One of my favourite little things about Montréal comes as a results of the harsh winters. Winters I’d never experienced until moving out here.
For 3 months, there’s so much snow on the ground and it’s so freakin’ cold that people tend to hermit away.
White outs…
This 3-month-hibernation seems to bring out the artistic side of people.
Not everyone, but a lot of us.
Whether you’re a reader, a painter, a musician, a knitter, arts & crafts person, or whether you make pottery or bake, design websites, or illustrate comic books, you get 2 months to nerd out. Guilt-free.
The truth is when temperatures dip to -30°C, friends understand when you decide to stay in.
Plus they too decide to stay in and you end up with a lot of evenings free to do whatever the heck you want.
What does this mean for me? I find myself doing a lot more small projects…
Whether that’s making a batch of beef jerky, making homemade Ginger Ale, sitting at my art desk/tablet, small website concepts/opportunities I’m always working on something.
And don’t get me wrong, I have artistic friends all over, and each one of them deserves credit, but the cold winter of Montréal has shown me a youthful culture – passionate, creative, and full of dreams – and I just can’t shake the feeling that it has something to do with the thinking, the introspection, the conceptualisation, and the understanding that is demanded from those who participate in the arts community.
Stay creative, let’s see what we can do to better the World!
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
― Apple Inc.
Do you find yourself turning into a hermit when the cold weather hits? What’s your Winter Hobby? Let me know in the comments.
Yep. This last long-ass winter I learned to bake sourdough bread and wrote an entire book. Maybe next winter I can work on making both the bread and the characters less….shall we say…flat.
It’s Summer now and that has an entirely different feel. Like a get-out-and-do-stuff feel. Maybe Summer is the time to gather life experience so you have something to say with your art when everything turns back to ice.
I appreciate the post Chris. Not many people have good things to say about Winter and it’s a refreshing take on climate vs artistic expression that I hadn’t thought of before.