Where does the time go? How can we already be approaching the final week of the 2009 Birds in Art exhibition? It seems as though we just said goodbye to the artists and guests who joined us in September for the opening weekend.
The exhibition’s final week is a bittersweet time. So many hours are spent preparing Birds in Art – from posting the prospectus to logging entries and from catalogue editing and fact checking to the actual installation – that its nine-week run just seems to go too fast. 
But it’s more than the passage of time that gets my attention. It’s the enjoyment that I get from walking through the galleries, looking again and again at artworks that pique my interest for different reasons day after day. It’s the steady stream of enthusiastic visitors, their chatter, and their often heartfelt comments left on post-it notes for others – including staff – to read.
These are among the things that I’ll miss, even though we’re already at work on the 2010 Birds in Art exhibition and have a full and demanding schedule of exhibitions and programs to keep us more than busy between now and next fall.
Birds in Art is, well, Birds in Art. There’s a certain je ne sais quoi about it that just makes the exhibition special, like a good friend you can count on, but who also keeps you on your toes. There’s both a comfort factor and a challenging factor at play and I’ll miss both when the exhibition closes on November 15.
On a positive note, there’s still time to take in Birds in Art 2009, whether it’s for the first time, a return visit, or one last look. I’ll be making the most of these final days.
