Stanley Park Totems

I painted this on a visit, not a stay. We were thinking about Vancouver — my husband and I, the move always two years away, then one, then six months.

The totems aren’t really the painting. The forest behind them is. There’s a kind of green in Stanley Park I haven’t found anywhere else — not Hong Kong’s lush, not Taipei’s bright, not Germany’s deep. It’s older. Wetter. Closer to silver.

I knew we were moving when I started this painting. I was sure when I finished it.

This is the smaller of the originals on the site — 8 × 10 in, on cotton paper. The first piece of the new home, going up before the new home is even unpacked.