We live in the Science Fiction I read as a teen

It’s strange to have artistic time on my hands now that “My Village” is hanging on display and I’ve taken a few pieces to Harcourt House for the annual Members’ Show and Sale.  As I sat minding “My Village” yesterday, I started doodling illustrations for an idea I had a few days ago.  For the past few months I’ve been following the adventure of “Astronaut Abby“, Abigail Harrison, an audacious teenager from Minnesota who intends to be the first person to walk on Mars.  As part of her preparation, Abby has devoted herself to reaching out to other young people to inspire them to pursue studies and careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).  The latest part of that outreach has been a partnership with ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and a crowdfunded journey to Baikonur Cosmodrome to see Luca’s launch.  On her return, Abby intends to visit schools in person an virtually to give talks and workshops about her experiences and ambitions.  Throughout, this astronautic mission has been powered by social media in its finest manifestation.

I couldn’t help but think as I followed Abby’s exploits, and the exploits of Cmdr. Chris Hadfield, that Abby is, in fact, living in the science fiction I read as a teen. So, I decided to recreate a little piece of Abby’s Golden Age Science Adventure as a bit of doodling.  First I jotted down an opening for a story about a mid-west teen setting out on an adventure to Baikonur, the Space Station, and Mars, trying to catch a bit of the flavour of 1930′s juvenile pulp magazine science fiction.  Then, as I sat minding “My Village” I doodled in a sketchbook.  Here’s the final sketch I made:

Then I scanned the sketch and did a bit of computer work on it:

And finally I juggled the elements around a bit, added the text I’d written, printed the whole thing out on newsprint and scanned the whole thing again:

Then I chiriped the product off to Abby at the mighty spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome from my handheld teleputer just in time for Luca’s launch to the World’s Space Station.

Now I’m about to watch Abby’s mysterious Italian mentor arrive at his destination in his Soyuz space ship. On one of I don’t know how many computers I have in my house.

It’s science fiction, I tell you!

Update, June 2, 2013 – Astronaut Thomas H. Marshburn (@AstroMarshburn) tweeted at 9:23 PM on Sun, Jun 02, 2013 this bit of Science Fiction Poetry (it even rhymes):

“Perfect morning under gray skies with a light rain & warm wind on my face. I missed life under clouds while in space.”
(https://twitter.com/AstroMarshburn/status/341394697975128064) .

But it’s not Science Fiction! This is a real Spaceman celebrating his return to the Green Hills of Earth!

Tomorrow is here!

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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On the Occasion of Commander Hadfield’s Return to Earth

I have written elsewhere about my inspiration as a youngster watching Neil Armstrong stepping down onto the Moon, the same event that put another young Canadian boy on the road to command of the ISS.  I have written elsewhere about the writings of Carl Sagan leading me to the great Irish mystic poet Yeats.  I have written elsewhere about how obvious it seems to me that science and art are fundamentally the same thing, that both inspire and move us, the both change us and our world and, perhaps most importantly, both science and art, and all the wonder they stir in us, are accessible to all of us.  I have always known this to be true.  I have always seen supporting Science and supporting the Arts as obvious obligations of individuals and society. But I am very aware that many friends and acquaintances have never been able to see through those lenses.

Over the last five months I’ve often thought of Spider and Jeanne Robinson’s Stardance in which art comes to a space station as dance. And, of course, I’ve thought of the paintings of astronaut Alan Bean and of cosmonaut Alexey Leonov.  While Bean and Leonov’s art is exquisite and inspiring, they painted after they came home. And the Robinson’s so wonderfully imagine making art in space, but they never did it.  But, perhaps because they lacked the internet, these artists never caught the larger public’s attention.  They never joined, on a grand scale, science to ordinary people through art.

I realized tonight as Commander Hadfield’s new video of Space Oddity went viral, that this fairly  unassuming gentleman from Sarnia has done it.  He has shown ordinary people art and science meeting together  And the people get it!

Using social media and the biggest stage possible – the sky – Hadfield has had us watch him rapt for five months as he shape-shifted from rock star to zero-gravity chef to science teacher to science fiction character to military commander, and, finally, to a fifty something man with a crew-cut and moustache who actually pulls off a self-shot music video of his own acoustic cover of perhaps the most iconic Bowie song.  Whatever the flaws of adaptation or performance, Hadfield has capped his inspiring public Space Odyssey with a piece of art that captures the tension apparent in his earlier collaboration with Ed Robertson, the tension between the to most  unknowable joy of looking down on Earth from a home in the sky and the universal human joy of standing at home on the Green Hills of Earth.  No longer the story of an ominous malfunction of Major Tom’s capsule which leaves the astronaut stranded, Hadfield’s revised Space Oddity is a bitter-sweet lament for the end of his stay on the Space Station and his final return to earth. He is facing an inversion of Bowie’s original conceit of the Marooned Astronaut  –  Hadfield knows that it is to Space, not to Earth, that he will never return. With this recording Hadfield has turned a once inconceivable  Space Oddity – a Canadian kid from Sarnia becoming the tweeting rock star commander of the International Space Station opening hailing frequencies to Captain Kirk – into an Odyssey of Space very true to the spirit of the Greek epic poem.  Although at last he stands on the shores of Ithaca, he can’t help but look longingly back at the Cosmic Ocean he has sailed.

Hadfield has put himself up there and made a point of making art with us and for us from that tin can he’s sitting in.  He makes us all feel like we’re there with him, doing science, looking down on our blue home, feeling wonder at the speed and the vastness.

And we can’t help but sing along.

Thank you, Commander Hadfield.

