It was like the Duke

Except for the beer, the clientelle, the atmosphere...

Drop the Volvo off at the pipe house after picking up the digital camera as I want to photograph what is left of the Christmas lights at night as I walk back to Sullivan’s Loop.

Go in to drop off the keys and am offered a beer – figure that I can walk with another beer in me so I open the deck-less patio door over the ocean pick up a bottle and sit overlooking the ocean. I am asked about THE ROOMS. I go through the rant adding more items as I go along.

It would have been a conversation that would have happened at Baird's Cove at the Duke.

JB tries to assuage me with justifications – that is all he can do as he hates the place himself – but it degrades into what it has done to downtown. It seems that since the Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador moved to THE ROOMS attendance has dropped and on and on and on.

I ask about the longevity of the artists who come here. Many have bought houses from Pouch to Trepassey but were not back last year. Thinking of the bother it took to get here I wondered if the fad was over.

No like me last year people have lives and simply cannot make it and a list of why the usual suspects were not up in the past year.

-oh by the way – the evil twin starts – would you like the large space at the gallery this summer?

-no – the large space is the size of a basketball court – 200 feet of running space. I say no scarred by the Chicago gallery where I was constantly reminded of shows that don’t sell and hearing how Thaddeus’s images go for thousands of dollars (Canadian but still)

-no gallery sells.

Still I say that the gallery should be reserved for those sure thing exhibits so that financially it all balances out.

I also suspect that he was noticing my frustration with all the work that I have done here even under the old AGNL and now THE ROOMS that doesn’t seem to be able to get shown.

Mention that I was trying for this less is more aspect and was trying to work on ikons rather than my usual way of hinting. Been thinking about it for six months changed the images from those done in Bonne Bay to those done around here as I fear that people will only see the scenery.

He mentions images that I had forgot about - those that I made on my first sojourn when I used a pinhole – the Air Canada swizzle stick on the old deck, the starfish in Bauline the fisheries broadcast series.

Great work done seven years ago.

He knocks down all my arguments so I relent and think about how I –tastefully fill the space for July.

It is raining when I leave the tree outside the village hall was taken down in the afternoon, I try to photograph the flag in the window of Jordie’s place and other decorations but the rain plays havoc with the digital camera.

Have problems lighting the wood fire, think that it is getting even for the ease that I lit it the night before and showing me that after all I am a CFA.