The woods of Eastern Manitoba

I returned from a trip to Asia two weeks ago to quite the nasty surprise—20 inches (50cm) of standing water in the lower level of my home. It seems that we had a massive dump of rain locally while I was away (5 inches in a mere three hours, I’m told) just when the floating switch that turns on the sump pump decided to give up the ghost—the groundwater would have come up fast, and then the efficient concrete heat-sink below grade prevented it from receding.

Needless to say, the past ten days have been a blur of activity (thanks for your help, brother Jim and Evelin, my love!) what with pumping out the house, carting out wet furnishings and belongings, replacing electrical systems (sewage pump and hot water tank), cutting out drywall, bleaching wood, and thorough cleaning… the job’s still far from done and renovations will stretch through much of the winter.

Among the flooded casualties and ruined nostalgia were portfolios of my old drawings… some of which I hadn’t seen since the 1970s. Though mostly stained, torn, wrinkled, warped, and discolored (black mount-board stains adjacent surfaces blue and indigo when in wet contact for long enough—who knew?) I’ve managed to dry and salvage some developmental sketches, a sampling of which appear above.

To be honest, I’d have to say that some of these old drawings have actually been improved by the flood damage…