Day 10. Successful opening.

It was a great opening last night for Jeri Lynn Ing. We probably had about 30-40 people visit and I’m sure that of those some will be back to have a closer look at the art. We were hanging labels when the first people arrived.

Bradley Abel sang for us last night. It was a wonderful evening all around.

As of today we have seven days before the big move. And the clearance sale starts today at the old store with most things 50 percent off. The kitchen ware is not coming with us to the new store.

Here are a few shots from last night.

Paul Harris and Jeri Lynn Ing standing in front of Mercury.
Bradley Abel singing for the assembled crowd.
Jeri Lynn sitting in front of Susan Woolgar’s and Judy Sutter’s collections. Beautiful work.
Jeri Lynn Ing
Take me away to a better place, 2015
acrylic on canvas
$2,300
Susan Woolgar
acrylic on canvas 36″ x 36″
$2,000

Day 9, Jeri Lynn Ing’s opening reception

I’m up early this morning to get organized for the opening reception tonight between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. and to shop for restaurant (Tribe). Off to the gym in between.

Susan Woolgar and Judy Sutter delivered most of their pieces yesterday. I’ve got labels and hanging still to do.

The shop is coming along nicely. We had our first sale yesterday, albeit small at least it is a start. I’m hoping that the change in direction will prove successful.

Better lighting has made all the difference. Warm white is better. Still I see I’ll need to make more adjustments and install new directional tracks for the art in the future.
Judy Sutter’s work is up.

Day 8, let there be light.

No major changes to show you yesterday morning, but this morning you can see that we made great progress on the installation of the cabinets. The rest of the card wall in the window is done now, just painting. But that will be next week. Last night as I stood in the shop at 6 p.m. and looked around I noticed how terrible the lighting was for art in the evening. I took down on of the ceiling fixtures to discover that the electrician had put low lumen directional spots in the fixtures. First thing this morning I went hit Lowe’s and have new lighting to install.

Today I will change all of the lighting and hang the remainder of the art that should be delivered this afternoon. My friend Chance will continue on the cabinets and I think by the end of the day we’ll have most of that done. I’ll be very glad to be able to merchandise on these shelves. We’ll be ready for the great move March 9th.

I think this calls for a library ladder. All in due course.

Day 6. Minus 34 defy or hide?

I couldn’t believe that it got colder than yesterday, so it was a choice this morning. Defy the weather or hide for the day. I got down to the shop around 7:30 this morning excited to see the progress on the cabinets last night.

February 26, 2019
Cabinets are being installed and will go right to the ceiling.
The beginning of Susan Woolgar’s show

Day 5, a big week ahead.

Today I’ll move a few more pieces from the old store and set up the main room. Susan Woolgar will be dropping off a big piece this afternoon for the show and I’m really excited to see it. Jeri Lynn Ing’s show is hung now and it looks fantastic. We’ll be hosting a meet the artist event on Friday evening for Jeri Lynn. Please put this in your calendar.


Equinox
Jeri Lynn Ing
Acrylic on canvas
31″x47″
$1450

Day 4, Sunday February 24rd.

One week before we host the first art opening. Today I have more art to hang and continue bringing things over from the main store. Hopefully we begin to reassemble the shelving.

Dawn Candy’s Art arrives… and the window decals.
My greeting cards get a new home.

Day 3, the set up continues.

Today I’m expecting the delivery of the reminder of the Jeri Lynn Ing’s paintings, and Dawn Candy’s pottery. As well our friend Chance begins to make sense of all of the cabinets in the back of the store. And it looks like a mop would be really useful today.

February 23, 2019
Jeri Lynn Ing’s show begins to be hung. Looking exciting, these pieces are stunning.

Day 2.

February 22, 2019

I start the day with most all of the cabinets move into the back, ready to be reinstalled. Jeri Lynn Ing will deliver her paintings today and I’ll begin hanging the show. Our window decals should come today as well. I will need to make the office space more functional today. It’s going to be a good day. Soon I’ll have a shop in full operation.

Day 2., February 22, 2019
Ready for installations, It’s going to look so sophisticated and warm in the back of the shop.
Lots of light in the new space. The art that we’ll hang this weekend will like this room.

My first day at the new space.

It’s February 21, 2019 and my first day of work at the new space. Each day for the next few months I’m will take a picture when I come through the door and post it, so that you can enjoy the transformation of this space. Today will be focused on getting it in some order so that I can work and prepare for the first art show which I’ll hang this weekend.

Our new store front at 4913 Gaetz Avenue, Red Deer.
February 21, 2019

Tending your relational garden.

In my last post we talked about three types of human artefacts that exist in the world and how these have lives and influence of their own beyond us.

