused a maelstrom of discontent among Salt Spring residents and ferry users. The complaints range from public inconvenience over ferry schedules that have been topsy-turvied from their regular times, to utter outrage over massive lineups and ridiculous overloads. Plus the dangerous cargo sailings that take up a number of the potential passenger crossings.

People have resorted to posting photos on Facebook showing just how far back the ferry lineup at Vesuvius is stretching. (“It’s as far back as Sunset Drive and the ferry isn’t even in yet” or “we’re backed up all the way to the foot of Ganges Hill and we’re having to vie for parking spots with vendors who are waiting to set up stalls for the Saturday Market.”)

Of course, all this negative dissonance has brought on frayed nerves and a potentially volatile situation. There are reports of drivers attempting to sneak their way in to the waiting queues while others have tried to administer an ad hoc form of frontier vigilante justice to the perpetrators of such sleazy behaviour.

So what’s the solution? Some are calling for bigger ferries coupled with more frequent sailings. Others are demanding that a second ferry be docked at the ready for overloads at peak traffic times. I can’t say I believe that either of these tactics would work in the long run.

From my own experiences, having lived on Gabriola Island from the early ‘70s to the mid-80s, I watched that ferry get updated every couple of years from the tiny Rolf Brun and the 18-vehicle capacity Westwood, through the larger Kulleet, Klatawa, and Kahloke, and maxing out with the Quinitsa (yes, the very same tub now plying the Vesuvius/Crofton route) and then the Quinsam.

Even though the ferries kept getting bigger, so did the number of people wanting to use them. It was only a matter of a short period of time before the cycle of lineups and overloads repeated itself. No matter how much passengers griped, the problem was not solved with bigger vessels that ultimately made the island more accessible and therefore more desirable as a home.

Then there are those who scream “Build a “#*#*%*#’n” bridge!” Doing that (whether it be a floating bridge or a fixed structure) and eliminating ferries completely would mean we would be able leave and get back to the island whenever we damned well felt like it. There is a problem, however. First of all, bridges create their own messes when it comes to peak travel periods and traffic bottlenecks. Even more importantly, as witnessed by bridging of the Florida Keys archipelago, the quickest way to “de-island” an island is to build a bridge to it. What would be gained in ease of travel would be lost in the cultural identity of living on Salt Spring. You might just as well live in Saanich.

Let me be honest here. I’m not trying to pull a “holier than thou” manoeuver on this question. Being a “south-ender,” I don’t find myself travelling the Vesuvius/Crofton route very often. But if I did, I can assure you that I would be just as p.o.’d about missing a ferry or having to get to the terminal super early so that I could just sit (or sleep) in a ferry parking lot. I, too, out of total exasperation, would be banging my head against my steering wheel and cussing a blue streak while watching the fully loaded ferry sail without me all the way to Crofton.

Nobody asked me, but as I said before, there may be no viable solution to ferry problems involving sailing delays and overloads. There is, however, a logical way to handle all the disgruntled islanders who are so angry and fed up with the delays and lack of action by ferry management that they are ready to explode. Schedule special sailings several times a week where only individuals in this category are permitted to board the ferry. Call it the “Dangerous Passengers” crossing. Aaaarrrrrr.

Viewpoint: Work together for survival

Contributed Article
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Viewpoint: Work together for survival

By JAN SLAKOV

Does this summer feel like a gift to you, with the gentle July rain, warm but not sweltering temperatures, our forests filled with birdsong, plump berries, happy gardens?

For me, this is a reminder of what we stand to lose if we fail to treat the climate crisis like the security threat it has become. For economist and Fraser Institute “senior fellow” Ross McKitrick, Vancouver’s weather trends indicate there’s “no sign of a heat wave emergency.” Journalism professor Sean Holman responded on Twitter: “As journalists, our primary responsibility is to tell the truth. That’s why I’m disappointed the Vancouver Sun chose to publish an op-ed stating there is only a ‘vague inkling’ we ‘might’ be in a #climateemergency a ‘decade from now.’”

