Blog # 123…November 2021

 Not often am I moved to laugh out loud while I’m sitting quietly reading but Tomson Highway got me going with his memoir Permanent Astonishment. It starts with his unexpectedly early arrival (recounted to him by his older sister Louise) in a rough tent while his family were on the road so to speak, checking their trap lines in northern Manitoba.

Throughout the book, we travel with Tomson on many trips by canoe and dogsled to fish, hunt and gather the berries and plants that contribute to survival on the edge of the Arctic circle. He introduces us to the Cree language and we meet his family and friends – Samba Cheese (the Cree version of Jean Baptiste) Father EggNog (Egenolf), many folks called Gunpowder or Mosquito and a handful of Moony-asses (non-Native people).  His love for the place and the people is strong and contagious! 

A trip by plane at age 6 takes him to the Guy Hill Indian Residential School, joining his older sisters and brothers, who’ve all gone with their parents’ agreement and encouragement. We hear gruesome stories of the scoop of children from their parents' arms by priests, nuns and Mounties, all horribly true I’m sure, but we see a more nuanced view of one school through Tomson’s eyes, or one might say. his rose coloured glasses. His 9 years at the school sound almost idyllic: reasonable meals, warm comfortable beds, sports, art and music, with the usual mix of teachers, strict, kind, supportive or harsh. And a sexual abusing Brother, who visits the dorms after dark, mentioned briefly, almost as an afterthought.

Tomson opens a window into a world we long to know and understand, giving us a glimpse of weather, meals, tent furnishings, family relationships, schoolyard bullies and a range of community characters, some of whom may sound familiar from our own lives. This helps to take away the sense of "otherness" but also is in danger of diluting the serious effects of colonialism on indigenous people. Presenting a comforting view of community life and describing his residential school as a rather pleasant place where he and other native children could get an education and learn to play a sport or the piano. obscures their purpose. They were designed deliberately to extinguish their culture and render them unable to right the injustices of having their land taken. And most of the schools weren’t at all like Guy Hill!

It’s astonishing that indigenous people and their culture have survived to give us. as well as Tomson - Mary Simon, Kent Monkman, Drew Hayden Taylor, Michelle Good, Murray Sinclair, Wab Kinew, Lisa Richardson, Jody Wilson- Raybould, Richard Wagamese and Alika LaFontaine (anesthetist president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association), As well, there are many less visible nurses, electricians, lawyers. artists, clerks, mothers and fathers, teachers – going about their lives amongst us, contributing to society - others struggle on the margins.

Tomson’s book tells an unusual and entertaining story - his own story. It’s important, while enjoying it, not to let it divert our thoughts from recognizing the wrongs that have been done to indigenous people and working towards righting as many as we can.

Without consciously thinking about it, I’ve read Canadian authors almost exclusively over the past few months…not hard to do when there are so many on international lists of best things to read. I’d intended to cover them in this post, but got caught up in issues around Tomson’s book, so you can look forward to Canlit in December, in time for Christmas.

 

Blog # 122…October 2021

Everyone knows the Group of Seven -  men who render our landscape of trees, rocks, lakes and skies…maybe contributing to the narrow and outdated view  people abroad have of what Canada looks like.  Not to put them down exactly, but the current exhibit at the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg introduces another group of artists who present another wider and more complete view of our country and of us…women.

Uninvited, curated by Sarah Milroy is a captivating surprise, presenting a lively and complementary challenge to the Group of Seven’s centenary celebration show and, for me anyway, it not only expands, but trumps their familiar views. Indigenous, immigrant and settler women are all invited and we see two hundred pieces, wonderful objects from coast to coast to coast in both traditional and non traditional forms from the wide range of women artists creating in the time between the two world wars…roughly the same time as the Group of Seven were working.  And although some of them were supportive of women, they just didn’t invite them to exhibit in their shows, nor did they do anything to change the mindset that artists were men.

The McMichael always has a comfortable, homey feeling for me, maybe because my first visit in the 60’s was to the original house on the site where Robert and Signe lived surrounded by their collection of Canadian paintings. The location, then and now, complements the thoughtful mood of the place where the art reflects our history and identity surrounded by restful views of nature. This show adds dimension to our understanding of that history – adding the views from “the dark side of the moon” to quote Sarah Milroy.

The feeling I had entering the first gallery was “How come I’ve never heard of these artists?”  Sophisticated scenes of domesticity and urban street life as well as mountains and rural scenes, portraits, nudes, beautiful quillwork baskets and beadwork and photography -  all  giving us a glimpse of and making social comments on  the world inhabited by women as well as the larger world. The Group of Seven gave us the natural world, usually uninhabited, in a romantic way. 

