Dear Uncle Bob, Sorry it's taken me so long to get in touch with you.......

In the gallery........

Lovely man is looking at the wall of canvas reproductions.

Image: The Wall O' Canvas Reproductions

Lovely Man: “These are just amazing! I love the colours. They are so whimsical! Do you have any of the originals left? “

Me: “No, I am sorry, they are all sold.”

Lovely Man: “Hmmmmm...............well, if I buy one of these reproductions does it include the canvas or is it just the picture?”

Me: “Um....well, the picture is actually printed on  the canvas. If you purchase one, you will get this canvas with the picture on it, on the wooden frame. Just like it is here on the wall.”

Lovely Man: “HMMM.....so you don’t sell them separately?”

Me: “Sell the canvas and the painting separately?  Ahhhh, no, we just sell the image on the canvas.”

Lovely Man: “Hmmm, that’s something you could think about doing in the future. I think a lot of people would really go for that!”

I am so feebuddled by now I don’t know my left foot from my left foot. One of us is oddviously terribly confused. Hundreds of people have been here and look at the pictures, point to the one they want and buy it. I put it in a bag, say Thank YOU! and Bob’s your uncle. I thought it was such a straight forward process. Maybe Bob isn’t your uncle at all! Maybe you only have a Great Aunt Lorraine who smokes a pipe and wears men’s shoes. How can you sell a painting that is not on a canvas? In little tiny jars with instructions from my brain? I keep thinking..............

Me: “Do you mean you’d like the picture on paper instead, without the wooden frame?”

Lovely Man: “Oh no, I love that they are ready to hang.....but if they were white, blank canvases then you could choose from the sample pictures and have that picture put on the canvas.”

Me: “Well, that is pretty much how it works, except they are already printed. You can choose any of these at all.”

I do a Vanna White sweep with my right arm and impress, even myself, with my colourful theatricality.

Lovely Man: “Yes, I guess that will work, too. I will take “ Aunt Bun’s Red Dress” and “Brigus Moon” in the large canvas.”

Me: “Ok! Super! I’ll  just wrap them up and put them in a bag for you.”

Pfewf! That was hard.

Maybe, just maybe, he has a long lost Uncle Bob that he  doesn’t know exists.

 Image: My Spidey Arm......I just finished the sky on a great, big 5 foot by 3 foot canvas of a stage in Tilting. I used fishing nets to paint the sky and ended up covered in spider man webs from them. SHE was not at all impressed with how this looked on the wood floor. Will post a photo of finished painting next time....must take bath!

No One Puts Baby in the Corner....

Image: "Mr. Peckford's Sky Was Still"  Change Islands Series #1  Cara Kansala
We just returned home from a lovely wee trip to Change Islands and Fogo. Sunny days and sandy beaches....seafood chowder at Nicole's on Fogo (the best ever since time began!) and a great opportunity to do a series of paintings.

In the gallery..........
(I am in the back  garden with Sophia tethered to a stake beside me)
Lovely Lady honks the horn.... HONK!
I leave Sophia munching on leaves and go to answer the door.
Lovely Lady and I are chatting about this and that and she is browsing here and there.
Suddenly, a gut-wrenching, blood-curdling cry escapes from the garden.

Sophia : "WHAAAAAAAAA!" "WHAAAAAAA!"
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Lovely Lady: "My dear, you needn't have left your baby out in the garden.....perhaps we should go and get her."

Sophia: "WHAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Me: "Oh no!" I say, "She is just being a drama queen. She'll stop in a few minutes."
Lovely Lady: "My dear, I don't want to put my oar in, but I think we should go and see to her...."

Sophia: "WHAAAAAA!"

Me: "Oh sure, she's fine. She's tied to a stake, so she can't go anywhere or hurt herself."

The Lovely Lady looks stunned, horrified and then shocked. She turns rice pudding white and I think she might faint.
Lovely Lady: "Yes, but the baby........."

I quickly realize that Lovely Lady thinks the cries coming from the garden are from a real baby. A human one with toes and ears and a nose. One that might even like rice pudding. I try not to giggle and wonder should I go on, or put her out of her misery.
Me: "OH MY! That isn't a baby crying. It is a goat. She just sounds like a real baby. Come to the window and see..."
Lovely Lady's colour returns to that of butterscotch pudding (she had a tan) and she laughed when she saw the goat.
Lovely Lady: "Did it take you long to train her to do that?"
Me: "To do what?"
Lovely Lady: "To cry like a baby?"

