Artspeak

Today with my friends Ashlee, Dianne, Dawn-Rae, Jane and Dana, we talked about the art business and, in particular, curatorial language. Imagine my delight in finding out how one high school is dealing with graffiti:

Click on the image to enlarge it.

If My Hip Doesn't Get Better ...

... you are going to get a lot of crap that I find on the internet.

Anniversary Cruise

Much champagne for Tory and Keith's anniversary. A truly lovely crowd and a total delightful day. I barely knew anyone but the warm and fabulous Lynn DuMoulin was there and I always thoroughly enjoy her and Tony's company. Tony was at a board meeting.

This is the Seraphina. We were 24 on board today.

 This is the main salon on board. That is a TV behind the whale painting.

 This is the flying bridge; one of two control centres.  It is the third floor and has a mini bar and bar-b-q.

One of three heads.

 The "back porch."

The control cabin and kitchen.

Coming home after a lovely cruise of 2.5 hours.

Analytics Orgy

Very few people have this address — just a few close friends, but inevitably some stranger happens on your blog and suddenly you get an unexpected and dramatic increase in visits to your blog.

On another of my blogs related to my work in the visual arts, I've had three "viral" posts. By that I mean posts that someone Tweets or posts on Facebook or something so that my normal 200 hits per day suddenly become 3,000 hits per day. Once, for a brief period, my old blog Eye Candy suddenly started getting thousands of hits per day just in Poland.

Recently on my business blog, I wrote about how much I hate music on visual art websites and that went "viral" (on my scale of activity), garnering 500 - 600 hits per day for months.

This is a very modest blog. It gets 10 - 15 hits per day, but yesterday I noticed that my post with photos of my peach tart with "tarte aux peaches" written on it in pastry drove 124 hits yesterday.

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The video above is of a song I fell for listening to my favourite radio station in Lyon, France. Let Her Go is a  huge hit in Europe because of a Dutch DJ named "Dave" who heard the song on an obscure album by a young singer songwriter who calls himself "Passenger." It is moving to watch Michael Rosenberg (Passenger) always credit Dave at every performance because this video for Let Her Go has over 99 million hits now.

Why There is Liturgical Worship

My adoption was brokered by the Catholic church and I grew up "believing" in God and that if my faith wavered, that I might be recalled to the orphanage by God. But I could not believe and I rejected everything and ever since I have missed having faith.

I don't like what man has done to the rituals of faith and when I discovered this quotation from
Andre Dubus’s short story, A Father’s Story (thanks to Andrew Sullivan) it resonated:

Each morning [at Mass] I try, each morning I fail, and know that always I will be a creature who, looking at Father Paul and the altar, and uttering prayers, will be distracted by scrambled eggs, horses, the weather, and memories and daydreams that have nothing to do with the sacrament I am about to receive. I can receive, though: the Eucharist, and also, at Mass and at other times, moments and even minutes of contemplation. But I cannot achieve contemplation, as some can; and so, having to face and forgive my own failures, I have learned from them both the necessity and wonder of ritual. For ritual allows those who cannot will themselves out of the secular to perform the spiritual, as dancing allows the tongue-tied man a ceremony of love.

Same Love / She Keeps me Warm

I grew up listening to pop music and although I like many musical forms, I love pop and Macklemore's video One Love with Ryan Lewis and featuring Mary Lambert is a huge emotional tug when I listen to it. This morning, I discovered that Ms Lambert had made an extended version of the bridge She Keeps Me Warm that she did for Macklemore. Music is such a fabulous ambassador; watching Macklemore perform Same Love live in Montréal with Tegan and Sarah always brings me to tears.

Terminated Again

The first time I was fired was in 1983 and it really hurt. I felt betrayed by the people whom I had brought into Presentation House. Of course it was worse because the firing was illegal and that led to the equally painful process of filing a complaint to "win" compensation. My board fired me me for fiscal imprudence but the minutes of the society proved my innocence and the culpability of the board.

The next time I was fired was in 2004 when I was fired from Emily Carr University (where I now teach). That time, I was fired "without cause" and got a nice separation package because they were restructuring my department.

I "invented" the Opus Framing & Art Supplies Newsletter. I chose its large format and the basic principles of its contents: an art news section, a provocative editorial. And I fought to limit the advertising. I started the newsletter for Opus because my insightful boss at the time, knew to take the business into direct mail advertising. It was launched in the summer of 1986 and I have written the editorial ever since.

In March of next year, edition #300 will come out and it will be my last after 27 years. My boss wants us to have lunch and plan what the last editorial will say. I chose and wrote the other 299 editions myself so I am not keen to meet. I know what he wants. He wants some kind of "It's been great; goodbye and good luck" kind of thing. I don't want to do that.

I want my last column to be no different from any other with, perhaps, a sentence or two at the end saying: "It's been great; goodbye and good luck." I will find a compromise.

When my first play was produced this past April and I had my first professional stage appearance (in the central role), I was shocked to discover how profoundly reluctant I was to take my curtain call.

I spent my whole life dreaming of being an actor and I always thought the curtain call would be like seeing God. I thought it would be a spectacular experience to be out there soaking in one's glory, but no. I wanted nothing to do with the curtain call when the real experience called for it.

And in the same way I do not want to provoke any "thank you" or "goodbye" emails by writing a column that draws attention to me. I like people to think about my words not the writer just as I wanted my audiences to be left with the  performance and not end with "me" out there as myself for the curtain call. This is what being an introvert is.