Inspired by Nature and Art

At this time of year there seems to be a lot of artist studio tours.  I usually manage to get to see  some new art while this opportunity is presenting itself.

Merrickville has an an artist studio tour the last weekend of September and the first weekend of October. The tours in Prince Edward County and  in Cornwall happen at the same time as the Merrickville one. I've been to the tour in Prince Edward County twice, and this year I finally made it to the Arts and Apples tour in Cornwall.

Merrickville becomes a very busy place during their tour, which is why they extended it to a two week event. The studios in the Cornwall area, by comparison, seemed almost deserted. Yet the artists were thrilled to have had as many as 75 people stop by. We only got to a few Cornwall area studios this year but found the artists there very friendly, and more than willing to explain their work. I will definitely go back another year, starting perhaps at the opposite end of the tour, so that we are more in the country. One of the things I love about such tours is exploring the back roads and seeing new sites.

I did, of course, check out at least 13 of the Merrickville artists on their final day, even without leaving town. It's always fun to see what the people I know have been up to, and how far they have come with their art over the past year.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend we went to one of my favorite tours, up in the hills beyond Perth. I've told you about this before, in 2013 and 2014. It's such a beautiful time of year to drive those roads, art, or no art. There is even an area called the Field Work Project, where artists do installations in the wild.  We made a point to stop by and see the Eyebox, which is actually a Camera Obscura created by Franc van Oort.  When you step inside, and close the door, the light coming though the lens in one of the walls of the box projects an upside down image of what it's facing on the opposite wall. You are, in effect, inside a giant camera. The whole thing is on a turn table and you are able to crank it in a complete circle and see the view from any angle.  I heard it might actually be moved to one of the locks near Burritts Rapids next year, if all goes according to plan. I do hope it does as I'd like to experience it again, and perhaps take my grandsons to give them some idea of just how a camera works.

Artist studio tours inspire me to try new things. I used to just look and see what I liked, but now I try to figure out how some things were done, and then go home and see if I can come up with that sort of effect. After the past couple of weeks, and several tours, I think I have enough ideas to keep me busy until springtime.

Spring Bonnets on Parade

I remember, in my youth, we used to get dressed up for Easter.  Often I got new shiny black Patten leather shoes, a colourful new spring coat, or a pretty new hat. I don't know if that's when it began, but I've always loved hats.

This year the New Horizon's Club in Burritts Rapids held a Spring Tea and the powers that be requested we wear our prettiest bonnets.  They could be store bought or something specially created for the event. Some people commented that they didn't have hats, and I offered to share some of mine. I already knew which one I would wear. It lives in a box in my basement and seldom gets out as it is so special there are very few places one could wear such a creation. It's too grand to wear even to a wedding.  It would outshine the bride.  So, when this occasion presented itself, I simply had to wear it.  It had been passed to me by a friend several years back, and the only other time I ever got to wear it was for the Hats and Hostas event.

Now, this is not the sort of hat that one slips on while wearing blue jeans or some other casual duds. I rummaged in the back of the closet and chose a dress. It was sleeveless and since it can be cool at the hall, I hauled out a silver scarf that worked well as a shawl. The chunky pearl necklace finished off the regal look.

The tea was lovely. Almost everyone wore some sort of hat.  Some put in a lot of work to create something very Easter like, pinning chickens and eggs, etc to their hats. We sat at tables set up for four, and were served fancy sandwiches and squares along with out tea or coffee. Then we lined up to parade around the room a couple of times. I'm not sure who was left to watch us, other than the judges.

They say I won the prize for the best hat, but really, it was the hat that won the prize, and I just gratefully received it.  All this did bring back the fun of getting all dressed up, and I do wish there were still more opportunities to do so. I think I may at least have to go on a little spring shopping spree.

The Fun of Aging

When we are young some of us worry about making a fool of ourselves.  We sometimes avoid doing things we know we would enjoy, just because we think someone might laugh, or make fun of us later.  For instance, after moving from one coast to another, I was nervous about going to a school dance because my dancing style might be different from that of the new locality. I probably wouldn't have gone if my mother had not physically pushed me out the door. When performing in a mandatory school choir, I usually just mouthed the words, as I didn't feel I could carry a tune and didn't want to be heard.

