Ellen Scobie | Verosimile

The Stables Market was created when Camden was a little town north of London and a stage coach stop for journeys heading north. It grew to be the largest industrial stable in England housing 420 horses at one time. When rail replaced horse-drawn transport, the stables gradually lost their function and have since been converted into a labyrinthine network of designer and vendor stalls. Some are decked out with scarves and low benches and water pipes where you can have a break Moroccan style.

Enjoying sunny but cold London. The Stables Market in Camden Town houses endless rows of stalls selling clothes, jewellery, and lots of vintage clothes. Bought a wooly cap to keep away the cold. Good: made in Italy, wool. Bad: itchy! The fact that it makes my head look like a mushroom: fun for everyone! Camden has a lot of tourists mixing with stylized punks and t-shirt stalls - a throwback to the day. I did see a disturbing piercing of a row of spikes embedded into a young guy's head like a little metal mohawk.

Took the bus into Central London enjoying the view along the way. I love the vantage point of being upstairs in the bus. Big plus -- you can keep warm for a few minutes!!

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Ellen Scobie is a visual artist melding the traditional art forms of painting, photography and printmaking. View her art at www.verosimile.com

Thank you to everyone who came down to Canamade, the "handmade place", browsed the market and took in the Olympic atmosphere. I enjoyed talking to people from all over the world -- click to see the many locations on my Google map. From red-bedecked Canadians to the Balinese cruise ship crew, your enthusiasm and conversation made for an uplifting experience. Canadians everywhere are going to remember these Olympics as time when we weren't shy to express our pride in being Canadian and the wonderful opportunity we had to share our country with the world.

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Ellen Scobie is a visual artist melding the traditional art forms of painting, photography and printmaking. View her art at www.verosimile.com

A bunch of us stood in line to see the flame up close the other night - almost an hour's wait. It was a beautiful, clear night with views straight over to the Olympic rings to the north and the cowbell hullabaloo to the south to keep us entertained. The legs look a bit like giant heating ducts wrapped in tin-foil. Brings to mind giant smore packages. I like the camp-fire aspect of the holy shrine of fire. How Canadian to prop three twigs together a light a match to them. It's almost as fun as Gretzky's ride to the flame following the Opening Ceremony. All this fuss about who was going to light the torch. It's easy! Stick Wayne in the back of a truck and drive him down in the pouring rain. Forget the security cavalcade. Let whoever's on the street at the time run alongside the truck like a dog in a farmyard. That whole scene was way more fun than the $1.5 million oops! where's the fourth leg? little mishap. A campfire, riding in the back of a truck, hootin' and hollerin'. I hope the Closing Ceremonies are just as Canadian.

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Ellen Scobie is a visual artist melding the traditional art forms of painting, photography and printmaking. View her art at www.verosimile.com

I want to start off by saying I don't intend this post to be a criticism of Angela Grossman, whose work I admire very much. But I'd like to comment on the irony of the Call for Submissions of an exhibit she's curating on the theme of exclusion. I quote, "Negotiating the ever-shifting maze of the art world industry is a Sisyphean task. Its rewards are well known: credibility, status, fame, wealth and (often fleeting) historical significance. The costs of failure are legion: shame, huge art school debts, derision and quite often, low or no income. Many artists have become critical and disinterested in the dominant pathways to ‘success’ and the increasing power of institutions, art schools, Biennials, art fairs and market driven blockbusters. In this time of shape shifting economy the view from ‘outside the gates’ may be the more interesting one."

Further on, Grossman's biography is written up in the conventional way for an artist of her stature, referencing such institutions as The Art Newspaper, Royal Academy, Slade School of Fine Art, Royal College of Art, Concordia University, Ottawa University and Emily Carr University, whose role in the "dominant pathways to success" is implicit. Given the subject matter of this proposed exhibit, I find it ironic that the curator's bio would be presented in a manner which establishes her authority by way of association with the very institutions which presumably are here open for criticism.

Sisyphus and Tantalus, 1500-1600 Anonymous, Italian or Spanish, early 16th century Italian Pen and brown ink; 6 x 5-3/4 in. (15.2 x 14.6 cm) Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1880 (80.3.288) Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

BTW, I looked up Sisyphean as my knowledge of Greek mythology is woefully lacking. I like this definition: "Sisyphean - both extremely effortful and futile" (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Sisyphean). It refers to the labours of Sisyphus, an unlucky chap who was punished by the gods for his earthly misdeeds by being condemned to push a large boulder up a hill. Just as he neared the top, the boulder rolled down to the bottom, causing Sisyphus to resume his task once again. For more, read Michael Quinion's summary, http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-sis1.htm.

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Ellen Scobie is a visual artist melding the traditional art forms of painting, photography and printmaking. Learn more about her art at www.verosimile.com

I watched an interesting show on the Knowledge Network last night, The Gleaners. A French film maker went around filming people who made use of what other people throw away. This one man, even though he had the money to buy food, has been living on what he finds thrown out in garbage bins because he believes it is unconscionable to waste food. He claims he hasn't been sick in 10 years! That's healthier than I can claim and I haven't eaten out of the garbage once! I must be doing it all wrong ... Anyways, this kind of dumpster diving - kind of desperate sounding - is called gleaning - much more noble - and has a long history in France. In fact there are laws upholding the rights of gleaners, or "those who pick up what's been left behind". One prosperous orchard owner encouraged gleaning, stating that on his property, 10 tonnes of apples will be left behind after the harvest is over. 10 tonnes!! He allows gleaners -- whom he registers first -- to pick what's been left behind. It seems reasonable enough but there are other owners, especially of vineyards, who won't allow gleaning, and good fruit is left to waste on the vine or on the ground.

The Gleaners, by Jean-Francois Millet. Collection of the Musee d'Orsay.

The word, gleaners, of course brings to mind Millet's famous painting, The Gleaners. This painting often provokes a kind of romantic admiration for a simpler life, living off the land's bounty, in harmony with nature. The women in the painting are, however, gleaners - they are peasants living in poverty and picking up bits of grain with their fingers that have been left behind by the harvesters. This is a hard life; their bent backs attest to that as do the bunched up fingers of one of the gleaners as she strains to pick up the smallest grain.

Paintings from the tomb of Unsu
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Hatshepsut or Thutmosis III (1479-1425 BC) © R.M.N./Les frères Chuzeville

Here's a depiction of gleaners in ancient Egypt. In the middle row on the far left you see two women bent over. The one in the front looks suspiciously like she's setting fire to the loin-cloth of the labourer in front of her. What could be mistaken for flames are actually wheat heads - I'm not a farmer! whatever you call those bits of the stalk where the grain is. Or it could be corn. The woman behind her is carefully picking up grain off the ground. They are following behind the men with the sickles who are harvesting the crop.

In my comfortable, urban life, it's easy to forget how precious food is and how generations before us worked hard for their subsistence. I don't personally believe in God but I do believe in gratitude. My husband, Hong, and I bow our heads in prayer before every meal. It just doesn't seem right to accept food without first giving thanks.

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Ellen Scobie is a visual artist melding the traditional art forms of painting, photography and printmaking. View her art at www.verosimile.com