Dry Art
Timing is Everything
The Expo/Festival season is over for me. Honestly, I am so glad—all of this talking up my art to strangers is exhausting.
This past week was also convocation time at the university. We were on our feet daily talking to new graduates and helping them and their families celebrate this huge milestone in their lives. It was a huge milestone for our family as well. My eldest walked the stage to get her diploma and took her first steps into a world without homework and deadlines for the first time in seventeen years.
As I made plans for a delicious few hours of wet paint and personal art-making time we got a phone call. My partner was called into work because there was no water in the building.
By the time he got home, we had the news that the city had a major waterline break.
The break flooded two communities because that water main is the size of a large truck in diameter. We are now on the highest level of water restrictions we can be on. No outside watering at all, and reducing our use of water inside as well.
We are OK here. We don’t have to boil water like our neighbouring community, and we have enough water for our basic needs. We won’t be running out to buy bottled water that our neighbours might need. We will just make do with less and be grateful that we weren’t more severely impacted.
The worst part for me personally is trying to find ways to water my seedlings with rain barrel water and reused water from cooking, and not being able to paint. Even though the amount of water I use for art is minimal, I can’t justify wasting it when we are in a crisis.
Honestly, I don’t want to do more digital art for a bit because I miss tactile, physical art. So I guess it’s not a painting weekend, pencils and pens are going to be my medium. And, once again, I am grateful that the worst of my problems are that I don’t want to waste water washing brushes.