i used to live at home, now i stay at the house

I love hitting shuffle.

Do you know the link between these songs?

check, check…say what?

I was updating my resume and set to apply to this posting, when I went over the qualifications again. Going down the list, I did a mental check list…now may I draw your attention to the last point (second part).

When would a curator need this? This posting was for a job in the greater Vancouver area.

fuzzy clarity

Gerhard Richter

One of the most diverse artists of the last century…and this one too.

Park Piece, 1971, oil on canvas

Could so watch the leaves fall from a bench in this painting.

Landscape with Clump of Trees, 1970, oil on canvas

Reminds me of a scene from the book I am currently reading.

Untitled, Abstracts, 1968, oil on canvas

This one reminds me of Franz Kline’s work.

Abstract Painting, 1977, oil on canvas

See a cigarette burning ash.

Untitled (Green), 1971, oil on canvas

A moth fluttering on the blades of grass.

the little things

I think the worst part of throwing up sober is that you realise your toilet needs cleaning, and its probably the least inopportune time for you to realise it.

On the plus side, I can still laugh and although laughter sends me into a coughing fit, it does make me feel better.

Can’t believe its been a year since Carlin died…

it better work

How is it I can drink 151, which is 75.% alcohol,  but a serving of Buckley’s cough syrup has me crying like a child?

with a side of biscuits please

A Day

Do you ever feel like you are really busy, but in a mundane kind of way?

Its just past 4pm and I’m readying myself for staying late and putting final touches on the exhibition. Well, there is still a large chunk to do – a DVD – but the panels, etc have been hung, and artefacts organized. Museum display is so much harder than art display…in its own way I suppose.

I could really use another pair of hands, except my summer students are proving to be um, difficult. I don’t want to get into it, but things are not going well. My boss is venting to me, which is a first.

One of my biggest frustrations today is when I ask an opinion (of say a display or a caption blurb), response has been “Nice” or “Good”. That’s not constructive! Or helpful. Why are people so afraid to give opinions when asked? If I’m asking and seeking constructive feedback, it means I am  interested in your thoughts. Yes, there is a chance I won’t agree, but its not as if I am going to yell at you.

I’m not just speaking about the students, also in general. I am the only one who has this problem?

can you run as fast as this house will fall?

There is this photo of my grandmother from the 60s standing in front of a leaning wooden house, which hangs on my parent’s living room wall.

The picture was taken in Red Deer, Alberta, on a trip back out West, when my father was young. The house, the one she grew up in.

It is such a sad photograph, in sepia tone, and if you look too long at it your eyes almost feel dusty. Besides the abandoned house, there is nothing for miles around.

When I was at Queen’s we watched this film about settlers moving from the East, to the West. It is horribly depressing. For the longest time the only thing I could remember from the film was the line, “High winds and sand. High winds and sand.” I feel as though it was repeated throughout the film, depicting the sand that blazed off the ground in the prairie, ruining any chance of a crop.

When I was driving across the country, all I kept hearing in my head were those lines. Especially when driving past the dead sunflowers. Through Saskatchewan, although it seemed endless, it held a kind of rhythm. You knew you weren’t going to see anything for a few hours besides a farm way off in the distance, so the bleak landscape kind of soothed, yet crushed your soul at the same time. I remember thinking all this space – so much potential – yet so uninhabitable.

Outside my window now the sand swirls, no high wind, because I am in the Valley. On my desk sits an autobiography I am reading for the upcoming exhibition I am doing research for, which will show after I am gone from here. I haven’t been able to put it down. It’s about a pioneer woman who came to the Valley from England in the early 1900s. It’s not filled with flowery language. It is simple and to the point, heartbreaking, yet incredibly uplifting.

Indescribable conditions. She wrote a lot about how unhappy she was in her marriage, but could never leave because of the children. I know for her story, there are probably a thousand others just like it.

I think back to my grandmother in the photograph. Remembering all the stories she used to tell me over tea, of growing up out West. The conditions and why she left (when she met my grandfather), and I wonder what the photograph does not tell.

I will never know, but even though the photograph holds this solemn quality, I know the edges are worn with optimism, much like my grandmother herself, and that dusting is reinforced in this pioneer autobiography. In the smallest of details, which if you’re reading too fast, you’ll miss.

Its weird, for some reason reading this book, I’m glad she taught me how to sew.

And I wonder if years from now someone will look at a photograph of me, standing in front of (one of) the various landscapes I’ve inhabited and wonder the same thing.

non plastic playground equipment lives!

Just in remote areas of the north, apparently.

Running up slides never gets old.

Merry-go-round-thing! If you look closely, I am doing Blue Steel.

Any guesses to what this is? I’ve never seen one before…

but it looks like it could be dangerous.

you know you’re living in a small town when…

You see this sign at a restaurant on a Saturday night.

When the debit goes out, it goes out all over town.

On the walk downtown you know eighty percent of the people you pass.

You find out the cinema operates on a cash only system. All the time.

A plus, drinks are a toonie.