The crook of an elbow, the branch of a tree, the pattern on a dragonfly's wing; 

The elegant curve of a deer's rib bone, the arching arbutus tree; 

Rivulets of a receding tide, the slow course of cedar root through rock and earth; 

The dome of a skull, a cumulous cloud; 

The pitch of a roof, a limpet shell, the angle of the shadow at noon; 

Light slanting through trees at 4 o'clock in February; 

Light on the table at noon, light on the water of the bay, 

Light refracting in a raindrop, a spider's fine delineation of space; 

On First Looking Into Herzog's "Vancouver"

Robson Street never looked so good, yet utterly mundane;

Or Granville Street--that Flaneur in the rain--and Chinatown kids,

A time when women wore matching hats and gloves,

When billboards burst with promises of bigger cars,

And smoother smokes, and more of everything.

     The plan was to leave the sterile heart of the hotel strip and head for the Las Vegas Art Museum where we were promised works by Lichtenstein and Dali, among others. Lichtenstein I can tolerate, if only for the humour and modern-day nostalgia it evokes in me; Dali (whose handlers were signing his prints for years after his death), I can hardly abide.

     It happened again recently: I was packing up from doing some painting, when a person who had been admiring the product (or at least the process) asked, "How long did it take you to do that?" I have learned not to answer in specific terms, so as not to give the impression that an image apparently executed in the short term would somehow be less valued than one laboured over for hours, even days.