We can hear you, Major Tom!

Safe landing!

A highly personal and idiosyncratic response to “Where the Blood Mixes” by Kevin Loring

This afternoon I had one of the most powerful theatrical experiences of my life in a converted movie theatre at a matinee performance of Kevin Loring’s Where the Blood Mixes.  This isn’t really a review of the play, the production or the performances.  This is more of a gushing forth of the complicated background of my personal response to a powerful, challenging, painful piece of theatre.

My first encounter with Where the Blood Mixes was reading the play in early April, 2011.  I was reading it because it had won the Governor General’s Literary Award and for some years I’ve made it a point to read as many GG winners as I can lay my hands on.  In that Spring of 2011 I was also immersed in some obscure and not so obscure bits of Fraser Valley history and literature.  I was planning a road trip with my daughter down the Valley to retrace as well as possible the walking journey of British Novelist Morley Roberts in the 1880s, shortly before the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad.  The setting of Loring’s play – Lytton, B.C., where the Thompson and Fraser Rivers meet – was a pleasant surprise, as Lytton was also the jumping off point for one of the most surreal episodes of Roberts’ trek, an episode which I was to learn sends out historical and literary tendrils which deeply inform Loring’s play for me.

Morley Roberts arrived in Lytton after walking away from his temporary employment laying track in the Kicking Horse Pass.  His plan, which he completed, was to walk to the coast, following what would soon be the Canadian Pacific Railway and what would much later become the Trans-Canada Highway.  I’ll skip over the vast majority of Roberts’s adventure.  If you can find a copy of his The Western Avernus, it’s a fascinating travelogue of a large part of Western North America in the 1880s, well worth discovering.  For the purposes of this reflection on Where the Blood Mixes I’ll just talk about Roberts’s walk from Lytton to what is now Boston Bar.

Roberts set out in the morning along the rough path which eventually would become, in large part, Highway 1, hugging the east slope of the Fraser Canyon.  His description are of a sublimely wild and untamed wilderness.  Throughout this section of his narrative, one has the distinct impression that he is travelling in a sort of mystic solitude.  As I read it I was put in mind of parts of Basho’s Narrow Road into the Deep North (Oku no Hosomichi).  Roberts seems to be stumbling along in a timeless and endless primeval forest, forgetting himself whatever reason he might have come here or any goal he may have once had in mind.

But suddenly, Roberts is on the front porch of a nicely kept hotel!  Inside he finds that the house is kept by a clergyman and his assistant with the help of what Roberts describes as “a boy”.  Roberts spends the late afternoon and evening teaching the threesome how to make bread, enjoys a dinner with the two men, and then retires to the drawing room for cigars, fine liquor and a discussion of Latin poetry.  Then, fed, watered, intellectually stimulated, and rested, Roberts bids farewell to the hotel in the woods and walks off into the gather night.  In the utter darkness Roberts finally stumbles into a stopping house at Boston Bar.  The rest of his journey has none of the strangeness of that walk south from Lytton.

In fact, the “Hotel”  was Forty Mile House, now long disappeared, one of the many stopping houses left over from the Caribou Gold Rush.  After a good deal of research, I learned that the clergyman Roberts encountered was Richard Small, the head of the Anglican Mission at Lytton and the subject of a hagiographic little biography called Archdeacon on Horseback. Forty Mile House had recently been taken over by the Mission as a resting place on the Archdeacon’s circuit of his charges over the surrounding area.  Small was also responsible for the establishment of St. George’s Residential School, an act for which he is much praised by the authors of Archdeacon on Horseback.  What a wonderful gift he brought to the poor benighted native children!  Frankly, I gag when I read Archdeacon on Horseback.  St. George’s is the dark evil in the background of Where the Blood Mixes.  As Loring writes in his afterword, when the Band finally got control of the Residential School, they immediately tore it down it was such a painful wound on their community.

Another tendril, this one literary, runs from Roberts’ strange journey through Ethel Wilson’s great Canadian novel Swamp Angel.  Wilson’s protagonist, Maggie, leaves here marriage and flees by bus to Lytton from the south, the opposite direction from Roberts.  And her journey through the area is also a little surreal.  As she travels north, Maggie notices very carefully the changes in the landscape, a landscape eerily devoid of humanity.  But suddenly she sees an old overgrown cemetery with three decaying crosses in it.  When investigating the area on our road trip, at first I thought Wilson might have been describing the recently renovated Lytton Cemetery, but her description seemed to place the three crosses farther from the town.  As my daughter and I drove south, suddenly a small cemetery flashed past us.  At the first opportunity I returned to take a few photos.  I’d been keeping careful note of our odometer reading and later was able to work out that this cemetery, the one most likely described by Maggie in Wilson’s novel, is very near to the location of Forty Mile House, where Roberts spent his nice evening with the founder of the Residential School which is the reason for the generational agony in Where the Blood Mixes.

Do all these details surrounding Forty Mile House have any meaning or, indeed, anything to do with the play? I don’t know about for anyone else, but they add a new, personal depth to the play for me. For me. This is a highly personal (and idiosyncratic) response.

Earlier, as my daughter and I were approaching Lytton from the east, I noticed two aboriginal gentlemen climbing up over the grey boulders from the direction of the Thompson River bank, and I couldn’t help but think with fondness “they could be Floyd and Mooch!”  And it is here that I will come to the production I saw this afternoon.

