Right now I’m mired down in decisions:  I have to determine where each of my little soldiers will be posted over the next few months.   This business of trying to satisfy the demands of one weekend art show and three month-plus shows within a short period has given me a surprising sympathy for Napoleon.  To be honest, I’ve never thought much about the little general.  But planning troop movements is more complicated than you might think and he had all of Europe to worry about;  I have only Southern Ontario and I'm beserk.  Jon is phlegmatic, pointing out only that I have brought this on myself.  Save the truth until September, Mister, when I might manage a philosophical attitude.

Keep in mind that I am a S L O W painter and I produce only a few offspring a year.  That horrid virus in the late winter didn’t help, and it’s gardening season already.  Because it is expected that artists show recent work, my small troop of child soldiers is being stretched like a supper served to surprise guests.  In one case, I am retrieving some of them in one town and delivering them to a Georgian Bay gallery later that same day. So here I sit.  I am not painting.   I am plottingcampaigns.  I  consult calendars and I pore over maps. (To make things worse, three of the four shows demand a roll call a month early.  Good grief.)  I have a folder labeled “Where, What, When?”  Honest, I do.

Having finally resorted to a paper calendar (thank God for paper),  I draw lines with a ruler to figure out where my troops or scouting parties will be on a particular day.  When the lines cross, I know I’m in trouble.  And I can’t help thinking of Napoleon.  I am wondering if Elba didn’t feel like a bit of a relief.  I could use banishment to an island right about now.  I plan to take paints and brushes.

Lest you think I am exaggerating, here is the pansy painting, which has not progressed past the underpainting.

The title of this post was inspired by a recurring event —   our spring show - which was held last weekend;   Friday morning was, as always, blustering with snow and attitude.  All of us staggered to steer canvases which had transformed themselves into sails;  a few tried to tack into the wind with little success.  Hours later, we tottered back out.  So “going to a hanging” has a desperate air, whatever you deem it it to mean.

But the wind has circled south and today is sunny and hot.   Just as old friends materialized over the weekend to give their precious support, my garden is unearthing its own batch of significant others.  Witnessing the haze of blue scylla emerge is one of my other rites of spring.  Despite my best intentions, I ALWAYS give up and finally lie prone on the ground;  a coat of mud seems to be the prerequisite of nailing a good closeup of these hardy darlings.  While I theoretically know who lives in our garden, the annual miracle is that they return so faithfully.   Like good friends to a show.   Thanks.


P.S. Apparently apologies are in order to those perennials who mysteriously did not receive an invitation this year.  I did send them but wonder if they might have been flagged as spam and are lurking in your dungeon.  I find the strangest things in mine.  I had best watch my wording, lest an invitation read too much like a Viagra ad.  (Too much enthusiasm?)

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!

For those of you who correctly pointed out that my directions to the show were pathetic, I am here to make amends.  Riverwood is on the east side of the Credit, off Burnhamthorpe.  Turn left, if you are travelling west, at the first set of lights after the bridge.  The Credit Woodlands runs south at the lights and deadends while Riverwood begins on the north.  Park in the large parking lot to your left, a few hundred metres in.  Visual Arts Mississauga is just past the old reconstructed barn.

If you are coming in daylight, think about packing some walking shoes.  There are great walking trails and, make a plan to return in May  to see the beautiful gardens.  I try to remember to fill a pocket with sunflower seeds too, because the chickadees are friendly to a fault.  Just don't let them bully you.  Remember, they only weigh a few ounces and you don't.

The Queen of Hearts had something.  This is the time of my year when being an artist loses all of its scant allure and I start to nose around for other pastimes.  

Of course this feeling springs from the fact that our annual show is imminent.  

Challenge #1: this event always necessitates the premature naming of offspring yet to be conceived, let alone born.  I toy with various vaguenesses such as:  "Her Face" (12 x 16 - glaze oil on panel) "A Bunch of Flowers" (20 x 24 - oil alla prima) but seeing as I don't actually know the size or medium yet, let alone the subject matter,four of this year's works will have to meet their public under the moniker "Untitled" -- code for "just finished, probably still wet."





"Time, Time!" cried Bilbo Baggins.  "Time" is the answer, but there's never enough of it, pre-show.  Jon believes that large glaze oil paintings are my metier.  Easy for him to say.  If you have endless time and good feet, glaze oil is your baby.  But baby won't be hurried.  If I try, chances are that even I won't like it. Seeing as it will probably spend eternity in our own living room, I know it will whisper "Feh" every time I glance at it.  That said, I don't want to saddle anyone else with Ugly Baby either.

 Some artists can paint furiously and brillliantly.  I am simply not one of them.

Even when the paintings have been "finished,"  they are not "ready."  That is, they aren't wall-ready. That might involve continuing the image around the deep sides or staining the edges of a panel or buying a frame to surround it.  It is this stage which is hardest on my clothing budget because paint or stain or blood turns up everywhere.  I do not recommend cream leather seats in artists' cars either.

And invitations.  I probably should have waited until after our show to upgrade my operating system. Okay, okay,  it hasn't been upgraded since I bought it in 2009.  But the warning from artist friends not to upgrade was only recently outweighed by the clear and present need to do so.   I tried to stream Shomi and got a hurtful message along the lines of "Wow, that's some ancient operating system and we don't like it." So Yosemite was unavoidable.  Now suddenly I'm in a different country;  the inhabitants may speak the same language but nothing's quite right.  Remember Ray Bradbury's short story, "A Sound of Thunder," where a time traveller's inadvertent crushing of a butterfly profoundly reshapes the present to which he returns? Once that insect was flattened, there was no going back and now I really really miss my 15000 "keywords" which let me find a photo immediately.    Yes, Apple granted me the ability to send show invitations as an iPhoto jpeg; it also, however, saw fit to remove my ability to choose bulk mailing. Dead butterfly. And no more printing of my own business cards.  Doubly dead.  Apparently iPhoto is also doomed.  RIP Snow Leopard.  

Apple giveth and Apple taketh away.

And this is why artists look haggard at shows.  And shop for croquet sets.