Decades ago, I learned the hard way not to be an “early adaptor.”   Now I can be content to let others do the de-bugging;  the corollary to that is always to be somewhat behind the curve (“9:30 in Newfoundland”).  So only recently did I stumble on Pinterest.  Beyond its obvious art source appeal, the app immediately satisfied my fondness for organizing;  embarrassing to admit now, I maintained my own vertical files in university until the mass of paper overwhelmed my bedroom.  Digital storage saved the day, but that is another story.  I can sit at home and sate my eyes  with scads of images on my iPad, while setting up categories to my heart’s content..  

​Pinterest not only satisfies my psychological storage needs, but even gives me a laugh or two.  Recent favourite:  someone came across a Tom Thomson and commented that he really deserves to be famous.  Note to self:  tell Steve Martin to get onto that. 

In the spirit of Thomson, my all-time favourite Canadian painter, here is a little (10 x 30) appreciation of sunset on a remote lake.

One of the things I love/hate about hand-watering a good-sized garden is the opportunity/inescapability of letting my mind wander.    Today - an already steamy one presaging a run of forty-pluses (yes, I do count Humidex), here’s where it ended up.


It occurred to me that plants’ species vary as much as character types do.  The last downpour was almost a week ago, and one of my most drought-resistant species is echinacea, hardy and beautiful to boot.  A comely survivor.  Let’s call her Melania.    She first showed up literally on our doorstep (wedged between a stone step and a flagstone) a decade ago.  Not where I would have wished, but still…I welcomed her and have cosseted her ever since.  Every autumn I harvest her seedheads, scarify them, sow them where I, the gardener, would like them to grow, and then I hold my breath.  In ten years, I have succeeded four lousy times, and every one of her kids has chosen an inauspicious spot (the driveway, in front of a yet another doorway, under a bush).  I’m starting to think Melania may not be a team player.  We all know the type.

At the other end of the garden showgirl spectrum are the day lilies.  Like echinacea, they are almost impossible to kill, a quality about which gardeners have complicated feelings.  Sturdy and cheerful and generally named Bob,  day lilies are cooperative to a fault, unless you want them out from underfoot.  They don’t settle for simple survival,  but thrive wherever you put them.  I love these irrepressible entrepreneuers.  
Then there are the tough little chickweeds, the Jareds you all remember from recess, and the sensitive “perennials” like Tifanny, the deciduous azalea, forever stressed - too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet, too sunny or too shady, the classmate whom you inevitably got partnered with for labs.  I was not heartbroken when Tifanny finally exited this earthly garden.  And don’t get me started on crab grass;  it’s low and sneaky, like  A.K.A., that guy who hangs around the mall.

As in any neighbourhood, however,  good guys make up the majority.  There are Jon’s rhododendrons, who remind me of high school seniors uniformed in jeans, teeshirts, ball caps, and silly nicknames, who suddenly and briefly sport sartorial dazzle in June;  they work hard even in winter but know how to cut loose when the time is right.  Hydrangeas are less hardy.  They have a tendency to droop when they want attention, as many of us do, but will spring right back, given half a chance;  they marry young, and produce dozens of kids.   Grass and clover, BFFs, are the steady reliables coming to work every day.  Many a Fred, never a Frederick. If the factory closes for a few weeks due to lack of rain, they simply hibernate until the situation improves.  I like to think they are watching the Jays.  And even if they make a huge mess once in a while, magnolias (all of whom are girls) can be forgiven anything because when they're good, they are very very good.

When we first moved in, the garden was a crowd scene full of strangers;  it turns out that most of them make great friends!

Yes, the morning after a show opens, I could certainly use a pill or two.  

Traditionally, weather plays a starring role.  If sleet or a snowstorm is unavailable, a heat wave will step in.  This week I adjusted my opening night wardrobe daily.  The thought of pantyhose (and therefore high heels) had vaporized by Tuesday afternoon.  I could go on, but let’s just say that by Thursday evening I was in no position to play strip poker.  

Then there’s the opening night wild card - health - a full-range variable  from bruised toes to Ebola.  Doing a header off the buffet several weeks ago was an indirect result of this show, as I was trying to make a copy of the painting layout which would have to wrap around a corner.  Unfortunately my dismount was a 2.0 and I turned my knees into bags of broken glass;  still, bodies heal and I’m much better than I deserve to be, though now with a raw knee-jerk  terror of step stools.  So it looked as if we had dodged that bullet until Jon woke up Thursday morning with a raging throat.  Even though he nursed it with a king’s ransom of echinacia, clearly he was not fit for spousal duty that evening.  Besides, someone had to stay home and get the few food survivors into the new fridge.  Wait.  That meant that I had to drive myself into Deepest Darkest Toronto!  

