On a cold Sunday
last January, I cellphotoed a shot of Tom Thompson’s Jack Pine while roaming the gallery with my wife. I love the painting. It looks the way the north woods feel, and I
thought it would be cool and calming to have the image in my pocket.
“I don’t
think you’re allowed to do that,” my wife said seeing me check my photo on our
way to the underground garage. “I’m pretty sure it some sort of federal crime.”
I laughed at
the idea, but her comment made me uneasy and about a week later, I confirmed the
policy on the Gallery website. Instantly, the Jacked Pine Painting in my phone
turned from a cooling thought to burning guilt.
I tried to
email the image file back to the Gallery anonymously from my gmail account, but
because of its size, it kept bouncing back.
So, I deleted it from my photo folders and asked my wife to forget the
incident ever happened. She promised to
not say a word unless someone asked.
That was
good enough for me, and I went back to my daily routine trying to not raise any
suspicions and hoping no one at the Gallery would notice the Thompson
painting’s compromised copyrights and weakened sense of privacy.
Then, about
a month later, my email account began crashing repeatedly. I methodically reviewed every file and folder
to find the problem, eventually coming upon the culprit files in my Sent mail
box where the multiple failures to send back the mega Jack Pine emails
rested. Each message had a copy of the
prohibited photo still attached, and each time I deleted it, I became a little
more wistful. As I was about to erase
the last one, I looked at the photo, thought about how funny the Gallery rules
were, and fell even more deeply in love with the image which now made me smile
for many reasons.
So, that
last copy was still sitting in my Blackberry bowels when I read the Ottawa Citizen
this weekend and learned that the Gallery is about to change its no-photo
policy.
I have thus
decided to come clean. But because the new policy is set to come into effect on
April Fools Day, you’ll understand if I am a little leery and suspect it might
be some government policy enforcer trick to draw cellphone art thieves out of
the shadows.
So, that’s why I am calling for a general amnesty for cellophone Jack Pine jackers like me.
Read - Release of New Book
CRAZY TOWN TOO
So, that’s why I am calling for a general amnesty for cellophone Jack Pine jackers like me.
Read - Release of New Book
CRAZY TOWN TOO
