December 31, 2005
Last night it was all romance and charm, a festival of lights, which began in Mentoulles and ended up in Fenestrelle around a huge bonfire and mulled wine after dark. Children carrying flares, emerging from the snowy forest, everyone holding a light in the darkness -- for peace. I was reminded of the boat ritual at the Roberts Creek pier every New Year’s afternoon, where we build a boat to set out on the water, lit with a candle and watch our new year wishes go out with the waves.

Art has been waiting for a delivery: the essential stuff of finishing up the plates so we can begin work. Mark sent it FEDEX from Victoria and paid $800 for a guarantee of a three day delivery sometime last week. Sylvia said: Wednesday Milan called, package had arrived there. Thursday: they couldn’t find the place. Art sits patiently, can’t locate Mark back home for the tracking number.

Well, FEDEX has disappointed us before, a package to England for a screening of our film. The film was to arrive a week in advance, but didn’t even arrive in time for the screening. They couldn’t find the place! I mean, really, WE found the Mezouin Blancho and we can’t even speak Italian!



JC, Peter and Art went to Mentoulles post office this morning and through hand gesturing and drawing, got a phone number for a local courier who probably delivers for FEDEX in Italy. Problem: once we call, everything in Italian! We enlisted Sylvia; she was put on hold -- for 20 minutes! She eventually bailed, disgusted, needing to get her cooking done. We are missing a tracking number. Unless we get that package there will be no ice to make come Jan 2nd.

Tonite is the big New Year’s Eve dinner at the Mezouin. Everyone will be stuffed. Eric arrived from Calgary, so now there are cinque Galli, un cavallo (one horse, Peter) and un gatto (me).

December 28, 2005
I’m sick today with a cold/flu, headachy, no energy, sore throat. They’ve convinced me to stay here and feed the fire while they go to Assissi.

Dec 29, 2005
Apparently Assisi is impressive. I’ve missed it, still feeling rotten. Jaz took some photos. What a place to be a Catholic. I read today that Italy is the tourist capital of the world; for every two Italians, there is one visitor.

December 27, 2005. San Domino, outside Marketala, part of Cortona.

JC and Peter have arrived from Terentola train station, and their arms are full of wood from outside, it’s suddenly a rumble of activity and voices. There aren’t enough blankets. Peter’s already been in the attic looking .The tactic is: to heat the room they will be sleeping in. Thankfully it’s warmer today. The sun was out and I opened the kitchen window for a while. Peter says the house is a thousand years old. I think it used to be a church! We have been warned not to reach into the woodpile or other dark spaces lest we encounter scorpions, mice or vipers (which we have been warned, are poisonous) and mosquitos!



Yesterday we went to Siena and were duly tourists, gaping and studying the duomo, which has striped columns in black and white marble, and a shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I remembered every word of the prayer, which was written out on holy cards.

There are little heart shaped relics on the wall, with little booties attached and some bicycle and motorcycle helmets, to mark the passing of lives ended too soon. Every inch of the church is covered with some sort of art: sculpture, painting, marble mosaics in the floor. What a day to have been born an artist, when these churches were made!



Now everyone's in the kitchen re-living the trauma of the container being unloaded, which I am afraid, I didn’t capture here in earlier posts. The narrow road up to the fort, the huge cargo, the lack of personnel (due to our site contractor guy quitting at the last moment), the wind, the weight of the steel substructure, the forklift we ended up with; the passing truck which was recruited into the effort with euros and Renato’s facility with the local dialect. The howling wind, the stone cold church. Gord was very cool throughout all this, but I know he was very, very happy when the equipment was safely loaded into the church.

Christmas Day, 2005 - Backseat of the car again, this time rumbling around streets of Cortona towards Mercatala, stone walls surrounding us on either side, now open fields, now vineyards, now houses clustered together in that red stucco, red tile roof Tuscany way. We spent Christmas Eve in the old town of Cortona, a city on top of a hill, its streets steep and cobbled. It’s raining, not much like Christmas. A walk this morning up the outside of the citta, towards Chiesa Margherita, a convent at the top and stunning views of the gentle valley.

