Categories
Artwork General Photography

Heart Mosaic’s Evolution

May 2017
May 2017
May 2017
May 2017
August 2017 Memorial for Heather Heyer
October 2017 Mosaic Embellished by Neighbour’s Children
October 2017
October 2017
2018 Red beads from Grandmother Raine (1911-2008)
2018 Marble from Uncle Doug Jones (1935-2005) and bead from Grandmother Raine
May 2019
June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection of enamel objects
June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection
June 2019 Uncle Doug’s marble
June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection
June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection (with bonus portal to bees’ home)
June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection
September 2019 Marble from Uncle Doug
September 2019 From Uncle Doug’s enamel collection
September 2019
May 2020
May 2020
June 2020
June 2020
June 2021
August 2023
December 2023
Categories
General Photography

Belleville Sojourn

Sagonaska River, Belleville
Sunrise meets the banks of the Sagonaska
Riverside Park West
Return to Toronto by ViA Rail
Categories
Artwork General

Ellen’s Turtle

Ellen’s Turtle, Catherine Raine 2023

My friend Ellen once told me that turtles were one of her favourite creatures, and I hope she would have enjoyed this collage devoted to her memory.

Detail from Ellen’s Turtle, Catherine Raine 2023
Categories
General Photography

Images of the Meadoway and Rouge National Urban Park

Black Locust Tree of the Meadoway in September, Scarborough Ontario
Black Locust Tree in October
Mast Trail, Rouge Park
Mast Trail
Rouge River
Rouge River
Categories
General Poems and Prose Poems

Barn Memory (2007)

Recorded by Sean McDermott at Offaly Road Studio, 2022. Read by the author.

I am a ruined barn, empty but smelling of ancient hay. I sit in a lost valley, no longer a shelter nor part of a living farm. I used to be warmer, to glow orange from lanterns on February mornings, to retain animal heat. Now my shadows fill in their outlines, brief flashes from the highway my only relief.

I am tired of being a relic, a rural ghost who attracts photographers from the city. Their insulting attention reminds me that I am just a skeleton of economies past, a symbol of romantic decay.

All my sounds are whispers and echoes now, where once I heard grunts, shouts, whinnies, cries of pain and hunger. It’s so quiet now. Ruin is quiet. My unsteady walls feel dry, brittle, so straw-like that one warm hand on my door would set me ablaze. I welcome this fire, this sweet extinction into ashes.

When it rains, I feel the blessed water soaking my beams, splashing through broken panes, swelling the hayloft floor so that I forget my ladder is broken and my stalls now shells that once held a family’s wealth and sustenance. I miss being whole. I miss being real. I miss the animals I used to protect.

Categories
General Photography

Interplay of Leaves, Grasses, Bark, Flowers, and Light

Alley Walk, Liberty Missouri
Leaf Creature, Scarborough Ontario
Scarborough Ontario
Liberty Missouri
Liberty Missouri
Liberty Missouri
Scarborough Ontario
Categories
General Photography

Portpatrick, Largs, Pollok Country Park, and Glasgow

Portpatrick
Portpatrick
Old Parish Kirk Grounds, Portpatrick
Old Parish Kirk Grounds, Portpatrick
Old Parish Kirk Grounds, Portpatrick
Old Parish Kirk Grounds, Portpatrick
Largs
River Cart
River Cart
Pollok Country Park
Pollok Country Park
Pollok Country Park
Whitelee Windfarm
Whitelee Windfarm

Pollokshields, Glasgow

Buchanan Street, Glasgow
Categories
General Photography

Rambunctious Summer Clouds

Near Victoria Park Station, Toronto (2023)
Jutting Eave of Victoria Park Station Entrance (2023)
Categories
General Photography

Puddle Vistas

Ashtonbee Road, Scarborough (2023)
Categories
General Photography

Two Great Lakes, Huron and Ontario

Lake Huron
Lake Huron
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario
Categories
General Photography

Chalk Invitation

Gatineau Trail, Scarborough

Near the back garden of a trail-adjacent home rests an invitation: give your pet a drink of water and borrow some sidewalk chalk from the green box.

