This week will be a non-art topic. I wanted to explain why I had closed the online store and was not able to paint for the past several weeks. Rest assured, everyone is safe and healthy, and life is slowly returning to normal. We returned last week from an 8 week trip to the U.S. We had planned for a shorter trip, we left before the Canadian government warned against any travel, and we had a good reason to travel, as we needed to go and get our small “snowbirding” property ready to put on the market. We bought this little property in 2012, while the real estate market was still near rock bottom. We had really no intention of buying at the time, but when we saw the prices we thought we could not afford not to! We used it well for almost 10 years, and of course had to leave in a rush when Covid hit in March 2020 and there was talk of closing the border. We had already decided before that happened that we would be selling when we came back, the cost of maintenance and the worry about the next hurricane, combined with the exhaustion of driving there and back, having taken most of the fun out of the experience. The growing unease at knowing that our good Canadian money, through taxes or other purchases, was funding administrations that we could not support also helped us in the decision. But who knew it would be almost 2 years before we could go back! We got there and started to sift through the accumulation of stuff that had managed to find its way into the closets and cupboards! The place was completely furnished when we bought it, and we had replaced some of the furniture over time. We liked to hunt for things in thrift stores and second-hand shops, so there was little emotional attachment to most of the “stuff”. We took a lot of things back to the charity shops from whence they came, and gave away a lot of the furniture to neighbors. We had established a “test” to determine if something was coming back home with us: 1) does it fit? 2) is it irreplaceable (or costly to replace)? and 3) does it have a sentimental value? Thanks to this set of rules, we managed to more easily part with things and bring back really only the essential. Well, mostly…. But the good news is that we are still in this “semi-purge” mood and are getting rid of some of our tons of stuff at home. It is a multi-year project!! Without boring you with the details, we managed to sell the place, not once, but twice! Three weeks after signing the offer, the first buyer announced that she had changed her mind. So we were back to square one, or maybe it was square zero! Thankfully we had not yet given away the furniture she had asked that we remove!! A few days later it was back on the market and another buyer was found. The curious thing is that in neither case did the buyer actually visit the property! Buying sight unseen is a new reality in Florida real estate! Great time for sellers! We are still waiting on the final papers to go through, but there should be no problems with this buyer. We hope! The last few days there and the trip home were very stressful. To re-enter Canada, in addition to being fully vaccinated, you also need to provide a negative result from a Covid test taken within 72 hours of your return. The drive takes us about 72 hours. So in order to leave some wiggle room for car problems or weather/traffic delays, that meant we had to get the test somewhere on the road. To get a test, you must book an appointment. This means that you must know where you will be at a certain date and time. Of course you must book the test several days ahead of time, so we had to decide when we would be leaving. As it is Winter, we had to look ahead to find a travel window that would include as little bad weather as possible! This is where a wonderful App that I found comes in! It is called Highway Weather. I am sure there are many similar good apps but this is the one I used. This wonderful App allows you to put in your origin and destination of course, but it also lets you plan your travel ahead of time, up to several days in fact (of course based on the current weather forecasts). Although it will suggest the best time for leaving, you can also use a slider to pretty much instantly recalculate the temperature, precipitation and warnings along your route. I highly recommend it. It is a little short on instructions so it takes a bit of fiddling to figure out the screen, but once you have it, it is a lifesaver! I didn’t use it “live” as I didn’t have US data, but I consulted it each evening in the hotels and the results were spot on. I highly recommend it! Another App we had to use that wasn’t so wonderful was the ArriveCan App. This is the App that the Canadian government requires you to use to re-enter Canada. I assume it can really make a difference in the time required to process a planeload of travelers at an airport, but honestly, it just seemed to be a lot of work for arrival by land, one car at a time. I had downloaded the App a few weeks before we left to familiarise myself with it, and of course, it stopped working on my phone. I tried to get help through email but it was useless. In their response, they basically suggested I do everything I had told them I had already done in my e-mail to them! Googling the issue told me many people were having the same problem, and after a while, I stopped caring, thinking I could always use my tablet if necessary. Eventually, the App started working again. My biggest issue with the App is that you can’t simulate a trip so you can try it all out and make sure you have everything you need. After you have used it for a real trip, you realize you probably could have done so, but it’s too late anyway! Finally, may I recommend the Flytrippers website. Started by a guy from Quebec, this site is full of money-saving tips and information mostly for flying, but that is where I found out that you could get your Covid tests for free in the US. We followed the tips and it worked like a charm! Maybe someday when (if?) we resume flying we will check out the rest of the site! So there you have it. Happy to be back, safe and sound, and looking forward to an early Spring?