We walked down deserted streets, closed in by stone walls and shuttered windows, and as we passed, heard the clinking of silverware and the excited voices of people sharing Christmas feast. Now we have to face the cold house which has been given to us for this leg of our journey. We have to figure out how to heat it; we fear that no one has gotten us wood as promised earlier, that nothing has been done to prepare for us, but we hope we’re wrong. No electric heat in the house, but an airtight stove in the living room just off the kitchen, and some kind of propane tank heater in the bathroom. When we went into the house yesterday, it was colder inside than outside; I could see my breath before me and my fingers were cold even with gloves on.



9:40 pm. We’ve taken off our gloves and jackets now and sit with feet up, in a room mostly lit by candles. Gord has made a fire andwe’ve been feeding it since about 3:45 pm. Jaz went downstairs under the house and fetched some dry wood and chopped it with a hatchet. I walked next door, the family was curious seeing us arrive and so I asked them to help us, as I am nervous around gas. “Voi potete dare auito ... cominciare il stufa?” Not sure how correct that was, had to look up “start” and “light” but in the end decided on cominciare as the verb. They buzzed back and forth and decided the younger man Franco and his wife Patricia (Patrizia) would show us how to turn the knobs and strike the match. A lot of mutual delight going around, they don’t speak a word of English or French. We invited them over for vino rosso, and they said, “Domani”. With French I can speak without forethought, but want to learn how to say a thing correctly or idiomatically; I’m at such a basic stage with this language I am simply grateful to communicate!

Wonderful to finally fix something in our own kitchen! The stone house with stucco walls, wood beams and stone fireplaces is owned by Jamie, a friend of Peter B who lives in Vancouver. She and her husband have renovated it into a livable, charming space: everything old, full of the past but freshened and Mediterranean. Yesterday, before “Messe a Mezzanotte”, before the stores closed in Cortona for Christmas at 7:30, we went into the shops, down narrow streets, choosing salamis and cheeses and wine for our Christmas meal. Listening to “Auguri” and “Buona Natale” and watching the townspeople gather and greet each other as they probably have in this fortress town for centuries on Christmas Eve. Today our gift to each other was this house, just us together, and this meal: hand made pasta, a bolognese sauce with shaved parmesan, “verdure cruda” with balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, a bottle of vino russo, a sharp, hard cheese, fried sausage, tangerines, chocolates from Sergio, biscotti. At an old wood table in front of the fire, rain slashing the windows.

Here is our Christmas Eve angel. We're in Cortona, after driving without breakfast since Arezzo. We had missed “prima colazione” at the hotel, but were determined to find this house with no address and no steet name. Just a picture map. Every stone house looking very very similar, clustered with a few other dwellings, fields stretching around in the most Tuscan charming way. A shrine marked our gravel path, and it was a ‘first driveway’. We found the house, walked inside, shivering, and left to have lunch. Gord saw signs for a place up by the castle, and we began on this path -- turns out it was a 2 kilometre road barely wide enough for our compact car which wound into the hills treacherously, only to find a beautiful resort in the middle of nowhere, closed up tight as a drum.

When we finally arrived at Cortona, it was so late, we’d missed lunch! I peeked into the window of a wine shop with a table down the middle; a woman sat at the table talking loudly in French; I could tell it was her second language. The meal was delightful; it wasn’t really a restaurant, just a wine shop which also sells pasta and sauces and he poured wine, fixed us a salad and pasta. It was our first meal of the day. I could tell Gord was at the end of his rope, it was Christmas Eve, and we just wanted to relax. Laura is her name, she's a travel agent, and she took care of us on Christmas Eve, so we could stay here, and go to midnight mass.

