Something I didn't learn in law school

 

And there's a very good reason why.  I wasn't even shortlisted for law school.  (Who me?  I'm the one in the back of the room, flipping through the art books, with Daumier's lawyers as close as I came.)

 

 

Those papers on the floor have nothing to do with the familiar spread of scattered documents we've been seeing in the news for months now.   Instead, they're from a planning session for the first painting I've done since I frolicked off to summer camp.

 

The inspiration?  Early in the summer, I received an invitation to a milestone birthday dinner on the East Coast.  It was too far away for me to accept, but I was so intrigued by the party's location that I had to check further -- a restaurant called "Frolic and Detour."  When I searched on-line, I bumped into a dozen websites explaining the legal concept of "Frolic and Detour."  Quick!  I needed a consultation with my personal Lawyer-in-a-Pocket, who runs her own exclusive 5-star restaurant in Upper Manhattan…right out of her own kitchen!!

 

She confirmed, from her days practicing and teaching law, that this is indeed a legal concept.  I received a personal mini-seminar, but I'm making it easy for you -- just skim down to Paragraph 9 here which explains it very simply. 

 

Well! I really didn't need much more to get started as I envisioned a throng of folks, partly frolicking and partly detouring.

 

Carried away, I kept slapping on shapes and colours.

 

At about this stage, I remembered some of my old useful planning practices, but it was too late for anything but abandon.

 

Here's the final version, which would have benefited from a more considered approach.  For the record, it's titled "Frolic and Detour" (of course).  I first considered "Sublime to Ridiculous", but it was hard to spot anything "sublime."

 

Get it?

 

Oh, and I almost forgot.  The Lawyer-in-my-Pocket suggested that if I'm really keen on legal terminology, there are plenty of oddities to tackle. How about "incorporeal hereditaments"?   -- Not to be confused with the corporeal ones.  Is Halloween in the offing?

 

I rest my case with this:  It always takes a while to get back in the swing of things after summer vacation.  At least this gave me practice in remembering how to mix paint colours.

 

 

A soft spot for bricks

  

 

 

The hugely influential 20^th-century architect Mies van der Rohe summed it up: "L'architecture commence quand vous mettez en relation deux briques. C'est là que tout commence."  ("Architecture begins when you connect two bricks.  It's there that it all begins.")

 

Well, with that kind of accolade, I have a clear conscience about introducing the topic to my friends – who, it turns out, are bricks themselves!  Take a quick glean at the previous post, and you'll see why I was so excited when, after its publication, reports began arriving almost immediately from all parts of the world.  Well, my own world, anyway.

 

First, on the subject of the more-or-less local Clayburn bricks, I heard from friend P from a stone's (or brick's) throw away:-- As a schoolgirl in the 1950s, she'd lived in Abbotsford, BC, for a time – had classmates whose dads worked at the brick plant, the local industry on which the town depended in those days – much like my own childhood memories of the paper mill town along an upper New York State river.

 

Next I heard from my lifelong friend A – she of those early paper mill days.  She said simply, "I've always loved bricks!"  What a good thing – since for most of her adulthood she's lived in a brick building in New York City.

 

 

Here on the West Coast, friend M is conscientiously looking for old bricks as she rambles about Victoria, BC.  No Victorian bricks have crossed her path yet – but there was a thriving Victoria Brick Company once upon a time.   Meanwhile, she sends exciting reports about the deer that roam freely, even in residential neighbourhoods, and occasional new-to-both-of-us plants or flowers.

 

From the U.S. Midwest, friend G snapped a photo as we talked on the phone – and sent me a view of the beautiful wall in her basement, constructed by husband, son, and father-in-law.  What’s more, when her daughter was in school, she shared a ballet class with the daughter of the owner of – ta tum!  Belden Bricks, the largest brick manufacturer in Ohio. 

 

G's wall arrived within a week of another gift from Budapest – a photo of the brick wall-in-progress being reconstructed from 18^th/19^th century bricks by friend Y's son in the basement of his old building.  I'm counting on an unveiling when that wall is complete – and meanwhile, here's just one of the prized bricks that will be embedded in it:

 

And then – oh, my goodness – I received a photo tour of almost a dozen old buildings in Ottawa, of both brick and cut stone.  Thank you, friend J – I'll choose just one of them for now…but such beauties!

 

Meanwhile -- as I've revelled in brickworks and bamboo roots, I've also been attending Summer Camp.  Every summer, I like to take a month's break from usual studio routines and PLAY.  This year, I was eager again to get hands-on with modelling clay – and I had a vision of a whole bunch of small figures climbing around The Brick Factory garden plot.

 

Well.  It didn't exactly happen.  You saw my messy brick experiments in my previous post – NOT the kind of clay I needed for my figures.  So I tried another brand which was much too hard. Then I tried a third brand, which was way too dry.  (Perhaps all three were just old stock….?)

 

Nonetheless, I borrowed a concept from an innovative young Japanese artist whose exhibit I was able to see, thanks to P, at the Nikkei Cultural Centre.  From the thinnest possible slips of washi paper, Alexa Hatanaka creates things like – no, it's not a kimono – it's a hazmat suit!!  Take a look.

 

With hats off to Alexa (actually, she prefers to craft baseball caps), I've positioned my two Summer Campers in an assemblage titled:  "Sleepover at The Brick Factory – Wear Your Hazmat Suit."