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In a few weeks, I will be participating in a local Christmas Market, more specifically the weekend of November 20-21. It will be my first participation in this market which has been running for several years now. At the same time, one of the art groups I belong to is calling their current show, which runs from this week to the beginning of January, “Marché de Noël”. We received a small pamphlet in the mail this week promoting more than a dozen “Christmas Markets” that will take place in the electoral riding of our local member of parliament. So apparently Christmas Markets are a big thing now! But when did that happen? They certainly weren’t popular when I was growing up, or even when my children were small! Come with me and discover a bit of the history behind the Christmas Market! According to Wikipedia, Christmas Markets (I will call them CMs from now on if you don’t mind!) originated in Germany, and date back to the Late Middle Ages. They are traditionally held outdoors during the period leading to Christmas, or Advent, and they consist of booths or stalls offering foods and drinks such as mulled wine, cookies, candied nuts, sausages, etc. as well as traditional singing and dancing. A CM also often has a Nativity scene, crafts and artisans, Christmas decorations, and seasonal items for sale. One thing that is not mentioned in the article, but that is obvious from all the photos I have seen, is that most CMs happen in the dark, which isn’t really that difficult in northern climates in November and December!! The stalls are all lit up with lovely lights, giving the CM a very festive look! Some of the more popular CMs, such as those held in Dresden (considered to have held the first true Christmas Market in 1434), Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg, each attract millions of visitors per year. CMs are not only popular in Germany. Austria also holds several CMs including those of Vienna and Innsbruck, and Alsace has held a CM in Strasbourg since 1570! Spain has held a CM in Barcelona since 1786, and a relatively late entry into the Christmas Market market is England, where the first CM was in Lincoln in 1982. If you wish to read a more detailed account, here is a link to the full article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_market But when did the CM become popular in Canada or Quebec? This turned out to be a lot harder to find out! I visited a lot of Christmas Market websites, but few of them seem to care much about their historical roots! I found out that the Kitchener "Christkndl Market" started in 1996 and that the one in Montreal is only about 5 years old. Some sources say the first CM in Quebec was in Joliette in 2007. Others credit Agathe Sauriol from L’Assomption for being a pioneer of the European tradition here, but they had their first market in 2009. One thing is clear, there is not much information on how they got started, and they are a very recent addition to Québécois traditions! This does not prevent them from having spread like wildfire, so much that there is even a Quebec association of Christmas Markets to help promote them! http://www.lesmarchesdenoelduquebec.com/Regroupement/ They have even produced a map to help you locate them! The Marché de Noël that I will be participating in is not the traditional type. It is held indoors, for one, which makes it a lot more comfortable for both visitors and stallholders, even if we will all have to be masked! I don’t know if there will be mulled wine, but I hope you will come by and say hello! If you live near Sherbrooke, there is a Christmas Market at the Marché de la Gare every weekend from November 27 to December 19, and if you wish to experience the more traditional German-style Christmas Market, there is one held in Quebec City starting November 25! https://www.quebec-cite.com/en/what-to-do-quebec-city/events/german-christmas-market Today in Canada, we observe the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Earlier this year, the Canadian government made this a statutory holiday for all federal employees. Although I wasn’t able to find what year the last was created, it is only the sixth national statutory holiday, putting it on the same footing as Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Remembrance Day, indicating the importance the subject is being given. The day is intended to remember the estimated 150000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children who were taken from their families to be “educated” at over 140 residential schools across the country from 1831 to 1996, the thousands that never came home, and the lasting effects this “policy” has had on survivors, their families, their communities, and indeed their nations. The date also coincides with Orange Shirt day, which was started by Indigenous-led grassroots groups in 2013. One of the goals of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is to take time to pause and learn more about what really happened to Canada’s indigenous peoples. So instead of reading my words today, won’t you please visit https://www.orangeshirtday.org/ to learn more. I think you will find this is very different from what we were taught in school. The more we learn, although it may make us uneasy and shameful, hopefully, will also lead us to more respect for Canada’s indigenous peoples. If you want to learn more about Canada’s indigenous peoples, the website