Dec 22, 2005 10:30 AM Mentoulles

“I gatti volano! “ The cats are flying.
Packing our bags to the sound of Rolling Stones blasting from itunes on my laptop. We’re leaving today for Cortona where we will spend Christmas. Art is staying on until January 5th, longer than planned. He wants to see the system running, just to make sure. A friend of Peter B, our crew captain, has a house in the Tuscan countryside, and she’s giving it to us for the holidays. We’ll be able to cook our own meals, coffee, settle in, save a bit of money. We’re coming back with a full car: Peter and JC and their luggage and us, Tre Galli, named after the restaurant in Torino, where the waitress was really cool.



It is hard to leave the skates behind,but Corotona is supposed to be warmer, no outdoor ice. I’ve got to get some exercise! In Sestriere we played squash. Well not exactly played. The air is so thin up there, it’s quite a struggle to breathe! But if we keep going up the mountain and hitting the ball around, eventually our blood will be more oxygen rich. After all, we’re coming from sea level. We practiced our Italian with some young wait persons in Sestriere. They love the effort!



Last night we had our last supper at Mezouin Blancho before Christmas. I brought out one of the ice candle forms that Nancy got, and gave it to Sylvia. Then I handed out a scarf and a hat to Art’s girls, with the Ice Painting Project embroidery, plus a cassette tape of Stories for A Winter Solstice. Little Allessandra sat on the steps peeking out, so we gave one to her and then sang “We wish you a merry Christmas” to the family. I think they like us because at every meal, I bring out the yellow flash cards, and Jaz asks how we can say this, or that in Italian. Sara and Christina have even learned a few words. Sylvia said most English-speaking people don’t even make an effort to learn Italian. They gave us a bottle of ganapy, a green liquer made from an herb which only grows in the Fenestrelle mountains. It doesn’t feel like Christmas at all.

Got the following email, and a comments from a bunch of people re: the article in the Vancouver Sun.

Hi Gordon,

I work at the CBC in Vancouver at Zed. We are working on a weekly
segment (Zed Index) in which we list 'What's cool in Canada'. We would
like to feature your work - with the upcoming Olympics in Turins - in
this list as well.

Thanks!
Renske Werner CBC - ZED



Dec 23rd. To Cortona!. But first, Carrera, the marble quarry where Michaelangelo ordered up his blank canvases. A quiet, haunting place out of James Bond. Steep, majestic mountains being ripped apart by machines. Deep pits carving up the mountain in square blocks. In the distance, over the hill, you could hear from time to time, enormous sounds of marble slabs falling down the hills. Obviously a tourist attraction, the place was deserted on December 23rd, two days before Christmas. Italian buildings I’ve been in from hotels to government buildings to cheap restaurants, each one has marble somewhere, the stairs, the floors, the counters, and of course the beautiful statues so lifelike they seem to breathe. We stood dwarfed beside smooth blocks of marble, walked up the hill past the vietato signs, watched workers, so small, so far down the gulley operate supersize green cranes to lift the blocks. Everything covered in the white dust. Gord and Jaz hopped into a sporty jeep with a complete stranger, albeit upbeat, who, though he only spoke Italian, offered to take them to the top of the hill, past the visitors forbidden sign. Then, they disappeared up the mountain, around the sharp corners on the narrow gravel roads, out of sight. Eerie, quiet and yet over the hill, the churning of machines, the loud, thunderous slides.



After a half hour of silence, crashing rock and no jeep, they both returned, exhilirated from their ride. “It was a good thing you didn’t go,” Jaz said. I don’t like those white knuckle rides on narrow gravel roads.

Just heard the time for the SPECIAL BROADCAST of “Sounds Like Canada”
featuring Pitture Sotto Zero at Fortezza di Fenestrelle!

Dec 26th 2005 at 11 AM in all time zones on CBC

Dec 21, 2005
Art and his girls, Sara and Christina, are busy at the fortezza, installing the substructure. It's shiny and beautiful. This particular system is apparently the first of its kind, specially designed by Art, a modular series of metal refrigeration plates. Large enough to make a small skating rink and it’s going in the floor of the chiesa.