Image: "Sophia Loves Carrots" acrylic on canvas by Cara

Does Anyone Know the Number for The Better Business Burro?

For a cat, Blanche is quite the go-getter. She has spent the last few weeks digging trenches, cutting grass and painting signs for what she thought would be a home run hit....tours of her private meadow and what she calls her "Baymans Bayou". She was going to say "fare thee well" to her days of being a paw-per and   make her fortune charging the outdoor cats for guided tours. Pamphlets were made and distributed throughout the backyard. Excitement was in the air.

Unfortunately, Rose and Sophia got hold of one of the pamphlets and showed up at 2:30, just when Blanche was about to start her tour. To make matters worse, they refused to pay and said they'd spent all of their pin money on pins and raisins. Blanche was gutted. Rose also said that it was against the rules to exclude goats from the tour and she was going to have Sophie call the Better Business Burro......he'd know what to do.
Afraid for her reputation, Blanche agreed and off they trotted.

When they got to the fork in the road, Sophie and Rose butted heads about which way to go and refused to follow poor Blanche to the Bayou. Sophie opted for Lupin Lane and left Rose and Blanche in the dust. This was the worst tour since time began....and Blanche had hurt her foot when she stepped on the fork. She was done.
After a few hours, Blanche wandered into the backyard to see why none of the outdoor friends had shown up and found them all sleeping by the workshop, hopped up on cat grass and Temptations.

Never one to give up, Blanche decided to scrap her tour guide idea, has leased the green deck for a nominal fee and is now renting it out for naps and grooming at 30 minute intervals. It seems she really is quite the entrepemewer after all.
Update: Ed from the Better Business Burro HAS been in touch with Blanche about her tour guide policies and has recommended  that in future, she  provide her clients with tiny straw hats.

Sophia Found Her Thrills on Blueberry Hill....

Image: "The Blueberry House in the Tickle" Cara & Pam

On Sunday I took a break from the craziness of painting yaffles of things at once  and went blueberry picking with Sophia. Big mistake. HUGE. I only needed enough berries to make my MuMu's Finnish Blueberry Tart but Sophia picked much faster than I did. She picked enough to make 3, maybe even 4 pies. Yep.....4 pies and at least 6 dozen blueberry muffins. Sophia picked blueberries faster than Peter Piper ever picked pickled peppers.
By the time I realized that almost all of our berries blue were happily swimming around in the Bad Goats tummy it was too late. I only had enough picked to make half a tart. So half a tart I made.
ME: Would you like Finnish Tart?
HER: Well, are you done?
ME: What? Yes, it is cooked!
HER: OK!
She takes the whole pan and fork and heads off with it.
ME: What are you doing?
HER: You said I could finish the tart!
I quickly remove it from Her tart-loving grasp.
ME: Nice try.

Image: Sophia wouldn't say no to 5 million blueberries.

As Cool as a Cucumber....

 Image Above: "Rapunzel....er....Blanche! Let down your hair!"

Image Above: Private Commission by Cara Kansala , July 2012

The hottest, busiest summer since time began! Isn't it fabulous! This is the first time ever, since living in Newfoundland, that I have heard tourists complaining about the heat.
In the gallery....
Lovely Lady: Don't you have any air conditioner?
ME: No, we have the five giant windows in the gallery and the fan.That usually does the trick.
Lovely Lady: I am from Toronto. We all have air conditioners in Toronto. You know, you can get a small one that fits in your window. You could even paint it with flowers and things to match in here. Do you know how they work? You install them in the one window and just keep your other windows closed. You turn it on and the room gets very chilly...well, as chilly as you'd find comfortable.
ME: What a great idea!
Lovely Lady: Are you going to?
ME: Going to.......
Lovely Lady: Get an air conditioner and paint it?
ME: OH! Well, probably not. This extreme heat  isn't really the norm and I don't think we would use it very much. Also, we get quite a lovely breeze off the water most days.
Lovely Lady: My husband is the distributor for a company that sells commercial air conditioners. I'll give you his card....or I can take yours and he can contact you.
ME: Um......I really don't think we would ever need one really, but thank you SO much for thinking of us. We're really quite fine with the summer breeze and fresh air. I really like keeping the windows open.
Lovely Lady: Well, I'll just take your card.......

The gallery door flings open. In comes SHE.
SHE is hot mess.
HER: "OH MY GOSH, IT IS SO HOT!
ME:   .........don't say it, don't say it, don't say it!

HER: "WE NEED AN AIR CONDITIONER!"