22.  Original Plein Air Drawing, “Plein Air, Lunch Umbrellas at St. Catharine’s, 7.25.24”, ink, 9 x 12”, 2024

Location: St. Catharine’s, Ontario, Canada

It would be nice if when your life is about to change, you can tell. My life was about to change as I was drawing this, and I was totally unaware, sketching my view from lunch on a Thursday, enjoying myself so much that I came back to the same lunch spot several days later on a Sunday to eat, drink, and be merry. In my merriment, I strated firing off random emails into the void in the name of art business cold-calling. After all, I’d been in two art events so far, ever, one of which (ArtX Flagstaff) I wasn’t officially invited to but was allowed to attend anyways, and the other, the only plein air event to which I’d been accepted (Plein Air Easton after 12 outright rejections from other events), the supposed best in the world, where I’d won, and garnered an automatic invitation for 2025. What on earth was I supposed to do with myself until July 2025? This was a Sunday, and I was emailing as many plein air events and festivals as I could, in the hopes that someone might want me as part of their artist lineup. I finished lunch, slammed my laptop shut, retreated to the hotel room to get ready to start racing in St. Catharine’s for the Canadian Henley Rowing Regatta the next day. As luck and fortune would have it - I was called that evening by the Director of the Bozeman Art Museum in Bozeman, Montana. Could I make it to their plein air event, beginning… tonight? Maybe. When do we have to turn in work?Friday? Yes. I called my rowing coach, explained that unless needed (I wasn’t entered in any team boat events) I was going to drive to Montana in lieu of racing. Monday I drove 1000 miles, another 1000 Tuesday, to arrive that night in Bozeman, in time to paint Wednesday and Thursday, before turning in work on Friday. One of my paintings won the Bozeman Art Museum Purchase Prize, and now (finally?) my work is in museum collections. It is impossible for me to see these standard red patio lunch umbrellas and not recall life-changing events.