A group of young people had recently accepted the chalk invitation and left colourful words on the path to motivate the walkers, runners, and cyclists who would follow.

Thank you, anonymous messengers of encouragement!

Thank you, butterfly!

And many thanks to the kind hosts who filled the silver bowl with water and offered chalk for creative expression. You brightened my walk this morning!

Categories
General Photography

Images of Plattsburg, Lee’s Summit, Lamar, Liberty, and West Plains Missouri

Plattsburg, Missouri
Unity Village, Lee’s Summit, Missouri
Lamar, Missouri
Discovering a new alley and a weathered garage, Liberty, Missouri
Lilac on Lightburne Street, Liberty, Missouri
Spring River (West Fork), near West Plains, Missouri
Penny the Pig, West Plains, Missouri
Categories
General Photography

Afternoon at Sandbanks Provincial Park, Ontario

Categories
General Photography

Sidewalk Cliffshapes and Purple Puddles

Ashtonbee Road, Scarborough (2023)
Jack Goodlad Park, Scarborough (2023)
Field Beside Jack Goodlad Park, Scarborough (2023)
Reflection reminds the concrete that roots lie underneath; trees were here first, not parking lots. Jack Goodlad Park (2023)
Categories
General Photography

Ice Sentinels, Chandeliers, and Sky Claws at Guild Beach

“This Way to Rochester!” East Point Park (2023)
East Point Park (2023)
Ice Chandelier, Guild Beach (2023)
Bedazzle Ice, Guild Beach (2023)
Guild Beach Sky Ice (2023)
Guild Beach (2023)
Sky Claw, Guild Beach (2023)
Resting Ice Shapes, Guild Beach (2023)
Categories
General Poems and Prose Poems

Life at the Roots (2017 Version)

Recorded by Sean McDermott at Offaly Road Studio, 2022. Read by the author.

One fall day,

a logical gully

guides me down the slope to Highland Creek.

My steps disturb a creature

who escapes under the cover of leaves,

defining a ribbon of movement

that lifts the rustling shelter as it flees.

With anonymous grace,

the animal testifies to life unseen but more real than this poem,

fusing threads of instinct without pause.

One summer day,

I cycle home from the college on Ashtonbee Road,

thoughts distracted from the simple path

that curves by the banks of Taylor Massey Creek.

I pass a tall gathering of yellow grasses

that erupts with red winged blackbirds.

They fly straight up from the reeds,

rising in a startled mass of flapping.

Like verses that nest unknown within us,

it takes a sudden whoosh of wheels or wings

to show life at its roots, a wild relentless freshness

that we cage with fear.

One spring morning,

dark green shoots

grow from my breasts, pushing up, pushing out.

Cautiously, I tug a shoot from my left aureole

and a curly leaf unfurls in my hand.

I tug more leaves and yet more leaves,

shocked by the secret depth of my roots.

Raw soil spills over my fingers,

and one last strong yank

yields a golden onion.

My vegetable offering

hints at the body’s food, the push of streams,

breath of reeds, and the resilient moss veiled by fallen leaves.

I believe in succulent roots

that answer winter prayers of the famished

who trace patterns of desire on the waiting Earth.

Categories
General Photography

Late Autumn Mist, Skies, Reflections, Shadows, and Milkweed Pods

High Park, Toronto
Near Warden Avenue, Scarborough
Finch and Birchmount Sunset, Scarborough
Spring Creek, High Park
Farlinger Ravine, Scarborough
Gatineau Trail, Scarborough
Gatineau Trail, Scarborough
Discarded Mirror, Warden Station
Milkweed Pod, Scarborough
Milkweed Curtsy, Gatineau Trail
Milkweed Pod, Scarborough
Categories
Artwork General Photography Poems and Prose Poems

Anguish: Excerpt from Visualizations for Heartbreak: Words, Photographs, and Collages by Catherine Raine

Transcript read by the author

Your anguish is a force, a separate soul that cries out for solace and remedy. A thousand words of comfort rise from the ache in my throat, but they cannot restore the beloved person who abandoned you. Into this void, my voice may drop like a stone.

