It’s a busy busy day, but since I was publicly described as a gifted artist today, I found a little time for art!
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It’s a busy busy day, but since I was publicly described as a gifted artist today, I found a little time for art! Here’s another Artist Trading Card – I made it tonight. It’s called My Precious Moments, in which Gollum meets the Precious Moments Figurine. The becoming-an-artist thing is coming along well. I moved the computer room into the art studio and the art studio into the computer room, which gives the art studio more room and better light. I’ll post pictures soon. I discovered why my new watercolour pencils seemed kind of anti-climatic. I had drawn a little doodly thing, and with great anticipation brushed water over it: the colours were supposed to blend together like watercolours. Nothing really happened except the paper got wet. I was disappointed. I actually entertained the idea that it was somehow MY fault, there was something wrong with my technique. Like there’s a wrong way to brush water over a doodle. Anyway, as I was organizing my supplies the other day I looked at the box and realized that they weren’t watercolour pencils after all. I had accidentally bought a box of plain old ordinary everyday coloured pencils, just like the other four boxes of coloured pencils I own. So today I went to Wallack’s and bought myself a real box of watercolour pencils. Having Wallack’s around the corner from my office is both a blessing and a curse. I just can’t stay out of there at lunch time, and I never leave empty-handed. Today I bought the watercolour pencils and a portfolio (so that the drawings I haven’t yet drawn won’t get wrinkled). Speaking of which, I’m on Chapter 2 of Drawing for Dummies. It’s kind of weird how, when you’re creating something, you can end up with something completely different than what you intended to create. Ideas are such mutants. I no longer have any idea what this was originally intended to be. I’m not even sure what it IS exactly. My son and his girlfriend have been preparing for a 4-day trip to Vegas, which involved getting a passport, working overtime, conducting research into gambling techniques, and recruiting me to look after their cats, Charles, Zeke and Ali. Unfortunately their departure coincided with the biggest winter storm of the year, and their flight was cancelled. They scheduled another one for later in the day – it too was cancelled. They scheduled another one for the next morning: it was delayed by hours, which meant they would have missed their connecting flight. They made several trips to the airport, but never got out of Ottawa. Sadly, their luggage did manage to go somewhere. Nobody knows where. Not only that, but there was a mix-up in the luggage ticket system, and they were issued two tickets for their only piece of luggage, and nobody seems to know which ticket is the ‘real’ one, which apparently makes it harder for the airline to track the wayward luggage. It was supposed to be James’ first vacation ever. They were going to stay at the MGM Hotel, which has real lions in the lobby (“They don’t actually live there,” he said reassuringly, “They live on a sanctuary during a day and visit the hotel at night.”) James and Tara are disappointed about their lost vacation, and worried about their lost luggage. If you happen to see a great big baby blue suitcase going round and round on a carousel at some airport somewhere in the world, please let me know. (I hope it doesn’t end up in Alabama.) I feel bad for them. I dropped their keys off on Friday night, along with some tequila and a lottery ticket. It’s not Vegas, but at least they’ve got free booze and a shot at some better luck. Sam’s 14 years and 8 months old now, and I doubt very much he’ll make it to 15. The increased dosage of Clomicalm (the anti-anxiety drug) does not appear to be keeping up with his escalating dementia. He’s having a lot of rough evenings and nights, although he’s still pretty good during the day. I’ve been preparing myself for the inevitable for quite some time now. I know it’s morbid and not very nice, but one of the ways I prepare myself is by thinking about what I WON’T miss about him when he’s dead. Things I won’t miss:
On the other hand, there are things I will miss about him when he’s gone:
There are other things too, but I already miss them because they’ve been gone for awhile. For example:
Update: While I was writing this, he was sleeping on the floor beside me. I had an urge to pull clumps of fur out of his undercoat, so I sat down on the floor and busied myself with that for awhile. He gazed adoringly at me for a few minutes, then dozed off again while I continued. I pulled enough clumps of fur out of his undercoat to furnish a whole other dog. It was so peaceful and pleasant, and I was gently pulling out the clumps and thinking how much I was going to miss our quiet clump-pulling times. And then he shit. Right then and there. In his sleep. It’s the first time he’s ever done that; I hope it’s not the start of something new. If it is, I am not going to miss that when he dies. Last Sunday Jamie and I went to Montreal for the day. It was a good day, but I have to say Montreal looks like it could use a long soak in a hot bath. We spent most of the day at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, which consists of two buildings across the street from one another. One is old, one is new. There’s a lot of new stuff in the old building and a lot of old stuff in the new building. I liked the Museum, except for two things: the endless teeny tiny stairs in the new building (the staircases were a cross between stairs and ramps, and the novelty wore off quickly), and the lighting in the new building. There was too much lighting aimed straight at the paintings, so there was a lot of glare. There were a lot of cool things I wasn’t permitted to photograph, especially in the new building. They had a lot of Rembrandt sketches. He was pretty good. Here are a few of my favourite things from the new building.