I found the set to be brilliant.  Not minimalist but efficient.  Everything is of the river: the grey stones such as I noticed “Floyd and Mooch” climbing over as we approached Lytton; the riverworn logs which serve as bridge and bar; the crushed oil drum and old tire, the detritus of the Shum’mas, and the bit of railroad that brought the Shum’mas to the Place in the Heart Where the Blood Mixes.  The stage is lit before the play starts with a submarine blue: from the moment one enters the theatre, it is clear that this play is about what lies beneath the surface.  The sound design is all water and wind and the sounds of nature with at least one train whistle reminding us whence comes the pain.  And, of course, the skeletal sturgeon and eagle, water and wind,  which preside over the play must be mentioned in their ominousness.

Something that really caught my eye was the subtle detail of George (Robert Benz) mopping the floor as the cast sang Ashe’ Mashe’. The stage directions simply read: “GEORGE mops up the mess of the evening throughout”.  Read, it’s a detail easy to miss.  But in performance, as the five characters sing their individual songs of – of what? Regret? Redemption? Transformation? George’s mopping tells us, whether we know N’laka’pamuxtsn or not, that they each are singing a song of mopping up the mess.

The performances were all impressive.  I found it interesting to watch Lorne Cardinal, whom I remember from his time at the University of Alberta, now the almost-elder Canadian actor he has become.  His Floyd is at the opposite end of the dramatic spectrum from his Davis on Corner Gas.  Cardinal pulls off amazing work with emotionally difficult material.  “Emotionally difficult material” is an absurd understatement: Cardinal has dedicated his performance to his parents, both survivors of the Residential Schools genocide. Years ago I met Cardinal’s late father briefly at a wedding.  It was eerily startling to watch Cardinal fils becoming on stage the damaged man is own father so easily could have become.  For a moment I saw the father on stage, the father who had been peaceful and happy on the one occasion I ever saw him, for a moment I saw that calm man tormented and twisted in the trauma of survival and memory.

Craig Lauzon as Mooch also achieves the transition from the comic to the tragic between the beginning and end of the play with painful conviction.  There was just one brief moment near the beginning where I thought Lauzon might have zoned out and just recited a line or two rather than being Mooch, but then, maybe I zoned out.  Sera-Lys McArthur as Christine (and Anna) was beautifully ethereal in the dream sequences and beautifully urban in the real world. Her solo singing was dreamy and her “spoken word artist” Christine stuck in the Lytton Hotel bar was spot on.  Michaela Washburn as June was suitably terrifying in rage and achingly tender in vulnerability.  And Robert Benz as the Shum’ma barkeep, George was perfect as the jolly friend to all these damaged characters – as long as they kept their damage out of his bar unless it was being drowned.

But it feels a little stupid to be talking about the quality of the performances: I can’t imagine acting this painful material a single time, let alone night after night. This cast not only gets through it, they make it look, if not easy — it could never be easy — absolutely real.  That in itself is a theatrical miracle.

The facts of the Residential Schools catastrophe must be made known to all Canadians, of that I am firmly convinced.  Where the Blood Mixes in a production such as the one I saw this afternoon, makes the experience of the Residential Schools catastrophe just almost tangible to a Shum’ma like me.  And that touch is terrifying and unforgettable.

See Where the Blood Mixes. And buy the play: it’s published by Talon Books. And lobby your local school board to have it placed on the English curriculum in high school.  And the Social Studies curriculum.

Where the Blood Mixes by Kevin Loring is being presented by Theatre Network at the Roxy Theatre until March 3, 2013.

Please see it, for the children who were taken, and that none will ever be taken again.

A little waste-saving trick

Do you use a lot of glue sticks in your art or design work? Are you a scrap-booker? Or maybe you just have a kid who’s an obsessive-compulsive gluer.  Well, here’s a little trick that saves a bit of waste and a tiny bit of money.

I use the generic 20 gram sticks from Staples, but this will probably work with any size or brand.  When the stick gets down to the little plastic ring, I used to just throw it out, but for a while now I’ve been hanging onto them until I have four or five that look like this:

When I’ve got a few “empty” sticks, I sit down with an ordinary kitchen knife, stick it into the bit of glue that’s left and unscrew it from the plastic cup it’s in. The cup is reverse threaded, so you turn it clock-wise to remove the plug of glue. The first time I did it I was pleasantly surprised, and more than a little annoyed at the waste,  to find more than a centimetre of perfectly good glue that was designed to be discarded.

Now I choose one of the sticks to be the re-manufactured one.  I turn the cup down a bit, tuck the plug of glue in, and press it down with the knife, massaging it a bit to fill the voids of the screw thread.  Then I repeat until the re-manufactured stick is full.

I find that four or five “empty” sticks can become a full stick with about three minutes of simple effort.

If your activities involve a lot of gluing and you’re concerned about waste, this little trick can give you a nice little feeling of satisfaction and maybe save a tiny bit of money.  I mean, why buy a half dozen glue sticks and just throw one away unused?

The Obligatory New Year’s Eve Blog Post

I’ve never been one to celebrate much on New Year’s Eve. Like December 21, 2012 was, it’s just the flipping of another calendar page, as far as I can see.  But, everyone seems to be doing it, so, here goes.

When I started back in February throwing things up here I never could have imagined:

Being “followed” on twitter by Shelagh Rogers because of a couple of book reviews (Ghomeshi still doesn’t pay attention to me);

Getting a commission to contribute to the catalogue of an art show in Ireland because of a few art reviews;

Spending an afternoon with the Great Alex Janvier and his lovely wife Jacqueline;

Having a conversation with Professor Anthony J. Hall because of a bunch of Constitutional ravings I posted;

Meeting artist Aaron Paquette and his wonderful wife Clarice through my writings here;

and conversations with so many others I would never have met otherwise, such as storyteller Waubgeshig Rice, lawyer and activist Lise Frigault (weird: my phone just buzzed with a “Happy New Year!” from her!), Artist Paddy Lamb, theatre guy John Kirkpatrick, musician Joel Crichton , Abigail Harrison who, at fifteen, intends to be the first human to land on Mars. . . and so many more.

