11 days

Concerted efforts at the many little tedious things that had to be done have been and I now feel in control. The film came now hope I ordered enough – I’ll have 160 rolls for the trek north and east, less than the10 a day that I was hoping for but my frugality came into play once again. I am guessing that there will be five days of less than perfect weather where the photographic quota won’t be met as I am still not sure what type of weather I’ll encounter – then again the last time on the Avalon I ran out of film on three outings but that was summer.

My usual way of doing things – sneaking up on people leaving something than going away will not be as again frugality got the best of me so I asked the alcoholic in training if he could arrange a machine via TJ. Foiling the attempt of knocking on the door of the Pipe House and asking if he fancies a pint at the Duke. By now all of Pouch is aware of the return.

TJ is out of the country so no machine until, at the earliest, 7 January. This should panic me as I had planned on spending some time in the Barrens, Placentia Bay in essence as far away from Cape St. Francis as possible for the work that I wanted to do. Surprisingly I didn’t, simply thought of places that I can walk or – for a moment forgetting the hills, and traffic, along route 20 – bike. No machine will cut down on film usage unless I fall back on another project photographing Mount Pearl – oh there are the images I want to make of pond hockey, which I have wanted to do since 1999.

During all of this I realise why I shouldn’t be allowed close to art students due to the bad influence I can inflict. The main cause of bother right now is the group show. The more I think about it the more it angers me. Not the group show aspect of it but the amount of money I am going to have to spend to hang it.

Used to think JB-H crazy when he would turn down shows – they aren’t paying me enough, he’d say. Being art school trained I had that Pavlovian response to the word ‘gallery’. Now I see better ways to throw away my money. The funds wasted could be used to make more work. For the amount of people who go to galleries, it would be cheaper to simply give them all copies of my work – wait, I know I could mail out things at a regular basis, naw that ain’t art like.

Now I have to frame 15 prints, the cost of each could pay for all my vices for a day –, stamps, gasoline, Montréal bagels at the Georgetown Bakery, samosas at Auntie Crae’s, A Big Zig at Ziggy Peelgoods, and a few pints while reading the Globe at the end of the day.

While in the glow of thinking that I was in control by what I had accomplished, I realised that the deadline for a residency at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis France is 8 January – forgot to collect letters – and for MICA is 17 January.