of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs has built a “Learning Journey” for you: https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1621447127773/1621447157184 It has been a very tough week, so I hope you will forgive me for taking a break from art and telling you about two wonderful people that were taken away from us this week. The first was my uncle Jules. He was my father’s brother, and was also my godfather. I was always very proud that my parents had chosen him for that role, because he was the most intelligent person I know. He had, perhaps without him knowing it, a big influence on me growing up. Whenever I saw him, he would have a question for me to research. I don’t know how much time he put into thinking up these questions, or if he thought them up just for me, but they were always interesting, never easy, and certainly nourished my curiosity. He expected an answer the next time we met, and he never forgot to follow up. One in particular I remember was “Why are British policemen called “Bobbies”?” Of course there was no Internet at the time, so finding the answer was not as easy as just saying “Hey Google”! I remember that I used to love to babysit my young cousins, because there were so many books at his house on Science and Nature that I could read once the children were sleeping. So it is doubly sad that this brilliant man, who was a surgeon in his professional life, was stricken, like several of his siblings, with Alzheimer’s disease. The last time I saw him, he did recognize me, but I could see from his smile and the things he said that it was the child he was seeing. I am glad I was able to repay him then some of the joy he brought me. I am also pretty sure that he was the one who got me started in watercolor, at least as a child. Though I can’t be 100% sure, I believe it was he who gifted me the wonderfully huge tin box set I remember from childhood and that I talked about here. I am sure however that I owe a lot of my curious nature to the never-ending prompting he provided, and that without it I would not be the person I am today. So thank you, dear uncle, and until we meet again. If that loss wasn’t bad enough, a dear friend and former colleague also left us this week. He had been diagnosed last year with pancreatic cancer. Unfortunately, it was already stage 4 so the prognosis was not good, but I still held out hope, if not for a total recovery, at least for a bit longer than what the doctors had predicted. Jim was a funny and erudite man, who never forgot his humble origins. I am so glad to have been able to be one of the many people he entertained, over a glass of single malt of course, with his colorful stories of camping on the roundabout, or the bicycle ghost, or the unforgettable hippopotamus leech, all told in his charming Glaswegian accent! I will never forget the look on his face when, as “Quiz Master” to a “Pub Quiz” we had during one of our Whisky Society dinners, he realized that I, a mere Computer Science teacher-- i.e. NOT an English teacher--, had the correct answer to a question he had written, which was “What English word has the most definitions in the dictionary?” I guess my pastime of reading the dictionary, no doubt a by-product of my uncle Jules’ questions, came in handy after all!! Every time I have a wee dram, I’ll have a sip to your memory, dear friend! With covid restrictions, it was impossible to visit either of these wonderful people, which made things harder. But it also gave me a convenient excuse, because I confess I am a coward when it comes to dealing with people facing serious illness or death. I guess it’s because I don’t have much experience of it, which one could take as a good thing, but I wish I knew what is the “right thing” to do. My egotistical side wants to hold on to the memory of the person I knew, and not have to deal with the reality of illness and death. I am sure I’m not the only person who feels this way, but it doesn’t make me feel less ashamed of being such a coward. Have you had to deal with these feelings? If so, I would love to hear your advice on doing better in the future, as this will surely happen again as time catches up with us and the people around us. Anyway, thank you for reading. Hug the people you love and tell them while you can. P.S. I intentionally didn’t give the answers to the questions above. Stay curious, my friend! It’s been a busy week. Lots of "busy work" getting ready for a weekend show. I have been working really hard lately and have very little results (i.e. sales) to show for it, causing me to lose a bit of momentum vis-à-vis this whole “I want to be an artist” thing. But instead of boring you with my winging, I thought I would turn to you for help on zeroing in on where I should be concentrating my efforts. I have prepared a short (4 minutes according to Survey Monkey) survey on your personal art purchasing habits. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a millionaire collector for your opinion to be of value to me! Maybe it’s the heat, but I really need it. Thanks for helping out! Click here to take the survey! I am taking a few days off (well not really off!) this week so, in the spirit of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, here are a few select blogs from a few months ago. Enjoy! Why we need art Why Art? Why Paint?
Today’s topic is not about art. So if that is what you came here for, I’m sorry to disappoint, but please come back next week.
