Blog # 43…March 2015

Art has the power to connect us with our past, whether by images, words or music. Even the coolest young hipsters can get misty-eyed at a photo of great grandparents in their wedding gear, a sewing machine that runs by hand or a Glen Miller tune. The shadows of the past surround us, waiting to pull us back at the slightest reminder…well, some of us anyway.

My grandparents worked a small general farm when I was a kid, I spent summers with a few cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, a couple of horses and even a goat. Imagine how I enjoyed the Waterloo Regional Museum where I saw a cream separator, butter churn and lots of other familiar artifacts that were my grandmother’s everyday tools of life.

It used to be possible to see how things worked (and sometimes understand too) and there’s an interesting form of artistic expression evolving that shows us the components of machinery that used to be hand crafted. As our lives become more complicated and many things are out of our control, there’s both art and comfort in looking back at times that were more human in scale.

Recently, as part of its annual Winterfest, Hamilton honoured its rich industrial history with On the Waterfront, a series of installations that referenced the processing and manufacturing activities that had gone on around the harbour, close to transportation on the Great Lakes

The use of children for jobs in factories was whimsically evoked by Carey Jermigan and Julia Campbell Such near where the Gartshore and Cowie Iron Works operated from 1870 to 1904. Wooden patterns were made there, then used to make molds for the metal gears and other parts that drove machines. Stories from the workers who built a monumental steam powered pump there formed the basis for their piece…many of the workers were children, small enough to crawl in and out to oil parts and retrieve lost bolts.

 

The small chairs at the top of the poles moved up and down with the turning of the gears, just as the children used to love to seesaw for fun on the pistons that ran the pump they helped to build.
No helicopter parents around to watch those shenanigans. 

I’ve recently fallen in love with Hamilton and am looking forward to visiting a couple of museums that pay tribute to the City’s working past. Used to be that as we got older we knew more about how things work,  part of what’s called wisdom… now it rests in the hands of a few young dudes writing codes in southern California. At the Museum of Steam and Technology it's possible to see how many things work - including the 70 ton cast iron steam powered pump mentioned above - as well as getting a peek into life at the beginning of Canada’s industrial revolution.

And the City’s pride in its industrial roots continues at the Customs House that’s home to the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre. Stories of work and working life (good and bad old days) presented in this beautiful historic building give some context for the issues we're facing now. Working conditions are generally safer and wages are higher but the lack of enough decent work matching workers' skills has devastating economic and personal effects here and around the world. Knowing where we've been should guide where we're going. Watch for more about this after I've been to Hamilton again..

                                                Thanks for the pics to Michael Fliess and John Bilodeau

Blog # 42…February 2015

 

I’m not often conscious of being proud of things Canadian but every time I visit the National Gallery in Ottawa I feel my chest swell and I get a bit taller.  It’s so enormously impressive as a structure, never mind what’s on display  inside.

With the current main attraction, we (and art history) owe a debt to the psychiatric profession for the work of Jack Bush.  Spending four decades as a highly skilled  commercial artist, he was also moving in the vanguard of abstract painting. His style and his life is  summed up by one of the headings at the show…”He had the soul of a rebel with the habits of a conformist.”                                   
 This conflict plagued Bush for most of his life.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

photo Craig Boyko

I'm  a traditionalist in my taste - a lover of the Impressionists -  and it’s a stretch for me to relate to abstract art. My interest in the backstory for Bush’s life and how it informed and influenced his work  caught my attention though and nudged me up a level in  appreciation. His painterly skill  is so evident and undeniable and there’s no “I could have done that,”   that occasionally accompanies a black line  across a canvas.     

Hard to choose a favourite but Pinched Orange is high on my list.                                             

Magazine illustration

Yesterday

Bush battled extreme anxiety throughout his life and the  sessions with his longtime therapist are recalled in carefully kept journals.   Despite  a successful career as an illustrator,   he struggled constantly to reconcile the three worlds - home, work and art -  he felt were pulling him apart.  He felt he kept advancing and retreating from his painting and during the early years titles like Panic, Tangled and Weary, reflected his inner anguish.  He began psychotherapy in 1947 and a major breakthrough started to occur when his psychiatrist,  Allan Walters, recommended that he start painting in a looser more raw style, breaking out of the restraints of his day job as a commercial illustrator.  Although he was always recognized as a highly competent and original artist, something was keeping him from realizing the full power of his talent

Following Walters’advice, he began to create large impressive canvasses which are prominently featured in the National Gallery show.  There’s also an extensive look at early portraits and a generous sampling of illustrations for magazine stories, childrens’ books and advertisments.  It’s sometimes difficult to imagine that the same artist created such varied and remarkably distinct pieces.

In 1968 he left the world of Molson’s Export, Philishave, billboards  and  magazines to paint full time.  His  colour field paintings  prompted words of encouragement from critic Clement Greenberg who told him, “You haven’t yet realized there’s nobody on earth, including me, who knows more about painting than you do. Your colour is going to town.”  

The story has a happy ending, in 1973, Bush wrote in his diary,"What a wonderful life I've had."

