I went to a garden party...

well, 2 stops on the Kingsville Garden tour, at least

I’m a literary member of the Art Society of Kingsville, which partnered with the Horticultural Society to have artists in residence at all the stops on this year’s garden tour. I spent the morning at the site of a huge flower and vegetable garden. I had a great time with couple who own the property, and came home with a bag of huge canna lily rhizomes.

My wife was thrilled when I phoned her from the garden and asked if she was interested. We planted the rhizomes after supper tonight.

I also met new people, and sold a bunch of books. I felt particularly good about the book sales, because these are the new edition of The Book of Answers, with the new wraparound cover by Grace Enns, and the teaser first chapter of The Book of Christmas Joy in the back.

When the opportunity to do this came up, I pondered what I could possibly do, that would offer an experience in anyway equivalent to watching someone sketch or paint. I did bring my laptop, but only pecked away at the scene I’m working on today when there was no one to chat with.

In an effort to make things fun I created a list of questions, and asked people to help me create new characters.

I printed a pile of these pages, and brought them on clipboards. I also brought a box of assorted pens. Just for fun, and to see if anyone would notice, most of the pens were from funeral homes. I was so hoping someone would ask. (No one did, but that was the only disappointing aspect of the experiment.)

I have a pile of response pages to look at, and I expect that reading them will spark memories of the conversations I got into with folks, as they helped design a character that could potentially be a killer, victim, or “other” in a future story. I asked them to leave their email addresses, so I can let them know if Sylvia the Pilates Queen whose secret indulgences include cupcakes and crocheting will feature in something I write (I mean other than this piece).

I have to say that some of today’s participants were very good at naming motives, and also devising methods of murder, and the disposal of corpses.

In the afternoon I moved to another garden, where there was also a visual artist at work. Sandra Ellis is a wonderful painter who lives in Windsor, but grew up in the county. She was very excited to tell me and the garden marshal that she’d been painting down near the waterfront, which is part of the park we were at, and a crowd had gathered for an impending wedding. She painted the setting before the wedding party arrived, and was delighted when one of the parents asked to buy it.

Sandra then wondered what else to paint. I pointed to some wildflowers in the pollinator garden and said I thought the colours popped in the afternoon sunlight. What do you think?

The yellow ones were my favourite. Here’s a picture of me with Sandra, in the pollinator garden.

The observant detectives among you will notice I was able to photograph the flower paintings. That may be the best part of this story. I asked Sandra if she was interested in trading her painting of the yellow flowers for a copy of my book. She said yes, and added the other painting, which she’d just finished, into the bargain.