Tag: Ottawa
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Walk for Reconciliation
Until last Sunday I’d never done this kind of thing before. By 3:45am I was driving through rainy blackness heading to the Sunrise Ceremony on Victoria Island, in the middle of the Ottawa river. The ceremony would mark the beginning of the close for the six-year-long Truth and Reconciliation Commission examining the effects of Indian residential schools… Read more
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Shooting the Domtar Lands – Part 2
Another glorious day working outside, this time photographing a series of attached buildings beginning on the corner of Rue Eddy & Boulevard Alexandre-Tache. The mostly stone buildings are encased in high chain link fencing, held tight by cross-wires and reinforced by steel posts and beams endeavouring to keep all the bits together. Bill worked the overview from across… Read more
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Joyce Frances Devlin: Painter & A Painted House
As part of the Jane’s Walk Burritt’s Rapids community festival, Ms. Devlin will be exhibiting select pieces in the main gallery space of the Burritt’s Rapids Community Hall on May 2nd & May 3rd, 2015. ********* If I had any sense, I would pound a wooden stake into my front lawn, attach a five kilometre length of string, and scribe… Read more
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Everything Changes: Shooting the Domtar Lands
Since mid-winter, I’ve had the pleasure of photographing the Domtar lands with a team of volunteers from the Workers History Museum in Ottawa. Windmill Development Group, Inc. is poised to re-develop the land which has been home to pulp and paper giants E.B. Eddy and Domtar since 1891. Because of the placement of the buildings, there isn’t much… Read more
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LeBreton Flats: An Acre of Time
Dear Phil: It was my pleasure to meet you for coffee and finally put my hands on An Acre of Time, a history of LeBreton Flats. I wasn’t kidding when I said I discovered you in the most random of ways, a mention buried in the comments section of a review of a book of historical maps of… Read more
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The Bells That (Really Do) Toll for Thee
And I thought how like these chimes Are the poet’s airy rhymes, All his rhymes and roundelays, His conceits, and songs, and ditties, From the belfry of his brain, Scattered downward, though in vain, On the roofs and stones of cities! For by night the drowsy ear Under its curtains cannot hear, And by day men go their ways, Hearing the music as they pass, But deeming it no more, alas! Than the hollow sound of brass. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – from Carillon, 1845 ********* Every Sunday at 9:00am, some blessed soul pulls the rope to ring the bell at the tiny Anglican church at the top of our street, gathering the congregation. On midsummer days the doors are… Read more
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Geocache: Piccola Casa Curiosa
Update: The Casa is now a geocache at www.geocaching.com (and getting great traffic!) ********** We’ve been calling this piece of interactive art-in-progress the GiveOneGetOneBox. But knowing firsthand how search engines perv up any title that might possibly have something to do with naked women and intercourse, I’ve officially changed the name. Call it what you will. For… Read more
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Easter Karma
[pullquote]The quality of others’ lives have a direct impact on our well-being; the energy of generosity, as an antidote to acquisitiveness, establishes the reciprocal loop of happiness that occurs when we take others into account while making choices. ~ Michael Stone, Yoga for a World Out of Balance[/pullquote] I sit in a chair, in the… Read more
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Framing Fine Carpentry
Yesterday’s changeable sun/cloud mix presented a perfect backdrop for some architectural photography in Ottawa’s Hintonburg neighbourhood. Carpenter, and fellow Algonquin College Heritage Trades Institute alumnus, Christoph Altehoefer restored this gorgeous porch, integrating a mix of original and reproduction pieces. Carefully redeploying existing materials, he crafted each reproduction piece from unusable rafters and other surplus lumber… Read more
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CurioCabinet: “Dame Marjorie’s School” 1894
Much to my delight, Library and Archives Canada continues to post more and more of their fascinating materials online for public access. Just in time for Halloween, they’ve posted a set of 52 costume/Halloween pics here on Flickr. Seems Lady and Lord Aberdeen, Canada’s Governor General from 1893 to 1898, ran an enviably entertaining and… Read more