Yvonne McCague Housser’s work shows the silver mining that was emerging in Cobalt to highlight the damage that resource extraction was doing to that world. 

A skilled painter, Pegi Nicol MacLeod’s radical and original work pushed representational art to its limit, when she died in her early 40’s she left us wondering what else she might have accomplished had she lived longer. 

Prudence Heward shared an aesthetic with the ten women who formed the Beaver Hall group in Montreal, although she never exhibited with them. Her portraits showed women as strong and athletic, as many were during those times. 

The intricate beading on animal
skins shows us how indigenous women worked with available materials, making ordinary household objects lovely to look at as well as to use everyday. Elizabeth Katt Petrant made this cradleboard to safely carry a baby

Sewinchelwit, a close friend of Emily Carr crafted coiled storage baskets decorated with porkupine quills, useful

and beautiful.

Anne Savage painted the Skeena Valley in BC as well as the mountains north of Montreal capturing the unusual quality of light and subtlety of colour that she also brought to her streetscapes. 

.

Memories of her Russian background were incorporated by Paraskeva Clark into her views of Canada and its people. She shook up the art world a short time after arriving when she told landscape painters to "Come out from behind the Pre-Cambrian Shield".

Margaret Watkins captures the beauty of common objects - a bit like Mary Pratt, only with a camera rather than a paintbrush. She said that photographers were often shocking juries with subjects that were original and painful to the orthodox.

The last gallery brings a sigh of “Whew, at last an artist I know”.  Emily Carr’s work completes the show, but this collection of 33 artists were chosen to represent many others who came like a “battering ram to open the doors to women artists”  Sarah Milroy says in her eloquent talk about the exhibition. There are more - always someone is uninvited! 

I've chosen a very small number to highlight - I was enchanted by many more - and am now starting to read the catalogue, over 300 pages and weighing about as much as my stove. I wanted to extend the experience and to know more...and it doesn't disappoint, with photos and a wealth of material about not only the show and the artisrs but how they fit into the Canadian art space. All the photos I've used came from the catalogue and I hope I can coast along on their clearance of rights.

If I’ve whetted your appetite for more, listen to Sarah Milroy at     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkh1818qUE    

Wishing you a day to be thankful.                                                                                    Eat well and love your family and friends...Monday and other days too.

Blog # 121...September 2021 

So much is going on all around us these days to capture our attention ...every day bringing news of fresh disasters. Some of these disasters run the risk of slipping out of sight as time passes and the news cycle hits us with another one. The image below rests in the foyer of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the photo was taken by 7 year old Laalan on a visit with his grandmother, my friend BettyAnn, who took the pic below. His shoes are about the same size as those in the installation...and of the children wrenched from their families and taken to residential schools.

We noticed the tiny pink boots on the walkway leading up to St Peter’s church on Bathurst Street in Toronto while we heard of bodies being discovered near residential schools. Although the boots disappeared a few weeks ago, with no more explanation than when they appeared, the image is etched indelibly in my mind. And even if it would have been more culturally attuned to have a pair of deerskin moccasins, the point was made.

Let's never forget all those who suffered and continue to suffer from our attempts to remove and diminish their culture. Many of them are doing the heavy lifting on our behalf now to help save the planet. 

Rue Quatre-Septembre is a street in Paris commemorating the fall of Napoleon lll and the founding of the third French Republic in 1870. I like to think it also celebrates my birthday...another history lesson for you - I was born the year Edward Vlll  abdicated. So, Happy Birthday, whenever yours is and thanks for reading my blog. See you back here in October

 

Blog # 120…August 2021

Moore and Parker

Boxing came into my life unexpectedly in 1956 when I was a waitress at a summer hotel in Muskoka. The brother of the owner was a fight referee in New York and suggested the site as a training camp for James J Parker, a Canadian heavyweight who was challenging Archie Moore for the World title in Toronto in July. So I was serving meals to the fighter, his manager, trainer, sparring partners and an assortment of other Runyonesque characters associated with the game...I gave Rocky Marciano lunch one day, quite an experience for a 19 year old physiotherapy student!

I’ve maintained a marginal interest in the sport until recently when I started to notice a considerable following in an unexpected  group -  young women - and not just observing but getting serious and stepping into the ring. I felt intuitively that women seem ill-equipped to box, not just physically but emotionally, and decided to delve a bit deeper.