Art seems to be constructing what should have been assembled in Victoria prior to shipping. Delayed in Korea on another gig, now he’s doing it bolt by bolt here in Fenestrelle. First the styrofoam, then the metal plates; Jaz and the girls put down the styrofoam, screwed the bolts & fittings, and today Art was cutting a hole in 30 metal pipes, and soldering them. He is completely unfazed by the challenges he’s faced with. Looking for acetylene or a particular fitting, unique in the world. He speaks probably two words of Italian, but he’s optimistic and determined and he’s been getting it done. Oh, he has stories!.



We’ve found an internet site in Sestriere, 20 kms from Fenestrelle. What is the urban myth here? Supposedly, “for security reasons” no one, foreigners especially, can to use their own computer anywhere in Sestriere. Everyday the police visit a place called “Flower Power” and copy the passport numbers of those who have used the filthy standard computer at the site. I saw them gathering around its door, even as I had discovered another access point, in the Grand Hotel Sestriere! Where no one asked for my passport! and where, for 8 euros an hour, I can sit with my own laptop and go anywhere the internet will take me.

Afternoon, Dec 16, 2005 THE CONTAINER ARRIVES



Fenestrelle at last! The container was due to arrive at noon, but we couldn’t get at it until after 2 pm for some reason. So we just “When in Italy . . .. “ and had lunch. Saw Jophile again in the kitchen of the Dragoni. Her heart’s been broken since we last saw her but she looks great and what a generous soul. She’s agreed to let me use her internet (she has dial-up) if I need to.

Now I’m sitting in the backseat of the car in the parking lot at the foot of the road as the winds rock the car. Gord and Jaz are up the mountain unloading equipment and supplies (huge refrigeration plates, plastic in a roll, styrofoam sheets, ice paints, my ice skates! hockey sticks, buckets, tools, etc) at the Fortezza in this unbelievable, gusty wind. Somewhat frightening when they were considering trucking the container up the narrow, winding road towards the fort (another road being repaired). They decided instead to unload it with a forklift at the bottom of the hill and then drive it up in a smaller truck. Luckily the winds were warmish, starting at 14 degrees when we arrived at noon. Now, though, with the sun down, it’s cooooold.



We ended up at the bottom of the hill, me and Michaelangelo ( truck driver of the container), holding our bodies against huge styrofoam sheets so they wouldn’t be whipped away by winds. On the mountain tops, you could see the wind whipping the snow off the edge and you had to really lean into it to stay standing.



Between gusts, I got to speak a little Italian, I can put a few words together, and handed out my business cards, asking the guys who were helping us load, “Voi avete venire alle inauguration?” Don’t know if I got the ‘at the’ in the proper agreement, but they understood what I meant. We were in somewhat of a bind for some time there after lunch, when the guys in the trucks fixing the road wouldn’t move aside to let our truck pass. But we had Renato, who speaks the local dialect, he actually charmed Mara into getting the guys to help! That and euros (cash only) go a long way.

No real solution to the lack of internet access, so when I do post these posts, they will be late.

Friday, December 16 - “GUARANTEED DELIVERY”

Paolo S calls to say we owe another 126 euros because the bill was filled out wrong. Agggh!
They’re all one, big family here; they understand the lay of the land. We have stumbled on the scene. Everyone else knows their lines. We don’t have a speaking part, we just reach into our pockets. I study my Italian. We have to make an effort to learn the language.

Outside the city on our way to Fenestrelle at last, frost on the guardrails, in the tendrils of grass, frosting tree tops and branches delicately. Fog. Past the hunting lodge palace built by the Savoys in their heyday. A feeling of relaxation settles over us in the car as we pull out of the city, all bundled up with our scarves still untied and our baggage piled up in the backseat, new snow boots and a lovely box of cake called Galup. It’s everywhere, this little gold and white box with a ribbon on top, lining the shelves of all the fine cafes and grungy supermarkets, and it’s what’s given out to clients and friends at Christmas. Mara gave this box to Gord when he went to the fort, plus a bag of the most festive-looking pastel-colored, shiny confections in a sparkly bag. Chocolates!



