Measuring Impact

We may never know the impact that an exhibition has on a young person. In my years at the gallery, I only strive to ensure that everyone feels welcome there - all ages, all areas of interest, all economic abilities. One just hopes that the education and exposure provided to our visitors makes for a better community overall. I got a tiny bit of evidence of that last night. My daughter, who will be turning 11 later this month, was working with plasticene. She sculpted a crooked tree, and said "Look, I made a crooked tree like in the gallery." Wonderful, I replied. Then the explanation came. "It's a birch, you can tell by the white bark. These branches swoop down and will grow along the ground. All sorts of creatures can live here, because there are so many nooks and crannies." And then, she played. Just pure imaginative play for about an hour, sculpting blue and purple cats that climb trees and lounge on the branches with their plasticene tails hanging down. Of course I pride myself in raising two kids that can play imaginatively for hours on end, but knowing this scenario was rooted in the exhibition, I felt a certain sense of accomplishment, that I had impacted a young life with a spectacular colourful show about some crazy crooked trees in Saskatchewan.

Those Crooked Trees

Dr. Bill Remphreys gave a wonderful scientific presentation tonight on the crooked trees that are the subject of the current exhibition. How fascinating that someone was so intrigued by this little forest (which is actually one organism) that they would spend a dozen years studying it. It was great to sit there surrounded by Ken Dalgarno's bold, textured paintings with a scientist giving the other side of our brains something to chew on.

3:58pm

It's official. As of 3:58pm, the washrooms are finished. We are having a glass of wine to toast surviving the renos. Bless Delores Mori for being the unofficial project manager for the entire month of May. She must have felt like she lived here and it was her own bathroom. There will be a string of violin players using the facilities tonight, but then tomorrow night is the official opening.

New toity and new gadget

With the addition of a couple of snazzy doorknobs, the bathrooms are finished. The exhibition "The Crooked Trees of Alticane" opens tomorrow night, and so I'm just relieved that we will in fact have a washroom to officially open at that time. Yes, I saw the word "relieved" and just left it there. It felt strange to get back into the swing of things here at installation time. We all moved a bit slower than usual, and had to ask ourselves "gee, what am I missing here?" We have a video presentation of the artist in a five-minute talk on the show. Very soon we will have the equipment to feature an audio tour as well. Exciting times!