Knickerknobs and Unicorns

So, I am kind of back into writing again, and now I'm actually getting paid for it. Yep. I've hit the big time! ;) I once got paid a $12 honorarium for a poem of mine that was published in an art gallery house magazine. It's all cool. I just like writing. So I do a weekly article for the Northern Sun News, and have been given the go-ahead to also put them on my (pretty darn inactive) blog site. These blogs are the articles that were written for the paper a month earlier, so some of you have already read these, and for some of you, it's all new. So, here we go!
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I abruptly accosted Lindsay on the frosty sidewalks of Red Lake a couple of weeks ago, determined that it was time I got back to writing;  to jump out of my little bubble world of security and publicly share my thoughts in the Northern Sun. Lindsey was game for some fresh perspectives and got the go-ahead from “the boss”.  We sat down to a superb Lakeview meal while we hashed out ideas for a weekly article based on Art. Gulp. I guess I’ve decided at 41and a half that my knicker-knobs are big enough and I can handle contrary reactions to what I may write. My poor husband is probably groaning as he reads this, internally pleading that the public goes easy on me to make life easier at home!

So I have been thinking, what is my reason for wanting to write for the community newspaper?  What do I have to offer that can’t be found through the wonderful world of Google? Probably not a whole heck of a lot but a humble opinion about what it’s like to be an artist, art teacher, and community art provider in the Red Lake district. (Are you Googling that right now?) Ultimately, what I’d like to share with you is a different perspective in a town that, at times, struggles with the concept of Art, and what it’s like to be one of those people that is perpetually pushing the importance of the Arts.

 I’d like to help  slay some of those astronomical myths that are connected to being an artist: that you’ve got to be a bit weird (if not completely freaky then at least having freak potential), you have to be left handed which is strictly correlated to being right brained, you have to have strange hair (preferably purple or cut into angles that defy logic, space and time), you have to really love unicorns who whisper magical ideas into your brain while you sleep at night (Oh wait, you don’t sleep because you’re an artist), you have to have zero tolerance for thoughts that pertain to mathematics or scientific inquiry, you have to understand what burns deeply in the soul of poets such as Leonard Cohen, you have to pick your meals based on what your favourite colour is that day, and blah, blah, blah. Sure, there are people that may genuinely meet all of those criteria and then some. That’s awesome! But most don’t, and are just like everyone else, trying to find a way to share their voice with the world. Art is not that cryptic, it’s not that scary, and it’s not that unattainable, and guess what? It’s also around you all of the time.

So I’m hoping that I can help explore that with you through these weekly articles. Together we can wrestle through concepts such as how to take advantage of technology in order to share our creativity globally, how to make our environments more visually aesthetic, how the history of our community is connected to the art history of the world, how to interpret conceptual art so that we don’t feel awkwardly uncomfortable when confronted by it, how to increase imaginative thought in our homes for our children and ourselves, how to become more actively involved with the Arts in our communities, and any other topic that you’d like me to pursue for you. Feel free to send me an email at funkydoodad@hotmail.com with any ideas for future articles and I’ll make sure to add it to my list of Arty goodies to ponder.

Now I think I should go and Google “knicker-knobs”…………..I’m curious.

(Originally written for and appeared in the Northern Sun News on April 213rd, 2014)