Gord has been in gruff mode these past few days, alternating between a grumpy determination and his palpable joy at being surrounded by all things Italian. You have to anticipate this impatience or you will lose things as you’re pressured to go out the door. So on the one hand we have barking orders and an abrupt end to breakfast, “I’m going,” slam, and on the other an acceptance of the uncontrollable and a genuine appreciation of Piemontese cuisine. But he’s got a point, if, after all this work and hustle and expense and time, if the container doesn’t arrive at the fort, if we can’t get the stuff unloaded and into the chiesa, there IS no installation.

Wednesday, Dec 14 - No news. News! Another delay.

That cheerful ring ding! sound of the cell phone calling attention to itself in my backpack. First Renato. No news of the container. Then Paolo S. News! There are many, many containers waiting to be unloaded at the dock, TOROC has many there -- who will be first? Everything is just a rumor. Across town to Sergios again for our internt fix. Le Petit Hotel: very decent, renovated, a large bathroom, shiny tile floors, marble counters. I’m having a hard time remembering how to pronounce #216 due cento dicassette. Jaz’s phrase guidebook is so handy, he’s often got his face in it, afterwards mumbling as he tries to pronounce the Italian. We wander into a few piazzas, always having to stumble around orange fences where things are being fixed.



Thurs, Dec 15th - JUVENTIS, THE RIVER PO, WE WAIT.

Pinzatriecchies of the world, unite! This morning you are all staplers! I’m obsessing on this word, as I have to use it everytime I pay a bill. (Pin-za-TREE-chee) Nothing is finished here, all the squares and piazzas are dug up, bricks and sand surrounded by orange plastic fences. You wonder if they know the Olympics are coming. Everything is a mess, just like the house fifteen minutes before the guests arrive for the party. They’re not just vacuuming here in Torino, preparing for the world, they’re BUILDING THE HOUSE.

Today Jaz has a solo adventure: a couple of impressive chiesas, walks along the Po River, young girls, a photo of a famous soccer star on the Juventis team as he exits a building in a crowd of fans. We decide to go ice skating at the TOROC house in the city center, but they are making a logo in ice. Accidenti! (ah-chee-DEN-tee) Darn it!



This will be our third day, waiting for the shipping container to be released.What’s reality here? It’s all stories. Today’s story is “guaranteed delivery” tomorrow, before noon. But because of the delay, the forklift guy who agreed to unload it at Fenestrelle is refusing to do the job. He was very expensive, so I don’t really understand his indignation. Whatever the reason, we’re totally at the mercy of these guys and a system of personal commerce we certainly don’t understand.

EXHIBITION HOCKEY Tuesday December 13, 2005

Left Hotel Dogana Vecchia, a wonderful old place with marble floors and high ceilings and hallways which go dark if you don’t walk fast enough and push the glowing button on the wall. A construction truck parked with flashing lights in the road blocked our exit, causing a fifteen minute delay as others tried to FIND the driver?? Driving to Sergio’s across town, (our bags were finally delivered there), we accidentally drove to a women’s prison, but our cell phone worked (thank you Roadpost!) we arrived on time for lunch at a an authentic trattoria; dopo/apres, the vital email and internet connection at Avila Studios. Paolo F phoned with tickets for the Italia/Canada Supermatch at Palasport Olimpico - Torino. At the press window, tickets in an envelope for us! The stadium brand-spanking new and not quite completed either!



We sat next to a group of Canadians here on a work visa, great to see the little red and white maple leaf flag waving in a baby’s hand. Very fast game! The Italians played agressively, a few penalties and power plays, but in the end goalee Corey Hirsch shut them out with only one goal to our 2. The stadium was so bright, there were 40 cheerleaders dancing around in unison in the stands, all young, all thin, all beaming. A Canadian flag on the back of someone across the stadium ran up the stairs as Brandon Reid scored; but when Italians got their goal massive cheering, stomping and thumping. It had been so long since I’d been to a live game, and its visceral appeal came back as I re-acquainted myself with the collective gasp. Gord said Sit down! In Europe when you whistle it’s like a boo!We were definitely outnumbered. Mike, an ex-pat in Italy took our photo with the team in the background. Now if he would only send it!

