#designhounds

My Sunday Places Notebook takes me to a near yet far away place because it can only truly be reached through a child’s heart. We call it Heaven Must Be Here. It leaves tomorrow behind and is nestled somewhere between now and those forever days.

Here, at our cottage on the shores of Lake Huron, time stops as we know it. An old grandfather clock from the early 1900’s has its patinated hands permanently set at 3:34 p.m. We chose not to fix the frozen keeper of hours. I often wonder what happened at that moment on the day of a distant year. I feel that it must have been a memorable one, not a significant event, rather a special moment in time when a butterfly stretched its art wings to the sun, when the forget-me-nots offered a timid wave in a gentle breeze, and when the lake’s ebb and flow circled a beach rock in perfect and beautiful geometry.

Here, the wind caresses cheeks and whispers sweet nothings. Listen. Did you hear that? The heavenly child can play tricks rustling through the old wise trees.

Here, a symphony performs from dawn to dusk. If you listen carefully there are a myriad of instruments that key in harmonically as if guided by a master conductor. Small petals dance to the sonata strings of long summer field grasses and the drums of hummingbird wings keep all to the beat.

Here, silence has its own melodic tune; hauntingly mesmerizing and beautiful.

Here is where my favourite flower blankets the ground each spring. I’ve always loved the delicate little white bells and their sweet smell. They take me back to a childhood storybook where Mother Earth’s root children celebrate new beginnings with large lily of the valley lanterns.

Our Eden tree stands constant in a small garden island within the surrounding waters. It romances the rising sun and purple sunsets with its wispy silhouette. The hot summer surrounds it with bright chlorophyll green, water lilies, and wildflowers and offers a canvas of meandering Monet strokes; my live masterpiece.

Here is where wishes are made through dandelion heads against a fiery end-of-day sky.

And when the twilight touches the lake, illuminated trees strung with hammocks stand still and quite to give the stage to lonely bullfrog calls and distant night bird songs. 

I often wonder what stories an old ware holds and what it meant to the owner. Was it proudly displayed on a shelf or tucked away and forgotten in a box? The value is always one of perception and to treasure hunt in its truest meaning, is to seek out the ‘meaningful’. A watercolour on old paper and signed by an unknown artist may be a masterpiece simply for its beauty. A box of crystal prisms, some cloudy with age, could have once adorned a great palace. Perhaps they were parts of a Versailles chandelier?

Somewhere in between antiquity and imagination lie the treasures.

My Sunday Places Notebook takes me to the largest place for treasure hunting in the world, the Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen in Paris. It comprises some 2,500 stores, spread across 15 markets. Yes, I count this as a bucket list place!

Established around 1870, ‘Marché aux Puces’ translates to ‘flea market’. It earned the name because of the flea-infested furniture and other wares sold at the market by the crocheteurs, ‘hook men’, for they used hooks (‘crochets’) to scour through garbage, picking through junk for objects they hoped to sell.

Yes, that is how it originated but today you can expect to find everything from exquisite 17th century decorative arts, to books, postcards and vintage clothing, and large architectural items such as mantelpieces, bookshelves, and stairs. It is a feast for the treasure hunter!

For me, the treasures were many because I see the ‘meaningful’ in the smallest trinket. Fortunately, I was with a group or I would have easily and happily remained absorbed in one booth!

Some were quirky little odds and ends that I found amusing and I wondered how I could transform them into art. The multiples of simple items became works of sculpture. Art Deco luminaires hung disparate and glorious from metal grids and I was drawn in by groupings of bright hued mid-century chairs. Remnants of what once was and perhaps no longer pristine; these hold the romance of another time and place.

I didn’t find a rare Picasso sketch, but I did proudly walk away with a small bag holding the most beautiful watercolour signed by an unknown artist. I wonder who he was and if his dreams would have been that his art be sold a century later.

Once upon a time

Tiny white petals danced

To the sonata strings

Of summer field grasses

Frivolous children

They twirled

Until the days grew short

And their fragile wings

Became still and set

Into graceful poses

- Regina Sturrock

Crystal Slivers 

Boreas blew in with the northern winds

And settled in among a thick of old trees

An aged man himself

He found solace there

Among the deep-rooted souls

Set in his ways

Fierce

And with not a fanciful thought

Because those were for the long days

He swirled his cold breath

Sculpting drifts into sharp frosty waves

And icy creatures

That would shape into one

Brumal giant  

Only to disperse across the land

Into millions of crystal slivers  

Flickering with folklore  

Because this was his time

To tell the stories of bygone winters

When youth was on his side

Masterful Strokes 

Colour...the fleeting kind

Breathes 

Moves with the sunlight 

Shifts

Like butterfly wings

And fills a home 

Intuitively

With masterful strokes 

For the day 

Only a small

Brilliant slice

Lingers

For this day

Will never return

Not the same

Brilliant day

Oh, how I wish

To jump through

And follow

That big red ball

To the other side

Where all those

Brilliant days

Rest

And bring it all back

When the first rays

Crest

- Regina Sturrock