Still painting!

Tyler and I borrowed a book about the history of Bruno from the library. It's called "Up To Now" and was published by The Bruno History Book Committee in 1984. There's loads of interesting information in it, including family histories on everyone who was living here! Most fascinating to us was the history of our building:

"The Krustus building was built in 1907 by Krustus as a blacksmith shop and was located at the rear of what was formerly the Red & White Store. He operated it regularly until 1909, and occasionally, between his farm work, for a few years longer.

It had a short vacant spell and then in 1914 it was taken over by the R.M. of Bayne and was moved up to the sidewalk to be used as an office. Frank Hamm, the secretary, had had his original office on his farm, but for a short time he had used a part of the emergency hospital for his work, until he moved to the Krustus place.

The R.M. moved to Dana the following year and the place was purchased by Anton Fisher who had operated a harness shop in partnership with Mink, on Main Street. Fisher ran a harness shop in the building for several years, after which it served briefly as a dress shop for three or four years except for a short period when Ralph Gardwyne ran a second-hand shop in it. The Bruno Co-op purchased it in 1941 and when they moved to their present site in 1945, it was purchased by Nick Dirk who operated a Red and White store in it. It is presently Marion’s Ceramics and is owned and operated by Marion Lauer."

As far as we know, after the passing of Marion Lauer the building was purchased and used as a residential rental suite. Then we came along. We have met people in town who took ceramic classes from Marion and they have very fond memories of her.

We found out recently that the St. Maurus church in Dana was sold. Tyler and I had desperately wanted to buy it when we were living there. We went so far as to write a proposal to the board members. We hoped to turn it into an artist's residency. It's quite beautiful inside with a kitchen and two bathrooms downstairs. In fact, it’s part of the reason why we came out here. When Tyler attended his cousin's wedding in Dana 9 years ago he went exploring early one morning and stumbled upon the St. Maurus. He tried the door and it was open. Inside it was immaculate. He noticed a choir balcony and went up to discover an organ. Tyler's grandparents had owned an organ when he was a kid. When he chanced on this organ in Dana he quite happily sat down and played. He was already greatly impressed by the beauty of his surroundings. It is a moment he’s never forgotten. We waited four months in Dana hoping the church would be ours (it had been empty all these years). Finally we gave up. Turns out that the board member who had long been refusing to let the church go was sick and died shortly after we moved to Bruno. The church was immediately sold. There was no way we could buy it so soon after buying our store. From what we hear it went for a very reasonable price. Perhaps it just wasn't meant to be but we are a little heartbroken nonetheless.

When will the painting end? We started on Saturday and were immediately faced with a crisis. The heavily textured ceiling turned into a crumbling mess when introduced to the paint roller. We went out and purchased a specialized extra foamy roller and it did the trick but boy did the paint go fast. Now we've moved on to the walls & shelves. We're not sure about the colours we chose but can't afford to change our minds. When I used to dream about buying a house and fixing it up I always imagined it would be fun. It's not fun. Not yet.

"Arts activities in rural Saskatchewan have become more crucial and influential than ever before."

I found a great essay online by Saskatchewan poet Barbara Klar titled Arts Energize Rural Saskatchewan.

A very nice article about Going Rural and All Citizens was just posted on the CBC Radio 3 blog. Thanks John Paolozzi!

Tyler removed the old carpet from inside the shop yesterday and now we're left with glue covered lino! We've tried several methods of removing the glue but none seem to work. Suggestions anyone?

It won't stop snowing.

Meet Sparky. Sparky lives with Sister Maureen at The Prairie Ursuline Centre. Tyler and I have come to like them both very much!

I finally managed to launch All Citizens online. It's my first attempt at creating a website so getting the first page up took me quite a while, but I did it! I'll be adding more as we get closer to opening.

We went to another auction. This one was in the evening and was thankfully held indoors. Our goal was to get a dehumidifier. Sadly, the bidding went up to $75, way beyond our budget. We consoled ourselves with new clothes. New clothes from an auction, you say? For some reason this auction included massive amounts of merchandise from, as far as we could discern, Costco. We're talking everything from bags of tomatoes and giant boxes of wagon wheels to multi-packs of toothpaste and shaving cream to clothing. Why? We have no idea. I bought a beaded cotton blouse for $2 and Tyler bought some work pants for $8. It was bizarre. An older lady bought a few boxes of ice cream sandwiches and started handing them out to children and for some reason decided to include me! I think the median age there was about 60. We again neglected to bring food but luckily they were serving a ham dinner with carrots, scalloped potatoes and bread so we ordered it without the ham and received a generous discount. We stayed for three hours. When we left they still had a surprisingly large mound of merchandise to go through. We’re discovering that auctions are a valued form entertainment out here.

We went exploring through The Prairie Ursuline Centre the other day (we asked permission first). It's an extraordinary place.

We've kept the heat down in the storefront since we aren't using it yet. The other day I went in and discovered that one of the windows had a layer of ice on it, on the inside! I have never seen such a thing. We've been meaning to cover it with that shrink wrap stuff that stops drafts...better hop to it.