But, perhaps the biggest surprise has been the wave of visitors that have arrived because of #IdleNoMore.  More than half the views of Behind the Hedge have come this month, making December more than five times busier than the busiest month before.  And the vast majority of the visits in December have been to “Connecting the Dots . . .”.

I couldn’t have imagined that by the end of 2012 thousands of people would actually come to read my understanding of the Constitutional relationship between the Crown and the aboriginal people of Canada (of all things!).

Nor could I have imagined meeting Phyllis and all the other warm #IdleNoMore participants.

And it’s been really nice to find that the Art Gallery of Alberta is a place were (almost) everybody knows my face, if not always my name.

It started out as just a place to mark down my thoughts, mostly about literature and art.  I was always so surprised to see on the stats page that someone actually had looked at something I’d written.  Thanks for the surprises, everyone!

I don’t make resolutions.  I seldom even make plans.  But here are a couple of things I’m expecting in 2013:

Finish preparations for my little exhibition in May;

Continue to mutter about the Constitution and the Treaties;

Try to develop some ability to listen in Cree, even if I don’t get to the point of speaking nēhiyawēwin;

Read a lot;

And maybe I’ll start on that little art project I’ve been rolling around in my head for a few years, the one that celebrates Edmonton, that golden Metropolis of the Future . . .

And maybe eat less and get more exercise.

If anybody is reading this, Happy New Year!

My Village: the Paintings I’ve Been Working On for So Long

The place I live has been a city for over a century. For a while before that, it was two cities. Before that it was two towns. For a very long time before that it was a village, often seasonally, down in what we now call Rossdale. Today, five times as many people live here as lived in Shakespeare’s London and there are about twenty Edmontonians for every citizen of the Rome Michelangelo knew.

But, as far as I’m concerned, I live in a village. My Village is made up of the people I see each day, the Butcher, the Restaurant Owner, the Poet, the Neighbourhood Children, the students, artists, merchants and, yes, strangers with whom I share my days. No matter how large our city grows, I think we each still live in a village. My new  paintings are portraits of and tributes to some of the people who share My Village.

My hope is that when you look at My Village you will feel an urge to consider and honour Your Village.  And, together, every day, let’s continue to celebrate, build and live in Our Village.

The opening reception for My Village will be held from 6 to 7:30 pm, Thursday, May 23, 2013 at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in the heart of Edmonton’s welcoming Old Strathcona community.  My Village is a part of ArtSpirit, a new, exciting and wide-ranging community arts festival.  More information is available, and more will continue to be posted, at My Village‘s Facebook Event page. Everyone is invited. All thirty-five billion of you living in this country named “Village” in a lost Iroquoian language.  And all seven billion of you in this Global Village. But maybe don’t all show up at once: Holy Trinity is beautiful and big, but not that big.

 

Update March 28, 2013:  ArtSpirit’s Facebook Event page is up and running.

On listening to Q from Edmonton (finally)

On the evening of November 22, 2012, the Myer Horowitz theatre on the University of Alberta Campus in Edmonton was filled to the rafters with people who payed money to see the taping of a radio show.  For the first time in its decade of broadcasting, the show with the mysterious name “Q” was visiting Edmonton after multiple visits to every other major city in Canada.  For those of you who live outside of Canada and the many parts of the United States which receive Q, Q is two hour morning radio show which is broadcast on CBC Radio One every weekday.  Oddly, it is also a TV show once a week.  And a YouTube channel.

The host of Q is one Jian Ghomeshi, a UK born Iranian-Canadian former drummer in a rock band, former TV host, best-selling author — in other words, a fairly representative Canadian, if there ever were such a thing.

Q, like its host, is a fairly unclassifiable thing:  in-depth interviews with writers, musicians, film makers, actors, politicians and panel discussions about politics, national and international and live music — Q is a cultural omnibus and, in fact, a national treasure.  The show generally is produced in Toronto, but regularly has journeyed around the country to various cities for live-to-tape episodes.  But in the six years or so of the shows run, as I mentioned, Q had never come to Edmonton.

On the morning of November 23, Q from Edmonton was broadcast and I sat listening carefully and happilly.  Jian had as his guests (or perhaps was the guest of) singer/songwriter Colleen Brown, band Shout Out Out Out Out, sketch comedy troop The Irrelevant Show, Novelist Todd Babiak, filmmaker Trevor Anderson and an all-Edmonton media panel.  It was, of course, exciting to hear these locals on National/International radio, but I couldn’t help feeling some of the same chippiness the guests seemed to be feeling as Jian kept trying to probe into Edmonton’s “identity”, which really seemed to be about finding an Edmonton “Brand”.

There was talk of Calgary vs. Edmonton.  I can’t help think of the tired old Canadian Identity question and the stupid insulting facile answer “not American”.  Sure, there’s a rivalry with Calgary on various issues from sports, which was touched on, to politics, which was touched on more lightly, but I don’t have any sort of impression that Edmontonians define themselves as “not Calgarians”.  Todd Babiuk’s term “Magpie City” was mentioned, as was the well known “Dirt City” nickname, but those names by no means indicate that we are a city of dirt or dirty birds.  Variations on “Do it” came up a few times, and I think that suggestion may reflect a little of Edmonton.

