Sit-down Dinners

Sit down for this post, it's a bit of a marathon.

Sometimes I shake my head and wonder why we do what we do and other times I am happy that we have so many reasons to celebrate and so many friends to share with. We’ve had stand-up parties for up to 100 people, and a buffet for 40-60 is not uncommon, but for sit-down dinners I used to draw the line at 12. It used to be easier to control the numbers but now our actual family members number 9 which fills up the table pretty quickly. When we count the really close extended family (yes, it’s a paradox, keep reading), who are only considered ‘extended’ because they aren’t genetically or legally related the numbers skyrocket. And for some occasions you just have to have a sit-down dinner because the occasion warrants it. We’ve had two recently…

 

Sydney and his oh-so-wonderful wife Mary



Way back in September, 23 to be exact, we had a dinner for our good friend Sydney Humphrey’s 84th birthday. I was going to write an “Ode to Sydney” but decided not to challenge my poetic ability, but he is deserving of an ode: an ode is typically a lyrical verse written in praise of, or dedicated to someone or something which captures the poet's interest or serves as an inspiration for the ode. Sydney is amazing on many fronts and even has his own entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia of Music and is mentioned in Wikipedia from his days leading the Aeolian String Quartet. Apart from his very illustrious career Sydney has supported and inspired, cajoled and cheered for, entertained and taught, and touched in some positive way, everyone he knows.



In Sydney’s world everything is possible and he has probably read about it or done it if you have a question about anything from industrial knitting to framing a house. His left brain acuity has slipped a bit recently but his music rings true and students still consult with him over competitions and their careers. The birthday dinner was going to be just 8 of us, but everyone in the family wanted to come so we ended up being 16.

Max Humphreys, his wife Carolyn Power, and Sydney, all taking the business of dessert very seriously!

The second big sit-down was Thanksgiving, which somehow ended up being for 19. It could easily have been 30, but we can actually seat 20 in the dining room so that’s really the upper limit. When fully extended our kitchen table is the same height and length as the dining room one so we can either put them together to make a BIG square table which seats 16, or we run them side by side which means we can accommodate 20. And ridiculous as it sounds we have 21 odds and sods of dining room/kitchen chairs, which doesn’t even get into the 22 outdoor sitting-at-the-table type of chairs. I swear they breed when I’m not looking, like the UVic rabbits.

tables set for 18 and then we added 1 more

It's every man for him/herself in the food line

We've re-introduced the habit of eating Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner in the early afternoon; it is so much more relaxing for the rest of the day!

 Our Thanksgiving tradition, aside from turkey “and all the fixins” is that everyone gets a Thanksgiving card in which to write their personal blessings. Between dinner and dessert we go around the table, tables this year, and everyone is asked to mention one item from their list. It acts as an affirmation of how really lucky we are to be who and where we are. I figure family, friends, health etc., are a given (they are ALWAYS on my list headed by my happy relationship with Jim), but I sometimes name something we mostly complain about. This year I chose Brussels sprouts but am most famous for the year I was grateful to have enough income that I had to pay taxes. I wanted you to know about this tradition because I think it is a good one, but I also want you to know that we often make our friends sing for their supper in some fashion and they whine about it! I don’t get it. They whine and snivel and make a big fuss about “what is she going to make us do this time”, but after the fact seem to have had a good time and they keep coming back for more.

Rob Tweedie & Renata Zecha working on their cards

It was pretty interesting to realize that we didn't have one native British Columbian for TG, rather we were from the Maritimes, Alberta, Austria, Brazil, South Africa, California, Britain, Ontario, and more.

 
A final word because I have been going on and on:

My cousin Barb thinks she is taller than she is; we all have delusions. When we have only one table in the DR the chandelier is centered, but with two tables it was betwen the two. I hiked it up as high as I could but Barb took the opportunity to 'prove' that she is tall by standing under it for a photo. And then there is Jamie (1st cousin once removed) who really is tall and reminds me occasionally...

The dear deer

Dateline yesterday. We have a deer problem in Victoria; actually we have a wild-life problem of sorts. Being a city, albeit a small one, there aren’t any real animal predators lurking in the bushes. We do have hawks, eagles, turkey vultures, the odd cougar and bear, but not much to speak of. And domestic cats and dogs are restricted to leashes and pens so aren’t doing much hunting either. So we have wild animal pests and the full spectrum of reactions to that, from “they're so cute” to “shoot them”. Our rabbits have made national news coverage, or rather the great debate about what to do about them has. Over the years people have purchased rabbits for pets and then abandoned them at UVic or the hospitals' grounds – nice grassy public areas where Fluffy can fend for him or herself. Of course Fluffy was him AND her and quickly became hundreds of cute but destructive wild rodents. You would laugh to hear the various plans that have been floated, and tried, to control the ever growing population. Get this: UVic has actually trapped and neutered a bunch of rabbits (can you imagine the cost?), and I don’t know how many hundreds were approved and transferred to a refuge in Texas (anyone who wants to emigrate to the USA just has to buy a rabbit costume). Another batch got sent up Island but 30 of them escaped from their new home and were promptly shot by the neighbouring farmer who for some reason didn’t want holes and burrows endangering her horses’ safety! And despite the Ivory Tower, I believe UVic has even culled a few, (cull is a VERY bad word in some quarters).