Since early last summer, I have been listening to a person doing live videos about art on Facebook. It started out as a daily thing, but now, after over 290 days, it is only on weekdays. It was originally intended as a way to help out artists during the pandemic, but it soon became quite clear that the real reason was to make this guy’s company better known and to help him keep the company going and to save his employees’ jobs. Which is fine, and he openly has said this many times. I have learned an awful lot from him and from the scores of very talented artists that he has on every day. I have even attended a four day art conference they organised last fall, and am signed up for another one coming up shortly. In fact, I don’t think this blog would exist if it wasn’t for him. Where I have a problem, and where I stopped listening every day, is when he repeatedly says that we have to “keep our head in the game” (meaning on art), and “stop doom scrolling”, which I, perhaps wrongly, have interpreted as “ignore the bad things that are happening around you”. To give you an idea of what I mean, I looked at his January 7 post (the day after the attack in Washington), and his only mention of the event was to explain that he had decided to cancel yesterday’s (Jan 6) broadcast because there was no point in having a broadcast as everyone would be watching the reporting on TV!!! He even said someone “he admires” had told him years ago that “you can never compete with Santa Claus”. Yes, he said that, the day after the attempted coup by a sitting president’s mob …. Now I appreciate the generous sharing of art instruction and the work that goes into preparing these daily artist interviews. I understand that it is a business and that they have their needs and goals. I understand that he feels that his role is to give people something else to think about. But is it wrong of me to expect a bit more “let’s talk about this” from a person who has such a large following? Instead, we get “let’s talk about something else”. And no one listening disagreed, at least not openly. That is the main reason why I no longer follow him regularly. Although the artistic instruction his guests offer is precious, I don’t feel comfortable with this “all’s well with the world as long as we keep ignoring what’s wrong with it” attitude. Like as artists we shouldn’t concern ourselves with current events! I can accept that people tune in to his show to hear about art and not to get a news bulletin. But isn’t there a point when what is happening in his own backyard becomes important or troubling enough to set aside a few minutes to talk about it? Is he so afraid of offending anyone (i.e. losing customers) by taking a side that he prefers to just look away and pretend nothing is happening? As the saying goes, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem…. Thankfully, another artist that I follow and who does weekly art talks on Facebook live, took this week’s time to talk about the difficulty he would have, when the pandemic is over and we can do things in person again, to interact with many of his artist friends, who he still respects as artists, but who have become victims of the conspiracy theories phenomenon. Most of the realtime comments were supportive of his decision to talk about this, but there was one viewer who said, in so many words, “let’s talk about something else”. Several people, including me, disagreed with this commenter. It is not by ignoring things, especially things this serious, that they will go away. Of course I am horrified by what happened in Washington last week. But I am even more horrified by the reasons behind it and the reactions of too many people. By the comparisons to the riots of the summer by BLM supporters, who actually were fighting for a valid cause, not some made-up baseless unproven debunked claims of massive voter fraud and stolen elections. I am sad at seeing so many people fall for that garbage, as they fell -- twice!! -- for the sad excuse for a human being that promised to Make America Great Again. I am saddened by the breakdown of one of the world’s most admired countries, and by the self-serving individuals in office who claim to be there for the people but who are really there for their own advancement. I will never understand how they could not see what he was, or how they did see it, but thought it was still right to vote him in, and to continue to support him and encourage his lies by not calling them out. How did they think it would end? And worse, given the chance to condemn their failed leader’s actions through impeachment, too many still chose to support him and his lies, wrapping themselves in procedural arguments, refusing to see reality even though they themselves witnessed it first hand, and were put in harm’s way during the failed coup. Sadly, I predicted a long time ago that the only way the deep divide in the US would end would be a Civil War. And this was before QAnon added their vile ingredients to the poison soup. I hope I was wrong, but am afraid I am right. It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of so much division and hate. But, to paraphrase the Dalai Lama, if you think that as an individual you are too small and insignificant to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito! There may be no point arguing with conspiracy theorists, but we can try sympathy and understanding. Stay kind in your discussions and encourage kindness in others. Every little bit helps. I wish my southern neighbors a safe and speedy recovery. It will not be easy to restore trust to so many who have been lied to for so long. That’s it for now. Next week I will find an easier, but certainly not more important, subject to talk about. Be well, be kind, be part of the solution. P.S. If you are curious about how QAnon works and how they could make so many people believe so many lies, there is a very interesting explanation at https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5 But be warned, it is quite discouraging. I am sad today. Nothing to do with Art. I am sad for a people that I thought I knew better. Although the final numbers are far from in, the results of the US election are very saddening to me. When D. Trump took the presidency in 2016, I was shocked. Shocked that so many people had been taken in by this BS artist. But I figured that most people voted not so much for him as against Hillary Clinton. Lots of misinformation had intentionally been spread about her (think Pizzagate!) and I have to admit that Trump’s promise of “draining the swamp” had some appeal. Perhaps an unconventional businessman was what the country needed. So, OK, give him a chance. No one can be all bad, right? Who can boast never having made mistakes in their life, right? Let’s see what the new kid can do.
Well, America, you did. You saw him:
But no, you voted for him. Again. I’m done with you. You gave him a chance, you saw what he did, and you chose to continue. I’m done. This is what you want. Good luck. OK, that feels better! I promise, back to art next week! Now to the studio!! |
AuthorMy name is Claire Bureau. Archives
March 2023
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