Public relations expert Jim Hoggan, who is also chair of the Suzuki Foundation and a Dalai Lama Centre for Peace & Education trustee, works to clear the air. “I was naive in the early days. I thought propaganda was misinformation. I didn’t understand that a century of social science and public relations had provided the bad apples among us with more devious tools than misinformation . . . It became clear [oil industry PR campaigns] weren’t just about deceptive persuasion. They were really an attempt to shut down public spaces . . . If you can turn a scientific issue into a tribal issue . . . open-minded thinking just shuts down on its own, motivated reasoning and confirmation bias take over.”

With its diversity of viewpoints, but small, supportive community, Salt Spring may be a place where people can show that working together for survival is possible.

The facts are pretty stark: the UN recently released a report warning that a million species are threatened with extinction, the atmosphere now has over 410 ppm of C02. Climate scientist Peter Gleick wrote, “the last time humans experienced levels this high was … never.” Since global GHG emissions must go down by 45 per cent by 2030 (and yet they are still climbing) the next months are crucial. We need to make decisions now that will lead to drastic reductions in GHG emissions while making concerted efforts to support the Earth’s ability to sequester carbon in forests, wetlands, healthy oceans, etc.

It’s mind-blowing that humanity knows what must be done, has real solutions in hand and more on the way. Our major challenge seems to be creating the political will to pursue solutions, many of which would provide “collateral benefits” like clean water or improved democracy and social justice.

If you would like to be part of finding a healthy way forward, you’re invited to a meeting on Aug. 8 at 3 p.m. outside the library.

Then on Saturday, Aug. 10 at 11 a.m., All Saints church is hosting David Denning’s presentation on The Climate/Ecological Emergency & What We Can Do About It. David will be joined by MP Elizabeth May; they are eager to respond to concerns you may have and to find a way forward together.

On Sept. 20 the international students’ climate strike movement is asking everyone to join in. Would your community group or workplace be interested in learning more? If so, please get in touch at janslakov@shaw.ca or 250-537-5251.

Editorial: After the crush

Driftwood Staff
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Editorial: After the crush

As we enter the month of August, it’s time to really brace ourselves for the peak of visitor activity in the Gulf Islands.

For those in the business of serving tourists, it’s the time to work hard and make as much money as possible to carry themselves through the rest of the year. For ordinary residents, August is the month to refine survival techniques for coping with the crowds, or to escape to other places.

Everyone likely agrees that Salt Spring and the other Gulf Islands are maxed out in terms of their capacity to deal with visitors in the two main summer months, but that more visitors could be accommodated in other months. The Southern Gulf Islands Tourism Partnership Society is a new organization that has formed to try increasing tourism activity in the spring and fall seasons; to perhaps persuade some visitors that a summertime Saturday is not the only time to visit Salt Spring Island, for example. It also wants to improve connectivity between the various islands, which is a great idea. The society grew out of work done by the islands’ two economic development commissions of the Capital Regional District and attempts to do some joint marketing between the islands with some available grant money.

The main thrust of the group is to raise some revenue that could be used on marketing and tourist education through a new accommodation tax that comes into effect this fall. 

At first blush, adding a two per cent tax to the cost of accommodation for tourists might seem like a discouraging action. That is especially so since the provincial government added an eight per cent tax for the same service beginning last October.

But hotel taxes, as they are more commonly known, are not a new concept and travellers expect to pay something more for the time they spend in a local jurisdiction.

It’s hard to know how much revenue could be raised through the tax, although the society is guessing $250,000 per year is possible. An individual will need to be hired to  administer the program.

Spreading out tourist visits to reduce the summertime crunch but improve employment options year-round makes a lot of sense. We look forward to seeing how the society’s marketing plans will unfold and the impact that will have in future years.

Laundry group makes voice heard

Gail Sjuberg
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Laundry group makes voice heard

The Wagon Wheel Housing Society made a push to raise funds and awareness for their goal of building a laundromat on Salt Spring by doing laundry using a dual-bucket method in Centennial Park last Wednesday morning.

