Summer has finally begun, I am home again and my yard is full of blossoms. Icelandic poppies, columbine, obedients. This is not all.
I have started a new art project that is unlike anything I have done before. It involves all the watercolours that I did while I was living in New York. On August 5, there is going to be a one-night exhibition, at the AKA Gallery in Saskatoon. (The painting above is just a sneak preview.) And then I am going to give all these paintings away. I am going to package them up and mail them away to 20 strangers all around the world.
It’s called The Blossom Project, and it has is own website to explain it all. But don’t click on it yet. [Note: The Blossom Project site has been taken down. It’s on the to-do list to put some of its pages in the archives here. –Sunny.] First I have to tell you the other thing. I am doing this project with my man. We have never really worked as partners on anything before. Well, we do a lot of things together. But you know what I mean.
He is a writer. He is handling the word-end of the project. You can’t just mail a painting to someone who doesn’t know you without a note of explanation, or people might think you are a bit whacko.
My man can be very serious. He is kind of a perfectionist. He works hard. He will work all morning without looking up. “Maybe you should have a sandwich,” I say. He says he will, but I doubt it. “Want me to make you a sandwich?” This will usually get through to him. He will say sure, OK. If you give him a sandwich, he will work all afternoon. He reminds me of my Golden Retriever, Shadow, who is no longer with us. Shadow would do a lot for just a tiny piece of cheese.
Painting is nearly always fun. Being a dog seems like it is total fun — if Shadow was any kind of example. For some reason, writing is a very serious business. It’s not exactly fair, but that’s the way it is. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what we come up with together, my man and I. Sunny and Cloudy. Yin and Yang.