A Vernissage at the Orange Gallery

Last Thursday (January 26th), I went to a vernissage at the Orange Gallery in the Wellington Village part of Ottawa. I was invited by an old friend and colleague, who got in touch with me to tell me that his girlfriend was having a show and saying it would be great to see me at the opening. I had never been to the Orange Gallery - as a matter of fact, I had never been to this part of Ottawa. So it was a bit of an adventure for me and, as it turned out, I was very glad I went. 

The artist is Lorena Ziraldo, and I really liked her work. I was impressed by the way she used colour and I enjoyed the subject-matter of her paintings - especially that they were about people.  

The Orange Gallery was also a pleasant surprise. It is fairly new and I thought it was a great space. Very light and spacious inside.  

As I was taking photos, I realized that there was one of those "boxes-within-boxes" kinds of experiences going on. Many of Lorena Ziraldo's paintings were about people in galleries looking at paintings. So here I was, taking pictures of people in a gallery looking at paintings of people in galleries looking at paintings. Cool!
If you get a chance to go to the Orange Gallery, I recommend it. Nice space!

Wow! Wild Turkeys!

Two of my fellow bloggers, Ronna and Natalie, have posted blogs about seeing wild turkeys recently. Now it is my turn. I was driving down the road from my home this past Sunday (going to town to get some more medicine for my wretched cold - all sympathy welcome!) when I saw something in my neighbour's field. I came to a screeching halt (one of the advantages of driving in the country is that you can stop in the middle of the road and not worry because there is no-one behind you) and realized it was a flock of wild turkeys. There must have been about 20 of them. 

I got out of the car to see if I could get closer and take better pictures. But they were skittish and started to run away............. 

..............leaving only one straggler. This is the first time I have seen such a large group of them close to my home. Ah, the excitement of country life!

Some Headless Goddesses - and Me

This is another photograph that I recently found in a box of old pictures. It was taken when Peter and I were wandering around in the British Museum nearly 20 years ago. Such a contrast - me looking rather thick and dumpy, standing in between two classical symbols of ideal beauty. But I'd much rather have my head on than be a symbol of beauty, thank you very much!

Coping With Winter in the Byward Market

Lately, winter has thrown a few curves at us and the weather has made life difficult. I have been finding ways to cope with this dark and nasty part of the winter and enjoy life in the Byward Market area of Ottawa. For example, I recently enjoyed this exhibition of photographs at the National Gallery of Canada, "Made in America 1900-1950."   I took a picture of the banner outside, which shows Barbara Morgan's photograph of Martha Graham. What a beautiful picture! There were many fabulous photographs in this show and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in the art of photography.

I also have been seeing signs of events that are coming up in the Byward Market. For example, this sign appeared on the Alexandria pedestrian bridge this week (the bridge I walk across every day to work). It says that the bridge will be closed to pedestrians on Friday February 3rd from 9 am to 10 pm. It doesn't say why, but I know that this is the kick-off for Ottawa's winter festival, Winterlude. There will be fireworks set off from the bridge that evening and they need to close it to make preparations. The sign also says there will be a shuttle bus for pedestrians while the bridge is closed and I think I will take a couple of trips back and forth just for fun. Winterlude is like a massive party in the Byward Market in early February and I am looking forward to it. 

We need some relief! The weather, as I said, has been really wretched. We had our third ice storm this past week. I had a difficult time walking on the sidewalks after the storm because they were either ice-covered or slushy and I had to pick my way along them, trying not to fall.  

This woman had the right idea for coping with the ice. She was walking along with two ski poles to keep from slipping. Unfortunately the picture is a bit blurry because she was walking so fast while I had to take baby steps because of the treacherous conditions on the sidewalks. I will have to get some ski poles too.

This evening, the conditions were a bit better and it was much warmer than it has been. These people seemed to be enjoying a lively conversation in the middle of the sidewalk on Clarence Street, where there are a lot of restaurants and bars. Bright lights and colour make it easier to cope with winter.

Speaking of bright, I couldn't resist taking a picture of these two women in bright red coats. Most people wear black in the winter and it is unusual to see such vividly coloured clothing. Another way to say, what the heck - winter's hard - let's put on some bright clothes and defy it and have fun!

A Creepy Snowman

Peter, (the love of my life and now deceased for ten years), had a terrific sense of the absurd and could be wonderfully silly at times. He and I used to like to make snowmen, like a couple of kids, at least once a year. I recently found this photograph of a particularly grotesque example of our snowmen-making endeavours. We put an old red shirt on him and gave him a beard of dead weeds, along with a conventional carrot nose and hat. I remember that we had bits of real coal for his eyes from a pile of coal Peter had for some project. We both thought this snowman was one of the more warped and twisted specimens of our oeuvre! Winter is definitely more tolerable when you can have fun in it doing things like this.

There is Always Art to be Found

Sometimes I think that, because I have walked around the Byward Market so often, I have found all the visual interesting stuff there and there is nothing left to be found. Not true, as I discovered recently. I took a different route one day and saw this painting half buried in the snow. The red of the violin is so striking against all the grey and white. It's too bad that somebody has put a name on the hat. Oh well - there's always some vandalism in the city!
 

I have often tried to take an interesting photograph of this totem pole, which is in front of the Ottawa School of Art on George Street. This time I got close and looked up, which perhaps is the way totem poles should be looked at!

Speaking of looking up, I would never have seen these paintings in the windows if I hadn't been looking up at a building from across the street. They are on the second floor of this building that has a couple of restaurants on the main floor. Lots of action and colour in these paintings - people are talking, eating, having a good time. It looked so warm and cheerful on a cold winter day.

The Big Foot

I found this picture recently while working on my photo scanning project and, since I am tired of talking about the weather (it is awful - there is nothing else to be said), I thought I would post this instead. It was taken about 18 years ago when Peter and I were on a trip to England. We were visiting the British Museum and somehow ended up in the basement, where wonderful artifacts were just lying around as if they had nowhere to put them all. Peter fell in love with this big foot and got me to pose beside it. Isn't it amazing? I wonder what the rest of the sculpture looked like!