This Amazing Day

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Victoria Arts Council, "This Amazing Day," 2019

The artists in This Amazing Day all participated in the 2018 Bonnie Kreye Residency. They weren't selected for this exhibition based on a particular curatorial theme or idea, so writing a "curatorial essay" is in part, a work of speculation and imagination. The title This Amazing Day comes from a poem by e.e. cummings and was chosen by the Director of the BMK residency, Donald Kreye. Kreye's late wife, Bonnie McComb Kreye, loved e.e. cummings and since the residency is a way of honouring Bonnie's life, it seemed an appropriate gesture. 

“I thank you God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky…" - e.e.cummings

The gist of the poem is a reminder to celebrate the ordinary (yet extraordinary) things around us. We see the sky and trees everyday and yet how often do we stop and ponder their wonder and beauty? 

So while the exhibition's premise did not rely on the content of their work, by a strange state of serendipity, the work does exhibit a wonderful and surprising thematic commonality. The artists make us look and think about things not seen, not considered, and their work reminds us that anything around us could make this "an amazing day".

[from "The Casual Surprise of the Everyday" a curatorial text by Wendy Welch]