The old building across the street was amazing. They have a Decorative Arts section, which houses things (furniture, household items, etc.) from maybe the 1600s to the present. Here are some things that caught my eye: Rococo sleigh: Contemporary metal chair: A bit of the chair collection: The baseball glove chair: This is probably my favourite thing in the whole museum – I might start collecting drawers so I can make me a dresser just like this:
I have since learned a few things about pigeons, and I know you’d want me to share my new-found knowledge with you. Pigeons are pretty much monogamous. They occasionally stray, but probably by accident because they don’t have very good memories. Pigeons can live up to eighteen years, but urban pigeons are lucky to get five years out of life. Pigeon sex peaks in February. In 1150, the Sultan of Baghdad started a pigeon postal service which operated until 1258. During World War II at least 32 pigeons received the Dickin Medal for brave service. All of this pigeon trivia got me thinking about pigeons I have known over the years. When I was a kid I did some volunteer work for the Waffle Party. Anybody remember the Waffle? It was the left-wing of the NDP, and it splintered off and formed its own political party with a nationalist-socialist slant. They ran a few candidates in the 1974 federal election, including Bela Egyed in Ottawa Centre. Campaign headquarters was at the south-east corner of Somerset and Bronson, in what is now a Chinese restaurant. Still young and naive and idealistic, I asked John Sharkey, one of the campaign organizers, “What’s the first thing we’ll do if we win the election?” “Demand a recount,” he said. (We ended up with 877 votes, by the way. No danger there.) You know there has to be a pigeon in this story, right? I’m getting to him now. While I was out leafletting the neighbourhood, I found an injured pigeon. I picked him up and brought him back to campaign headquarters. Everybody recoiled like he had the bubonic plague or something. They said if I HAD to try to nurse him back to health, I must keep him in a box in the dark scary basement where nobody ever went. So I did. A few days later, he and his box mysteriously vanished. Someone hinted that Bela – the candidate – had killed him. Bastard. (I wasn’t quite so young and naive and idealistic after that.)
I’m very lucky to have a room I can dedicate to art. It’s a small room, but it’s a dedicated room. Yet I know if I just keep doing what I’m doing, this room is soon going to get overwhelmed by all the bits of art-to-be. I think I should get organized now, while it’s still possible. Before it’s too late.
I figure the main categories of things that I need to organize are:
Here’s a handy tip I picked up on e-how. “Hang nylon organizers with clear vinyl pockets. Some have small pockets only for paint tubes, while others add larger pockets for brushes, pens and sketch pads. Designed to hook over a doorframe, they can also hang on a wall hook near your easel. An added advantage: They’re easy to hide in a closet if the room has to serve other functions.” If anybody has any other tips for me, I’d love to hear them. I don’t have time to write today, so I’m just going to show you two versions of something I worked on yesterday. I’m not sure which version I prefer. (Do you like one better than the other?) The little girl is from a tinted daguerreotype, by the way. I also played with my watercolours yesterday, but you don’t want to see that. And now I’m off to Montreal, to visit the Museum of Fine Art! John, the itinerate artist and tech wizard, left an interesting comment the other day that I should not wait for my muse. This made me think. I was lying in bed this morning, pondering my muse, and I wondered if I even have a muse, and if so, what does she look like? These were not questions I could answer. I decided to let the universe, in its infinite random wisdom, reveal the answer to me. I formulated this plan while still in bed (ie still pre-coffee): I would do a google image search on muse: the first image that appeared would be my muse. I would create a bit of art for my muse, using its image, immediately upon getting out of bed. This is my muse: My muse is three guys? I never would have guessed that. I did three pieces of art, but I have to confess I stayed in my comfort zone: the computer. I did not put on a beret and smock and get dirty.
After I completed the series, I cut up some cardstock to make Artist Trading Cards (ATCs). These are 3.5 x 2.5 inch cards, and you can do anything you want on them: paint, photography, collage, embroidery, anything. Even digital manipulation (that sounds a bit dirty, eh?). And then I printed my three Muse pictures and glued them onto three ATCs, which means I’m officially an artist now. I feel like I cheated though, since I didn’t actually use paint and stuff. Speaking of cheating, I did my taxes. I don’t know why, but I’ve always felt kind of virtuous about doing my taxes the old-fashioned way, with a pencil and an eraser and sometimes a calculator. But this time I used QuickTax because I had some unusual financial circumstances this year, and I needed to explore different scenarios. You just plug in the numbers from your T-4 and other forms, and it does all those laborious calculations for you. If you want to play with a variable (eg, should I put more money into my RRSP), it instantly serves up the results. Virtue be damned, I’m a convert now: I don’t care if it feels like cheating. And I’m getting a refund, which is great because I need a new roof. |
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