Happenings – Slow Lane Musings

O’Keeffe and Moore

There is currently a wonderful touring exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The show is called Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore: Giants of Modern Art. This meticulously curated exhibition is a creation of the San Diego Museum of Art and will not be shown in any other Canadian city.

Far from being a simple parallel display of two well-known artists, the exhibition brings the visitor on a journey, highlighting how, despite having lived on different continents and having worked (mainly) with different media, the artists evolved in similar ways, approached nature with awe and reverence and took their inspiration from it. O’Keeffe (1887-1986) and Moore (1898-1986) both lived in a big city before relocating to a rural setting where they could more easily connect with the natural world.

We came out of the exhibition both enriched and invigorated.

Montréal Irish

There has been a continued Irish presence in Montréal since the time of the earliest European settlements in the 17^th century. A large number of Irish people arrived in the 19^th century, particularly in the wake of the Great Famine of 1845-47. As a growing ethnic community, the Irish created their own social and cultural institutions, including a St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Until the COVID-19 pandemic forced the organizers to cancel the parade in 2020 and 2021, it had taken place every year since 1824. There was a scaled-down parade with no floats in 2022. This year’s full-scale parade was anticipated with great excitement because of the 3-year hiatus.

The 198th Montréal St-Patrick’s Parade processed along Ste-Catherine Street on March 19^th. As expected, it was a cheerful and very well attended event, despite the very cold and windy weather (-10° C with the wind chill). It was so cold that it caused the battery in our video camera to deplete rapidly. Despite that, we managed to capture the essence of the event.

A weekend in Paris – on a whim

We have long harbored the dream of crossing the Atlantic just to spend a weekend in Paris, one of our favourite cities in the world. Coming from snowy Canada, Paris, especially in the spring, holds special memories for us. We realised that dream during Easter Weekend in 2018.

An Atlantic crossing

We had never been on a ship larger than a ferry and we had never dreamt of going on a cruise. However, the idea of sailing from Southampton to New York seemed like a unique experience, with no land in sight for almost a week. The Cunard Line stresses in its communications that this journey is a “crossing” not a cruise.