Linda teaches art: Art

A Gallery is a special room that's usually filled with Art.
An Exhibition is a show where Art stars in the leading part.
An Opening is a party where the artists get free food.
Friends and buyers mingle while the Art is being viewed.

A Gallery is a special place and special rules apply.
If this is Your First Gallery, these hints should get you by.

There's one thing I can't stress too much:

Don't Touch! Don't Touch! Don't Touch! Don't Touch!

Don't touch the drawings. Don't touch the paint.
Don't lean on a statue when you're feeling faint.
Even a fingerprint could be the start
Of biodegradable, throw-away Art.
Some Art is dangerous. Some Art can smudge.
I once saw a sculpture made all out of fudge*
But I didn't eat it, or lick it, or clutch
Because gallery rules say: Please Don't Touch!

Good question to ask: "What is this Art made with?"

Not-so-good question: "Can this Art be played with?"

However . . .

Artists are people who like to break rules
And sometimes their Art breaks rules too.
Some Art is for touching, or eating, or play.
Some Art needs input from you!
The Gallery guard, or the teacher, or guide
Will let you know what you may do.

Remember, the artist might be in the room
And overhear just what you say
So don't say "That's easy" or "Ugly" or "Lame"
Unless you're prepared for the fray!

What if your own art is part of the show?
Then people expect you to be there, you know.
When someone says "Wow!" or "I like it. It's good."
Say "Thank you" politely like everyone should.
Don't blush, or deny it: "You like that daub?
I worked in the dark on the run from the Mob.
The shading is awful. The picture lacks meaning.
If you think it's good then your glasses need cleaning!"

But bragging and strutting are equally gauche.
("Gauche" is a fancy French way to say "soc-
ially unacceptable, awkward, and rude.")
Be proud of your work, folks, but boasting is crude.

Art is shy. It doesn't like to have its picture taken.
Art's a sleeping dragon that you don't want to awaken.
Okay, I made that up. I lied. The truth is: Camera flash
Makes pictures slowly fade away and then they're worth less cash!

You'll know you've done well when people say, impressed,
"Is this really Your First Gallery? I never would have guessed!"

* Gnaw, by Janine Antoni, 1992. Technically speaking, it's made of chocolate, not fudge.

November 2005 I was a visiting artist at the Labrador Creative Arts Festival. There was a nightly performance and each of us was offered a cameo appearance. The dancer danced, the actors acted, the singers sang a song. What was I going to do, draw a picture in front of an auditorium of people? Instead, I spoke:

I like the theme of Voyages. We’re all on our own voyages, every one of us. Mine started in Ottawa. Then it meandered through a whole series of small towns, each just down the road from an air base: Comox and Courtney and Perth, Summerside, Kensington, and Goose Bay. I’m here today, I’m who I am today, because I learned to paint in Labrador.

I was right here in Goose Bay, Labrador, just like you. No art supply store, no specialty teachers. I taught myself beadwork because beads were the only supplies I could buy in Happy Valley. I taught myself to paint from an oil painting kit that my parents ordered in from the Eaton’s catalogue. There was a little book by Walter Foster, and he said, Look out your window and paint what you see. I can’t remember if I got that kit for Christmas, or for my birthday. But my birthday’s in March, so somewhere between December and March, I started painting what I saw in Labrador. I painted a lot of snow. With dark skies, because by the time I got home from school the sun had set. I still have the first painting I ever made, of trees and snow and night sky. If you look closely, you can see the snowmobile tracks running across our yard, the route from the housing area to the base.

Here’s what I came 2400 kilometers to tell you: Begin. Just begin. A journey of a thousand miles begins with that first step. It begins right where you are, with whatever you have.

It begins with beads from the Hudson’s Bay store, if those are the only art supplies you can find. It begins with paintings on pantihose cardboard. It begins with skits in your living room and the nativity play at church. It begins with a hand-me-down acoustic guitar, or with dance lessons in somebody’s basement.

It begins with Elizabeth Goudie sitting at her kitchen table, with a grade school education, writing longhand in old school notebooks, writing the stories of a Woman of Labrador. It begins right where you are, with whatever you have.

Don’t wait. Don’t wait to begin making art. Don’t wait for conditions to be perfect because conditions will never be perfect. Don’t wait for art supplies, or teachers, or the perfect studio. Don’t wait until you get to the big city. Don’t wait for the premier to spend that ten million dollars on art in the schools. Get out there and show him what he’s spending it for.

Oscar Peterson is a jazz pianist, one of Canada’s great contributions to music. He’s not a young man any more, and he suffers from crippling arthritis in his hands, terrible arthritis. When they asked him how he could still play the piano, he said, “It’s all right. It just hurts more.”

I think what he meant is that art isn’t easy. Art never was easy.

Art doesn’t make it easy for us. Art doesn’t come from easy places and easy lives. It begins right where you are, with whatever you have. So when they ask you, How can you make art when you come from Labrador? You just tell them, “It’s all right. It’s all right b’y. It just hurts more.”