 I started with Joyce Carol Oates’  1993 book On Boxing to try and get a sense of why the sport, with its inherent violence would appeal to anyone, not only women. If you know her work at all, which I didn’t, she‘s an extremely thorough, prolific  and thoughtful writer of both fiction and non – and I thought if anyone could discover and tell me why boxing fascinates, it would be JCO.  She explored the sport from many angles and pondered its ambiguities, paradoxes and curiousities: boxers are often kind, gentle, well mannered people who become murderous brutes when they enter the ring; men usually identify with the winner, women with the loser; it’s the most primitive, yet most sophisticated of sports; its savagery is contained by a myriad of rules and regulations; it provides an outlet for poor, disenfranchised youth, holding out the promise of another life.  And on and on she goes, sometimes rhapsodizing and making comparisons to Greek and Shakespearean tragedies, still no clear idea of why so many of us find it fascinating.

Eastwood and Swank

Million Dollar Baby swept the Oscars in 2004, Hilary Swank playing a young girl determined to be a boxer , her coach played by Clint Eastwood. She had a promising career…until, well she didn’t.  Totally worth worth watching again so I won't spoil it.

US Olympian and Deming

And that brings us back to women in the sport and Sarah Deming’s 2019 YA book Gravity. Sarah brings her Jewishness and her experience as a NYC Golden gloves champion and as a boxing journalist covering the 2016 Rio Olympics into the novel. We get a chance to be backstage with Gravity Delgado in her life at home, in the gym, the ring and in her love life. Many of the contradictions that JCO mentions are here…before every fight, Gravity says the Shema, a Jewish prayer to keep her opponent, the audience and those she loves safe - she includes all of the people of Brazil before competing in her Olympic fight.

So we're left without the answers to many of our questions about why boxing holds such appeal mixed with revulsion for so many of us, some things are obvious, others more perplexing...a bit like life.

August already, half of summer gone. half left, enjoy the rest, see you in September. 

 

Blog # 119…July 2021

Craig

This year's PRIDE, virtual for the second year,  reminded me of being taken on a date (remember those?) in the early 70's to see Craig Russell at a hotel out near the airport. We were fascinated to see Craig appear convincingly and in quick succession as Judy Garland, Carol Channing, Marlene Dietrich, Barbra Streisand and Peggy Lee. In the language of the day, he was called a female impersonator and viewed as something titillating.  Now, a few decades later, we relish PRIDE, and RuPaul’s Drag Race is pretty mainstream watching for all ages.

Who doesn’t love the art of deception sometimes…dressing up and taking on another identity? Or disappearing completely - tempting in these times of perpetual display, the magic of invisible ink, or black light theatre…being a fly on the wall.

Enza

Back in the day when we used to go out and mix with people in the streets (remember that?) one of my favourite things was going down to Church Street on Halloween with my friend Frank, swaggering around in a sharp suit, dark shirt, pale necktie and fedora, five o’clock shadow achieved with Vaseline and pepper - a dead ringer for Al Capone.  I loved kibitzing with the drag queens, toying with my idea of the tough guy stereotype while they flirted coyly in a parody of Mae West. I have a great photo, buried somewhere, with Enza Anderson, transgender rights activist who ran for mayor of Toronto in 2000.

Kyne

These memories prompted me to think about a blog, and then I heard an interview with Kyne Santos, the Filipino/Canadian drag queen who appears on TikTok.  She’s a self-confessed math nerd and, under all the fabulous costumes and makeup she encourages people to see math as approachable as well as important. She also uses the platform to confront racism and let young queer people know that “It gets better”.

                                                                                                                                                        

Natalie

We have Baltimore to thank for many things…crab cakes, the Orioles in Camden Yards, David Simon’s The Wire, John Waters and Divine and a host of drag queens.  Natalie Wynn’s YouTube

channel Contrapoints explores politics, gender, ethics, race and philosophy, providing reflective arguments to right wing political positions. Taking the form of debates between opposing parties, Natalie plays all the parts herself and was called “the Oscar Wilde of YouTube” for fighting the alt right with decadence and seduction.

We’ve come a distance in our recognition and (sometimes reluctant) acceptance of variation, whether it’s race, gender or any of the other ways we differ from each other...we don't all fit into the same package. The bar has shifted on what gets said and shown and how, thanks in large part to these courageous artists.

As I'm writing this though on the eve of Canada Day, we've been shattered by the murder of four members of a Muslim family in London and the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of children at residential schools in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. It's shaken our sense of who we are and what progress we've made. I'm struggling with that, maybe you are too?  I'm posting this with the thought that we need to ask ourselves - where do we go from here? 

This year Canada Day is different, a time for reflection rather than celebration. But, lets reflect on what we've done that's good and try and do better - for 9 year old Fayez Afzaal, an orphan with his life ahead of him, and for the thousands of living souls affected by the horrors of residential schools.

This country with all its defects and offenses is still a good place to live, lets make it that way for everyone.

 Blog # 118.1...June 2021

I know you've already heard from me this month, and I usually write about how art surrounds and informs us, but this morning I felt moved to say something else. 

