Cottonwoods in Plain View

My back yard has recently been looking a little like a winter scene. The ground and decks are covered in a fine dusting of white.

But it isn’t snow – it’s fluffy little seed parachutes from the cottonwood trees on the riverbank. They drift along on the breeze like little ghostly creatures, tumble along the ground and collect in white heaps in corners, catching on spider webs and giving the place that creepy Hallowe’enish look.
There is so much of the stuff, it leads me to wonder if the cottonwoods know something. Are they trying to proliferate their kind in a desperate bid to populate the earth with as many trees as they can? Is there a foreboding that the bank from which they grow will cave in and they will all fall into the river? The water is still so high that I worry about this too. Is the bank being eroded silently from underneath by the fast-flowing, abnormally high water?
The riverbank where I live changes thus from year to year. Parts of it have collapsed into the river and trees have been lost. On the other hand, following the annual spring flood, new river-mud has been deposited on top of the banks and so they build up again, with new young trees pushing up through the cracked river clay.

The river giveth and the river taketh away.

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Jane Gateson, an artist In Plain View Winnipeg, is also a member of a group of seven women who call themselves

The Group of Eight

They will be showing at the Wasagaming gallery at Clear Lake from August 13 to Sept. 6.

The opening is Friday, August 13 at 8 p.m.

This is how they describe themselves:

As a group of artists who share a passion for painting, we embrace the tradition of the Salon as ". . . an intellectual, social, political, and cultural gathering under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation.” (Wikipedia)

The Group of 8 Artist Salon has been meeting monthly since 2008. It is made up of 7 women artists, all of whom studied under Milos Milidrag. The eighth place is a virtual one, reserved for an invited guest to join the group for an evening.

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And In Plain View Winnipeg Artists Studio Tour is gearing up for our new season. Come visit our homes, studios and galleries on Novemember 6 & 7. Check out our website at http://www.inplainviewwinnipeg.com/.