December 12, 2005

Monday morning. A line up to the receptionist at TOROC (Turin Olympic Committee), wall to wall puffy coats and scarves and we hear English spoken, must be the VANOC contingent but I don’t recognize anyone. Paolo F arrives to escort us upstairs and we meet familiar faces again: Giorgetta, Allessandro, Paolo S and Ray. All figure in the success (or failure!) of our project in various ways. I present Giorgetta our invitation and she lights up seeing it, we pass muster with the proper logos and their placement. Ray is brokering our insurance, Paolo S the arrival of the shipping container and customs. Travellers checks, I say, and the woman in accounting frowns, shakes her head, says, “No” in that firm Italian way which means simpply, “fact”. Non. Cash. Hmmm. Paolo points down the street a few blocks and we are booted unceremoniously into the cold. An extra half our of our time, a 20 dollar fee to cash them and we arrive to pay for insurance, only to find that everyone has gone out for lunch!



The bad news is: high winds in Genoa, and there’s no telling when the container will be unloaded. Gord departs for Fenestrelle for his production meeting at 3 pm, and I stay on for a press meeting with Barbara at 5:15. Jaz and I walk the streets of Torino, our faces peering into a street map. We find Piero’s recommended “Barista et Milano”, (our rendez vous location for the press meeting), an elegant bar which Gord and I visited our first time in Torino. It’s closed, and then darkness of dusk descends on the city. We’re in the Piazza di Castello, whose shops are lit, designed for Christmas. My cell phone rings, it’s Barbara.

Dec 11, 2005

Who knows how many hours, how many airports later? If it’s Malpensa, your bags must be delayed. It’s just the rule, coming from Canada. We recognize the interior of the baggage claim right away, as the last time we were here, we spent hours waiting for our bags, only to go away empty handed. Three bags did make it to Italy, two of them the logo forms, and the other the one stuffed with cleats, so the rule is: always pack a variety of things in all your luggage, in case you don’t get them all out of baggage claim.

Once we land, it begins all over again: fumbling through airport sleeplessness; waking up to rent the car at 3 AM, west coast body-clock time. Then, the obligatory struggle with exhaustion, Italian drivers and a map with few street names. We find our way to The Belvedere, a good family hotel. Piera recognizes us from our last trip and I ask: come va la famiglia? I am happy to know gramma is still at it, the food here is excellent: La Nonna fa la cucina. Tomorrow, the details that hold this project together -- TOROC, a press interview, the streets of Torino. “Crepi il lupo”

Frankfurt at dawn. . . December 10, 2005



The alarm went off at ten minutes to six, but the skates didn’t work out. We had to toss them at security when the x-ray noticed the blade. We’d stayed too long at breakfast! The flight was full and they had taken our bags off the plane already. The loudspeakers were repeating “Halloran, please report to gate . . .” We only noticed after a conversation about our options on the skates: a locker at $1 a day, but Gord and now the flight attendant were yanking on Jaz’s arm, “leave the skates!” and then, we ran. I had to wear my helmet on my head because: only 2 hands. An extra checked bag would have been $175! We tried not to look guilty passing the rows of seated faces. Here we go!



This is travel: The whole day, inside a plane or an airport waiting room, dragging bags and buckling seatbelts, and you don’t want to think about how high up you are, or how many degrees below zero the temperature outside the window. But even with the cheapest tickets, you get a steaming white towel prior to the meal on Air Canada. Just to wash your hands. Nice touch, and complimentary wine with dinner. These little civilized things - free of charge - give you the vague feeling that the world still holds together on “la politesse”. Waiting in a hallway between flights, Jaz meets a young, beautiful Italian woman who speaks halting English while we try our limited Italian vocabulary.