I was right to be afraid.  What should have taken forty minutes was an hour and forty.  While the QEW was a parking lot, at least out there there was space for the car, something I could not say about the Arts District.  Miles of cars sat parked bumper to bumper, street after street.  A speeding Moped almost T-boned me.  Pedestrians swarmed.  Foreign cars honked.  After circling and gnashing my teeth for half an hour, I spotted a municipal parking lot  and dived for it.  It was $5;  little does Toronto know  I would have paid ANYTHING by then.

When I staggered into the gallery, a good friend took one look at me and brought me a rum and coke.  May she live in paradise forever.   And suddenly, the trivial melted away as dear friends arrived from all corners of Southern Ontario.  So, though I began with kvetching, I write this in celebration —of love and loyalty.  It cannot have been convenient for anyone to be there;  yet there you were.  It touches me deeply.  It always does.  Many who couldn’t swing it this time have done so numerous times in the past.  Please, please, don’t ever feel the need to apologize if you can’t make it.  One appearance at an opening wins you my eternal gratitude.

It was tempting to go out after but Grown-Up Z'Anne, who appears now and then, opted to leave before the Jays home game let out. Driving home on a now-clear highway, I listened to the last few innings (Go Tulo!).  I admit to feeling happy about the score, but that was nothing compared to my joy at having spent a memorable evening with good friends.  I can’t thank you enough;  I am truly blessed by your support.  Thanks for making  the room light up.

And yes, I was pretty darned tired the next morning but coffee proved to be a satisfactory nostrum.  I have concluded that the pill would be more appropriately administered BEFORE opening night!

1.  A fridge can sound like helicopter landing on the roof while still appearing to work.  

2.  When a fridge does decide to commit suicide, it demands complete privacy in a house which has been vacant for at least three days.

3.  Car radiators,on the other hand, prefer to die on a busy street.

4.  Old houses had small refrigerators, if any at all.

5.  Refrigerators have been growing in volume like a McDonalds order of fries in the last twenty years.

6.  Small new refrigerators are as rare as Skye terriers and unicorns.

7.  Removing four doors in order to pass through the living room and dining room with a fridge is inconvenient and somewhat time-consuming.

7.  It’s tough to  find your Just Shoot Me t-shirt when you need it.

On a different note, did you know that it is possible for an art gallery to lack an elevator, a back door, or any place, actually, to move art in and out?  Amazing but true.

My fervent hope is to learn nothing new at all next week.

Jane Urquart’s poetic sensibility is evident early in her novel, Sanctuary Line, when the narrator observes her love of captured light: 
(T)his house is filled with reflections.  Images of the great lake, therefore, swing into sight where you least expect them.  North windows that face south windows reproduce and scramble marine views, mirrors refract lake light, and now and then poplars from the lakeside flicker on the old painted landscapes under glass and hanging on the parlour wall.  Glass doors open to rooms where shutters are flung wide to a view of water.  The stone walls that once surrounded my aunt’s rose garden are mirrored in the round looking-glass over her dressing table.  At certain times of day, if you pull open one of the glass doors leading from her room to the patio, the view of these garden walls will be overlaid by a series of waves chasing one another towards an unseen shore.  In August the monarchs rise against blue lake water on the glass of a storm door, and surf often feathers the face of the wall clock.

​Like Urquart, I too am drawn to reflected light.  You know that I have adored leaded windows forever;  like a dragonfly’s faceted eyes, they render a multiplicity of reflections, almost iterated, just irregular enough to be interesting.  Add stained glass to this old-fashioned ballet of light, and my heart starts to pound.  The window in this old watercolour which now belongs to my niece, Anne, is a favourite --one of a bank of four in our living room.  

Thirty-five years ago, when we moved in (to the basement, because everything needed fixing), this long living room was even darker than it is now.  It did seem odd that only one end was tasked with providing all of the light but a casual walk around outside showed fireplace windows.  I knew we had a fireplace, but flanking Craftsman windows?  Turned out that the last and worst of the thirty years of renters had covered them with fake paneling.  Jon set to work, tearing out the old casements and rebuilding them,  and lo there was light.  

Just not enough.  We added a huge mirror over the fireplace to capture the light from bright end of the room.  Still more light needed!  I placed shining pewter and silver objects where I could, as part of my resistance campaign against curtains.  It would have broken my heart to have put curtains on the beautiful old bank of 12-over-1 leaded windows, but there was also the issue of privacy so...

It took a year but we finally found a set of four antique leaded windows. Weeks later, after decades of grime had been removed, they proved to be a perfect solution.  That spring I bought blue hyacinths to set on the stone ledge and we feasted off those colours for several weeks.  That is probably when my iPhoto “Event” of window shots began.  There are 87 digitals of (and through) windows from coast to coast which patiently wait for me to get working on the series which exists so far only in my head and in this one painting.  "I should clearly reflect on that," she said.