Blog # 46…June 2015

Ah music, that most evocative, soothing and spirited art form. We’re lucky that we can listen how and when we like, and some of us can play a bit too.  Not so with musicians in some parts of the world where it’s seen as subversive and politically dangerous.

At the recent HotDocs festival in Toronto, I saw a moving account of some courageous and committed musicians in Mali (a large landlocked country in the bulge of west Africa) who responded to the banning of any form of music by going underground. 

Since 2001, Mali had been the site of Festival au Desert, held outside Timbuktu in the north, attracting world attention. Following the concert in 2012, fundamentalist jihadists adopted a strict interpretation of Sharia law, burning instruments and destroying radio stations. Many musicians refused to be silenced and either disappeared or went into exile, waiting and watching for a chance to re emerge.

The film I saw, They Will Have To Kill Us First,  is a battle cry of defiance. That spirit led Khaira Arby (The Nightingale of the North) - who’d been biding her time for a couple of years - to convince her fellow vocalist Disco to risk a small concert in a town square as a rallying cry to her fellow citizens. As I watched her determined organizing of the staging for the concert and the eager gathering of the crowd, there was a scary sense that guys with guns would arrive and it would end in violence.  Happily not, the crowd gathered a bit tentatively, soon started smiling and quickly erupted into dancing and singing along. Khaira speaks of peace and unity with tears in her eyes…most of the people in audiences on both sides of the screen had them too.

Songhoy Blues, a gritty blues band took another route and went into exile in the south. Equally committed to freedom they continued to keep the spirit of their music alive, attracting the attention of the African Express Team who invited them to a recording session when they came to Bamako. That led to a  collaboration with Nick Zinner of Yeah Yeah Yeah which got them an international tour that’s going on now…they were at The Garrison in Toronto on June 6.

Louis Armstrong was also brave in the face of political pressure.  In West Berlin, during a world tour in 1965, at the height of the Cold War and of racial tensions in the US south, he crossed unofficially to East Berlin and gave an impromptu concert. Pressed to comment on the situation of blacks in his country and conscious of the sensitivity of his position, he chose to answer with the song What did I do to be so Black and Blue? 

February 2015 brought a cease fire in Timbucktu, we’ll hope that it leads to peace and  a resumption of  Festival au Desert…and as you enjoy your playlist, give a thought to our brothers and sisters who risk their lives to keep their music alive. A huge shout out to Satchmo, Khaira and Disco and Songhoy Blues…

Blog # 45…May 2015

Toronto has a  new landmark…the Aga Khan Museum is significant for the majesty of its architecture, as well as the quality of the exhibits, lectures and performances.  Set on a large site in the north east of the City (a bus from the Eglinton subway stops right at the front door) with an adjacent mosque, the museum brings a Muslim presence to Toronto in an open accessible way that manages to engage the public subtly and effectively in learning about Islam. I hope it captures many hearts and minds as it did mine.

The art comes from all over the eastern world.
The first major show -  unfortunately over now -  The Lost Dhow,
contained relics from an Arab sailing ship that transported goods along the Maritme Silk Route. The ship foundered in the Indian Ocean sometime in the 9^thcentury, spilling its cargo of silver and bronze articles, vessels once filled with spices, and thousands of ceramic bowls and ewers onto the ocean floor where it rested until discovered by a diver in 1998.  The ceramics are incredibly well preserved, quite astonishing that they sat at the bottom of the sea for 1400 years; there are a few cardamom seeds that survived too. The show is back at home in Singapore now...if you happen to be there.

Arriving in June is A Thirst for Riches, a show of carpets from the east in paintings from the west... coming from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Iran, 16th century court poets

Turkey, Isnik tile

The permanent collection occupies the main floor gallery and covers a broad geography from Spain to Southeast Asia.  It contains some of the most important artistic and scientific works of Muslim civilizations.



In the permanent gallery, the rise of Islam around the world is described, extending from the birth of the prophet Mohamed in 570 CE to the fall of the Ottoman Empire after WW1   It doesn’t include contemporary centres like Bradford, Paris or Calgary but what it does do is erase our instinctive images of beheadings and fundamentalist mullahs when we hear hear the words Muslim or Islam and replaces them with softer visions of textures, colours and design from centuries of artists and artisans throughout the Muslim world.  The staff do an immensely good job of welcoming inquiry and encouraging appreciation of the museum in particular and Islam in general. .The Aga Khan Museum  is an exercise in public relations as well as a beautiful collection of art of the Muslim world and will delight your senses as well as your soul. 

Blog # 44…April 2015

Post traumatic stress disorder is in the news a lot these days, usually with particular reference to soldiers. A strange paradox is that many of them feel it was the best time of their lives with its camaraderie and sense of purpose. It’s a complicated and very individual phenomenon with far reaching effects into society. I’ve been noticing lately that attention is increasingly being focused on the families, who are equally traumatized, sometimes even more so. 

We always feel for the people who lose their loved ones in a war, also for those who survive. Why do we think that homecoming will be a happy event and life will pick up smoothly where it left off…nothing could be further from the truth.  It’s become the stuff of a number of dramas across a range of media, the wildly popular Downton Abbey for one.

Back in 1946, The Best Years of our Lives won the best picture Oscar for telling stories of the scarred veterans returning to society after WW2.  A few years later, Marlon Brando in The Men played a man who came home from the war paralyzed and struggling to find his place in the world he’d left.  The effects of the pointless and evil war the Americans launched in Viet Nam was examined in The Deer Hunter and Coming Home.

What’s emerging now, in several TV series on specialty channels (where the best drama is to be seen these days) is a fascinating look at the families and friends who are the observers (also casualties) of  the effects war has on combatants.  Everyone who watched Homeland will remember the poignancy of Brody’s return home, the painful awkwardness of life that never seemed to get better. The inspiration for that show was an Israeli series, Prisoners of War  that deals with the situation in a much more nuanced and sensitive way…maybe because war in general and the taking of prisoners in particular has been a constant presence in that country for over half a century.

Basetrack live is a multi media performance piece currently touring US stages.  Brutally frank and gritty, it was created by some photo journalists who were imbedded with a US Marine corps in an active war zone in Afghanistan, others were at home, interviewing the people closest to the soldiers…mothers, girlfriends, fathers, brothers. They also link the two groups for live conversations that are gripping and poignant, almost too painful to watch.

There are so many victims of war – increasingly innocent civilians, including children, seem to be not just collateral damage but specific targets. Wars have always been with us, and probably always will be despite the claim 100 years ago of “the war to end all wars”. No need for pictures to know the  horror, but important to keep reminding ourselves how lucky we are to live where and when we do… and calm down next time the raccoons upset the garbage bins…  

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.

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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