The blink of an eyelid and it’s dinnertime. A year later! The Turin Olympics are over, we've been home for the summer and now we’re heading out again. To Niagara-on-the-Lake and Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto.To create ephemeral paintings in ice designed by Gord Halloran, the maestro of sparkling abstract Below Zero colour.



We continue the story with a new Ontario blog. Go to Paintingsbelowzeroinontario.blogspot.com

To see this Italy project from the beginning, scroll dow to the right and click on "December, 2005". It's an exciting ride!

I’m back home. The project is finished. Family members arrived and we walked the lighted streets of Torino together. The Olympic flame has been passed to its next host. We've fulfilled our obligations, achieved what we attempted.




Home, where I can eat the foods that nourish me and be in the company of friends who love me, feel the fabrics and materials I am familiar with, touch my cats, speak English to my doctor, embrace those who touch me to heal. And dream the colors and shapes of what we have just done.



Gord, Jaz, Erik and Patrick took the exhibit down on time and stored the plates in the church. Had their last meal in Fenestrelle and phoned me from the table to offer words of celebration. It rang for me from all the way over there. I could just see them.






Today they’re all on their respective ways home, through the long flights and stopovers. Erik is going to Berlin. I am not ready to see anyone yet. Time for a little R & R. Some photos on this page by Erik Olson

I have been slammed with a strong neck pain. Can't move for now. I'll be back on line when I can...

Just the other day, the last day we made the l.5 hour trek up to the Fortezza, during the l.5 hour trek back Gord said, “No more media. We’re closing down the show. That’s it, it’s the end.” He was tired, he was driving and he was fed up. He hadn’t had a day of rest since after Christmas; and the weather was warm, nothing to be done about the paintings against the walls, they were, simply, changing. The mostra looked and felt different. Gord loved the variety and strange patterns and shapes the process was giving the paintings -- that’s what ice painting is all about -- freezing and melting, paint moving along the crystal structure of the ice, a link to the melting polar opposites, but -- will anyone ‘get it’? Every time someone came up to do a story, it was up early, hours driving up, preparing the ice, cleaning it, (people have been walking on the paintings!) and then time in the cold church for the interviews. Two interviews for CBC hadn’t even aired yet -- and then, last straw, the lights went out on one bank. How could anyone even see the paintings now? So he said “No”. Okay, okay I said. No more. We’ll close early and go to Milan to see an opera at La Scala. We’ll visit with Margaret and we’ll just let that busy Torino have all its tourists and Olympic goers. They’ll get their medals without us. We’ve done what we came to do, we’ve had our successes. Enough is enough. Because I want you to know, going back into that cold environment after over a month of that stress when we’ve just now licked our colds and flu is not something done easily.



So then we got a call. Art Sutherland had recommended a broadcaster friend who owns an ice curling rink in Japan. A man who appreciates ice. He said, “Hello, it’s me, can I come to see the show? Friday would be good, eleven o’clock, how’s that?” And then Barbara Papuzzi informed us, somewhat gleefully, that she had a bus load of ten journalists who wanted to see the show on Sunday. And family arrive on Sunday. They haven’t seen the show either.

So here we go again. Gord had a rest and something to eat and then he looked at the situation one more time.



And now we're stuck in a blizzard on the road to back to Torino. Bumper to bumper, stand still and inch. On the day all outdoor Olympic events have been cancelled because of the weather. The flakes are huge. It's minus 2. Everyone arrives in Torino tonight, Jaz and Erik from Venice, Gord's brother and nephew Mike and Conor, Lori and Jason from Florence. And Even though my neck is stiff from holding my head at the wrong angle on a forced march up from the Super G yesterday at Sestriere Borgata, today was a good day. Brian Coxford from Global TV and his cameraman Sergio came to do a follow up story. Rai TV shot footage of the exhibit and wanted info in Italian. And Barbara? She and her mythic group of journalists never showed up. Because of the snowstorm.



Buses and cars going up towards Sestriere are being stopped for chains. The wet flakes on the windshield are the size of a dime. It's a winterland of soft snow and red brake lights snaking down the winding road. My phone just shivered, someone has gone ape sending me text messages today and there is not now, nor has there ever been a special insert to tell me how to retrieve one. I can barely use a cell phone -- don't be sending me email and text messages on this thing!