But for me, Edmonton was all summed up in the winning entry of the “Win a Trip to Edmonton” contest, and the audience’s response to that entry.  Listeners from outside Edmonton were invited to submit a six word reason they should win a trip to Magpie City.  Many submissions praised Edmonton either highly or faintly, but the winner was an entry from Sudbury, Ontario: “Poor student. Sad Life. Need Adventure.”

The audience responded to this submission with huge, roaring, friendly and unanimous applause, in effect repeating inarticulately and earsplittingly warmly the words on the old plaque on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor . . .”  But we’re not an American-style melting pot — we’re a fermentation vessel. As Babiuk mentioned, Edmontonians (when they’re not politicians) kind of sneer at phrases like “world class”.  We are more interested in getting together, working, playing, building, creating, writing, singing, painting, sculpting, acting, talking, helping — living, than we are in self-promotion.  Edmontonians are the people who are born here, who come here, who stay here, who leave here and who come back.  We’re uncomfortable telling people we’re the best because we’re absolutely certain that Edmonton isn’t perfect.   But we are equally dedicated to the crazy thought that we can and will help each other to make it better.

Sort of like Canadians.

Many years ago I coined a phrase in a very different context, but I think it applies here:  When you own the street, you don’t have to piss on the fire hydrants.  We own a pretty damn fine street full of fascinating and varied people.  We know what we have, what we want and we’re going to make it.  We’re not wasting our time bragging about it being world class.  That’d just be pissing on fire hydrants.

Decades ago I came here from Sudbury (by way of Windsor) and I have never imagined  leaving to live anywhere else.  To the winner from Sudbury, who’s name I won’t try to transcribe from what I heard on the radio, Enjoy your adventure in Edmonton. I bet you’ll be back.

And, Jian, great show.  Thanks for coming.

I bet you’ll be back.

An Appreciation of Paddy Lamb’s “Memory of Absence”

Paddy Lamb’s art is about ‘place in time’.  Through an evolutionary abstraction, he both recapitulates and continues the natural process of change, of decomposition, of erosion and overgrowth – nature’s insistent and patient agenda of vibrant transformation in contrast to any perishable human desire for an unattainable static perfection.  Humanity builds hard-edged interruptions onto the landscape and, after a time, unsatisfied, abandons its buildings, walls, fences and gates.  Nature quietly moves in, indifferent to productivity, statistics, and the relentless pursuit of economic efficiency which leads only to downsizing, to roofless factories, schools and churches in empty villages .  Nature slowly dissolves the abandoned marks on the landscape.  These half-reclaimed monuments of humanity’s desires are the jumping off point for Lamb’s art.

The artist’s gaze falls on the loneliness, the emptiness of the west of Ireland (and, in other works, of the oddly similar landscape of Canada’s Prairie) and finds the signs, the fading tracks of human occupation constantly being taken back by nature.  He grasps these human discards and continues the work, stripping them down to basic monumental forms of light, dark and colour. And yet the finished image always retains a palpable connection to this landscape and the marks of human interruption.  As well, each image retains a far more obvious link to the one which preceded it in the development process.

For Lamb the art serves as a record of a potentially endless organic development and evolution.  Unlike the mouldering constructs which spur it, his work never assumes perfect completion.  Each work is the seed of another and has itself grown from a previous image, whether in paint, charcoal, sketchbook or in the landscape itself.  Lamb gives us story boards, frames from a film.  The fullest, most satisfying appreciation comes through viewing a series of these developing images, the tracks of the artist’s progress.

A surprising result of this process of gradual and preserved abstraction is that, when examined leisurely, the images of decayed human structures at times become anthropomorphic. There is an allusiveness to both human beauty and human violence.  Hooded figures converse with each other in whispers, faces peek from the darkness, the empty landscape is repopulated with shadows, ghosts, sometimes ominous revenants of memory.

And here perhaps is the heart of his work.  These pieces are explorations of the memory of a place and of the memory of absence.  Lamb now lives and works far from Ireland, far from the sea and its headlands, far from the stone bones of his native land.  But in his recent work away from Ireland, through the longing of separation, he returns to his memories of the signs made by others themselves now absent from Ireland.  The broken and overgrown structures in the empty Irish landscape are, in fact, the land’s memories of people who have passed.  And Lamb’s images are most simply his own memories of passing through that landscape, memories explored very deeply and made visible to us all.

The above was written for the catalogue accompanying Paddy Lamb’s upcoming exhibition, Memory of Absence, which will run from January 24 to February 17, 2013 at the Custom House Gallery in Westport, Co. Mayo, Ireland.

Back in Canada,  Mr. Lamb will be doing an artist’s residency at the Gushul Centre in Blairmore, Alberta in May and then in November-December he will be part of an exhibition with Robert Dmytruk and Les Graff at Gallery @ 501 in Sherwood Park, Alberta.

More about Paddy Lamb and his art can be found at paddylamb.ca

“Think Small” Shows Big Thoughts at the Visual Arts Alberta Gallery

I discovered the Visual Arts Alberta Gallery by mistake.

With just a few shows and sales under my belt in my intermittent career as an artist I found myself downtown one afternoon and noticed this Harcourt House building that claimed to have a gallery in it.  I thought, buoyed by a little success and positive response, I might as well do a cold call.  I climbed the stairs to the third floor, walked straight ahead into the VAA gallery, not realizing until much later that there was that other, bigger gallery across the hall.

Having decided that my little paintings could speak for themselves I pulled a couple of my Apellean Sketches out of my backpack for Sharon to look at.  She responded in the familiar but no less gratifying positive way I’d come to expect.  I asked how one got to hang stuff on the gallery walls.  By fortunate timing, one of the VAA’s member’s exhibits and sales was coming up.  I gave Sharon the modest membership fee and I was in and some of my paintings were on the wall.