The week has been full of the horror of the murders so close to home - in London. Despite all the coverage, I felt I wanted to know something about the family beyond that they were Muslim. In yesterday's Globe and Mail, I read a few details about their personal lives and discovered that Salman, the father, was a physiotherapist. When I reached out to Sharon Switzer-McIntyre at U of T, I discovered that he was a graduate of their Bridging Program. Sharon was the founder of this program, set up to enable internationally trained PT's to meet the qualifications to practice in Canada. Last Fall I wrote a piece about the Program, including profiles of two recent graduates, from Brazil and India, that's posted on Medium.com. 

We all feel sad and diminished by these deaths, but somehow the pain is deeper now that I feel a kinship with Salman through our shared profession.  A lot of talk this week has circled around how to combat Islamophobia. It's complicated I know, but more personal details about the individuals in this family (and future victims of racially based violence, because there will be some) rather than focusing on their faith will go a long way towards making us feel closer to them, sharing their humanity. We may need to seek out the information and it will be a painful process for us but we owe it to the victims, the country and ourselves.

Blog # 118…June 2021

Poets Laureate aren’t anything new – Geoffrey Chaucer was paid 10 shillings a year in the 1300’s to write for King Henry 1 and there’s been an unbroken line (of males with Carol Ann Duffy, 2009-19, the one exception) in Britain ever since.  Canada climbed onboard with Dennis Lee (2001-04) taking on the role in Toronto and George Bowering appointed (2002-04 ) at the federal level - called Parliamentary Poet Laureate. We’ve done a bit better in the gender balance with 3 women Parliamentary PL’s since.   

                                        

Louise Halfe, the current poet in parliament, checks many boxes - she’s a Cree elder (at 68) from northern Alberta, a professional social worker with a special certificate in drug and alcohol counselling. Taken from her parents at the age of 7 to the Blue Quill residential school where she spent 10 years, she brings the experience as a survivor of that system as well as an indigenous feminist perspective to her poetry. Louise tells the stories of women who came before her, the kinship relations between women and their importance in Cree culture.   She incorporates white space into her poems to emphasize the isolation and loss felt by her people. She also uses code switching - I know, I had to look it up - telling a complete tale by weaving the Cree language and teaching into her poems as a reminder of the devastation of losing language and the fragmentation of history, culture and land that can’t be conveyed in English.                                                                                                 

In Toronto since Dennis, the past 2 decades have seen a range of poets, including Dionne Brand (2009-12), Anne Michaels (2016-19) and today, Al Moritz.  George Elliot Clarke (2012-15) with his typical exuberance, followed the Toronto gig with a hop scotch into the Parliamentary position (2016-18).

All the provinces and 2 territories honour poets laureate and in fact two areas led the field, with Yukon appointing their first in 1994, New Westminster in 1997 and Cobourg in 1998. Some have appointed them for life, in Cape Breton, Rita Joe is the lifetime poet laureate of the Mi’k maq people. Ottawa has both French and English. I don’t know about you but I had no idea there was such a substantial poetry subculture lurking just below the surface, toiling in the fields, working from the bottom up, so to speak,... Poets link us to our environment and to traditional knowledge, serving as ambassadors of language and culture. It’s good to see them being recognized.

Now, Ontario boasts Randall Adjei, a spoken word artist as its first poet laureate.   Although not yet thirty, he  brings years of personal experience and community organizing and is the founder of RISE - Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere. A self confessed bad boy (he was arrested at 12) Randall has turned his life around and is committed to helping other young people do the same - providing a safe and inclusive space for expression, connecting and developing a more positive sense of themselves.  This newest position was created in memory of Gord  Downey of the Tragically Hip and it's particularly moving that the first recipient shares Gord's love of the lyric word and a passion for drawing attention to stories of injustice.   

Randall and Louise couldn’t be more different at first glance, but their commitment to bringing their backgrounds and experiences into the light through their work is the same. Code switching, rapping, using not only words but language forms, music and visuals serve to attract and inform us. Listening to the voices of poets  helps connect us to the world we share, and to appeciate and make some sense of it and of each other. There's a poet somewhere out there who will speak directly to you and steal your heart, break it, make it sing, maybe both...keep your eyes and ears open to welcome them in.                                               .

                                                            

Finally, huge congratulations to Michelle Good, Louise's fellow Cree from western Canada, a lawyer, also in her 60's, who just won the Amazon Canada first novel award for Five little Indians. It's on the short list for the Governor General's award for fiction. And poet and Rhodes scholar Billy-Ray Belcourt's memoir A History of My Brief Body, about growing up indigenous and queer is up for non fiction. Results  announced on Tuesday, June 1...fingers crossed!

See you next on Canada Day.