A picture containing animal, food, standing, cake

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It hurts to see you cry, face in your hands, unable to sleep, eat, or even feel real. Dizzy from the shock of sudden desertion, each second refuses to pass, remains incomplete. Your injured heart has lost its rhythm and your movements seem leaden, as if masses of melted tar are dragging your arms down every time you lift a glass.

A picture containing sitting, green, table, colorful

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While your body slows to glacial time, the brain accelerates as it struggles to comprehend this alien reality that cannot be happening but is happening anyway. Like a never-ending game of tether ball, your thoughts spin faster and faster into smaller and tighter circles, shackled by panic to the iron fact of loss.

A picture containing riding, wave, water, surfing

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If I had the power to heal you, I would gather the softest banana leaves in creation and soak them thoroughly in shea butter. Then I’d wrap them round your head to cool and cradle your brain, drawing out the poison of self-punishing thoughts, soothing the pain, and smoothing the wrinkled loops of endless tormenting questions.

A close up of a green plant

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For your heart-wounds, I offer a poultice composed of clay, feathers, and ferns to press against your chest as if in prayer. The heart-poultice cannot mend the cracks, but it honors them with love. When the minerals and soft coverings touch your skin, they ease the hurt, giving you precious minutes of relief.

A painting of a person

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A picture containing table, indoor

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And for your whole body, a pool has been sunk into the cursèd room that most haunts you with memories. The pool is not very wide — the width of three ordinary bathtubs — but it is fathoms deep. The sides and bottom of the pool are made of peat-black marble, turning the water so dark that it gathers you into oblivion. When you sink into this personal well, the only things you experience are the present sensations of cool healing water, your steady breath, and the kind red beating of your heart.

(Thank you Sean McDermott for making the recording! For a physical or digital copy of Visualizations for Heartbreak, please contact Catherine Raine at cafrinie@yahoo.ca).

Categories
General TPL Talks and Programs

Informative Event for Artists

On a winter evening in 2011, I attended “Calling All Artists!” at Northern District Library. The massive turnout filled a huge meeting room and had staff scrambling to add rows of chairs to accommodate all the Toronto artists eager to learn more about exhibiting their work at the Toronto Public Library.

Four speakers talked us through the application process. The person  in charge of TPL’s Art Exhibits went over the application form in detail. Greg Astill promoted the services of the popular Digital Design Studio at the Toronto Reference Library. Then we learned more about displaying our art to its best advantage from Carol Barbour, TPL Gallery and Exhibits Curator. Finally, Susan Cohen discussed the business and marketing aspects of the art profession. She generously gave us the benefit of her experience as Program Director for Cultural Careers Council Ontario.

I took away many helpful ideas from the information session, but two of them stand out the most.

First, Ms. Cohen emphasized the crucial importance of a clear and concise artist’s statement: “You need to know exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it.” If our marketing vision is not clear to ourselves, how can it be clear to our viewers and potential customers?

Second, Ms. Barbour advised us to demonstrate strong artistic commitment not only in the careful planning of exhibit details but also in researching the galleries and walls of the thirteen libraries to which we can apply. Our applications will be even stronger if we can make a case for why our work belongs in a particular space. To emphasize this point, one of the speakers said, “For example, large abstract works would not be appropriate for a small, intimate gallery like the one at Yorkville. They would be perfect for Northern District’s Skylight Gallery, though.”

As I was reflecting on the curator’s advice, it occurred to me that my library blog could facilitate the research element of the application process. (For new readers to Breakfast in Scarborough, I have visited, written about, and photographed all 100 branches). The thirteen posts listed below offer glimpses of each library’s unique atmosphere and should give TPL exhibit applicants a sense of which one might best showcase their work.

To check out the specific branches that host community exhibits, please click on the hyperlinks below:

Agincourt

Albion  (photos in this branch were taken before the 2017 rebuild)

Bloor/Gladstone

Deer Park

Don Mills

Leaside

Mimico

Northern District

North York Central

Oakwood Village Library and Arts Centre

Richview

Richview’s gallery was site of my first library art exhibit!

Woodside Square

Yorkville

Three cheers for art in the libraries!!!

Categories
Collage Workshops General

“Art for Everyone” Collage Workshop for International Students