Officially formed in February 2016 to work on issues of homelessness, poverty, hunger and isolation, the society has been advocating to build a laundromat and shower facility for people without reliable access to water on Salt Spring since Mrs. Clean Laundromat closed its doors. Through a fundraising push, they have raised around $4,300 for the project to date.

“This is what people have to do to do their laundry,” said Wagon Wheel coordinator Cherie Geauvreau. “It’s seniors, people whose wells run dry in the summer on the north end. Where are they supposed to shower? It’s a rural community. People miss the point. The point is that this is unnecessary suffering when we could do better.”

Using buckets and plungers to do laundry was first demonstrated on the island by Laundreaction, a group of islanders who worked to promote the need for a laundromat on the island. They demonstrated the method during a series of awareness-raising events in August 2018.

Michael and Helga Bagnell were publicly doing their laundry in the park last week. A laundromat is especially needed for seniors, they explained, because the manual labour involved in the laundry process can be taxing.

The Wagon Wheel society has been looking into alternatives, which include mobile units, and off-grid options. Mobile laundry trailers carry high costs, and still require a place to park.

We’re not going to give up,” Geauvreau added. “The people who miss the point have washers and dryers, and showers, and bathtubs and hot tubs and pools.”

People without facilities have the option of doing laundry on food bank pick-up days at the Salt Spring Island Community Services building, or taking clothes to the Salt Spring Linen and Dry Cleaners building. Most often, people are left taking their laundry off-island to laundromats in Sidney, Victoria or Crofton.

For more on this story, see the July 31, 2019 issue of the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper, or subscribe online.

CARR, Christopher Brian

Driftwood Obituary
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CARR, Christopher Brian

CHRISTOPHER BRIAN CARR
1945-2019

Chris was born in England in June 1945. As all available medical doctors were treating injured servicemen, Chris’s birth was attended by a retired veterinarian. Unfortunately Chris suffered permanent brain damage from oxygen deprivation at birth, and this became a defining part of his unique view of the world.

When growing up in Vancouver on 42nd Ave. he loved riding his bicycle for hours at a time. When he saw value in an activity, he was able to learn and achieve. His love of reading was a lifetime passion…to the point that for the last 30 years, every day always included time devoted to writing and rewriting a romance novel.

Chris had a love of driving, and after getting his licence his world expanded tremendously.

While he was working for BC Ferries he decided to try marriage for a second time. After living for a short time in Pennsylvania, he returned home and started driving taxi.

In retirement, he discovered cruising, and he was always first in line for the buffets! In his later years he decided to ‘supervise’ all returning cruise ships to Vancouver, observe their docking, and greet their crews.
Whether driving a lawn mower, watching Dr. Phil, or keeping 4:30am-7:00pm hours, he maintained a very ordered routine.

Strong willed and only his way, life for Chris was not for the feint of heart! He had a very generous heart for donating to many charities; the Downtown Eastside has lost one of its gentle characters.

Memorial service at Salt Spring United Church
3pm Saturday, August 3, 1919.
Reception and bocce, (Chris’s favourite game)
130 Langs Road.

Obsolete objects find new life in Shiny Steel

Elizabeth Nolan
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Obsolete objects find new life in Shiny Steel

Local artist Peter McFarlane has a unique talent for creating works based on the creative treatment of found materials, with a strong message about human waste and destruction often at the root of his work.

McFarlane was a People’s Choice Award winner at the last Salt Spring National Art Prize for his piece Reclaim Saw, in which he sculpted a chainsaw’s blade to become the forest the tool was destined to harvest. In his new series, now showing at Steffich Fine Art as Shiny Steel, McFarlane deepens the investigation into our use of objects by contrasting refurbished, found metal objects and with hand-carved steel human figures and animals. Working with reference to the readymade’s role in modern art history, he has selected items that have an archetypical Canadian significance and/or industrial use as the base for each piece. The intention of these arrangements is to elevate the viewer’s personal experience with the found objects.

“My hope is the audience will reconsider that ‘mundane’ obsolete object, which fills our landscape and landfill, and realize that garbage is just a lack of the imagination,” McFarlane says in his artist’s statement.

