Stampin' at the Stampede

What a weird month July was... It was spent in the BAKING heat of the Calgary Stampede grounds: the Biggest Rodeo in the world. No joke, eh. Enough cowboy hats and daisy-dukes to... well... I'm not sure exactly what that many hats and short short cut-offs could do for the world... but they made one impressive sight.

My Mom's a painter ( www.barbaraduthie.ca ) and the last years has been painting her lifelong obsession: 'The West'. Cowboys, cowgirls, horses, the range, the rodeos: all with an extravagant use of color and an almost baroque attention to detail. Well, the Stampede isn't just bucking broncos and little fried donuts, there's also an immense hall of art devoted to the legends of the West: statues (we were flanked by a life size bronze of a rearing horse... scared me every time I came round the corner..), paintings, quilts... you name it... and my Mom was juried in to have a stand for four days. It's the first show she's had of this work and she needed a hand getting it all organized and heading over the mountains from Vancouver to Calgary. So, I flew to Vancouver, helped her and my Sister and Brother in Law to pack up a whole pile of cowboy paintings and 'en famille' we drove over the mountains to Calgary.

I'm not sure who was more nervous: my Mom or me. I was the one who had encouraged her to apply and to take the plunge to head over and show her work, and she wasn't sure of what kind of reaction she was going to get for it. One of her pieces had been chosen for the high-end 'invitation only' auction so she knew she would have to watch people bidding on her work as well as seeing their reactions face to face as they walked into the stand: so it would be really clear whether or not her worked clicked with the Stampede goers. The morning of the get-in got stressful: my sister had an emergency so couldn't get there in time with the frames, and when we loaded the work in at 6am we found that we were surrounded by hundreds of very, very serious paintings featuring Cowboys bringing in the herd, or riding bucking broncos, or doing very serious and dramatic cowboy sorts of things.... all super quality work... but Mom's never been one to paint dramatic profiles of noble looking, rugged working cowboys as they watch the setting sun over the great plains... So both of our hearts kind of fell and I ended up making a lot of encouraging and super-enthusiastic noises while feeling in my heart of hearts that we were doomed: and Mom just sat there and said things like 'we're doomed'..... it was all rather stressful.

The morning began slowly and folks started wandering in... very quiet at first... we were towards the back of the huge hall, so by the time they got to us they'd seen all of the stands. And at first I swear several actually recoiled as they turned the corner and saw the huge canvases and the dancing and smiling figures of Mom's paintings. And then first one, then a whole family, then pairs of women began to smile, and laugh and wander in and admire the work, picking up postcards and beginning to chat to Mom about how she'd come up with such a world of dancing cowboys. And so it continued for four days.... In a way we were perfectly positioned: by the time they reached the Stand they had seen hundreds of rugged cowboys and prairie landscapes and they were dying for something different. And it turned into this immense pleasure to sit at the Stand and watch face after face light up when they were confronted by her work.

I never got to see much of the Bucking Bronco part of the Rodeo... I got about as far as the friend donuts, and then had to head back to Cowboy Art... but maybe next year I'll take some time to experience more of the whole real Cowboy side of things...