Before he died in January 1977 recognition came: he was chosen to represent Canada at the biennale in Brazil  in 1967, inducted into the Order of Canada and had a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario. He realized at last that  his shows did what he longed for…they went “Pow, pow, pow”

So many people in all fields die without sensing the appreciation people have for them and their work, I was warmed by the peace and satisfaction he felt at the end of his life…we should all be so lucky. 

Blog # 41…January 2015

It'll be about ten months now before we hear Frosty the Snowman again… so in the meantime, let’s sit back and enjoy ourselves.  Any of you lucky enough to catch The Polar Sea recently on TVO will have been amazed by the music in episode 2…played on instruments made of ICE.   At the moment here, ice isn’t our favourite element, bringing tree branches down on our power lines and sending us to the ER with broken wrists.  But Norwegian musician Terje Isungset shows us its magical side.

A talented percussionist, Terje got his big break in 2000 at the Winter Olympic Games in his native Lillehammer, composing and playing in a frozen waterfall on ice insruments…OMG how amazing is that!
                                                                                                                                                                           

In The Polar Sea, he and his fellow musicians perform on an Arctic ice flow, creating hauntingly beautiful sounds on a violin, trumpet and a series of chimes, all carved out of pure glacial ice 2,500 years old.   
Each instrument has its own unique tonal qualities that mellow over time as the ice eventually melts.


 

I’m sure you’re shivering both with excitement and cold now so let’s have a change in climate for some other interesting ways to make sound.  There’s a 21 mile stretch of highway in Thailand near the border of Laos called The Gong Road. It's lined with people who create huge instruments as well as a symphony of grinding, polishing and banging sounds in the production. The gongs were originally used for a ceremonial function to let two people approaching each other on the road know who should bow in front of the other -  now they supply alarm clocks for the monks in the country's 30,000 temples.

Today the process looks like something from the Bronze Age, clay is broken up to make molds for the shapes, metal collected and melted, poured and hammered  - all by hand - until exactly the right sound results.
We have our own Gong Road in Montreal  when  les Tam-tams du mont Royal, a long time tradition, come out to play every Sunday.

.



Seems as if we’re driven to make music out of whatever comes to hand...if you missed The Polar Sea, it's available on TVO.org/thepolarsea.

A word about photos, I make every effort to credit photographers if I can track them down, the internet is a bit of a jungle of untitled work, but I do my best. The ice instrument pics are from Terje Isungset's site, the gongs from the New York Times.

Blog # 40…December 2014

T'is the season to be thoughtful and kind, eat everything you deny yourself the rest of the year…and take some time to appreciate interesting things as you move through the holiday rush - they’re not always where you’re expecting to find them either.

Pop-ups are popular and more and more murals are appearing on walls and fences, disguising city utility boxes, often reflecting the neighbourhood past or present and making us smile as we hippety hop to the barber shop or trudge home from work. 

On the north side of Bloor Street, opposite Varsity Stadium - a cheeky reference to the Royal Conservatory of Music on the opposite side.

                                                                                                        

Toronto as it looked in 1943  on the cover of a city function box on
Charles Street between Church and Yonge.  

                                 

                            



Words to live by in this stretch of Jane Street north of St Clair

The King of money and mufflers whizzes by as the subway approaches the Keele station.

And this is just a glorious fantasy of colour, no particular message - just to enjoy, make what you want of it.

This is a very Toronto-centric piece - I'm making a collection of outside art from other places too, so if you see something you like in your corner, send it along.
Great pics from Norm Nicholls, thanks Norm, and happy holiday wishes to you all, back in January

Blog # 39...November 2014

These days in Kabul a group of women get together regularly to read and talk about poetry - they're free to meet openly. Women in smaller centres and rural areas face severe punishment if they're discovered approaching education or the outside world but they do it anyway, slipping under the radar.

Mirman Maheer, Afghanistan's largest literary society is patterned on the Golden Needle, a Taliban era group who met, pretending to sew, to talk about literature. Their members meet, talk and provide a lifeline for many women outside the city who must risk finding a phone, the call being their only link with other women and with learning and language.

 From Meena:
"I am like a tulip in the desert,
I die before I open and the waves of desert breeze blow me away."
She isn't sure of her age..."Because I am a girl, no one knows my birthday."

Saheera Shariff, the founder of Mirman Baheer, is a member of Parliament from the province of Khost. Although she doesn't consider herself a poet, she expresses herself vividly when she says "A poem is a sword, and literature is a more effective battle for women's rights than shouting at political rallies. This is a different kind of battle."

Language and poetry have a long and rich history in the harsh landscape of Afghanistan... legend has it that 11th century Afghan Queen Rabia Balkhi used her last drop of blood to write poems. It's especially hurtful that so many women are denied developing their own voice and the freedom to speak freely with their sisters. Despite the repression though, traditional poetry is handed down orally as means to express themselves and share experiences.

From Dowser

Pashtun folk poems have always been about rebellion and often rail against forced marriage with wry humour
Couplets like this are called landai:
"Making love to an old man is like
Making love to a limp cornstalk blackened by fungus."

