I am exhausted and already the high from last night is being replaced with a low due to the grey sky and the fact that I’m carrying around all this extra weight from the hell that is psychiatric medications. My lack of sleep hasn’t helped matters either. :o/

So when we got to Touched By Fire, I was met with a throng of people telling me how much they loved my work and that I already had some “fans” waiting to meet me. These “fans” turned out to be Gail and Norm Cutler of Chicago, who were very disappointed that “Dream” was already sold because they felt a special connection to it.

It’s kind of a long story, but here goes:

Touched By Fire began in memory of a girl named Rebecca Burghardt, who was an artist with bipolar disorder and who ultimately took her own life. The show is put on by Rebecca’s father, The Mood Disorders Association of Ontario and a financial company called Raymond James. Well, as it turns out, Gail and Norm Cutler also had a daughter named Rebecca, who also had bipolar disorder, who was also an artist and who also took her own life to end her suffering. They hold a show much like Touched By Fire in Chicago every year, called Rebecca’s Dream and the two families found each other via the internet. The Toronto Rebecca’s father was a guest at the Chicago event last week, and the Cutlers came to Touched By Fire last night.

Gail Cutler saw my “Dream” painting and was reminded of her daughter, even moreso when she read the description of the pieces, that they (Hope and Dream) were the first pieces I’d created after having my psychotic break. I felt bad that I couldn’t sell them to her because she was obviously still so pained by her daughter’s loss, but I did offer to do a commission for them and gave her my card. After reading about their Rebecca on their website, I think I may start on creating a painting called “Rebecca’s Dream”, just because I could relate to her story and feel fortunate in that, that so could have been my story so many times.

Gail spent a good 5 minutes encouraging me to keep creating, that she felt art was my path and that I should never give up no matter what. That made me feel good.

Over the course of the night, we ate hors d’oeuvres, one of which were these BITCHIN’ roast beef/asparagus wraps that I would have eaten a whole trayful of myself. They were cold, but cooked mini spears of asparagus, wrapped with amazing sliced roast beef and skewered, with some kind of steak sauce drizzled on top. OMG I can’t stop thinking about them. There were also california rolls (yuck) and chicken satay skewers (also yuck), as well as cheese, crackers, guacamole (yuck) and these neat kettle chip-like things to dip into it. There were a few other things too, but I didn’t know what they were so I didn’t have any. It was also an open bar, which normally I’d be all about, but I had enough Ativan in me to fell a horse, so I stuck to Pepsi.

So many people kept coming up to me and saying how much they liked “Mania in the Key of Psychosis”, one lady was from an art gallery, the name of which I forget now. Most of the people saying they liked that piece were the 20-ish year old girls handing out the food and all of these cute little punk rock girls with spiky shaved hair-dos.

Near the end of the night, this man came up to me and introduced himself as Bob and he wanted to know all about me, my illness, how I’m feeling now and everything there was to know about “Mania in the Key of Psychosis”. We were in the middle of the room talking and I was trying to explain things about the painting by pointing and he asked, “would you go over there and show me?” so we went over there and I explained the whole thing to him. And the weird thing was that he was hanging on my every word and genuinely interested in where my mind was when I created it, I’ve never had a conversation like that before in my life and I doubt I will again.

He said that he would love to buy it, but as is the problem with something so big and pink and full of tampons, he wouldn’t know where to hang it. He said he was thinking about buying it for his 16 year old daughter, but we agreed that it would probably be a weird piece for a father to give a daughter.

Then he said, “Could I just give you a donation?” and he pulled out his money clip. “If I just gave you,” flipping through his bills, “$100 just for painting this and to help you continue to paint, would you accept it?”

I was stunned and didn’t really know what to say or what the protocol was, so I just said yes and gave him a hug and boom, I was $100 richer. It was pretty surreal and I’m still dumbfounded by the conversation and donation and just the whole event, really.

The other art at the show was interesting. There were definitely pieces I liked and some I didn’t so much. I’d link you to the pieces I really liked, but they won’t be on the website until after the show. The lady whose piece won was really neat, I think it was painted on muslin over a canvas and there was another one that won gallery space downtown that I absolutely loved called “No End in Sight” by Diana Portokalidis that I wish I could show you all. Another I really loved was a tryptich (sp?) called “Obsessive Compulsive” by Kimberly H. Denny that you really had to see in person for the full effect. It was really powerful stuff and I hope some of you can actually make it to the show to see them.

Another artist whose work was there was Joey DAMMIT! who, from what I can gather, is sort of a Toronto art celebrity. I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself to him because he was always surrounded by people, but I really liked his work, it was sort of collage meets Andy Warhol and…I just liked it.

There was an awkward moment when we were coming back into the hotel from having a smoke (I know, I know) where this girl, who was wearing an artist nametag that I couldn’t read under her coat, told me that she meant to find me to say that she loved “Mania”. I didn’t really know what to say to her and I kinda flaked out, so if that was you I’m SO sorry, it was an overwhelming night for an agoraphobe like me.

Finally, the night began to wind down and I started hitting my “people threshold” and Blake & I decided to go home.

During the course of the night, I talked to about 20 different people and handed out a good 30 business cards. One woman came up to me near the end of the night and suggested that I sell my paintings with the sparkles at some of the fancy boutiques for children at The Beaches in Toronto, which is actually something I think I’m going to look into because it would be a good venue for some of my stuff.

So, all in all, it was a good night and I can’t wait to maybe do it again next year!

Oh also, there were 380 entries for the show but only 42 artists got in. o_O I had no idea…