Thursday, August 28, 2008

Dorset prints online

Like many bloggers, I'm a Statcounter whore. I probably check entirely too often (about a half dozen times a day) to see how many people are visiting the blog, where they're coming from and so on. I've actually been pretty happy this month because my stats are way up. I have no idea why, but for August an abnormally large number of you are visiting here as opposed to going out and enjoying the sunshine.

I do not know, but I'm glad you're around.

Anyway, without fail the thing that cracks me up is the search engine keywords that run through the blog. I keep threatening to do a best of the week, but always manage to forget. But some of the highlights currently listed include "Brokeback Mountain Bastard" (I get a lot of searches with bastard in them, go figure), "Lyrics for me and you and a dog named Boo" (guess why), "big curling rolls" (not my kind of curling, I suspect), "Colleen Power endorsement" (I endorse Colleen's music whole-heartedly) and "regent resolts" (a bit of a typo. And no, beyond the top 6, I have no idea of the results.)

But the one I've been seeing an awful lot of lately is "Cape Dorset Prints". And hey, I understand that. There's a big demand for them. And regular readers of the blog will know we managed to land a print last year with Jen's help. And if I get home in October, I look forward to seeing it for the first time in its frame. I understand it's huge. In its frame it's about five feet tall. So we're going to need some serious wall space for that one.

However, for those of you searching for your own Dorset print, you will be happy to know that the 2008 collect is available for viewing online.


Our reaction? Well, it's always hard to get a an idea of how good a print is just by looking at them on a laptop screen, but there are a few we'll be curious to take a closer look at. A couple by Kenojuak Ashevak ("Grand Entrance" and "Long Necked Loon"), and a couple by Ningeokuluk Teevee (Cathy likes "The Brothers", I like "Bull Walrus" and we're both interested in "Snow Geese Return").





Will we get one this year? I'm not sure. Last year we saw two we really, really liked and that was such a rare event as we have very different tastes in artwork. For example Cathy's favourite is Monet's "Water Lilies".












My favourite painting is David Blackwood's "Fire Down on the Labrador". (A good friend of mine's father has a signed/numbered print which I have constantly threatened to steal). There's a bit of a void between those two.


So getting another Dorset print depends on if they wow us both when we see them in person in October, which is when the show is normally held in Iqaluit. It also depends on the size. We can't really get another print the size of Teevee's "Owls in Midnight."



You know, if you love art there are a lot worse places in the world to live than here. A lot worse....

Last Five
1. So nice, so smart - Kimya Dawson
2. Let it rain - OK Go
3. Calling Elvis - Dire Straits
4. Long way home - Supertramp
5. Smoke baby - Hawksley Workman*

3 comments:

Mongoose said...

I like the one with the whale.

I got a hit on my blog for the query "ukrainski porno". Which is weird since I've never mentioned the Ukraine, or porno, that I know of.

Sara Dorman said...

dad gave me two of his kenojuak prints --both owls -- but not the whale! actually they're not real prints, but calendar pages from a show in toronto in the late 1960s/ early 1970s. they were on our walls when i was a kid, and now they're on mine.

towniebastard said...

Well, Kenojuak owl prints are worth a fortune. When I attended to the drawing in Iqaluit last year for the Dorset prints her owls were among the first to go. So if they were originals, well, you could certainly set up a nice university fund for Katherine.

And hey, if the whale ever comes up for grabs, let me know...;)