Our elementary class took a field-trip to the Winnipeg Art Gallergy; I had been so excited at the prospect but was dismayed at the anti-climax of the WAG, having expected endless halls of great masters as I'd read at The Hermitage or The Louvre.

As the class was collecting in the main hall for the school bus back, I happened on a picture by Christiane Pflug: a snowy scene of a view from a 2nd storey house in Winnipeg from a dull winter kitchen. But half-reflected in the French window was a small wedge of green, a young girl in a summer garden lost in her book. I stared dumb-founded: it was like a wonderful secret that only I seemed to have seen. I had to be physically removed from staring at it, and had not the words at the time to express my wonder. I do now.

I began to really *look* at paintings, seeking the artist's history, politics, vision. I always look for the visual joker,
And so began my deep attraction and appreciation of art. Several years later I went to The Hermitage exhibit at the WAG, and a decade after began my biennial hauntings of great museums in Europe, Asia and North America.

I have never been able to find a reproduction of Pflug's work, and have always wanted one to hang in my own winter kitchen to remind myself in winter there is the warmth of summers remembered and soon to come. In my child's mind I always thought her picture should be called 'The Door Into Summer', and still do. It was my own doorway into the eternal summer of art.

Thank you, WAG, for providing me the catalyst to my decades of pleasure in the arts.

W.R. Mooney