After a few weeks of feeling emotionally threadbare, I took some time off work. I spent it mostly at Starbucks, ironically working. It was a much needed break though. For some reason, it’s more enjoyable to answer emails while you’re kicking back with a latte and some David Grey. In between that, I had lunch out with a few different friends and I indulged in a manicure. I still don’t feel 100% yet, which is tough and irritating and definitely not really worth getting into.
But! In other news! It’s grant-season.
Monday’s deadline marks the fourth year for the grant, which in a lot of ways shocks me a little. (Okay, a lot) Last night, Carolyn and I took the kids and met up with Matt Austin and a few of his friends while they were in Toronto for the day. Matt’s brother, Jeff, nicely tolerated the barrage of attention that Carolyn’s daughter, Sam, threw at him while at the same time, engaging Ben with some conversation about werewolf zombies. I think? It’s honestly hard to say because by then I’d started getting a headache and half checked out. A few hours later, the headache had me hanging over the toilet hoping to die. But my point is, Matt Austin.
Matt won the grant in its second year and this year is sitting as a judge. Typically, I receive all the applications and then spend a week or two short-listing the contenders down to a manageable size for the judging panel. Short-listing always turns out to be a lot harder than I expect, so I’ve taken to getting together with a group of friends to look over my favourites. In 2009, Matt’s application generated a lot of discussion within our group and ultimately ended up being a hands-down favourite with the official judges panel.
At the time though, I really didn’t trust my gut feeling. My dad was still dealing with the complications from his cancer treatments and financially, I was still tentatively finding my own feet. In hindsight, it’s funny how closely my dad’s illness and my own tailspin are linked. So many of my favourite conversations with dad took place in the parking lot of the lodge he was staying at for his radiation treatments. Back then, we spoke in bald metaphors. We’d talk in code over Ben’s head, cursing ex-husbands, prostate exams, lawyers and radiologists. We made horrible jokes because sometimes they were the only thing that kept us moving forward. Then, I was living in a constant state of stress. I never knew how I was going to pay for groceries, let alone have enough gas in my car in order to get to work. Before I’d leave for home, my dad would force money into my hand and slip Ben some peppermints. I’d leave my dad behind and then spend the first five minutes of my drive white-knucking the steering wheel in a vain effort not to cry.
Reading Matt’s essay only two years later and looking at the images he’d assembled from Wake brought a lot of that back. I remember putting his essay down, half way through, feeling very raw. While I knew I was holding the winning application in my hand, I was still worried I was giving too much weight to my personal feelings. But here we are a few years later, and I still react strongly to Wake; it’s consistently remained one of my favourite collections and I know for certain that his work won for all the right reasons. Art is supposed to strike you in personal ways. It’s supposed to be something you feel a little too viscerally at times.
Over dinner, Matt’s friend wanted to know if I was an artist too. “No,” I said. “I just like giving my money away.”
In hindsight, it’s exactly the glib, defensive sort of answer I always hand out. The truth behind why the grant exists is uncomfortable. The fact is, I’m not an artist and I can’t speak with much intelligence in terms of art history. But I do know what I like, and I know what I react to. Appreciating art has always been something I can retreat to when everything else feels too loud. The simple fact is, this world is a much better place because of people who create art or make their own work. And I guess that’s why, four years later, the grant is still going. Because there are people out there like Matt who create work worth supporting.
All of this is just to say that this year’s submissions have started arriving and I’m already thrilled with some of the work that’s been assembled. Whew!