Kind of a weird story to share about this plein air experience. I met up with the Manotick Art Association Plein Air group this past Thursday at 9:30am, this time at Hog’s Back Park, which is a beautiful park right in the middle of Ottawa that features waterfalls and tall trees. We spread out across the park shortly after the start time, and so I walked around a bit until I selected a spot that had a good view of the falls.
Shortly after I set up, a man is his 20s walked up to me and started talking to me. One of the first things he says is “You’re an artist. I’m an artist too. I have a knife that I decorated that I want to show you.” So he pulls out this knife that is not just a pocket knife, it’s a five inch butcher-style knife with a curved point. This immediately put me on edge, but he wasn’t pointing it at me or waving it around. He just held it to the side and pointed out the decorations to me, so I tried to keep a poker face and just listen to him. He kept rambling on for 5-10 minutes about a range of things, and I was starting to wonder if he would ever go away and let me paint, but eventually he went on his way, so I got on with my painting.
I don’t know if I should have reported this to police or not. He didn’t overtly threaten me, and seemed basically harmless, if overly chatty. He said something bad had happened to him that day so he was picking up garbage around the falls to cheer himself up. It was definitely a strange conversation, but I couldn’t see reporting him to police when he didn’t actually threaten me, though one could argue simply showing a knife to me was a threat.
Despite the bizarre encounter with this character, I managed to do two quick paintings, one 8 x 10 (above), and a 5 x7 (below).
If there is one thing I learned from my encounter, it’s that I will be carrying something with me, like pepper spray or a whistle the next time I go for a plein air outing, and I will stick closer to the group next time.
Here are some photos of my surroundings that day:
Amanda Bennett Art 