The day after I finished high school, I went to work full time. Thirty Six years later, I find myself at the same job... the only one I've ever had. I've made lots of personal sacrifices for my business over the years and I recently made myself and my family a vow to slow down and take more personal time. Being the buisness owner and the one responsible for everything, I can't be away for big blocks of time. But at the very least I plan on taking lots of days off. Last year I tried to take every other Friday off but when the economy hit the skids I needed to focus on keeping the business going and finding work to keep my staff busy. Those days off never really materialized. This year I've made a fresh start and have begun taking every other Friday off.
This week is Spring Break and all the kids are out of school. The last four years I took a short vacation and the girls and I went away for spring break. In 2014 we drove down to Utah. In 2015 it was out to the Oregon coast. Last year it was out to Vancouver Island. This year we stayed home and did not make any travel plans. But I did take one day off in the middle of the week, something that is almost unheard of for me.
I thought the girls might want to do something together as a family. They all slept in on Wednesday morning and by about lunch time, somewhat exasperated, I told them that I was going out for a drive and whoever wanted to come along, could join me. As it turned out none of the girls came along. Margarit had some errands to run for her Mom and my three daughters were not interested. So, I set out for a drive by myself.
It was a warm and sunny day in Edmonton, after the morning fog burnt off. But, to the northeast of the city, in the direction I headed, the fog never really burnt off and the sun didn't really come out. It was pleasant, but not as nice as back home. The temperature did get up to about +5C, but it was a bit breezy and remained overcast and foggy all day.
I stopped in the village of Willingdon and took a shot of some of the abandoned stores on main street. After that, I continued on to the north east. I went to an old farm house that I had discovered last year and took some interior shots. The soft flat lighting is ideal for these sorts of images. There were some old clothes, left hanging on coat hooks, inside what used to be a farmhouse. This image will fit right in with the solo exhibition project that I am now working towards.
After finishing up here, I continued on to the north and the west and scouted around for a while. I came across a couple of other locations that are worth a return visit and made a note of the coordinates.
I made it back home in the evening, about 7:00PM. I took a little time in the evening to put together an exhibition proposal and sent it in to a local gallery. There is a deadline upcoming and I wanted to get this in before it was too late. I have had a lot of success with gallery exhibitions in the past few years, but those have always been group and duo projects. The Procession West project that I put together with my friend Rob has been very successful and is now finishing its run with our 10th exhibition coming up later this spring. We even turned down a few as they were just too far away, with no budget to ship the work, and we couldn't justify the costs. This is now the first time that I am attempting an exhibition proposal for a solo project. I will provide a more detailed outline of my project in a future blog post. I'm hopeful that this one meets with as much success as the last duo project has.
It really felt like a Saturday, so that evening Margarit and I went out to a local pub for a couple of drinks, some snacks and a chance to visit one on one without interuption from the girls. I soon came to realize that it was not a Saturday and so I had to plan to get back to work in the morning...
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