Nuit Blanche Deux

Last night was Toronto's second Nuit Blanche - an all night "Art Happening" that started at 7:00pm and ended at 7:00am. There was some discussion throughtout last year as to whether Toronto would stage another Nuit Blanche after the first which attracted almost half a million people - double what had been predicted - did I mention that it also poured rain last year - WOW - for the love of Art or midnight madness - take your pick!!!

Well we have a very short sighted mayor - taller than our previous mayor but with limitations of a more conservative kind - unless you are talking about renos to his office and then 6 million is OK.

Anyway, knit-picking aside, if .5 million turned out in the rain last year - 2-3 million had to have turned out last night on a balmy Indian summer evening - let me tell you, there was ART, MUSIC and DANCING in the street!!! I take my Art where I can get it and it was free and on the street - sometimes you actually stumbled over it - such as, the projections on the sidewalk of man-hole covers from around the world - Art for people of the street. We, my husband & I, as Elizabeth would say, spent a good deal of time looking at the art installations within OCAD - the Ontario College of Art & Design - where our eldest was accepted, in the Spring, as a mature student.

After, we followed crowds of people carrying white ballons and visited museums, galleries, parks with projection screens for anyone who wanted to do their artistic "thing" and basically, as I had said in my post last year, became the children that Art makes of us - we were again des tableaux blancs. We could re-write the script, re-draw the image - seldom are we given that oppotunity - thank you Toronto for the chance!

Unfortunately, I was not able to get to Zone C where the knitting was! Well I knit so much that to make everyone go to a knitting event on family time was too much. But I have to say the The Knit Cafe had the "Great Pom-Pom Event." You could create a pom-pom and then palm it off to someone else for theirs - no pom - err pun intended. Janet Morton - resident knitting artist (she knit the original house cozy - as in tea cozy and actually covered a house with it ) re-did a building in pink - no knitting here - I think that she has moved onto foam - please do not tell me that this a direction for knitting.

There was also another knitting event - not sure; but rumour has it that it may have been the result of 10-12 women knitting and riding the Queen street car from one terminus to the next and back again - a very long knitting journey or maybe it was something else - sounds like a lot of knitters lost in thought - you wonder how anything ever gets done - or does it?

Anyway, I always spend a good deal of time thinking about how to dress for Art and this year I wore a lace scarf that I had knit. Maybe 2 of the 3 million that came out for Nuit Blanche wore scarves. I am estimating that 1 million were men - a few of them wore scarves but I would say that ALL but 10% of the women who came out for the event wore a decorative scarf - this was a warm evening - the scarf lives - as an Art form, even.

Knit on...and thank you Esther...this one's for you.

Carol