Busy, busy time, the stress of it has been making me cough. JC did the mammoth job of organizing the plates and equipment onto the truck to go to Toronto.



Jaz and Erik had to be separated.



They were getting out of hand with all their back and forth silliness and humour, and we were laughing way too much.



Gord's adapting his plans for Toronto's installation to take into account the warm weather. The compressor hasn't arrived from Accent, Bosco went missing for a day, and we are waiting for the word on whether or not we have ICE at Nathan Phillips Square, so the rest of us - Gord, Jaz and me - are still in warm and rainy Niagara on the Lake. Jaz working on the website. The books were shipped today, to arrive on Monday.



We sorted through the permanent artwork today at The Shaw with Stacey and Jeff. I love the names! "Trip to Sestriere", "Morning on Piazza San Carlo". We named one after Gabriella. My favorite is "Charm of Cardinal Pacca."

Tonight it is 9 degrees -- AT NIGHT! The weather here is more like London, or Vancouver. Children in the dressing room at White Oak were overheard complaining about no snow. Another CBC documentary on Iceland's glaciers melting, and an interview with the leader of the Green party. Global warming is everywhere.



I just realized that squirrels don't have any natural predators in Niagara on the Lake. Their only predators seem to be automobiles. Today we saw two flattened squirrels within ten feet of each other. Humans don't have natural predators either. Except each other. Wars keep the numbers down.



I'm super busy, press releases, sending out invitations, sorting prints, press interviews, scheduling, it seems like nothing but it all takes time. The living room is a mess, brown wrapping and artwork everywhere. I've had this cough for a week now. Dry, stupid cough, keeping me awake at night. But we played a half hour of hockey today, and squash this evening, to mediate the stress. It's 11:22, everyone is in bed.

An inconvenient truth.



Warm and sunny, a beautiful, joyful day to be back at it. Here, in Niagara on the Lake, so many small squirrels frenetically, energetically leap from branch to bush. Even as they stand and nibble, their tiny hands up to their noses, it’s at hampster-spin speed. Today we took a short cut through the common. Small bushy tails rippled like waves against the still-green lawn. It’s almost unbelievable that here, temperatures will be double digit in the first weeks of January.

Last night another documentary, the call for us to take our collective heads out of the sand.



For us, the warming of the planet looms large, and no relief in sight. We can’t extend the exhibit away from the plates at all. We have no where Below Zero to store paintings already created. The tent is cramped. Everything taking longer to freeze. Designs have to be altered to compensate. But that’s what it’s all about -- as the work is about the natural processes of freezing and melting. Yet, it’s so ironically appropriate that we face these challenges. How can we be exempt, tho our work warns?



Last year on New Year’s Eve we gathered all together for the first time at the Mezouin for a spectacular dinner. The next night at dusk, we saw a procession of children come out of the forest with candles and ate gaufres at a huge bonfire in the center of the small town of Fenestrelle. Here are photos of our rollicking this January lst.Here with the costumed Father Christmas, Debi and The Don.



At the cenotaph on Queen Street, as the clock struck midnight.



It rained. We had champagne anyway.



Here, a representative of the next generation.



“If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced. " (www.aninconvenient truth.com)

New Year's Eve. Above zero.



Another media interview yesterday, Debi Pratt is a pro - she gets them out! Right now the interviewers look bewildered and maybe disappointed - where's the beautiful exhibit? It's pretty difficult to explain, the paint, the water, the freezing, the pours . . . how is it going to . . . look?



This morning, as we uncovered the paintings, we discovered last night's pours still wet. It's quite a daily unveiling, the plywood fences, the tarps, the styrofoam.



I've been unwrapping the prints, to sort. A full exhibit will be displayed at The Shaw Theatre through the installation -- first time these images will ever be seen. Some will go to Inniskillin, to be displayed in their modern lobby. Here's Window on the Chiesa: