February 2007

local art gallery admission

Council has been debating what to do with our local art gallery. It's getting bigger and the operating costs are growing along with it. One councillor suggested charging admission. Not an uncommon thing in larger cities where the art gallery will often bring in heavy hitting shows from famous artists such as Vincent Van Gogh or Picasso. Here, however, we're very lucky to see classic art from outside our own borders. The Mendel is a good destination point for persons needing an outing, but it isn't really something that draws in the ordinary person. Far too often, in fact, the displays offend persons not already mired in the world of art. I hear it often enough, things like "I could splash paint around on a chair too, does that make me an artist?"
So then who would pay the admission? Not the casual drop-ins that come by more to enjoy the conservatory than the bundles of sticks and steel installed in an airy room. Is there a large enough population of art afficionados to support the gallery with admission fees? I suggest not.
I suggest that Saskatoon and area is too small a population to support an art gallery, especially one that tries to promote the local artists, the modern and peculiar, and other less popular works. Without public funding, I think our art gallery would have to cater to the common denominator. People might like it a bit better, but it also would lose a lot of what makes it important. Just because we don't always appreciate it doesn't mean it does us no good. Like broccoli, we need the Mendel just as it is.

lightbulb moments

Light bulbs. Is there a more mundane yet germaine subject currently on the block? Do you much think about the little electric globe that makes it possible to work after sunset? Most of us don't unless it fails to come on, then we scramble about trying to find a replacement. If we're very unlucky, there is electrical repair work involved. My husband and I spent last weekend changing sockets and switches in our stairwell to get our light working again, after which we discovered that the trusty compact flourescent bulb was what needed changing! I never considered that the bulb could be out, they're so reliable you think they'll never need to be changed again!
We use these bulbs all over. I replaced my incancescents gradually because the investment cost is steep, but what wound up happening is that as utility rates went up, so did my cost savings in as I gradually upgraded my house. My utility bill has stayed level for ten years in spite of utility increases.
Now they're discussing banning incandescent bulbs. I'll be up there at the head of the protest line! CFLs are a good idea, sure, but they're not always the best choice for the job. How about in that unheated garage or security motion sensor floods? CFLs don't work worth a dime in severe cold. I replaced one with a CFL and it's garbage. You couldn't see a snow flake intruding with that thing. It won't even come on if the temperature is below -18C.
Then there's all the chandelier and specialty bulbs. CFLs just aren't compact enough. I could never fit those monstrous things into my kitchen chandelier. Yes I could replace it with some mundane fixture that uses conventional bulb sizes, but it's so beautiful and sparkly, all in real crystal and cut glass, throwing rainbows around. Even if they do make CFLs small enough to tuck into it, they'd never throw the kind of light that you really need with cut crystal. Flourescent doesn't sparkle! I just use it less. Or then there's applications where the light is switched on and off frequently but rarely left on for long, like a closet or even bathroom. Flourescents use most of the electricity during the power-on phase. If you're turning them on and off constantly then the savings equation is reduced and you can even wind up costing more than incandescent which switches on instantly without significant power drain compared to running useage.
I believe in choice. I believe in making the right choice with careful thought. I believe that people can be educated and encouraged to make the right choices and that we need to be trusted to know which choice it is. Sometimes we need the less efficient or less morally high option, because sometimes it's the right choice. Governments just can't make effective legislation that allows for all circumstances. Banning things, most especially stupid little things like lightbulbs, is utter foolishness. It's heavy handed, tyrannical, and sets very bad precedents for our future rights.

my cool painting

Tablet edition XP comes with a groovy graphic application called Ink Art. It interprets your strokes with the tablet pen on the screen as brush strokes. It has a variety of tools you can use. These include erasers, brushes and pens and crayons. It isn't as versatile as Corel Photo Paint or PhotoShop or such, but it has unique features of smearing it's ink and leaving brush strokes. Using it takes a bit of getting used to because there's no way to wait for the "ink" to dry at any point and enable you to easily overpaint, but I'm learning to work with the tool. I made a silly little wheatfield I just really want to share, but there's not really anyone with whom to share it, so I'll put it in my blog, my "share it with someone maybe" outlet. So click the small pic if you want to look at the full size one.

Hope you like it!

choosing carpet/flooring

A columnist in today's paper wrote about choosing a new carpet. His dilemmas filled me with the overwhelming urge to advise him. However, he isn't asking for advice, he's trying to be funny. I guess this column wasn't too far off the mark. He's usually just offensive. At least he managed to avoid that for a change!
However, I still want to explain how to go about choosing your flooring.
First off, you choose the type you're interested in. What do you want from your flooring? Noise damping? Warmth? Coolness? Cleanability? Durability? These are important questions, even ahead of cost. So you decide, do you want to sweep or vacuum? This will determine for instance if you're getting carpet or something else. Say it's carpet, ok, now you ask things like how dense should it be? Will you be romping barefoot or wandering around spilling your cereal? Does it get hard wear from a herd of stomping humans, or is it a cozy nook for a pair of OCD humans who only eat standing up over the sink? The more it has to withstand, the shorter the pile ought to be. If the pile is short enough and the carpet dense enough you can actually sweep it clean each day and just vacuum on the weekends!
So you've chosen the material, and you've chosen the finish. Be it plush carpet or laminate flooring, you now have a selection of color and texture to make. Some materials, like laminate and hard wood, have very limited selection in this, others, like carpet and vinyl, are infinite. First decide the color tone. Dark or light? Do you want your floor to seem to sink into the distance, or float up and bounce light around? Hide stains or expand in a cool endless stretch of pure tones? To hide stains, you want maximum pattern and dark tones. Dark also brings a room in closer, making a large space warmer or if shiny, it can extend a small space into infinity.
Now, choose texture. Yes, not color, you know if it wants to be dark, light, or medium light, right? But what about texture? On a floor it's not so important to hide imperfections as with old walls, so this is about cleanability vs appearance. Heavier textures and patterns tie in large rooms but clutter small ones. Some formal texture is nice in a small space to lend order and neatness, like small squares. The larger the room, the larger a pattern and/or texture you can have. Also lovely may be a single pattern or texture in the form of a graphic, like a simply composed graphic of geometric shapes in different colors, possibly all similar in tone or tint. These can be pricey however.
So you've decided the nature of the texture, the brightness level, the material type. Now finally you can pick color. You will find the range much diminished now by the previous choices. If you've chosen brick or hardwood or even vinyl you're pretty much limited to natural neutral tones. Wood usually comes prefinished so you can't even stain it outrageous colors. Few folks want louder colors anyway. If you've chosen tile or carpet your color choices expand considerably.
Don't just choose something that sells the house well. Certainly the saleability of the house is a factor but remember that most people remodel within 12 month of buying a house anyway and if you're going to live there at least a decade the choice should be purely about what pleases you and your family. Consider, what color do you always wind up drawn to? What of the colors you wear most are also found in the wardrobes of your family? Find the common palette of your household. Dark jewel tones? Bright summery colors? Soft natural colors? When you browse through decorating magazines, what colors keep catching your eyes? Narrow your palette down to those. If nobody in your household thinks taupe is a good choice for pants, car, hats, or towels, odds are it'll bore you to tears on the floor too. Now if you're finding that hot pink and traffic orange are the stars of the show, it's definitely time to find a complimentary color. Strong colors just don't cut it in large expensive areas of your home in which you spend a lot of time. Save them for passageways and work rooms where you aren't trying to relax.
Definitely avoid colors ripe with meaning like baby blue and powder pink, 80's peach and salmon, or 70s lilac. These things say entirely too many things to our current culture, and for a living room, that's not good.
If you've set on something in these color ranges, take out the pastel and dim the light. Instead of baby blue, get denim or indigo. Instead of pink, get deep rose or wine red. Instead of peach, go for a nice rusty tan. Lilac? It translates beautifully to violet. Those other colors can be spread around on accessories and even furniture.
Remember, colors don't have to match, just compliment. You can put acid green with blood red but not scarlet, for instance. Acid green is hot, so is scarlet. Kelly green is cool, so is carmine (blood red). Magenta goes better with purple than violet while sky blue prefers rose to red.
If you really haven't got a sense for seeing colors side by side, hire a color consultant. They're not easy to find, agreed, but the more people who hire them, the more they'll turn up. I'd happily consult you for a fee and you'd surely get great color results. A consultant should take into account what you already live in, how you dress, your skin tones, and the way you light your home. If they push their favorite colors on you and not variations of what you already enjoy, send them packing and hire someone else.
Above all, trust yourself a little. You know what you like and what you don't like, go with it.

cowards invade?

I recieved an email this week from a passionate man who has more compassion at his disposal than logic. They're calling for volunteers to provide temporary housing for American refugees who deserted the army when called to duty in Iraq. Yes, that's right, they signed up for the army and when called to war they ran away and want Canada to shelter them and keep them from having to go to jail. My friend says they signed up expecting only to fight in noble wars.

There are no such things. All war is ignoble. Just ask any veteran of WWII. No such thing as a noble war. So we're talking about stupid men. They signed on lured by the promise of education and employment, thinking the whole time they'd get to sit around someplace tropical playing with weapons? Again, stupid, and cheaters to renege on the contract they signed. If you don't agree with war, don't join the army.

So first off, refugee status is intended for the folks who face real danger in their home countries. Death and torture, not jail time. Even when it's a 3rd world jail we don't give them refugee status unless there's a price on their head or a war ongoing around their heads! Now imagine we give in to these sneaky tactics of these army deserters and agree that being shipped out constitutes sufficient hazard to qualify as refugee. What then when our own soldiers decide that they don't like their assignments in Iraq or Isreal or Sudan or somewhere else? Do we just let them go with all the time, room and board, training, and equipment we've bought them? Do we back-charge them for the cost of wasted training?

I seriously hope our immigration has the wisdom to say no and send these men back to face the music. Unless they qualify on some other basis like any other legitimate American immigrant, in which case I'll welcome them like any other immigrant. You want to move here? Come on up. You want refugee status to make up for your stupid mistakes? Go away.