We're going 15 k/hour. This must be one of those mandatory Olympic experiences like the one we had yesterday - free tickets to the Super G, 110 euros each and we thought we were lucky. Until we were trudging down the steep 1.2 km path to the stands, which supposedly hold 8,500 people! We weren't the only ones late, but we worked up a sweat stepping around many others on the steep path. We pressed on up the metal stands about 5 stories off the ground and were not more than ten minutes in our seats when the sign on the board and voices in 3 languages announded that the race was postponed for an hour and a half due to weather. We had been saving ourselves for lunch and decided to hike back up to the town. An hour later, after a slog in the beige smush, again people on all sides moving step by step en masse -- and we are on our way OUT of a crazy-busy Sestriere. We were so traumatized by it all we skipped the 2nd set of tickets -- to curling!

To the fortezza yesterday. Met Hiroshi Kobasyashi, curling commentator for Japanese television, and his Italian translator, Isabella Guarino. The 'mostra' is still magnificent.



And then we found ourselves at Palazzo Cavour, Canada Place, where you need a Canadian passport - and a recommendation - to get in. A place for Canadians. Not the big log house made to attract business to BC and attention to the next Olympics, with people streaming in and buying HBC olympic gear, and listening to the sound track and watching the big screen. At Palazzo Cavour, athletes and their families meet and visit and watch the competition and congratulate each other, and go over the day's events. A home away from home, sans the Big Hype, but full of excitement, camaraderie. Four computers and internet that works and newspapers from home and CBC television on, all day on the big screen. Wine and coffee and snacks. A lot of Canada red and family members wearing silly hats. A feeling of welcome. As a family member of the only artist from Canada officially invited to exhibit at the Cultural Olympiad, I was recommended by the Console General, Margaret Huber. Even without the official badges around our necks, we are happy to hold up the flag for artists in Canada.

We waited in anticipation and then cheered Jeff Buttle into the room with the bronze around his neck. We toasted his performance and whistled for his medal and watched while the tv cameras shone the light on his very young face. His sister, Meagan, promised me she'd send me a photo. She looks just like her brother.



You have to go halfway around the world to meet people in your own locale and sure enough, we met Erin Simmons, a snowboarder (and drop-dead beauty from West Vancovuer) but more to the point, one of 16 Canadian athletes who qualified to go to the Olympics and compete to advance to the semi-finals. In the end, sixteen from around the world qualified. Erin was number 17. She was understandably disappointed, especially since she's been going to all the competitions with the same group she's been boarding around with since forever, and gets the better of them as often as they do of her. But yesterday there was snow, she had the wrong board and it slowed her down enough to put her just this side of being a contender. She's an athlete, no excuses, but it makes you think about how only one person wins the gold and 99% of the others who try -- don't. We can't follow them all, but it's pretty amazing to be here in the first place, isn't it? All that effort and in a couple of seconds, it's all over? Jeff Buttle had a longer moment on the ice and his sport was mixed with art. He's going to stretch out his win with all the related glory that comes to him, but it's all about his few moments of grace and skill.
An achievement which thanks to technology, we can watch again and again, but a few moments in time, which have evaporated, just like ice on a hot day. Here’s the record going again, around and around, but it seems to be just like . . . the paintings! The ice. Here, today. Bold and bright and beautiful right now.

And tomorrow? The Canadians against the Swedes in women's hockey! For the gold! Okay, we're going out tonite, we'll stand with the hordes and check ourselves through security just to get tickets to that!

Feb 16, 2006 - 10 PM

Check it out! http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/olympics/2006/writers/02/15/olympic.blog.6/index.html



The Sports Illustrated guys came through! The article is called: "Taking it to the Streets, Defending national pride in a game of ball hockey." A play-by-play on THEIR "The Olympic Blog" for Wednesday, Feb 15th, 10:41 local, Day Six. Go there! The writer's name is Richard Deitsch. Only place we differ is: the age of the little players, they're much smaller than nine, and they were half our team, a significant handicap. Turns out these guys have played before!

A tardy photo from Tanya and Sam Charles of Shaw TV from our interview the other day. Got an email today: it airs Friday. Look at that Canada red!



And back home, a fund raising "Ciao from the Sunshine Coast" grace a la Spirit of BC committee. I know Cindy Buis and Marje Umezuki, and Bonnie Nichols tells me that in the picture are also Judy Osiowy, Muyuki Shinkal, Janice Edmonds, Chris Klinenberg and Rachel Lawrence holding the Spirit of BC sign. Missing is Mardi Umezuki who was late for the shot; all stand next to her art "Pearfection". All contributed their artwork to the event. Molte grazie da Torino!



TODAY we took down the Vancouver 2010 logo in ice at BC Canada House. There's a time for everything.

Everyone's wearing Canada red. Finally we had the day to ourselves and then Jeff materialized from his travels to collect his bags. We walked the streets of Citta di Torino, thick with mobs of people to BC Canada House to maintain the Vancouver 2010 logo. The Canadian Curling team sat round the fireplace and Jeff snapped a shot. Here are Shannon Kleibrink and Amy Nixon, who gave me a wrist band for solidarity. I tried to sound in the know, saying my best friend was Sandra Schmirler's cousin, but they had their eyes on their own prize.



Handprints in the ice all around the logo, and the droves who stream past it want to have their photo taken with the Canadian Mountie. It's become quite an interactive focus for the house.



Today the Canadians are triumphant with LeBlanc Boucher a bronze medalist in short track. Yesterday skookum women's hockey, Canada vs The Swedes. A fast game, the Swedes hardly had the puck at all. We haven't seen much, other than that, sans tele. The Olympics is really a great big slick television show. HBC is ripping up with sales of their outfits ... everyone is wearing something with Canada written on it.



On Valentine's Day we walked into four restaurants with that hungry look on our faces. Each one the same question: Prenotazione? Then the shaking of the heads and out we go. It's not as simple as it used to be, we had this city to ourselves before the games began. Here is some kind of medals event in the piazza. Mobbed.



Since I don't have my camera, all my shots come from others, cell phones or digital cameras. I give them my email address and keep reminding them of their promise to send! Yesterday we played ball hockey with four guys from Sports Illustrated. They kept trying to morph me onto their team, at one point one guy said, "Where were you born?" Texas, I said, but I'm on Gordie's team. Then: this guy is really called Gordie? Pretty soon they could tell he's played a game or two in his life, and we made some goals together. They snapped our photo at the end and said it will be on the Sports Illustrated Olympics blog -- 15 million people. We'll just SEE if they send me the photo! By the way, they were pretty decent players for never having played ball hockey before??? Am I being too gullible? They're from Sports Illustrated!!! We had the 5 and 6 year old Italian players on our team and the score ended up being pretty even. Then we saw Margaret Huber, Console General from Milan crossing the piazza and we went out for a glass of wine together. She's preparing for the Governor General's visit.



Saw Museo Egizio (The Egyptian Museum) and what stayed with me were the large stone statues in the basement room, lit from above, peaceful, graceful . . as if meditating. The well-preserved remains of a person curled up in the fetal position from thousands of years ago. Even without the energy which sustained him, looked comfortable and familiar . . . and somehow still sleeping. How we wonder about those who came before us, who breathed, made love, got sick, dressed up, went shopping, cheirshed their children, fought and cried and laughed. Like the ice paintings in the chiesa, they have their moment. Now we are the ones who are alive.

How things change in a day. My webmistress (whom I have yet to introduce and thank on this blog) has bought a restaurant in Gibsons! My soccer team, the Wild, has won its first game! A beloved member of our artistic community in Roberts Creek is gravely ill. The cubs have gone to Venice. Our last man on the crew, Patrick, is sick enough today to finally call a doctor. One bank of lights are out in the church.

It’s Valentine’s Day, we are again up early for an interview at the forte with another journalist, Samuel Charles of Shaw Cable Network. At an empty Cafe des forcats. Yesterday it was Eva Maria from ORF, Austrian television and her crew.



Today, Ashleigh was filmed by a crew from NBC about the fortezza, but they didn't think our link to the Olympics was strong enough to mention. Hmmm. It's Tuesday and you have to ask: Dove sono i touristi? Sestriere! Pragelato! Si! Fenestrelle? Noooh. Here are some photos from yesterday’s interview with ORF. They got some good shots, were funny and wonderful.



So, thank you Kera McHugh. For being at the other end of the email where I ask you to post the “Who’s Who”, to upload high rez photos of the exhibit for the media page, to do whatever is required to keep us current. For reading my IN CAPITALS emails without taking offense. Good luck with the Wild Blueberry Bakery in Gibsons!

I look at my book for tomorrow: there is nothing pencilled in! Maybe we can sleep in. I want to be somewhere warm.

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