The Eastside Culture Crawl is East Vancouver’s own open studio tour. I don’t go every year, but have gone for many years. It feels good to wander through studio space, smelling paint, sawdust, and sometimes coffee, tea, and cookies.

Wandering through a painting studio always gives me a sense of wonder, like I’m exploring a mysterious territory. It’s so refreshing to not know what you’ll see next.

Back in the 80s, as an art student, I studied some drawing and a lot of computer graphics, which was just starting to evolve into a useful medium through relatively inexpensive home computer systems. With the exception of a little ink or graphite, my hands stayed relatively clean while I drew using a mouse.

So occasionally, my curiosity would lead me to the painting studios at my art college, where I could experience colour as it was embedded in thick pigment. I could see the physicality of its application, smell the oil and acrylics, and see the splatters and splashes of physical action. Computer graphics had – and have – none of that physicality or real-space depth and reality.

It still evokes wonder in me today.