Heat

"Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door of course."
– George Bernard Shaw

Last February we installed a wood stove in our dining room to supplement our winter heating with wood rather than burn tons of oil in the furnace. Sure, we're releasing the wood's carbon dioxide at a faster rate than if it were to decompose naturally over a long period, but we feel it's still cleaner –and it's certainly less expensive– than oil heating.

To prepare for the 2012/2013 winter we ordered two cords of hardwood (I wanted three cords, but the place we called would only give us two for some reason). So they brought and dumped a huge pile of wood which I slowly and neatly stacked behind our red shed and covered with a tarp, ready for the inevitable chill to come.

I brought the first batch of wood to the front porch via wheelbarrow (Vincent, to be specific) which I pushed onto the porch with the help of a ramp made from the door we removed from the Shit Shed before its renovation. I even planned ahead for hauling the wood in the snow: I bought a sled, attached ropes to it, and pulled the wood to the house like a stack of heavy children, all while singing along unselfconsciously to David Bowie songs.

But the winter wore on and, despite a few warm patches, was quite cold. And we were running out of wood.

Plot twist: we decided to burn the last of our oil at the end of the previous winter, hoping (in the summer or fall) to replace that furnace with one that ran on propane...but that didn't happen. So we had no oil in the tank and, to further thicken the plot, the furnace didn't pass a recent obligatory insurance inspection so we couldn't order more oil anyway. All we were left with was the wood stove, baseboard heaters in our bedroom, and a few portable space heaters. And hot water bottles. We love our hot water bottles:

Illustration by Niall Eccles.

Rather than reordering some more wood right away, I thought I'd first try something I believed to be mere myth –an old wives' tale used to scare little children so they don't become artists– and surely debunked by now. As the legend goes, finished watercolour paintings burn faster, hotter, and longer than chopped wood. That's gotta be bullshit, right? Well, I tried it out...

Taking an old watercolour painting I did way back in 2002 (Revolution) that was just sitting around taking up valuable gallery space, I unceremoniously shoved it into our wood stove, expecting to debunk the myth, but, at the same time, hoping it was true and that this crazy endeavour would provide us with some much needed heat.

Well, it was too big, for starters, so I had to tear it in half, separating the kid reading from a history book from the Revolutionary War soldiers engaged in selfsame historic battle and, lo and behold:

Super fire!

I had barely closed the door when the painting burst into flames, spurred on simply by the nearly dead embers. With the air intake fully open we were able to heat the house from the dining room all the way to the gallery (which is usually pretty chilly in winter because of the cement floor).

The burning painting was still blazing six hours later, about half as long as it took me to paint it.

With the myth confirmed (i.e. a finished watercolour painting will, indeed, burn faster, hotter, and longer than wood) we no longer had to worry about our rapidly diminishing wood pile...and we're keeping cozy while simultaneously making room for my new paintings by getting rid of old stock in the gallery.

Here's a video demonstration:

The Speed of Winter

At Small Pond the summers are crazy busy, but winter is a whole other speed: S-L-O-W.  The visitors are few and far between.  Sometimes we don’t change out of our pyjamas. The quiet is deep in the absence of the crickets, frogs and the buzz of artists at work and at play.  In the fall we mentally prepared ourselves to “hunker down,” anticipating the long months we would spend gazing through frozen windows over fields of snow.  But winter has been decidedly non-committal.  Does this look like Ontario in mid-February to you?

We’ve seen hardly any snow all winter, and when it does snow it is usually gone within a day or two.  Sure, it makes things more comfortable for us, but it’s bad for farmers, and probably for plenty of things in the natural world.  It also makes you wonder if climate change is starting to make itself known in ways which we can no longer ignore.

During these tranquil months we’re keeping busy, including making a few improvements around the house.  We just got a wood stove put into the dining room, ensuring the coziness of future winters.

I’ve been sewing some funky garlands to hang up come spring.

I’ve been visiting schools and doing shadow puppetry workshops. This last week I was at Quinte Mohawk School where I worked with four classes to tell the story of Creation.  It was a very ambitious project, but a ton of fun.

Last month I spent a week in Toronto writing a new play with David Anderson.  This is the fifth play we've written together.  The History of Forgetting will be produced by Clay & Paper Theatre and play in Dufferin Grove Park through July and August 2012.  David’s in Africa right now; we’re going to finish the play when he gets back.

I’ve also been teaching myself to play the concertina!  Trust me, I’m as surprised as anybody.  I’m working on playing my first song, Shepherd’s Hey.  I’m practicing for about an hour every day and things are really coming along.

Meanwhile, Milé has been painting up a storm.  He’s working on his last 2 paintings in a 15-painting series entitled Barnscapes.

They're oil paintings of barns and landscapes, based on his own photos taken around Prince Edward County.   You’ll be able to see them in the coming months at Arts on Main gallery in Picton, and of course at the gallery here at Small Pond.

But it hasn’t been all work.  We’ve been reading and watching movies and baking and visiting with friends and staying up late and sleeping in. So as slow as it is here in the winter, we manage to keep ourselves occupied and enjoy the down time; spring is just around the corner, and we'll be suitably rested to switch back into high gear.