Mid-Spring holiday

Back from time off for good behaviour.
Can't believe that with my friend we visited Alberta, British Columbia, and The USA (by crossing Waterton Lake! in the Peace Park) in our short holiday. We packed a lot in.
Here are some arty highlights in no particular order:-

Whyte Museum and Art Gallery

Reckonings: Michael Cameron and Karen Maiolo April 9 - June 12
This is a brilliant exhibition which we both enjoyed.  We talked about on the way round. My comment of "wouldn't it be great to discuss this with the artist" was overheard and we found ourselves chatting with Karen about how the joint show and the pieces evolved, their  technique and nods to other artists such as Banksy (and, I thought, Damien Hurst).  It was a pleasure, thanks so much.

High Fashion in the Rockies - not normally my cup of tea to look at costumes, but this one was just the right size and I find myself taken with 1950's and 60's styles and Mrs Luxton's taste.  Dresses date from 1920 - with accessories on show too.



Inglewood Fine Arts

Charles Carson - of the "Carsonism" technique.  I found the work exciting and inspiring.  In terms of stitches it reminds me of the work of Julia Caprara - although Carson's work is very thickly applied paint not thread. His work is abstract with naive imagery - amazing that he gets away with it really - his pieces sell for 10s of thousands of dollars... so there we are. Message for me - "Lighten up, girl!"

Banff Park Museum
Loads of stuffed animals! in a more than 100 year old museum (that's old for Canada remember).  Architecture of the, building inside and out, is stunning.
We went in to see the Robert Bateman works that they have in there - about  5 of them, and good to see if you want to give a taste of Bateman to a visiting European. Breath-taking imagery of wildlife.

Apart from these official art stimuli, there was springtime in the Rockies, stunning flowers - here a Shooting star - shooting right out of a pile of dung in Waterton Alberta (thanks for the image - Robin, what a gift)

OK OK this is it without the scats.  And I am giving publicity to the festival, so am I forgiven my wicked sense of humour.

..... and also wild weather up Sulphur Mountain, cultural awareness at Head Smashed In, the beauties of Canada's wildlife from furry caterpillars to furry bears and references to the Japan Earthquake at Frank's slide (meaning we viewed a small rock slide and, very sadly, my thoughts were taken to the same on a  massive scale as I thought of the devastation in Japan).

Lovely art-work on this leaflet for the folk festival in Calgary- Artist unknown (sorry).