December 9, 2005 - “In boca al lupo”

No chance even, to say goodbye to the cats. For a minute there, the sun came in the window and we could see the dust we were leaving behind. Stuffing ice cleats and puffy jackets into suitcases, plugging in our cell phones to charge them (an adventure, as we’ve never successfully owned cell phones, and not sure they are even going to work). Nancy thankfully arrived then went out to pick up the scarves and teuks. A blur of details, turn off the computer, towels into the wash machine. I grabbed Jaz’s hockey skates, slammed the front door, hugged Nancy goodbye and backed out the drive with Donna Schmirler, our chief fan, friend, support. The bank, the last quiche at Truffles, the ferry.

Three of us in bumper to bumper Friday afternoon traffic and then we’re at CBC one minute to go. “Michaelangelo would approve,” said the voice of Kathering Gretzinger into the mic. Me and Donna and Rosemary, listening in the dark behind the window. Gord seemed so close, his voice deep and relaxed. Ten minutes into his pre-Italy interview and I’m trying to hide my tears, hearing things like "how deeply involved our psyche is with ice" and stuff about the impermanence of ice resembling a sand painting, but it was the story of the ice maker in Calgary that got me. Katherine had asked, “Dealing with the Zamboni drivers -- did it take some convincing?” IN a word, yes. "In the beginning when you’re making the painting, the ice makers are skeptical," he said, talking of the Christmastime painting at the Calgary Olympic Plaza. "They work hard and take their jobs seriously, and an artist messing with their ice can be troublesome." But after a few days of Gord’s hard work on the Northern Lights painting, visible from all the office towers surrounding the square, this guy was asking what he could do to help, and Gord was giving him the spray nozzle with the red paint and after a few days the guy says to Gord, “I used to make cartoons when I was younger. And now, I’m going back to night school and taking drawing again..” That kind of thing gets to me. That moment, the ‘aha’ the heart opening up, the world getting bigger and more full of wonder.

Printers. Picked up the invitations. Then onto Granville Island to pick up the pink boxes from backstage at The Arts Club Theatre, where JC had made the forms for the Vancouver 2010 logo. Next door to Peter Braune’s frog-filled studio, New Leaf (you just have to go there to understand), we picked up Jaz at his apartment and headed towards the airport for our hotel. All of us feeling the excitement of being at the beginning of a big adventure.

Ever since I’ve known him, my husband has loved everything Italian: pasta, Italian movies, That’s Amore, Italian art, design, the passionate expressive nature of the Italians, Italy, cappuccinos. (He also loves playing sports. He loves solving things, he loves art. He loves me, he loves his family. And one more thing, Chai Tea.)

So now we find ourselves going to Italy, his favorite place in the world! Because of an invitation he received from the Turin Olympic Committee to, gasp, represent Canada, at the Cultural Olympiad with an art form he invented. And although I’ve been with him every step of the way, now that we’re ready to pack our suitcases, I’m wondering: how does someone DO that? Put all those things that you love together, fulfill a dream like that?

Okay, maybe he never said “It’s my dream to go to the Cultural Olympiad of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games” in Italy. But now that we’re almost out the door, I realize it is his dream. He dreamed it up, and through the force of his wanting and imagining, and his personal magnetism and like-able ness, he has brought me and everyone else in his radius, along with his dream. (I had no small part in it, I want you to know, it was me and Anna Banana who wrote up the budget and applications to attract the cultural sponsor funding which came through in the end. It was me who said, “I think we should concentrate on this opportunity” three or four years ago, when we’d run completely out of money and had to reinvent ourselves with some new project. It was me who wrote the press releases, typed up the proposals, made the presentations, spent hours poring over just the right word in the sentence. Me who picked up the phone and made the cold calls.).

Fine, that’s enough. I can’t take all the credit. Whatever. He did the graphics, he edited the promotional videos, that had to be part of it. I’ll admit it. He was a force in his own success. And oh, by the way, the underlying thing which he worked out from crazy idea to fruition -- his paintings -- they’re stunning. They’re unusual. You have to acknowledge their quality and their sweeping inspiration, you can’t get better than the Canadian winter landscape for raw provocation. But still. How exactly did it all come together, now that it’s here? We went from: “He does what?” to “I just saw your picture there with Avril Lavigne in Maclean’s Magazine.”

