ARTHOUSE

It took a while to get there. The roads out of Lethbridge this morning were nasty in only a way that they can be in southern Alberta. But we finally made it to Calgary. Tonight I played at the Alberta foundation for the Arts’ Art House. It’s right downtown in the Edison building, across from the old Palliser Hotel. Art house is essentially a gallery that houses some of the vast collection owned by the Alberta foundation for the arts. My wife, Jenny and my son Charlie joined me.

I was grateful to be surrounded by artists and patrons of the arts. But mostly I was grateful to be surrounded by Samantha Williams Chapelsky’s beautiful paintings. 

Samantha was my predecessor. She was the fifth Alberta artist in residence. Her project what’s the paint 100 plain air paintings around the province. 100!! and if you thought that was impressive she actually painted 106.

There was music there was food and there were speeches. 

I also played a couple songs. The first was a song for a winter’s night by Gordon Lightfoot. It seems so appropriate that we were all snug inside while a winter storm raged outside. The second song I sang was one of my own called only love. It’s not really a Christmas tune, but I suppose it check some of the boxes with its themes of looking out for each other caring for each other regardless of whether we agree or not and making sure that those in power no that if societies don’t care for each other, they are unhealthy.

I ended the night at the James Joyce pub with a couple pints of Guinness and my two favourite people.