Final Views

In 2013 on this date, my first post here at Ottawa Daily Photo was published, so five years are done, and today kicks off year six of the blog.

I bring to a close this visit from the Canadian Museum of History picking up where I left off in the Grand Hall. The Spirit Of Haida Gwaii is the original plaster casting of a sculpture by the Haida artist Bill Reid. Two bronze castings of the work are on display at the Canadian embassy in Washington and at the international airport in Vancouver.

Here at the south end of the Grand Hall is the magnificent Morning Star mural by Alex Janvier, up on the ceiling, viewed from the ground floor. If I had to pick a favourite work of art in the National Capital Region, it would be this one.

I took the escalator up to the second level to depart, photographing out the windows towards the river and the Alexandra Bridge.

Outside, I like to take a shot when I come here of the fountain outside the main entrance, with Parliament Hill in the background. 

On a terrace just a few steps up is a Japanese zen garden, carefully planted with specific trees, shrubs, and other plants, with raked gravel between the islands of green.

Here we have a view from the upper terrace looking across to Ottawa. Note the reflecting pool down at the right.

The water feature from above spills over a series of terraces and down ramps, forming artificial waterfalls as it goes. It comes down into this reflecting pool, and ends up making its way down towards the Ottawa River itself, while pumps bring some of the river water back up to the top. 

Keeping close to the building's edge, one can get behind the waterfall for this view.

I finish off today with two views of a sculpture in the reflecting pool- you can see it in the shot from the upper terrace. This first take is from within the Grand Hall. The Kwakwaka'wakw artist Mary Anne Barkhouse descends from a line of fellow artists along the Pacific coast, and this sculpture, titled 'namaxsala, means 'To Travel in a Boat Together' in English. She's also the artist who did the Locavore sculpture that I showed you in my theme day post at the start of the month.

Here we see it from the outside. Done in 2013 in copper, bronze, stainless steel, and stone, it reflects First Nations culture, and is inspired by a story told by Barkhouse's grandfather- of helping a wolf "cross a treacherous piece of water on a boat, on the West coast of Canada." The accompanying plaques, inside and outside, note in the artist's statement that "my grandfather's stories always offered an alternative view for considering the world around me. And so, I relate one of them here, to help negotiate cooperation with the 'other' and inclusion of the wild."