As he explained during Friday night’s opening reception, McFarlane has in fact been engaged with this idea ever since university, since he’s aways had “an innate distaste for waste.” As with Reclaim Saw, the new pieces don’t just work esthetically (although they do this as well), they make a comment on our ongoing impact to the natural world with a particularly Canadian lens.

Sections of steel rail reclaimed from the railway are buffed to a brilliant silver sheen in Bull Elk and Rail. The majestic animal is poised to traverse the narrow rail as if it were a balance beam, suggesting the dangerous interface of industry and animal life in wilderness areas, the extirpation of animals that were once common in this landscape, and escalating global species loss.

McFarlane’s keen eye for form finds delightful expression in Out Foxed, a collaged piece where the layers are cut from old circuit boards rather than paper. A large fleet of yellow hunting dogs races toward the left side of the scene. Meanwhile, the crafty red fox is headed in the opposite direction and just about to leave the right side of the frame.

It’s rather remarkable to learn that McFarlane has only recently taken up steel carving to create the figures in the show, giving himself a new and difficult task.

“Metal is a very slow process. It’s just days of carving,” he said.

The time that’s required to create each small sculpture, though, has allowed him to forge a deeper connection with those figures. Shiny Steel may be just the beginning of a long and fruitful artistic inquiry.

For more on this story, see the July 24, 2019 issue of the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper, or subscribe online.

BC Ferries outlines contingency plans

Gail Sjuberg
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BC Ferries outlines contingency plans

BC Ferries released a copy of its contingency plan to the public last week, which outlines how and why replacements are planned to fill potential gaps in service caused by issues with vessels.

“We always hope that breakdowns or events don’t occur across the fleet, but sometimes they do,” said BC Ferries’ vice president of strategy and community engagement Mark Wilson last week. “We want to make sure as a very efficient service provider that we have a plan that we can fall back to if things occur, to hopefully minimize the impact.”

In the summer of 2018, the Quinitsa was held as a reserve ferry for any possible outages in the Gulf Islands. The 44-car vessel proved useful after a training incident on the Queen of Cumberland caused damage that saw the vessel pulled out of service. The Quinitsa covered sailings on the dangerous cargo route to the Southern Gulf Islands for a month until the Queen of Cumberland was brought back into service.

This year, those replacement duties fall to the 26-car Quadra Queen II. The smaller vessel will serve as a replacement boat for the Northern and Southern Gulf Islands routes if the regular vessels are expected to be out of service for an extended period of time. Shorter times will involve using alternate routes to reach the islands.

The plan shows that if the Skeena Queen is out of service from one to three days, drivers will be asked to divert to Crofton to cross over to Salt Spring. If the Quinitsa is out of service, drivers will be similarly sent to Swartz Bay to cross. In that case, foot passenger traffic will be handled by water taxis to the Vesuvius terminal.

Service on the Tsawwassen to Gulf Islands routes are covered by the two interchangeable Salish-class vessels. Usually working in tandem with one full- and one part-time vessel, in the case of an incident the remaining ship will take on the full-time sailings. The Bowen Queen will be brought over after the seventh day of outage, with the Quadra Queen II being placed on the Bowen Queen’s regular route.

“Remember this is an emergency backup,” Wilson said. “The system is very asset-intensive. Between terminals and ships, they’re costly assets and there’s not a high level of redundancy when you’re running flat-out. If something does occur… we want a plan. It’s not business as usual, but it makes use of the assets that we do have and makes sure that we have a plan to react and recover as quickly and efficiently as we can.”

In previous years, the company has had contingency plans for individual routes. This year is the first time that one overarching document was created and made available to the public.

Though the plan’s primary focus is the summer months, it will be applicable during the off-season as well. BC Ferries spokesperson Deborah Marshall explained that in the winter it is easier to replace vessels, since the company does have some in reserve during the slower season.

BC Ferries plans on standardizing its fleet over the next 10 years. As more ships become standardized, the redundancy will increase and travellers should see fewer issues with vessels.

The contingency plan is available here.

For more on this story, see the July 24, 2019 issue of the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper, or subscribe online.

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