They are:

  1. In physical form, created intentionally through our actions to build and shape the physical world, including art, parks, buildings, clothing etc.
  2. In consequence, created unintentionally through the way we’ve interacted with the world and one another.
  3. In message form, through media, writing, books, and symbols that transmit ones thoughts across time and space.

We may have a hand in creating them but for the most part they carry on without us. This does not mean that they continue in the exact form of our creation, they morph overtime, are influenced by other things, evolve, devolve, atrophy and potentially die.

In their carrying on without us, we may have a certain responsibility to keep them alive and maintain them over time if we intend for them to serve us into the future. They may be much more resilient than we may know and it may be difficult to keep them in their original form. Further, the unintended consequences they create aren’t easy to anticipate at the outset. Think, for example, of the influence of gas-powered vehicles on the world – health, urban design, and the planet. Only recently do we see how the ways we built our new communities contribute to our unhappiness and have profound effects on the planet itself.

Depending on how far reaching and adopted artefacts become they can easily out live the humans that created them.

Physical artefacts need maintenance. A road, or a building, or a garden may come into existence, then over time deteriorate as they are influenced by the world.  Weather, use, the affects of other things in relation to them, all change them into something different than they started.

Even the Roman wall crumbles over time, yet we attempt to preserve it and make it meaningful for us today.

That meaning is different today than when it was created. A wall is never just a wall. Now it’s a symbol of something older, of history, of specific people that went before, and of the ingenuity of humans to create something to serve their needs.

Gardens for example need water, care, weeding, pruning etc.  This may be a great analogy for considering how we handle human artefacts. How do you tend to your personal relational garden? 

When do you pull a weed? When do you let an plant that has become too big for your garden go to a new home? When it is time to harvest? A gardening metaphor is quite good in describing things that we helped create and then must tend. If we don’t they may become something different than what we intended.

All human artefacts are maintained and transformed over time as we continue to engage with them. Even though they have lives of their own, their identities continue to be influenced by us and people they are in relationship with.  So we need to become custodians of humanity’s artefacts in ways that serve us, all living things, and our collective habitat.  

As guardians of the things we create we need to be aware of their maintenance and potentially their life cycle.  Such questions as: when does this idea or thing, stop being useful? How much is it holding us in place for good and how much is it holding us in place from changing?

Sometimes things that hold us in place could be from our lack of guardianship.  We create things but then abandon them. We become comfortable with what has been created even though they keep us from change and may have unintended long term consequences that are harmful. Some of them go on to randomly create chaos for us, others wither and die.  Some we continue to feed and nurture even when better and more useful things come into creation.

Marie Kondo, the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (2011), offers a lovely way to let things go by learning to express gratitude for things that served you in the past and then saying ‘thank you’ to them when it’s time to let them go.

Although Kondo is speaking of physical things in her book I wonder what correlation there is to all things we are in relation with. How might we tidy up of our relational gardens so that we can be grateful for the past and yet make room for a future that serves us better?

Praxis

What follows are five ideas that might help us to tend our relational gardens. I invite you to look at a few of your human artefacts, as described at the start, using these five ideas.

  1. Detaching: the thoughtful elimination of things that no longer serve our future identity. Consider what graceful detachment could look like.
  2. Selective pruning: the process of deciding what things are incongruent with the identity you are looking to cultivate. Consider how much time you’ll need to prune and how careful you’ll want to be.
  3. Maintenance: maintaining those relationships that give you joy and value. Consider ways to ensure proper caring?
  4. Nurturing:  the cultivation of relationships that have potential to become something bring you joy and value. Remember that it may not be possible to know in advance. Consider how and when you could nurture something new.
  5. Development, evolution, and repurposing: the thoughtful consideration about whether a relationship could serve a different purpose than when it was originally created. Consider the implications of repurposing or further developing an artefact.

Some considerations

In this work there are processes that work against us but also for us. Here are a couple of ideas to think about as we consider transforming who we are – making an identical shift.

Your physical space may be a reflection of our relational space. Have a look around at where you live and how you live and consider how it may or may not mirror your relational space.

Detaching is hard because of the life things have on their own. Detaching from people and activity is more difficult than detaching from things. Detachment isn’t a solo activity. You may need to enlist professional help, or at the least the listening ear of a friend.

Creativity and ingunity.  New ideas want to be born, new ways of thinking and change ache to be realized.  It’s like they exist in pieces on the humanity’s synaptic network just waiting to be fit together, almost randomly, or to be discovered.  Creativity is perhaps the process of uncovering what is already there in the network… the sculpture is in the wood already. The artist’s job is to reveal it.  


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