3-Julie Clark
(416) 694 0627
www.julieclarkphotography.com
julie@julieclarkphotography.com
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Julie Clark is a Toronto Photographer and Mixed Media Artist who combines photography and encaustic to create painterly images. Her work includes images of flowers, nature, landscapes and interesting details that capture her imagination.
In 2009 Julie trained at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography in Montana and has started a second career as a Fine Artist. She is a member of The Beach Photo Club, The Artists’ Network and The Beach Studio Tour. |
8-John Dowding
(416) 694 3601
www.johndowding.com
john.dowding@sympatico.ca
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“Old Peak” is the name the Inca inhabitants called the mountain-top citadel in the Andes that the conquering Spanish never found. It was discovered by an American professor from Yale University in April 1911. Built circa 1400, it remained in use until just before the Spanish came in 1532. Climbing through the ‘ruins’ to-day, I was filled with a sense of awe and ’utter amazement’. Almost everything, 600 years later, was still intact except the original thatched roofs and the wooden structures that held them in place.
How could any people in1400 A.D. build a city on top of a mountain in the Andes, without horses, with no heavy equipment, not using the technical advantages of ‘the Wheel’, with no written language to record information, with huge stones carved from the mountain built into walls with such exact skill that even to-day you cant fit the edge of a Visa card between the stones. (I tried and failed.) All this, while trying to administer an Empire that was larger than Rome ever was. Machu Picchu was totally self-sufficient. The fresh water aquaducts and drainage systems are ‘works of engineering art’. The terraces provided the soil to grow the food needed. Llamas and alpacas provided wool for clothing and milk. Weaving and pottery were other crafts necessary for this ‘distinct culture’.The ‘skills’of the ‘weavers’ rivalled that of the legendary ‘Spider Women’ of the Navajos in North America. Apart from ‘a sense of awe’ that Machu Picchu gave me, I suppose the most apparent sensation was that of ‘Vertigo’. The vertical pathways are stone steps, carved from the granite of the mountain, in some cases 150 steps in a series, with no railings and the ‘series’ just keep coming at you. Many of the tourists used two canes . Some were on crutches and some with clubbed feet. I quickly forgot about myself and my ‘arthritic knee’. It is truly ‘the most Sacred Place’ I have visited in my lifetime. Just wish I had gone there in my ‘twenties’ because Machu Picchu is “not for Sissies” or “Old Guys” like me. Very happy and relieved to make it up and back. It’s ‘One for the Ages’, one you shouldn’t miss ! For everyone, some things in life are ‘forever’. For me this is one.’ |