Then there are the deer; the dear deer as I usually call them. The deer population density in Victoria is considerably higher than the density in the wild, and why not. We are a city of gardens and animal lovers. The deer have adapted very well to urban life and can be seen wandering down the street, hand in hand, out for a family stroll of a Sunday afternoon. They see Victoria as one huge salad bar and if you were paying attention you noted that there are no predators. So we are also becoming a city of fences as we try to protect our hard-earned gardens from the marauders, who, by the way, can jump an 8 foot fence from a standing start. Apparently what they can’t see they aren’t interested in so don’t think you can erect a decorative or see through fence, it’s got to be solid. And the deer are getting aggressive. There are documented stories of people being chased and dogs being attacked. It is the destruction of gardens rather than the danger of Lyme disease or attack that has area residents dusting off their metaphoric shotguns; "mess with Rover but don't mess with my roses" might be the rallying cry of a despairing citizenry. But oh yeah, it's Victoria. Wait sitting down for any decision or action, and don't mention the C word.

So back to yesterday and look at this ‘lovely’ guy taking a rest from a hard minute of foraging. I took the photos from the kitchen window.

Don’t even get me started on racoons or Canada geese, but on the up-side we don’t have skunks. Yet.

That's our famous bamboo in the foreground.

Retired Again

Quite a few of you know that I have retired from the art business but this post makes it official. I will still paint for my own pleasure and do commissions if anyone ever asks, but I am out of the business of public approval, i.e. juried shows, shows in general, and feeding galleries. In fact I haven't lifted a brush since May. I am peppering the post with some lesser known pieces that I am happy to call 'done by me'. Like this 2nd one, "Yard Art" from a photo of Alan Cotton's back yard in PEI. The painting went to a charity auction.

I've been putting off writing this post for months, not because I am ambivalent about the decision but because I needed to tell my PEI gallery owner face-to-face that I've retired from painting, which I did in September. Someone who works as hard as she has for me, selling about 80 pieces in the last few years, deserves more than an email message severing the relationship. At least I think so. Let me assure you that good galleries are not that easy to find, and ones that are run professionally and with integrity are even harder to find. There are all kinds of stories, some of them mine, about galleries not paying for work sold, or remembering that something has sold when you want to retrieve the piece, or taking months to pay, or going out of business with your work held against debt, etc. But the Pilar Shephard Gallery in Charlottetown is not one of those. Pilar is a CHARACTER in the best sense of the word and she has an MA in Fine Art, but more importantly she is honest and organized. So kudos to her for making a living at art for herself and artists, especially in a seasonal market.

Back to retiring. The trouble with having a hobby with a concrete result, and I HATE the term “hobby artist” because there are so many happy but unskilled artists, is that the product builds up. There are only so many walls in any given house and only so many family members and friends to offload to, and still the canvasses pile up. So then you look for a way to clear the shelves, “I’ll have a show” she says and that was fun, but now what. So then you look for marketing opportunities, coffee shops, restaurants, more shows, juried shows, galleries, and commission work. But all of that requires hours of administrative effort (sales tax, inventory spread sheets, invoices,) computer work (like teaching myself how to develop and manage a webpage), networking, joining organizations, and even some painting.

Did I mention packaging and shipping? If I never see another piece of Styrofoam it won’t be too soon. You get the drift. In order to justify the activity you turn it into a job and a job comes with deadlines and responsibilities; and really, I just like to paint. And Jim likes to travel which turned out to be not such a great mix. Two years ago we returned from the Maritimes on October 2 and left for South Africa on March 11. In between time I had 38 painting commitments to complete, which for some artists is about 5 years work. I knew then that I wasn’t having fun anymore but I was afraid to not have something to do, and I still am. Writing “retired” as an occupation feels like such a cliché and I’ve never been one to conform.

Last spring my right shoulder made the decision and fired me. The injury started when I was doing student schedule changes at school. The programme we used was all mouse operated and with a mouse your arm is always extended. What many people don’t know about painting is that it is physically demanding. I am a stand-rather-than-sit painter and again the arm is extended for hours at a time. And using oil paints on canvas means you are pushing the paint reasonably hard in the early stages of a painting unlike watercolour which is floated onto paper. Also, I get very absorbed when I am ‘working’ and don’t realize I’m in pain until I stop. I’ve been nursing the shoulder along for a long time but it’s gone past that point. Now I have a steady schedule of appointments with massage therapist, physio, and chiropractor, trying to repair the years of abuse.

I have had lots of fun, and I’ve learned lots, and I’ve had my ego stroked. Now my ego gets battered by Rob Cameron in Spanish class every week, and some days I am quite unsettled, and this past Sunday I just sat and read a book. We have 15 coming for Thanksgiving Dinner, we are going to the Okanagan for a couple of days, we’ve just booked a week in Iceland in November, and there are a couple of paintings rattling around in my head. It’s not like I’ll be bored!

So that’s the rather long story. You’ve all been incredibly supportive over the years: cheerleading, purchasing, helping with shows, encouraging and being patient. So thank you.