St. Josaphat Cathedral

Three of the seven domes of St. Josaphat Cathedral, a Ukrainian Catholic church up the street from Chinatown, just west of Little Italy and "Church Street" - itself a mosaic of various historic church buildings serving a range of ethnic groups and denominations.

blue house

... along 118 Avenue.

Champion road grader, Wild Earth Cafe, and Todd Cleaner and Shirt Service

There is extensive road construction on 99th Street, causing the usually busy arterial to be a one way, ghostly quiet thoroughfare... and creating some unusual juxtapositions in the gentle early evening sunlight...

From the Archives #012: Shophouses in Quanzhou, July 13, 1999

In the summer of 1999, I had an opportunity to spend 5 weeks in China, mostly in the southeastern city of Quanzhou (泉州)　in Fujian Province. I quickly filled up many sketchbooks...
With the rapid rate of change in China's cities over the last 12 years since this sketch, I wonder how many of the scenes remain today.

As it turns out, historically Quanzhou was an important trading port that linked all the way to Europe - much like Malacca (Malaysia) and Nagasaki (Japan)... both cities have played a significant role in my life.

Jasper Avenue

Jasper Avenue is full of people just after 5 on this pleasant summer evening...

share our pride, share our price

... is what this downtown billboard advertising Ford vehicles says. Ironically (or fittingly), the Ford dealership that was located one block away moved several months ago to a faraway suburban location. In the background, some older brick warehouse and commercial buildings that developed when the railway was close by.

sleeping...

Mandolin Books and Coffee

Two views inside our favourite neighbourhood coffee shop/bookstore, Mandolin Books and Coffee Co. in the Highlands area of Edmonton... one sketch from June 2010, the other from this past weekend, both on dates with my daughter.

Jasper Avenue sidewalk

... a pleasantly shaded area along the sidewalk on Jasper Avenue on a hot summer afternoon...

at the restaurant

my daughter at a Chinese restaurant...

Kananaskis mountain ranges

 Some mountain views around Kananaskis Village...

Mountains, Canmore, Alberta

Some mountains, as seen from the hotel we stayed at in Canmore before heading off for a half day in Kananaskis.

morning and evening services, Sunnyside Camp

An evening service by the campfire in the woods, and another indoors during the morning at Sunnyside Camp in Sylvan Lake. The wonderful speaker this year is from a church in Yonezawa...

old truck, Sylvan Lake

An old rusted Ford truck in the woods by the lake... the trees in the summer light are shimmering, the white trunks are dazzling...

In full bloom: canola fields, central Alberta

Not happy with simply passing by the many bright fields of flowering canola, I drove a few miles into a quiet rural gravel road, where the only sounds around me were the gentle buzzing of flies and the slight rustling of leaves. It was more blissful than I had expected. If there were such a thing as an albertan "genpuukei", an emotionally significant landscape that forms a part of the collective identity, this would be one of them.