I was at a fundraising dinner a few weeks ago and chatting to a lady seated at my table. I mentioned to her that tomorrow I was going to pick rocks down at Northwest Landscape on Marine and Byrne.

“Oh,” she said. “We don’t call it Northwest Landscape. Around here it is called the Rock Farm.”

Whatever you call it, it is an awesome place and the folks there were more than generous in the selection of rocks and pots that they gave the Burnaby Arts Council for our Zen Deck Garden Workshop led by zen artist Ari Tomita.

As were the good folks at the Burnaby ReStore and Home Depot who supplied us with some beautiful ceramic pots as natural materials are important in the zen philosophy which guided us in the arrangement of elements in the garden.

A beautiful soda-fired lantern was also given to us by Keith Rice-Jones.

Keith and his wife Celia are local Burnaby potters and their work is sold at the Gallery of BC Ceramics on Granville Island or at one of their Studio Sales.

The meditation garden that we built is still taking shape so feel free to drop in and have a look, sit on the bench and let the power of the rocks and plants take you to another place.

When Chi-Ming Yeung was a boy he watched and painted pictures of the ferries, merchant ships and ocean liners as they came and went from the busy harbour city of Hong Kong.

No doubt his imagination took many voyages on these ships and it is to his love of painting and to the ships that he returns in his exhibit inspired by legendary Canadian ships and other harbour cities half a world away.

Ming’s illustrative style belies his training as a graphic artist.

He tells us a richly embroidered story using fine brush strokes and careful attention to detail but always aware of the grandeur of his subjects.

The people are like ants, insignificant and secondary to the massive hulk of the ships that will carry them like seeds in a giant seed pod across the oceans —reminiscent of traditional Chinese landscape paintings but here the people are dwarfed not by nature but by industry and commerce.

Ming will be on hand Saturday, May 5 from 2-4 p.m. for the opening of his show, Maritime Memories & Others, at the Deer Lake Gallery. The show will run until May 26.

• The Burnaby Arts Council and Deer Lake Gallery are both at 6584 Deer Lake Ave. The gallery is open noon-4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and Sunday 1-4 p.m.

• Linda Lewis is art services coordinator with the Burnaby Arts Council.