{Tis the Season to be.....humbug?}

In this month's installment of File by EX in the Ottawa Citizen, Maureen is the Deputy Minister of a large department in the Civil Service who enjoys most everything about her job except.....The Annual Christmas Party. A workaholic, Maureen is bereft of social skills and sees these 'uncontrolled events' as opportunities for disaster: everything from a drunk employee spilling red wine on her Holt Renfrew clothes to the inevitable 'airing of employee grievances and gossip' or an employee exploiting the social occassion to lobby for some pet project. But to reject the invitation was even more catastrophic. While she wished to avoid her staff like the plague, she certainly didn't want them to know that. What to do? Maureen concocts an elaborate scheme. The day of the party, she contacts the organizers telling them she has been called into meetings. She waits the day out until early evening before descending down to offer her 'warm' wishes, certain that most of the staff are either gone or passed out. She's not disappointed. I opted to show Maureen wearing the obligatory 'Santa' hat distributing her Christmas cheer, which is lumps of coal, while her 'family' sleeps round the table waiting for her arrival.

The work was done using Chinese ink stone and brushes, commercial inks, sponges, dip pens on watercolor paper.