Soiled Glass

The sun has returned to us.  Living in this deep valley has it's dark sides literally and for a few weeks in winter we don't see the sun directly.  But lately it's been blasting in, showing us all the accumulated dust on the logs and surfaces.  Who has time to address that, I figure, especially since our vacuum is indisposed for the moment.  I'd much rather admire the light shinning thru what my friend Wendy calls, my 'soiled glass' window.  It's an inspiration of hers that I adopted last summer and now I reap the rewards.  She says she can't afford a real stained glass window, so instead she has a collection of coloured antiques and thrift store finds at her window.  She uses these items regularly and rotates the colours to change the mood and the style of her entire kitchen.  I really like that idea of function, creativity and environment combined.  For up to 2 hours a day now, the southern exposure of the sun shines directly and I'm not wasting such a warm bath on dust but capturing it ever so briefly in old soiled glass.

Each piece hold a souvenir too; the old Sprite bottle discovered in my brother Pierre's yard while digging for the new landscape on Vancouver island.  The small red pitcher from Rob on my 50th birthday, a fancy hand blown antique; the broken red measuring cup that Wendy couldn't part with after the tragedy; the odd purple bottle from a huge antique shop in a barn in Ontario near the farmhouse Rob grew up in; the glass chicken from my Memere's kitchen in Cocagne, N.B.; the amber '70's vintage candy bowl from a garage/estate sale, another reminder of adventures with Wendy.