Went to an opening tonight at the Tom Thomson Gallery, for two very different artists working in mostly different media, and presented so effectively that you could go from one space to the other and back again, learning more and appreciating more each time. Doug Guildford works with crocheted wire, plaster casts, drawing and printmaking to express forms inspired by intertidal spaces in his native Nova Scotia. Susan Collett does fabulously massive, yet delicate, porcelain pieces as well as prints from tied copper sheets, inspired by, among other things, two trips to China. I've been to dozens of press openings at galleries over the years in the big city and even there you were always insulated from creators by layers of benefactors and handlers. Not so in Owen Sound, one of the Cultural Capitals of Canada (2004). The artists were genuinely glad to be there and said so, and you could tell they meant it because you were standing three feet away and could quiz them on it. And parking was free.