But this outfit, now VAA/CARFAC, the Alberta arm of Canadian Artists’ Representation/Le Front des artistes canadians, the non-profit national voice of Canada’s professional visual artists, is no vanity gallery.  VAA/CARFAC actively lobbies for artists’ rights in Alberta, communicates provincial, national and international opportunities to members, provides professional development, workshops, lessons and outreach to the visual arts community of the province.

Of course, at the time I just figured it was neat to have a place to hang some stuff.

Since that first day, I’ve contributed to pretty much every members’ show at the VAA as well as having joint show at the gallery with Linda Daoust.  The calls for submissions the VAA regularly forwards to all members have led to a number of solo shows.

That’s my personal shout out to Visual Arts Alberta.

Now, lets talk about what’s happening in the Gallery until November 24.

Think Small is the current members’ exhibition and show.  I see it as an opportunity for artist members to give a little back to the Association in a win-win way.  Each time there’s one of these shows it’s an adventure for the artists.  This time we have to work within a size restriction (12 x 12 inches or less). Other times the restrictions have been thematic, as in Energize or dictated by a VAAA provided object as in Xposition (a small wooden cross) or VBay (brass platters).  These restrictions provide a wonderful opportunity for artists to expand their visions, to stretch their skills, to grow by working outside their comfort zones.  This is professional development at its most fundamental.

The artists set the price for their work themselves, agreeing to split any sales evenly with the Association.  The artists profit and VAA/CARFAC gains funding which all goes back to programs of benefit to the visual artists of Alberta.  And the buyer goes home with some great art made by an artist they very well may get to meet and chat with at the gallery.  And, believe me, there’s nothing quite like meeting and chatting with an artist whose work you admire.

Because VAA/CARFAC members range across the career range of visual artists, you’ll see work on the walls at Think Small from students just starting out right beside the work of grizzled established professionals.  This show is the place to find gems by artists on the cusp of their professional career as well as marvellous pieces by established artists.  At Think Small (and the other VAA Gallery shows) you can buy art, shop local, secure in the knowledge that every penny you spend benefits the artists. And, unlike what you’ll find at many charity art auctions, these are not works that the artist has had trouble selling and wants to be rid of.  Most of the works in Think Small were created specifically for Think Small.

On the afternoon of Hallowe’en, I spent an hour at the Gallery making brief notes on the works of every artist in the show — except my own, nasty lumpish things that they are.  Not every piece appeals to me, but I can certainly see grateful audiences for most. Not every piece shows a fully developed technique — but then, what artist’s technique is every fully developed before death? But every single piece gave me cause for interest, most have my admiration, and a goodly number make me wish I had far more wall space. Because of the remarkably reasonable prices, no one should feel a wish for deeper pockets.

It would be very simple for me to transcribe the brief notes I made as I stood in front of each work, but I don’t think I’ll do that here.  If there seems to be interest, perhaps I’ll post them separately.  Rather, I’ll give a bit of an overview of the range of works and media in the show. The ranges are tremendous.

For the plastic arts we see clay fired raku and various other ways, glazed and unglazed, representative, decorative and functional.  And then there are the majority of the works, the ones I am loath to call 2D. We see pastels (Shirley Adams’ lovely, painterly land/skyscapes), countless oil and acrylic pieces on every concievable ground, loads of beautiful watercoulours, a number of most interesting mixed media/collage pieces, digital art, various types of prints . . . the only thing I can find missing that was in previous members’ shows is an electolytically etched piece, and that’s just because I didn’t get around to making one this time.

As for what’s actually going on in the pieces:

Botanical/Floral pieces share with landscapes the numerically dominant position.  Some, like T. Michelle Leavitt-Djonlic’s watercolour roses are meticulous portraits, like classic botanical illustrations.  Others, such as Leona Olausen’s acrylics and Sharon Moore-Foster’s Tulips are approaching abstraction while remaining readily identifiable.  There are impressionistic lilies reminiscent of Monet by Lijun Theberge and Amy Loewan’s black ink pieces somehow hovering between old Japanese minimilist and ‘sixties design.

The landscapes are all identifiably Alberta, from Sophia Podrylula-Shaw’s bold and briliantly bright boreal forests with a Group of Seven flavour, through Laurie Bentz’ almost-abstract orange arial farmland landscapes to Patricia Coulters absolutely beautiful, economical Alberta landscapes in watercolour.

Greg Pyra offers pop art faux-fifties ads while Bernard Hippel presents colourfield pieces in terra cotta and jade.

The collage and print work I find to be generally very impressive. Wendy Gervais’ Road Trip pieces are very evocative as is Shane Golby’s “Notes from the Nightshift”, a beautiful multimedia composition in yellow, blue and black.  Wet pavement, streetlight light and shadow. Charalene Denton’s three prints, one in red and two in gold are wonderfully intriguing.

I must mention the many little pinback buttons also on display.  These are themselves unique art works from the hands of VAA/CARFAC members.

These comments are just a snapshot of the big things going on in Think Small.  That I haven’t specifically mentioned many of the artists is not in any way a reflection on their work.  I want to get this post up as quickly as possible in order to get as many people down to the show as my small effort can spur.

Think Small runs until November 24 at the VAA Gallery, 3rd floor, Harcourt House Arts Centre, 10215 112 Street, Edmonton, Alberta, T5K 1M7

A new image from the show is posted each day at the VAA Visuals Blog — but viewing images of art online is, at best, a supplement to, not a substitute for a visit to the real thing.

