Contenders

Today we sent the Phase 3 deliverables. Design drawings. Revised working budget. Working schedule.



With sunshine up and through the trees before dawn, with the heat, the garden, the animals, summer is everywhere.

Ice Gate – a far off winter idea - has been all about the glass enclosure that will keep the paintings pristine in temperate British Columbia weather.

How does it adhere to the site? To the plates? Widgets, gadets, size of glass, thickness, materials, how to, when to, who to engage to build it. He and Alan May met over tea, over breakfast at The Gumboot, at the dining room table, on the telephone at all hours. They had a plan. Then Alan gave him a budget.











Gord’s a resourceful guy – he can be in the middle of a tennis match – losing - -and he somehow steps out of it to determine what he’s doing wrong – changes strategies – and wins the game.

I can’t talk about anything here until it’s solved, but I have to tell you there were a few tense days while he tried to re-design the plan to bring the costs for the structure back down out of the stratosphere.



Our first planning meeting with the choreographers. They really impressed me with their trust of the creative process.


They’re all from somewhat different dance backgrounds – Maggie Guzzi represents the Dance Society; she’s creates modern dances always with a sense of comedy; Gerardo Avila does magnificent solo work, hilarious mime & storytelling. Jean Pierre Makosso, lively African dance. Brittany Robertson, a young, mesmerizing dancer, varied styles. And we all had to figure out how we were going to approach a truly local production – with amateurs, some having their first experience of dance. How would we structure it? What kind of music? The artistic vision of the dance? Do we call it an ‘audition’ if we don’t turn anyone down? They were passionate – and also excellent listeners, and by the end of the night we had a plan of action.


Then, emails from J.C. who is creating the new sized moulds for the longer, thinner paintings; a call from Art. Erik’s in town from Calgary (Skew Gallery just exhibited his work in a trio show called Merge 2); Ari Lazer, Prodn Manager phones asking questions, organizing the work schedule. And The Designer at Computer Central juggles his artsy projects (onecoolword) with updating www.paintingbelowzero.com and working on Henry Reed Organic farm.

A publisher in New York bid for Paintings Below Zero artwork on the cover of their Macroeconomics textbook and a photographer in Toronto is exhibiting photography of the Toronto installation at a pub there.

Meanwhile, two cougars have been spotted in The Creek, very very close: Joe and Orange Roads. Six sheep, five llamas and at least one deer have been killed in the past week – but not eaten. The conservation officers finally got the dogs out on the trail. That's the 17-year old orange marmalade guarding the premises.


A family from Paris traded houses with Alun for a month. How could we not invite them over? We met their trois enfants, had conversations en francais at the edge of the water at Peter Mason's cabin off Beach Avenue. And memorable pond frisbee in our garden.


Among other summer activities, we attended both The Sechelt Writer’s Festival and The Gibsons Tennis Tourney in the same weekend. We heard Naomi Klein, Anthony de Sa, Russell Wangersky (and others in the shade of the Rockwood gardens). Gord played mixed doubles with me - excellent rallies, went to a tie-break - but we didn’t win. Annette Schrober was my Women’s Doubles partner – although it's her first tourney and my second - we were contenders!