Late night

A long, long and wonderful day today.
I went to the McMichael Canadian
Collection to be a resource for my
English class. My students are all doing
essays related to a work in our text,
Elegy in Stone by Stephen Heighton.
The essay is about Vimy Ridge and talks
about art in relation to the Canadian psyche.
So each student had to pick a work by
a Group of Seven artist. Then I counseled
each person on how the piece tied in
with the essay. It was fascinating to see
which paintings they gravitated to.

I hope they enjoyed the experience as
much as I did. It's hard not to be moved
by the place. You have to approach the
gallery on foot down a path bordered on either side
by tall pines. The physical setting echoes the images in
the works inside. After spending the day with
those magnificent painted landscapes every cloud
and tree I saw on my drive home seemed lifted
from a Group of Seven painting.

Then... we had the last little evening of our group
show at the library. In a way it was more festive than
our first opening, because afterwards ten of us met at
Finn McCools at St. Clair and Yonge and had
dinner together. The musician tonight was wonderful,
and played every kind of music beautifully. All of us
had a bit of wine and sang with great abandon. Josephine
had just lost her mother, we had just taken down the show,
Peter and Caroline love to sing, and so does our son, Sam.
Helena was there and she loves singing too. The musician
warmed to us and started doing longer and longer segments.
It was just wonderful. Such a great and upbeat ending to a
pretty special day.

Here's to great art, great friends and great music.

The photo is a detail from a painting
called Before the dance in the red dress.

Have a song-filled day tomorrow.