Sunday, May 25, 2008


The Ballet BC House and Garden Tour was over by 5 pm today. Rosemary and I lingered on after with a young couple that had come all the way from Port Coquitlam. We saw them as ourselves 37 years ago when we lived in Burnaby. Unsaid between us was the depression we knew would set in as soon as they left.

In December 2005 I had the best one-man photographic show I have ever had. I even sold stuff. The show featured pictures of Rebecca, nude photographs of a beautiful one-armed model and very large giclées made from my flower scans. After having had many openings I was not ready then nor was I ready today to brush off the post show depression (be it a photographic opening or a gaden opening). People come and you enthusiastically answer their questions.

This post show depression is so acute (they say Diane Arbus slit her wrists in her tub the day after an opening) that years back I invented what I call pre-post-show-opening depression. I feel sad as soon as I hang the pictures on the wall, or in the case of our garden, just thinking about the opening days before.

The lawn has been trampled by the 1000 plus people that visited us in two days. Paradoxically I believe the lawn will come back in full force as the spongy nature of many of my turf repairs were flattened by feet and the ground was dried out (after the many days of rain or my perhaps unitelligent watering).

I understand our depression. People tell us as they leave, "Thank you so much for sharing your garden." It occurs to me that a garden is not a garden if it is not shared. A garden without visitors is silent in a sad way. I remember their eager questions and the smiles on their faces as I held up a cut rose for them to smell, Rosa 'Blanc Double de Coubert' which is always the first to bloom in our garden.

When I look at this self-portrait of Rebecca and I, taken after the 2005 opening I re live that show depression. I compensate by smiling as I think of her climbing the flowering cherry tree in our back yard as she did today. She asked me, "Papi do you think you could build me a tree fort?" I wonder if it is too late. She is 10. Will she discover boys in a few months and lose interest? Should I build it anyway for Lauren?