Black Tie, Boxing, Cattle & Curlers

I have some of the world's biggest hair. It's easily my number one vanity and curse. I say curse because it is quite the ordeal to make it look nice enough so it is the envy of all the other thin and fine haired people around me. For example, let's take Saturday evening... the evening of the infamous Salute to the Patch Art Auction. I happened to be in the midst of finishing off a research paper, but I can be young and stupid from time to time... and my darling friend W. had informed me that I was attending this function and it's not often that I have the opportunity to dress up, so I threw caution to the wind and spent a night out on the town (after the arduous task of styling my hair) with the local artistes and rich patrons who make their work possible.

In anticipation of the evening I altered the hemline of a black dress that I had already adjusted the neckline on the summer before in a fit of boredom. But on the day of... I had to schedule in breaks between writing my paper (with a faulty enter key I might add) and washing and drying my hair (For the record I have enough hair to feed and clothe at least three others). I even whipped out my collection of underused velcro rollers for the event in an effort to create a little volume for my heavy head of hair. This photo that I have posted demonstrates stage 3 of the hair styling process (Stage 1: wash; Stage 2: blowdry; Stage 3: volumize; Stage 4: smooth & gloss).

I am spending a lot of time explaining the hair styling process because it was possible the most positive aspect of the evening. As I indicated in my last post, the Salute to the Patch Art Auction was possibly the best worst time I ever had. The combination of black tie (Fort St. John style of course... which means your best pair of Wranglers and the possible combination of diamond fringe shirt with a sports coat), cattle auction (as provided by the chubby faced cattle auctioneer with the protuding belly and lack of anything original to say other than to say that no two pieces of pottery are ever alike), and boxing match (the parading around of the various pieces of art up for auction by various women clad in nomex overalls rather than bikinis, with bejeweled backsides such as foxy, angel, sassy, bad girl, etc.) was something for the story books.

I have to admit that I was a little bored as I was hoping against hope that there would be better entertainment and more impressive art pieces. We arrived to the auction just when supper was starting, so we missed the first set of entertainment (that being some kind of musical group called Men Will be Boys or something that effect), and the second act was an overly loud piano (keyboard I should say) of scandalously horrific lobby music like the classic Music Box Dancer (think Frank Mills the piano player and you'll know what I'm talking about). Lucky for me however, I was sitting at a table with mostly likeminded individuals (read: intolerant critics) so those sitting to my right and my left did not mind when I cringed at the volume of the piano, nor did they mind when I gripped their knees and squeezed tightly when Music Box Dancer was played for a second time within ten minutes. Thankfully, the company of traveling intolerant critics that I keep managed to make the night an enjoyable one. I had an audience for my impromptu sugar portraits, a support group for gawdy art awareness (take for example a stained glass piece entitled Elk in Rut), as well as a support group for underappreciated and undermined art (take for example the several student pieces where the young artist remained anonymous while the art teacher got credit... and sold for approx. $80 when much inferior pieces sold for $300-$400).

I think it was a necessary experience. I needed to remind myself of the type of environment that I was lucky (from my perspective anyhow) enough to be oblivious to for my entire childhood. Despite being a long time resident of the north, I really had no concept of the presence of the oil and gas industry, or really any type of northern (read: hunting) type of mentality. This of course is excluding my experience with the northern weather. I was not oblivious to the cold although I would have liked to be.

A couple positive things I will say though about the event... it's nice to see strong support for the local arts community and it was nice to see a display of local art even though the majority of what was being auctioned off I would not put on display in my house - there were exceptions of course. My suggestions for any future auctions... change the venue, nix the cattle auction and boxing match style of auctioneering, hire better entertainment, and do not undermine the integrity of student art... they are artists like everyone else and deserve equal respect.

anyhow... that's all from me on that one. I went for a job interview on Monday and I'm hoping that something will come of it. My speedlite arrived on Monday and I have yet to use it. Should this weekend offer opportunity methinks that it would be time for another photo excursion.

bon nuit...