Dear September,
Your changing leaves and crisp mornings used to fill me with dread. The amber canopies stood as a sign of the new school season ahead. It’s been 4 years since graduating, and I have only just started to see your beauty. Instead of the reminder of grey buildings and homework, I am delighted by the thought of forest walks, and mountains veiled in clouds.
Your golden light trickles past the breaks in the canopies of aspens and birch, lighting the forest floor in liquid gold. Birds sing their farewell from branches high as they start their migration south. Your cool mornings remind my lungs what breath feels like again, awakening me to the start of a new day. The earth begins to knit its blanket of fallen foliage, tucking in for the season of snow and night. Your winds shake the drying branches, creating elven music which fills hollows and knolls. Earth tones shine in their simplicity and beauty, calling to my painters eyes.
Your lesson coincided perfectly with the hustle and bustle of settling back down at home, working on commissions, and getting ready to leave for a road trip at the end of the month (I’ll get back to that soon!).
I was beyond excited to be working with Haley Daniels, a local canoeist with her sights set on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, to paint a custom helmet which celebrates life in the Bow Valley. Her only request was sunset in the mountains, so I went ahead and got started.
I decided to use some of the most infamous mountains of the Bow Valley, an area which is the backyard playground for anyone in Calgary. The Three Sisters, Mt. Rundle, Castle Mountain, and Yamnuska, were the perfect mountains, both for being well known and for fitting into the odd confines of the helmet so well. I found a flow in their composition, and could not be happier with how the work transitions around the helmet. As I painted I felt called to climb their ridges and peaks, I am always fascinated by the flow of movement you can feel in the lines of the mountains, where they grew and where they crumble.
September, you remind me to see the beauty in the process of change; in the process of letting go to grow again. The end of your month marks the start of my journey across British Columbia to the west coat, my home away from home.
Libby Amber