Hosta 'Midas Touch' 24 August 2025

 

Around 1955 I was going to the American School in Mexico City. My mother taught in the high school. I was in the Grammar School in the 6^th grade. A woman called Mrs. Seifert picked us up with her son who drove a 1955 Studebaker. Because I was rude little idiot I kept telling them what an ugly car it was. How was I to know this?

The 1955 Studebaker line was designed by Raymond Loewy's team, with the "butter-knife" side trim on the President models being a key design element. While Virgil Exner was a prominent designer at Studebaker who had previously contributed to the design of the iconic Starlight coupe, the 1955 facelift was a continuation of the designs developed under Raymond Loewy.

I had a good friend in the early 60s who was studying art at Mexico City College. I was trying to be an engineer there (and failed). He would draw cars that to me looked like Italian shoes. I thought the y were ugly and I told him so. So many of the cars years later looked like my friend’s shoes.

Now because I am an old man I can quote my grandmother who would often tell me that the devil knows more not because he is the devil but because he is an old man.

I adore the shape of some of my hosta leaves. These of the gold/yellow Hosta ‘Midas Touch’ now somehow remind me of those ugly Studebakers. I am sure that Raymod Loewy would concur.

Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 24 August 2025

With rue my heart is laden – A.E. Housman

With rue my heart is laden

For golden friends I had,

For many a rose-lipt maiden

And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping

The lightfoot boys are laid;

The rose-lipt girls are sleeping

In fields where roses fade.

My friend, Vancouver logger poet (as he was called) Peter Trower made me appreciate Housman’s  A Shropshire Lad. I have written quite a few blogs linking Trower and Housman to my beautiful English Rose, Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’.

Peter Trower 

More Peter Trower 

In the 90s during the gardening craze penstemon was quite well known, primarily because the variety Penstemon digitalis 'Husker Red' which was named the Perennial Plant Association's Perennial Plant of the Year in 1996.

Because my Rosemary was a pleasant plant snob we had it in our kitchen bed in our large garden in Kerrisdale. It is long gone and forgotten.

My friend Alex Summers, who died some years ago was working on a mimeograph machine in 1966. He was printing the newsletter of the American Penstemon Society. While he was doing this (so he told me) he thought, “I hate the smell of this machine and I really don’t care for penstemons.” He quit and in 1968 he started the American Hosta Society (I am a card–carrying member).

 Alex Summers

To this day with all those hostas in my gardens I think of the history (they originated in Japan and Korea) of hostas and I met many of the hybridizers.  Unlike that penstemon, my hostas have the faces of my friends and a rich lore.

That is more so with roses. Their names, their origin, their history and especially their place in literature (including Shakespeare) and poetry makes me connect my rose scans with all that.

I can say that thanks to my Rosemary who gently pushed me to become a member of the Vancouver Rose Society, I have become quite literate.

It was my Rosemary who years ago pointed out to me the importance of hands in my portraits. To this day when I am taking a portrait I always consider those hands. I believe that many of my portraits stand out because of hands.

Sometime before 1990, the Vancouver singer Bif (who became Bif Naked) was introduced to me by a friend and her friend, Nina Gouveia. I photographed both in Gouveia’s home. Then they posed in the best room of the then sleazy hotel The Marble Arch.

In 1990 I had a show that was called As I See Them. Bif posed for me and I asked her to put her hand on her head. She did it in such a graceful way that I asked her if she had ever taken ballet lessons. She said that was the case. After having gone to many ballet and modern dance performances I am now very careful in showing hands in my portraits.