25 Years in Canada - The Year 2018 Part I

Three Poppies, acrylic, 9" x 12", CAN $ 300

 Blog 23

At the beginning of 2018, we had decided to sell our house. My husband and I both worked in Gatineau, a good 30-minute drive from our home in the best circumstances. Plus, our son had already moved out, and our daughter had registered for university in the fall.

Winter Mix Exhibition

To reduce the number of paintings in our house, I participated in many exhibitions. In early January, I hung some of my flower paintings at the St Laurent Complex for the Arteast Winter Mix Exhibition. While it was cold and dark here in Canada, it was summer in other parts of the world. Plus, the cheerful flowers offered a reminder of warmer weather. Next, I brought some of my oil paintings to Da Artisti Gallery, a beautiful gallery in an old building in Cumberland Village.


From Febr. 8 to April 17, my painting Nature’s Mirror was part of the Arteast Volunteers' Exhibition at Promenade Arteast at the Shenkman Arts Centre. On February 20, my friends Janis Fulton, Hélène Martin and I hung some larger paintings at the Residence Royal Gardens. As we often paint together, it was exciting to show our works together again.

 

 

St. Lawrence River Sunset, acrylic, 24" x 36", CAN $ 930

 

At the beginning of May, I had a solo exhibition at The Black Walnut Bakery in Cumberland Village. I was very excited about the opportunity to show my art in the popular bakery and café. The next exhibition followed in mid-May when I participated in the Arteast exhibition Summer Colours at François Dupuis Recreation Centre.

 

 

Summer Colours Exhibition

 
Despite the challenge of preparing our house for sale, I started my Creativity Challenge again on January 1 and kept it going until the summer. I wanted to create something every day to balance out the stress, even if it was only for 15 minutes. I shared my trials and successes in my blogs. The accountability of my blogs made me work on a daily project because otherwise, I did not have anything to write.


While my business activities were going well, I had to cope with personal losses. On January 2, my mother informed me that my godmother was dying. The encouraging news at the end of last year had not lasted. I considered flying to Germany, but due to my work contracts and our plan to sell our house, a trip at such short notice was not possible. I also wanted to spend my mother’s 80th birthday with her in the summer. I knew that I could not afford to travel to Germany twice. I hoped that my aunt would hold on until my visit. In the meantime, I concentrated on helping my friend whose cancer had come back and was terminal. She had started a painting in her youth that she wanted to finish for her children. In the end, she did not have enough time and died already in the middle of February. I was shocked, how fast her illness had progressed. She still had so many plans. It was a good reminder not to postpone your dreams.


About a week later, my parents told me the day before their flight to Canada that they would not come as my godmother, my mother’s only sibling, was on her deathbed. Not only did I grieve for the person who had been like a second mother to me, but I also worried about my mother, who reacted to the news with extreme stress symptoms. Once again, I had to deal with the grief alone. The rest of my family in Germany could support each other and say their farewell together. My daughter tried to console me, but my godmother was only one of the relatives she had met on our visits to Germany, not the special person she was for me.


Compared to their illnesses, the continued problems with my eyes were only a nuisance. Nevertheless, it worried me that I could not open my eyes in the mornings. I feared an emergency during the night when I would need help to leave the house.


At the end of January, I learned that my German classes would finish months before the expected date. I still taught private German and art clients. My Creativity and Me workshops and my courses at François Dupuis Recreation Centre and Bob MacQuarrie Recreation Complex were very successful.

Nevertheless, I could use the additional time to concentrate on two pressing activities: decluttering and packing. It was probably good to be under pressure as I have trouble letting go of things. As a creative person, everything can give me ideas for future use in an artwork. Having to clean out my office to stage it for potential home buyers forced me to make some tough decisions. As much as going through the stuff was both physically and mentally exhausting, it felt good to look at my cleaned studio.


At the end of March, my parents finally came for the long-awaited visit. They had missed our week together at the cottage and my daughter’s 17th birthday, but we could spend Easter together. The day they left, one of my childhood friends arrived for a visit. This time, we spent most of her stay on a cottage vacation for a much-needed break from cleaning out the house.


However, I also worried about Alex, our Australian Shepherd. At 12-years-old, he suddenly lacked energy and slept most of the day. We found out that he had Lyme disease even though he was on tick-prevention meditation until the fall. Luckily, he fully recovered after a round of antibiotics.


With spring just around the corner, the longer and brighter days increased my energy. We had finished the first round of packing. I did not have a shortage of paintings for staging the freshly painted rooms, although many of my artworks were in exhibitions.

I only continued to teach Government employees in May. In the meantime, I collaborated with Jackie Leduc, the owner of a yoga and wellness studio in Cumberland. Jackie and I were at a Women Creating Impact workshop by Pierrette Raymond. Pierrette pulled our names for a mock collaboration, and we knew from the start that we would go ahead with the event we planned. Our Yoga & Art Retreat on May 6 was a big success. The eight lovely women who participated in our treated themselves to a day of relaxation and creativity.


By the middle of May, we were finally ready to put the house on the market. The realtor had hoped that the shortage of residences in Ottawa and surrounding suburbs would push buyers to rural areas. Disappointingly, however, the interest in our house was low. Nevertheless, we started looking around to find our new home.


My husband’s criteria were simple. He wanted a house with at least one garage and close enough to the office that he could bike to work within 30 minutes instead of spending the time (and often even longer) on the highway. While I could relate to his wishes, I had a far longer list of must-haves. In short, I was not ready to move. I had planned our home and picked out all the materials from floors to cabinets and paints. I do not love the outside of our house due to the cuts necessary to stay within our budget. However, I love the inside and our big yard. My husband also likes our house, but he is not as attached to it. He wished that we could have moved it closer to the city.


When we started looking at houses in the Alta Vista area, we saw some cozy homes that offered less than one-quarter of the space we had for the price equivalent to ours in the country. It became apparent that my husband and I had very opposing views of the possibilities of each building. I was frustrated and stressed by all the changes coming our way, especially as I continued to be disappointed by the houses we visited in different neighbourhoods.

The first half of the year ended on a positive note. I finally had more time to paint and felt. I joined a new plein air group, the Ottawa Plein Air Adventures Group, and collaborated with my artist friend Anne Warburton on a series of videos and resulting blog posts. On June 15, I spent the morning with my friend Janis painting poppies in her yard (see above). It was my first plein air painting time since our trip to Kamouraska the previous September. It felt so great to be outside in the warm sun and to paint without any distractions.


I also learned to work with glass in a Glass Fusion Workshop at Da Artisti Studio & Gallery. It was a lot of fun to work with a new medium. Wendy Canci guided our Arteast group well in the process of creating a dish and a pendant by layering glass.


The personal highlight for our family during the first half-year was my daughter’s graduation from high school. My parents and my in-laws came to celebrate this happy occasion with us at the end of June. We were so proud of her. Not only did she handle her health problems of the past five years, but she also finished as one of the top students in her grade.


Join me next week to learn more about our housing situation and whether I managed to stay creative throughout the stressful time of selling our house.