A Monstrous Post about “Beautiful Monsters” at the Art Gallery of Alberta

These notes derive from my second visit to Beautiful Monsters/Beautés monstrueuses in the Ernest E. Poole Gallery at the Art Gallery of Alberta on Wednesday, October 17, 2012.  Most of what I note is my immediate response to each piece.  Sometimes it is the quality of the printing, sometimes the skill evinced by the engraving, etching or woodcutting, and only rarely the monstrousness of these beauties.  Usually I stood in awe.  On one or two occasions I was indifferent to a piece.  To be honest, while I understand the unifying theme of the show, I found far more beauty here than I did monstrosity — except after an oddly behaved visitor arrived.  Much seemed very familiar, but no less beautiful for that.  Certainly most of the pictures contain what would be termed monsters and seen as unfamiliar by many today, but for a viewer weaned on Dante, Mystery Plays, Milton and Science Fiction, or one with a tiny bit of knowldge of the history of Art, most of these images will seem like old friends.  I’m glad of the inclusion of depictions of war horses, but it seems a bit of shoe-horning to fit them in with monsters.

As the National Gallery has chosen to assemble only a small “List of Works” pamphlet rather than a full catalogue of the exhibit, I’ve provided links to online images of almost all of the works, many from the National Gallery’s web page.

I began my quiet afternoon visit by turning to the right as I entered the gallery to the two scenes from “The Harrowing of Hell” by Albrecht Dürer, a theme very familiar to my Mediaevalist side (sadly, toward the end of my visit an oddly behaved visitor made things very harrowing and Hellish).  In one print Adam and Eve are led out through the shattered Gates of Hell.  In the other Christ is leaning down to raise up the virtuous pagans.

Next is Dürer’s engraving of “The Knight, Death, and the Devil” a brilliant example of everything that is good about Dürer.  Amazing detail marked out with clear, confident economy of line. Notice the apparent velocity of the dog running below the horse’s hooves. And notice the background city/castle on the hill, misty with atmospheric perspective.

In “St. George on Foot”  Dürer makes good use of negative space in the infinite ocean behind George.

“Beast with Lamb’s Horns”  This woodcut illustrates The Book of Revelation.  The detail again is stunning and the boldness of the thicker lines gives a wholly different effect from the engravings.

“Samson Rending the Lion”  So many twentieth Century book illustrators went to school on Dürer!

“The Whore of Babylon” Again the Jabberwock of Revelation.

And now we depart from Dürer for a bit with “Inferno” by an unknown Italian.  This engraving lacks the elegance of Dürer.  It is very busy, reflecting the original fresco in Pisa which was heavily damaged by fire during World War II.

Jean Duvet’s “St. Michael Overwhelming the Dragon”  is sadly dark almost to muddiness.

“Envidia (Envy)” by Master L.D. reminds me of the illustrations by Harold Jones in a family favourite book of nursery rhymes called Lavender’s Blue by Kathleen Lines. There is something very distinctive about this piece.

Jacques Callot “Temptation of St. Anthony”
Oh, my! This is what the exhibition is about! Bosch, jabberwock, a stunning, flatulent etching!

“Descent into Hell”  School of Andrea Mantegna
Engraving but with boldness of a woodcut.  Quite tremendous with at least one bold perspective piece in the creature on the upper right.  Human face outline in the cracks in the Arch of Hell’s Gate.

“The Calumny of Apelles” c. 1496 Girolamo Mocetto
This engraving is of particular interest to me due to my own little connection to the great Ancient Greek painter Apelles.  The Calumny Apelles painted has not survived, but it was carefully described by Lucian and many artists have followed that description attempting to reproduce something like Apelles work.  Botticelli’s is perhaps the finest example.  As a footnote, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus also derives from a lost painting by Apelles, and so also distantly does a line in the film Picnic at Hanging Rock.  Apelles’ Calumny was an allegory, not a representation of any actual event.  The figures represent philosophical/psychological concepts such as suspicion, ignorance, innocence, penitence, truth, etc. The seated man with the ass ears — an allusion to Midas –  represents judgment.

Quite typical architectural perspective background with contrasting flat tableau of figures. The Judge of course has ass’s ears, as does Invidia (I don’t know why: there’s no mention of that in Lucian’s description).
Interesting the way three of the captions are worked into the architecture. Very different from Botticelli, but somehow reminiscent.

Antonio Fantuzi  “A Battle”
a little mushy and lazy in execution.  Far less skilled than some. faded ink, sadly.

Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio “Battle Scene”
shows much more skill than Fantuzi’s

Lucas Cranach the elder “4th Tournament”
is a tour de force wood cut.  So busy! So full! Yet so light and bright. Marvellous pyramidal composition.

Master M.Z. “The Tournament”
Much more medieval in figure, clumsy perspective and awkward figures.

Raffaello Schiaminossi’s “Caligula”
is disturbing in almost every way, from the jutting chin to the grotesquely populated helmet.

It was while looking at “Caligula” that I first noticed the oddly behaved visitor.  The Art Gallery of Alberta is usually a fairly calm and quiet place.  People certainly seem comfortable to have conversations, but generally voices are kept low and it’s possible to concentrate on the art without distraction.  But as I looked at this strange portrait of the third Emperor I couldn’t help but notice the expostulations coming from a gentleman who had come into the gallery.  He seemed to be stopping in front of each print for a moment and then shouting “I can’t believe it!” or “Oh, my God!”, or “How could anyone do something like that!” and so on.  Loudly. Very loudly.  Honestly, I’m not sure whether I was shocked more by the rude inconsideration or the apparently proud ignorance of late Renaissance art.

