Thank you to everyone who voted for me …and to whomever nominated me in the first place. I have just been informed that I have won the Hamilton Spectator Reader’s Choice Award of ‘Favorite Artist of the Year -2008′.
Thank you Hamilton,
Kathryn
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Here’s a great tip that I learned years ago from a chef. Along the top gumline of your two front teeth are contained your sinus nerves. It is these nerves that trigger your eyes to start watering when cutting onions. The trick is to temporarily block these nerves so that they do not react. The easiest way to do this is to get a small hunk of soft bread - not the crust- and wad it under your top lip, between your lip and your upper gum over your two front teeth. Pack it in fairly tight. Yes, you will look funny and won’t be able to talk properly, but you won’t even notice the onion effect. If you are making stuffing with the onions, I would suggest leaving the bread wad in place until you have finished stuffing the turkey for as soon as you remove the wad of bread, your eyes will react if the onions are still sitting there chopped up. Yes, this really works.
This also might be a great way to get the kids to help in the kitchen. They will love the idea of doing something weird and seeing if it really works. And get dad to help as well, but don’t tell him about the bread and watch him crying while everyone else is unaffected!
Have a great Thanksgiving and check out my recipe section for the best cranberry sauce and how to brine a turkey for the most moist, delicious turkey that you have ever had.
Bon appetit,
Kathryn
As the cold weather starts to encroach upon us I have been forced back inside. That means that I have to do a lot of painting because Sabine at the Framing Warehouse has finally (after two years) talked me into having a show of originals in their beautifully renovated Anastasia Gallery adjacent to The Framing Warehouse. My opening reception will be on November 20, 2008.
And this might be a good time to mention that I will have my Christmas print out a little earlier this year. The subject is downtown Hamilton in the 1950s. I am publishing a set of 3 vignettes from three earlier scenes. They will be much smaller as they are details from the other three. The set will be titled “Downtown Trilogy” with the three individual prints being titled, ‘Gore Park’, ‘Birks’ and ‘The Chicken Roost’. The set will retail for $195 and be available wherever Limited Editions are sold in the Hamilton-Burlington area. So this means that you get three prints. Why not keep one for yourself and give the other two as Christmas gifts?
So hey, the coolest thing that has happened to me lately was being featured in Hamilton Magazine as one of their picks for the “33 most fascinating people and inspired individuals”. Thank you Hamilton Magazine. It made my day!
Kathryn
www.hamiltonartist.com www.kathrynsmith.ca 905-528-4197
Every once in a while a really good advertising venture comes along. This came to me in the form of an Internet ad in which a photo of Chaucer has been animated to read my advertisement aloud. Good idea. Great marketing by a really nice man - thanks Adam. To take a look at Chaucer looking just like a little, furry, news anchorman, reading a teleprompter, please click onto the provided link below at: http://www.directory4petowners.com/index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=17&sobi2Id=4721&Itemid=9999999
And here is a cute photo of him.
So, has anybody heard of “Woofstock”; www.woofstock.ca? This is apparently the largest ‘dog fair’ in North America which will be taking place in Toronto on the weekend of June 7 and 8, 2008. The city actually closes Front St. for several blocks so that the (are you ready for this…) 140,000 people can wander around and take in the dog shows and see all of the vendors with their great dog stuff! The King Edward Hotel has a special on for the weekend and of course your dog is welcome as 3/4 of the people bring Fido with them. On the Sunday before (June 1st. ) the King Edward Hotel will be kicking off Woofstock by hosting a ‘Doggie High Tea’ in their ballroom for you and your dog who is either living with cancer or has survived it. All proceeds from this will go to the OVC cancer research fund for dogs. Three cheers for the King Edward Hotel; it has always been my favorite place to stay when in Toronto. I hear that the best time to go to Woofstock is in the morning as it is so crowded by afternoon that you and your dog can hardly move.
One last note is to remind you that I am in the Pet Portrait business. So, if you are thinking of a beautiful painting of your cherished best friend, take a look at my web site.
woof, woof,
First of all, if Barbara Walters asked me, “If you were a tree, what kind would you be?” (will she ever live that down?) this is not the tree that I would probably want to be, but it never-the-less is my favorite.
I had never known the proper name for it, but had always used the nickname given to it by the horticulturists at the RBG - the world renowned Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington Ontario - which just happens to be a 10 minute drive for me. So, for the past 20 years I have lovingly referred to it as the ‘Hamilton Stink Tree’. Not a very nice name for a tree that grows incredibly fast and turns into an 80 foot canopy style tree which has a tropical look to it with its long palm-like leaves that from a distance resemble fronds.
So, it was happenstance that as Chaucer and I were walking in the Rock Gardens this week, enjoying the masses of tulips, that we ran into one of the horticultural gardeners and I decided to ask him what this tree actually was. He raised his eyebrows when I mentioned that it was my favorite tree as it is a source of annoyance to them because of its proliferation. He said that its proper name is “Tree of Heaven”; I was thrilled to learn that! He also told me the Latin name, which I immediately forgot, and that the Tree of Heaven was the tree in the book/movie “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” - I was equally thrilled to learn that.
The nickname, ‘Hamilton stink tree’ apparently comes from the fact that it will grow anywhere - even around the factories. Its roots however will also putrefy water sources. This fast growing tree however just may be doing more than we give it credit for. Ecologists and scientists may just find that this could be one of the hardest working trees at eliminating toxins and pollutants from the air. I like to believe that as it remains one of my favorite trees.