Now I'm older and have a place to go that's full of senior citizens where I feel the freedom to just be who I am, and have fun without worrying about what others think.  It's still the only place I'll actually sing out loud though, other than the privacy of my own home or car.

The New Horizon Club meets twice a month, in Burritts Rapids,  for a wide variety of activities.  This week they held an event titled Viva Las Vegas. I wasn't sure what would transpire, but knew we would have a good time.

I got drafted to be in charge of one of the Black Jack tables. This is silly because I don't play cards. I'd been told early in life that I have NO card sense so many times that I just decided not to bother playing anymore.  As a result, I'm very awkward even handling the cards. I quickly found someone else who could deal, and decided I'd be in charge of the chips.  Neither of us were really sure of the rules, but we learned them, or adopted some of them and made up others for our particular table.  There was no money involved, as it was just for fun.  Everyone who played was given 10 chips and instructed at the beginning of the event to please leave the table if they lost them all, so that someone else could take their seat. I think, over the course of the afternoon, we only ever had two people at the table who actually knew what they were doing. But we all had a great time.

Then came the floor show.  Four of our ladies got all dressed up and performed a couple of dances for us up on the stage. Before they were finished, I know for a fact that they were all wearing red underwear. They made sure we saw that when they did the CanCan! There was nothing professional about this performance.  They expected, and got laughs, though it was meant to be more of a dance number than a comedy act. That doesn't matter as they were having as much fun trying to keep in step as we were having watching them. 

When they were finished they circulated through the crowd, flirting with the men and sometimes even planting a kiss on an unsuspecting cheek.





And what's Vegas without Elvis?  The president of this group came in, in a mainly white outfit, complete with bell bottomed trousers.  He had a wig on his head that was supposed to look like Elvis's pompadour, but in reality was a lady's long black wig that had been pinned up at the back with dozens of very visible bobby pins.  He tried to lip sync with the music, but most of the time he just posed or gyrated and broke us all up into gales of laugher.  We were even singing along at one point....me included. 

I love the freedom of aging and feeling more comfortable in your own skin.  You are only here once and should enjoy the ride. Too bad we have to wait so many years before we realize that.

Deal Or No Deal

Groupon, Wagjag, LivingSocial, Koopon, GaggleUp, YourCityDeals....the list goes on. Everyone is out there offering you deals these day. You buy a coupon online that can save you up to 90% off, in some cases. Every deal is different, so you have to read the offer carefully.

 I bought one last summer that got us into a play, 2 for the price of one.  That probably wasn't such a good deal since the play was in Kingston. We spent then night at a hotel, which was more expensive than a second ticket would have been, but it was still a worthwhile weekend, as we went to the Sheep Dog Trails in that same area the following day. Buying that coupon was just a jumping off place to plan a weekend away.

Then, in October I purchased another deal. I paid LivingSocial $15 for up to $30 worth of fare at a local restaurant we had never been to before.  We went tonight. 

We went to the Lock 17 Bistro in Burritts Rapids.  I checked with the waiter to make sure the coupon I had downloaded was good even for the nightly special, and he said, "Oh sure. That's $30 off the top of whatever you want."  We ended up not choosing the specials after all. The waiter brought us a platter of buns seasoned with rosemary while we waited for our meals. I chose the half rack of ribs, with a lovely salad and some really good fries that were cut twice as wide, but regular thickness.  My hubby had a full pound of garlic shrimp, with roasted potatoes and a nice crisp tender veggie medley.  Since we were barely over our $30 at that point, we decided to share a dessert and chose the black forest cake.  I'm glad we decided to share as it was definitely big enough for both of us. It was also delicious!  It was a lovely meal, and we went early enough to have the place to ourselves for the first half of our dinner. That was nice, as I'm rather hard of hearing and a noisy environment doesn't help. The restaurant and bar were filling up fast though, by the time we were ready to leave.

Do I think these deals are worth it?  You bet I do, not only for us, but for the businesses that offer them too.  Buying this coupon saved us $15 off on that lovely meal, and you can be sure we'll be going back. Coaxing us in with this kind of deal,  turns out to be very good advertising.....especially since I'm telling you about it here, and will likely post a review on http://www.411.ca/ too.