Year: 2022

alan Skeoch

Dec. 31, 2022

Weddings are just too personal.  What I mean to say is weddings are all wrapped up

in love affairs between two people, in this case Natalie Muller and Martin Leuthi.  Swiss pair.

At weddings  Lots of 

pictures are taken and shoved under the wedding bed for decades…sometimes never

opened.  So why would you be interested in a wedding that happened in Switzerland

in 2011.  Why?  Because it was weird…never to be forgotten.

Martin rented an ancient bus to get us all to the wedding on time.  Bus should have been in the car rally.

Martin greeted everyone as if he ws holding a papal audience at the Vatican.

This is Martin Leuthi.  He is an extrovert….warm hearted.  But also skilled, he builds

the turbines that make jet engines fly and huge turbines or electric power.  Talking to

him rarely involves talk of turbines.  Instead he is more than likely to ask what

you do rather than what he does.   Easy to see that in his grin.

The two Kevins…Kevin Skeoch and Kevin Leuthi…one very skilled with the yo-yo.  The other Kevin is married to Martin’s sister, Gabriela who is featured later in

this story.    You will be amused for sure.

That’s the bride, Natalie talking with Verner Leuthi, father of the groom.

“Alan, have you ever used a yo yo?

“Long time ago.”

“Watch this.”

And Kevin entertained us….an expert with the yo yo,  A skill forgotten by most of us.

After the yo yo came the car rally.  All on  the road in front of the reception hall.  See how many cars you can identify.

Any luck with the the identification ?

After the wedding we stayed in a former convent then hit the highway back towards Crouh End in London, England.  We never completed the trip home.

“Alan, you pump the gas while I pay,” said Gabriela

“Diesel or regular gas?”

“Regular, I guess.”

Gabriela guessed wrong/  We drove a couple of miles and the

Land Rover suddenly stopped…just enough motion to hit the ditch.

Those pictures tell the story.  Called a tow truck…came…lifted everybody except me into the air…drove to a garage…”Tank has to

be pumped, cleaned”…overnight in a hoel for local Europeans….i.e. bunk beds in tiny room, cheap…morning baguettes and cheese and coffee…nice.

Kids grow up and sometimes forget the small disasters in life.   No one will forget the diesel error.

There you have it…the yo-yo, the car rally, the diesel mistake.  The wedding?  Hard to forget…maybe

a few pics of the wedding should be included.  It was a grand affair. Unforgettable.  Very Swiss.

alan

alan skeoch

dec. 2022

MAKING WOODEN QUILTS

Usually I start a wooden picture with a warm and fuzzy idea. THEN Imagination become concrete.

I am not an artist really….would like to be but difficult to find time to get the charcoal lines

in some meaningful order.  More of a dreamer. So I work with small pieces of wood rescued from ancient lumber…old

door frames, pine flooring, battered snow fence, lathing hidden behind cracking plaster in our old

farm house upon restoration.  Abused wood takes on a patina that is impossible to replicate especially when

made alive with a belt sander or shaped by my band saw.

No.  I do not solicit praise or buyers.  Just do the pictures because I like them.  Favourite colours are 

forest green, deep red, abused brown…a touch of yellow.  All nailed to a backer board from a barn demolition

or a castaway snow fence.  Or any piece of wood that looks interesting.  Even parts from

a 16h century farm machine. These machines were once made of wood then painted.  Old paint has

its own appeal…faded, cracked, rubbed away by human hands. NICE!

Currently I am constructing a forest of white pines that have been touched by he first snowfall

of 2023.   You Want a job?   Rearrange the trees to suit yourself.  I had an audience on this job…grandkids now

adults…who stayed with me in the shop until the weather drove them back into the house leaving me

alone.  Marjorie often throws ideas at me or says “come into the house, you will get a death of cold

in that old workshop”

WHAT IS TODAY’S WARM AN FUZZY IDEA?

IT must have been around 1920 that Edward Freeman planted a small forest of spruce trees as

a wind break on the north side of his farm house.  Today these trees tower over all others on the farm.

Maybe I can replicate this forest.   Couple that memory with the the year 1964 when Marjorie, Eric and I

reforested the entire farm with red pines that now have joined Granddad’s spruce forest.  Then there is

the most ancient tree on the farm, a white pine that has been battered and triumphed over lightning strikes

and abuse for longer than we owned the farm.  Why not put our all this together into a wooden quilt forest

that has just been dusted by a winter snowstorm.

HOW IS THIS WARM AND FUZZY IDEA MADE INTO A 3D* PICTURE?’

(*Three dimensional )

Take a look at the pictures of the forest as it emerges below.  Is there a secret formula?

No.  Just a lot of time…a band saw, a belt sander, a couple of cans of paint.  The trick is

putting a dusting of snow on the pine trees.  Maybe you can solve that mystery..

My workshop was once A mink house,  then became a chicken coop, and now a workshop . The door and sidelights were rescued

from a big bin of scrap when the ancient Port Credit hardware store was converted to a fast food restaurant.

 

Start with a sketch.  In this case a gothic farmhouse which lives in a forest.   Fast sketch. Numbers important…i.w. number 1 = half an inch.

alan skeoch

dec. 25, 2022

The weather outside was terrible…a flat freeze bomb covered most of North America.  So cold

that a short drive on the ATV was unpleasant.  better to hive ourselves away in the house

and workshop.

Please do not consider these pictures self serving. Like Browning’s poem ‘My Last Duchess’/.

We are fullly aware of our good fortune while we live in a world where many people are poor and hungry

with little chance of better times on the horizon.  Folk art night provide some relief so the pictures are

loaded with imperfect images/    We enjoyed Christmas time and hope many of you have the same

joyful time.

EPISODE 706       GOLD PANNING IN YUKON….A MYSTERIOUS DISCOVERY

alan skeoch

Dec. 23  2022

December 24, 2022

Well, the weather outside is frightful

But the weather inside is delightful.

Marjorie found this 8 piece orchestra hidden away in

the basement beneath all the decorations.  I plugged

it in and the band began to play…seemed all the carols

were tinkling.

Marjorie and I wish everyone a nice Christmas holiday.

marjorie and alan

And look at the audience