A contemporary woman, Zarmina, who described "the dark cage of the village" was beaten when she was discovered reading her love poems and faced marrying a man chosen by her father. She set herself on fire, dying in protest. One of her friends wrote:
"Her memory will be a flower tucked into literature's turban
In her loneliness, every sister cries for her."

Lina, who thinks she's 11, wrote this rubaiyot (an Arabic quatrain):
"You won't allow me to go to school,
I won't become a doctor,
Remember this
One day you will be sick."

Injustices against women, wherever they happen, diminish us all. Speaking out is always challenging, often dangerous, but women keep doing it.
                        ......................................................................................................................

Not to get all 1984 on you, but has anyone else noticed ads relating to the content of e-mails appearing on their screens? No longer a question of any privacy on the internet...we're all in our underwear, better make sure it's clean.

Blog 38…October, 2014

Early in my life as a physiotherapist, I worked with children with a variety of physical disabilities. It was the beginning of a growing movement, led in many cases by the people directly involved, to make room for those amongst us who have difficulty with curbs, stairs and heavy doors. So, architectural accessibility became a common concept and the law in many areas.  People who are less than fully mobile are now able to enter most schools, theatres, public buildings and transportation. The effect of these moves over the past five decades means that we're accustomed to seeing people who use a variety of aids to get around and we take it for granted that they pursue many of the same activities as we do, although with some difficulty. 

There have also been creative initiatives both large and small, institutional and personal to develop insight into the world of those of us who are disabled in some way…and we're all less than Olympic performers in many areas, especially as we age. 

In the film Margarita With a Straw, director Shonali Bose introduces Laila, a young woman in Delhi who faces many issues because of her athetoid cerebral palsy. Her curiousity about life in general and her sexuality in particular lead her to study in New York where she explores both with a young woman she meets at an Occupy demonstration. Khanum is a blind activist, half Pakistani, half Bangladeshi. It’s a touching story, hitting on four delicate topics at once without being preachy. It bothered me a bit when I heard that the actress who plays Laila is not disabled, but she’s very effective and the film’s message is clear…and that’s why they call it acting.  

Closer to home, a young Toronto couple – he’s disabled, she’s able-bodied – are combating the stigma about their relationship while teaching others about sex and love.  As it says on the mural behind them...
                           Welcome to Paradise.

They kicked off the opening of their Rose Centre for Love, Sex and Disability with a fashion show at Buddies in Bad Times recently…called I’m Sexy and I Know It., featuring models both with and without disabilities.

Dancer/choreographer Michelle Silagy has decided to use dance with different bodies as the topic for her MFA thesis. Her interest in the notion that dance isn’t exclusively done with the lower limbs began when she was doing some work in a hospital and was unexpectedly presented with a dance class of patients in wheelchairs.

The more we stretch our ideas about what’s acceptable for our body size, shape and capabilities, the more comfortable we’ll all be with ourselves living together on our planet.  And we need all the comfort we can get these days.

Blog # 37…September 2014

We’re surrounded by an amazing work of art...our environment. Despite the careless way we take it for granted, it's an endless creative marvel.  Last week-end thousands of people in NY City hit the streets to demonstrate their love and concern for our home planet with banners, posters and their colourful selves. Thousands more around the world joined them, taking their distress about the environment to the streets. I hope the climate change deniers were watching, including our head of state who decided not to attend the UN climate summit…oh well, at least he’s consistent.

 

New York City, September 21, 2014

 Haida village abandoned over a century ago

Recent view from a zodiak

I was in beautiful British Columbia this summer where their closeness to nature gives them an extra edge in appreciating it as well as lending urgency to their feelings of protectiveness. The islands of Haida Gwaii should be an inspiration to all of us and we should all know the story of the blockade the Haida people staged against the logging companies on Moresby Island in 2005.

Raven, a watchman at SgangGwaii

Art with a message

We owe an incredible debt to native people for their past and ongoing defense of the land.  The Council of the Haida Nation are now participating with different levels of government on a blueprint for forest management, a work in progress that has kept clear cutting to a minimum, at least for now. And since an agreement signed by both parties in 1993, Gwaii Hanas National Park, a UN Heritage site occupying a  large section of Moresby Island, is run jointly by Parks Canada and the CHN,

In This Changes Everything, out last week, Naomi Klein urges us not to depend on native people to defend the land, it’s time we took up some of the load. The Rockefeller heirs are withdrawing from fossil fuels and investing millions into clean energy production...I’ll leave it up to you to decide what you can do.

I wish the smart young dudes who spend so much time making things smaller and faster and adding more and more apps to devices would turn some of that brain power to coming up with some solutions to energy production, transportation and consumption. Just saying.

Public art has become something valued, whether as a political statement, a reminder of a person or place important to our history or something beautiful to turn a utilitarian object into an objet.                                                              

Workers records

Their faces

  These pieces greeted me as I came off the sea bus from downtown Vancouver…they’re a tribute to workers in the shipbuilding industry on the former site of the yards.  I’m starting to notice art out on the streets and in the alleyways here in Toronto too, more about that in future blogs.

                                         And a photo credit and a big thanks to Anne and Roy Strickland.