-13 celsius, and a snow cloud hovers. 2 days to go, flurries! Mara came into the church with Romeo, the little dog she has everywhere, exclaiming, “Tutti sono belli.” and “meno male, piu freddo!” We’re all glad the temperature has gone down.



After two days away the work has taken on some kind of grandeur. Now the floor paintings look like huge icebergs in cold, expansive waters; the smaller paintings with more depth and variety are displayed on the walls. I knew it would be magnificent, but I couldn’t have imagined how.



And last night Gord said at the dinner table, “Remember the days when it was okay to break the ice?” Everyone laughed. “Well, those days are over!”

Jaz and JC sick all last night. Jeff too. JC says it’s because they just can’t get warm. Jaz under a pile of covers @ Meizoun, still not enough heat. Al hasn’t been here long enough to catch anything; Gord and Erik are the only two untouched so far. In the apartment where we are staying, the bathroom is too cold and the water barely tepid, Gord hasn’t had a shower for four days. We’re all just keeping our eyes on the prize.

Late into the night, Erik and I had a conversation about the temporal nature of the work. How Erik puts his best into a piece, and then it crumbles. Or Gord has it chopped up or broken to make another painting. Here is everyone crashing the work to create the huge slabs on the floor painting.



For Erik it was about looking into the work for what could be uncovered yet from it; about not being able to hold onto something beautiful that you have created; how the definition of art has changed with the experience of this work; not as something that you finish and put up on the wall, but something that still has more to reveal. For me, it’s a visceral experience of the evolving, ever-changing nature of everything, a statement to all of us about the striving for beauty and perfection, for riches and security, for fame and adulation, only to find that once achieved it has already changed. Even the Olympic medals are won in secondsl. Everything is in motion.

Then they spent the morning throwing out chunks of perfectly beautiful paintings onto the dust pile behind the stone wall.