Kathryn
I have recently published a new print in time for Mother’s Day. “Saturday Stroll” is a painting based on Locke St. in Hamilton, Ontario. To view this painting please go to the ‘Limited Editions’ page on my website at www.kathrynsmith.ca
I will be having an Artist’s Open House this coming weekend of Mother’s Day. The dates are:
Saturday, May 10 - noon to 4 P.M. & Sunday, May 11 - noon to 4 P.M.
For more information please view my web site.
See you then,
Kathryn
As we break through the last of the snowstorms of March and into April, once again Canada’s name around the world is ‘Mudd’. The phrase, “his name is Mudd” refers to the doctor, Samuel Mudd who set the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth. A good man who, by one action, became an accomplice to one of America’s most famous assassinations: the murder of President Lincoln.
So too does Canada face the disgrace of being a good nation who, defined by one action, has incurred the rest of the world’s disgust. I am of course referring to the annual seal hunt; the barbaric slaughter of seal pups with sharpened clubs - “hakapiks” which often do not outrightly kill the seal pups resulting in so many being skinned alive. When will the Canadian government wake up? Will this be the year, if the European Union does follow through with their threatened trade sanctions against Canada?
The Atlantic provinces are some of the poorest with the lowest incomes and the highest unemployment in Canada. Should this not be where the government is propping up the status quo?
It is also interesting to know that in the symbiosis of life, in years that the killings have seen marked quotas on the amount that have been slaughtered were also the years that the lobsters were plentiful. In other words, the more seals there are, the more lobsters. While the seals are often blamed for the demise of the cod, in actuality it is squid that is the seals’ favorite food and the favorite food of squid is, you guessed it…lobster. So, save the seals and you save the lobster.
And what is a seal pup’s life worth these days? A paltry $33 per pelt. My country - whose name right now is Mudd.
Kathryn
Apparently this is our ninth snowstorm this winter. I believe that we have now surpassed the record snowfall for a winter in the late 1930s! I think it was 1937/38 and Toronto received about 81 1/2 inches of snow over the winter.
Above are a few photos that my nephew Adam took of Chaucer in the back yard. That’s a seven foot fence behind him. You should see the pile out in front!
Well, at least he likes it!
Kathryn
Whenever we hear the word ‘vigilante’ it surely must evoke images of Charles Bronson wandering the streets at night, single-handedly eliminating crime in the movie “Death Wish”. While the legal definition of the word does mean ‘to take the law into one’s own hands’, the word comes from the Spanish term for ‘watchman’ or ‘guard’. In other words, it literally means to be vigilant - ‘to be on the lookout for possible danger’ as defined in the dictionary. Well, the word ‘volunteer’ has a much more friendly connotation than ‘vigilante’.
I remember reading in a national magazine a couple of years ago an article in which a university professor, in BC I believe, stated that Hamilton had more volunteers per capita than any other city in Canada. Wow. So here is my thought: why not take some of these terrific people who are willing to give freely of their time to help others, and form a group of people who are vigilant in our parks, malls, recreational areas, festivals and wherever else they can be of service. I’m talking about this on a large scale. Let’s say a lot of people sign up to volunteer for tourist sites in the city (by fact and statistic there are more volunteers than are currently needed with waiting lists at some venues) and lets say that many of them happen to enjoy walking outside. Why not organize these people into volunteer groups of two or three. Making sure that there is always at least one cellphone in the group, give them official, city-volunteer, clip-on badges that are easily identifiable by logo and color. It would be possible to have these vigilant volunteers in most of the parks during the daylight hours. Not only would these adults be a detriment to would-be graffiti artists and vandals, but they would also be people that someone could go to for help in an emergency as they would always have a cell phone on them. These volunteers would have speed dial numbers not only for emergency 911, but also the numbers for wildlife rescue, parks and recreation and a special city hall hot line that actually had a human being on the other end for immediate, but non-emergency notification of any number of issues. I think that there are probably a lot of these generous people that would also be happy to help in cleaning off the graffiti from our park benches and signs. And it doesn’t have to stop there. Malls cannot provide security guards to be in every area, but visible volunteers who had the security office on speed-dial would form an obvious detriment to the gathering of gangs of teens in the malls, to say nothing of how a presence of three adults walking together may help deter bullying in the hallways of schools. And just think of what these volunteers might do to help draw people back to downtown Hamilton. Who would not feel safer walking down King Street or through Gore Park, seeing the sight of an official badge on someone. How welcoming to a stranger to Hamilton this would seem. Maybe in the downtown core those particular volunteers could have access to other information for tourists also. The possibilities are all there. Imagine Hamilton being known as ‘The Safe City’.
Kathryn
In the final months of Eaton’s demise the department store chain adopted a policy that was referred to as the ‘Slow Close’. Needing every sale that could be made they were reluctant to usher out shoppers the minute the store was closed. Instead they would ring off some of the cash registers and lock just one of the doors letting customers see that closing time had arrived, but without the intercom announcing that it was now time to leave the store.
Now that Christmas is over I find myself doing my own slow close as I start to take down the holiday decorations. First the cards and the fresh greenery go. A couple of days later I remove the decorations from the dining room and the hallway. I keep doing this until only the tree is left. Not only is this a nice, transitional way of winding down from the holidays slowly, but it is also not such an overwhelming task that can leave you feeling both exhausted and depressed - that last thing that you need to start off the New Year! Removing the decorations in this way also gives me a chance to savour some of the moments by having the time to reflect on this Christmas and those gone by as I hold and look at some of the precious decorations that mark some special people and times.
So for those of you that have still not been able to face the daunting task of taking down the Christmas decorations, try your own Slow Close and start the New Year off with a little less stress. Even though it is time for Christmas to come to a close, you might just end up thinking that Christmas has not left. The feeling of it is still in your home and in your heart.
Kathryn