I remember Sam, (a hockey buddy on Gord’s Rusty Crank team) just laughing at me. I was telling him about The Ice Painting Challenge. It was the early days of hoping he’d get the invitation. The people we were waiting to hear from in Italy were in jail, we had some waiting to do while the government changed and everyone had their holiday. We had to dream up stuff to keep us in the game, and The Ice Painting Challenge was the first thing we landed on, a community enhancer, mixing art and sport. It was just the beginning. I had gone to Sam for help, for moral support, we needed a team to sign up, to make an ice painting. And Sam laughed. He didn’t stop, his eyes wrinkled up mischievously and he looked at me through his robust laughter and said “Tell me, just how are we going to explain this to the guys?” As if I had any idea. And you know what? Today Gord played hockey with them, his last game before Italy, and he came home with a fat envelope which they’d pressed into his hands in the locker room. At the doorway to our mortgaged and paid down and re-mortgaged home, he opened it: a card from The Cranks with $200 in it! For Gordie, their teammate. Probably Johnnie was behind that, Big John and Franca, his Italian wife, who has been helping me translate from Italian, so she’s seen some of the intrigues and complications first hand. All the weird things that have happened with this project, which rock you off your belief in the goodness of human beings, were all wiped away with that one gesture. I just broke down right there in the doorway and hugged him.

People can be really great, really generous and open hearted. Sometimes I think we’re all just looking for that chance to connect with the best in ourselves. Wow.

A plane to Milan

There’s not one day goes by I don’t think about why we’re here. The mystery of it all. That we are conscious now, and one day, we won’t be.

Not one day I don’t think about whom I loved in my life and who died anyway. My mother. My Aunt Peg. My grandmother whom I was named after but whom I never knew, and the other two whom I loved. My own Dad, in the end a frail, old man who knew his days were numbered, but kept hoping anyway, until he went “downhill very fast”. My cat, Sharky. Friends. David. Pete Regas. Locals. Hahle Gerow, a sixty-something woman with red hair whose beautiful voice lives on in our film; she died of a heart attack just the other night. Shook us all up, even though we said interiorly, "she smoked", as if to explain why. And Ray, an eccentric artist with long white hair who rode a bicycle and wore black tights. Ray who made the sculpture at the Roberts Creek pier, a guy with a smile in his eyes, the smile of someone who sees things and has a moment to think about them; Ray Jenkins flew off the windshield of a car across from the golf course one afternoon when the fog was so thick it made everyone cold; Ray landed on the asphalt and he lay there, lifeless, while they directed traffic around him.

There was a time, a fair distance ago, when everyone in my deleriously young circle of friends was getting married, or going to someone’s wedding, and the air was filled with glamour and expectation. In those days you could look at a graduate with a clever turn of phrase and a bit of eye-sparkle and wonder if she’d grow up to become President or win The Academy Award. That was how much possibility was in front of everyone. And then, there was the time when everyone was either going to the gym with Jane Fonda or having babies and getting fat. And then, it seemed like there was a time when people just a few years older than me were somehow not able to stay alive. Cancer mostly, although my cousin died of high blood pressure; and Pete, who was only 42, who smoked too much and lived a very stressful life, Pete died sitting in his easy chair after a day of driving through Chicago. His son found him, on the way back from the bathroom in the middle of the night. He climbed back in bed with his mama and said, “Daddy’s cold.”

So now, I see the gaps in my life where these people used to be. That’s where I am, wondering what he thought, or what she might have said, or if I could have been kinder.

Francine had to shoot a deer because some desperate creature had eaten it alive and I know I could wonder endlessly about this, but we're going to Italy on Saturday. Wake up girl, the plane's going to take off!

Welcome to Paintings Below Zero - on the road.
We're off to Italy on Saturday... you can check in here to find out what's up, see pics, leave us messages, etc.