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You meet someone at a punk rock concert a gazillion years ago – the next thing you know (I seem to have blanked out the 90’s) that same person is interviewing you for CTV. Only he no longer has a Billie Idol brush cut and my hair isn’t nearly as teased. Mark Rogstad, someone I knew ages ago, is now a reporter and since my dad, William Perehudoff, had an opening for his painting exhibition The Optimism of Colour: William Perehudoff, A Retrospective at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon this weekend, I was the chosen victim, I mean, the interviewee. Obviously CTV would have preferred to interview my dad, but um, let’s just say he’s above all that pesky promotional nonsense these days.
The opening was very exciting, with or without CTV. So many people came to support my dad that Saskatoon this weekend was the epicentre of the art world. Well, okay, it was the epicentre of my art world. Possibly, just possibly, more people attended the Matisse show in New York.
But, we had guests from London, UK (John and Jan McLean – look at the show John has with my dad at Art Placement), and artists from Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and Calgary; and Gilles Hebert, the Director of the Edmonton Art Gallery; and Karen Wilkin, art critic from New York – she was the curator of the show; and Roald Nasgaard, art historian from Toronto; and my sister, Rebecca, from Chicago and her daughter, Molly, from Scotland; and dad’s art dealer from Toronto, Nick Rukaj; and dad’s dealer from Edmonton and Vancouver, Doug Udell; etc, etc, etc.
The best part about doing the TV interview, other than the fact that the cameraman had good lighting and Mark didn’t make me sound nearly as idiotic as I actually am, was that now I’ve been recognized all over Saskatoon. I went into a store yesterday and the woman working there had seen the clip and, even more impressively, I took 11 bags of garbage out to the dump in Langham today (ah, you envy my jetsetting life, don’t you?) and I was recognized by the man who worked at the dump! And he helped me and my sister lift the bags! Now that, my friends, is fame.
Amazing! All of it: Your dad, the exhibit, the art, the guy at the dump…I love it all. And if I had a million dollars I’d buy the painting that’s behind your dad and the bendy man (I’m assuming that’s your dad?)