A fine opening

Late late summer anemones
acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009

Tonight was the opening of the Don Valley Art
Club's fall show. For two weekends in a row a
show of work by a wide variety of artists will
hang in the lovely display gallery at Todmorden Mills.
I believe the show runs between noon and four each
weekend day.

The opening was fun. I was delighted to see
my artist friends, and a few of my good friends
dropped in to see the work, surprising me. This
year's show is especially good, so it's worth a
trip over to Todmorden Mills if you're in town.

I'm working on a little painting of Japanese
anemones tonight. They are a gorgeous flower.
I can't even remember when we planted them in
our garden. But they start out very delicately
and then whump -- suddenly they are a really big
plant. A friend of mine warned me that they are
invasive, and I say let them invade! They are
one of the last totally summer looking
flowers to bloom in Toronto, and right now the
clump in my small garden is about five feet square --
a huge mass of rich green leaves topped by delicate
high stems of brilliant white, camellia like flowers,
with a fragile quality.

When I was at university I was a tremendous fan
of Virginia Woolf, whose writing introduced me to
Vita Sackville-West. Sackville-West stays in my
memory as the brave woman who had an entirely
white flower garden planted at Sissinghurst, her
estate in England. She was quite a character, but
her taste in flowers was one of her better qualities.

The white flowers are particularly well suited to
the lifestyle of night owls like me, because you can
see them when you sit out with friends having a late
summer glass of wine, and appreciate their festive
air.

Have a loving-your-garden-and-tending-it day.