Play safe!

How many potential hazards do you see in this picture?
(spotted on one of our weekend wanderings)

A hazardous situation that we gladly put ourselves into was this glass-blowing studio - it was part of a tour that we took on Granville Island last weekend, including a variety of artists and artisans, including a violin maker, a silk weaving studio, print makers, corn broom makers, potters, metal workers, and acrylic paint makers.

Getting right into the glass artists studio like that was a real treat! They've got windows on two sides where there's always a crowd when they're working, but to get right in there, chatting with them, and feeling the heat of the kiln was an unexpected opportunity.


Some of the minerals used to produce the colours in the glass.

Picking up more molten glass on the blowing rod.

There were a bunch of sculptures along the way, made of discarded objects, including this fountain of saxophones...

and a bench made of old skis and snowboard.

Also in the 'recycled' category was this totem pole, made from a big cedar that got blown down in Stanley Park in the big wind-storm a few years ago.


The old buildings on Granville Island have some great colours and textures - like this rusty corrugated metal.

A couple of the old buildings downtown are being torn down to make room for something new. They're only keeping the facade of this one.


When one building was demolished, it exposed a painted advertisement on the side of the other building, in remarkably good shape after 90 years! It was an ad for a movie, Grandma's Boy, in 1922.