Jonas Suyderhoef’s “Portrait of Hendrick Golzius”
Certainly not idealized. Even the framing putos are flaccidly chubby and mealy.

The three miniatures:

Albrecht Altdorfer’s “Two Satyrs Fighting for a Nymph” ,
Hans Sebald Beham’s “Hercules Fighting against the Centaurs” , and
the anonymous Italian “Homage to Venus”
are charming gems despite the violence of two.

“St. Anthony Meeting the Satyr” by Herman Van Swanevelt
Hovers somewhere between Poussin and the Hudson River School.  Did Pauline Baynes think of this piece when Mr. Tumnus and Lucy met?

Charles Le Brun’s “Four Times of Day” Four pieces:

Dawn, Noon, Evening, and Night:  seems to leap off the pages. An economy of line which is simply stunning. Absolutely nothing extraneous.
engraving’s elegance with the bold character of a woodcut.

Agostino Musi’s “Procession of Silenus”  is largely a sculptural frieze on paper. The statue of Priapus (herm) on the horizon is a nice touch.

Philippe Galle’s “Triumph of Time”  is a very nice adaptation of Bruegel the Elder.

Giulio Bonasone’s “Pan and a Nymph with a Cornucopia, Standing by a Herm”
Sculptural. Not a wholly successful Composition.

Back to Dürer with “Hercules at the Crossroads”.  Marvellous confidence, strong pyramid composition. Beautifully detailed background and atmospheric perspective !!

Benedetto Montagna (not to be confused with Andrea Mantegna) “Woman and Satyr with Two Cupids”
Quite clumsy.

Giorgio Ghisi “The Judgement of Paris”
Marvellous, busy spiralling composition. such a metallic look!! Very mannered but very satisfying.

Dürer’s “Abduction of Proserpina on a Unicorn” 1516
A little less certainty in design and execution but so clearly Dürer.

Ludolf Backhuysen’s “Neptune and Amphitrite Drawn by a Sea Horse and a Unicorn” (Can’t find an online image) shows great confidence of line but seems to have suffered in the printing looking both blotchy and thin.

Hendrick Goltzius “Neptune and Amphitrite”  on the other hand:  High Mannerism in the figures, but somehow very charming in the faces and Neptune’s hand on her waist.

Giulio Carpioni’s “Water”
is a little muddied in the printing but nice work of line, composition, and figures.

Andrea Mantegna’s “Battle of the Sea Gods (left side)”  is quite exquisite.  Quite the skill.

Jacques Callot’s “Siren Between Two Ships”
What a heavenly piece!
Rocks in lower right and ship about to sail off the right edge, out of range, fading with atmospheric perspective. Other ship sailing in from the left.
Siren oddly blowing a shell-horn rather than singing.  All beautifully executed on a piece about three inches by 2.5!
Unlike Callot’s other piece in the show, the “Temptation of Anthony”, which was an epic of piled on detail, the “Siren” is minimalist, a startling economy of marks on the paper, a stunning, lyric piece.

Israhel van Meckenem (the younger)’s “St. Christopher”  is a beautiful piece, a beautiful composition, a fluid “S” linking Christopher, Christ, and the hermit on the shore.  Lovely homely details of fish, plants, birds, rocks and a ship.

Hans Holbein (The Younger) “Title-page Border with Saints Peter and Paul and the Symbols of the Four Evangelists”
A lovely title page. Very nice. But the text doesn’t strike me as Luther’s New Testament as the tag suggests.

Hieronymus Hopfer “Charles V, German Emperor”
is just scary, although nicely executed.

Carlo Cesi “Hercules Driving Out the Harpies”
A marvellous reproduction of  a fresco by Pietro Da Cortona in Pallazzo Barbarini

Nicolo Boldrini (after Titian) “The Laocoon Group as Monkeys”
WTF?! Interesting, but a little clumsy of line.  I’m sure Titian’s is better.

Two Medallions by Theodor de Bry, “Caritas”  and “Folly”  are exquisite little things.   Circular pieces with portrait in centre and frieze on black background around circumference forming ground for figures.

Hans Sebald Beham “Ornament with Two Genii Riding on Two Chimeras”  beautiful symmetrical composition left Genius facing us Right facing away as though it were a sculpture in the round.

Lucas van Leyden “Ornamental Panel with Two Sirens”
Beautiful sinuous piece!! Unfortunately, it was while I was admiring this piece that the oddly behaved visitor actually pushed his shoulder in front of me, almost shoving me, stuck his head up close to the picture and said loudly, apparently to me “What are those?! Have you ever seen anything like this!? I haven’t! Oh my goodness! What are those — oh, are those their heads!”

I shifted along to “A Cavalry Battle” by Hanns Lautensack
Well done but a little static, like they are posing (albeit with huge horses posing on top of some of the men).

Hendric Goltzius “Fighting Horses”  is a marvellous reproduction of what must be a marvellous study by Van der Straet.

As a bit of a footnote, I find the contrast between the English title, Beautiful Monsters, and the French title, Beautés monstrueuses (Monstrous Beauties) to nicely sum up a major tension in the show. Thank you, National Gallery of Canada, for such a richly poetic use of Canada’s two official languages!

Beautiful Monsters: Beasts and Fantastic Creatures in Early European Prints/Beautés monstrueuses: Bêtes et créatures fantastiques dans l’estampe européenne ancienne runs at the Art Gallery of Alberta until March 10, 2013.

Try to avoid the beautifully monstrous shouting man.