Hitting a moving target

Last weekend was Alberta Arts Days -- a concept started a few years ago in the province and which has been adopted across the country as Canada Culture Days -- complete with two blocks downtown devoted to all things "artsy" on Friday night. I went down to see friends who were participating, and lucked into a 20-minute "class" by Neil Zeller on how to take better photographs.

There wasn't really anything new, although it never hurts to be reminded of the important things ("shoot the light" and "change the perspective"): I had some time between the end of the session and the gallery opening I was going to, and had my camera with me (on purpose!), so on a beautiful fall evening, I set off to go explore two new bridges and a park that opened up this summer. (The images in this post, in fact.)

It was a rare creative break in a stretch from the subject of the last blog until yesterday: once again, I had to move my boxes and furniture from Storage #2 to Storage #3, and had spent some time sorting out boxes that I probably should have done when I packed them up in November/December 2011 to take to Storage #1 (and moved to Storage #2 in September 2013), but really didn't have the physical or mental energy after the Equinox Vigil to properly sit down, sort, and generally reduce my physical footprint again.



A lot of my late husband's clothes finally found a home where they will do more good than just being stored away: that was the most challenging thing I managed to accomplish before the movers arrived to take the heavy furniture. I had great plans to take all the cotton pieces, cut/soak/beat them, and turn the resulting pulp into paper, but after 4.5 years, it was time to let that idea slip away.

I still have some treasured items that I wear regularly, and others that I will use in forthcoming installation pieces: that will have to do.



Storage #3 is an old garage I have to myself -- if it was a home, it would be a seriously "fixer-upper" shack -- with one small light, but good wiring with an outlet that I can plug my big halogen work light into. Most importantly, there's a luxury of space I haven't had in my two previous stops: no longer are things piled upon my couch or are there tiny pathways that wind around piles of boxes. There's even room to have my bentwood rocking chair to sit in, while I sort through the boxes of books, kitchen bits, and art supplies I've got there.

Today, I did some DIY: the big pulldown door didn't lock properly when a load of easy-to-move things went in on Tuesday, which was solved by a friend with a cordless drill and two big bolts to stop it from rolling up, but there was still a substantial gap along the sides and bottom, which I solved with some heavy-duty plastic and tuck tape. The garage itself is well-insulated, but the gaps made that moot. I have a solution for the person door that I'll implement next week, but with the weather front coming through tonight, and the howling winds outside as I write, I knew I needed a solution today.



Before I left there this afternoon, I dug out a large mounted photograph I have of Calgary's downtown, taken in 1963, that I received for working on a show about modernist architecture, and set it up where I can see it as I sort books and organize art supplies over the next four weeks.

As I locked the door behind me, and set off to stock the pantry before the nasty weather set in, I had the same fine sense of being that discovered me a month or so ago.

It felt good then, and it feels good now.