imagine this

Imagine my indigo quilts billowing on a clothes line near the Halcrow house.

What is Canadian identity?

Living as a white artist on Manitoulin, one of native North America's most sacred places, is problematic. I live in the middle of a rich culture, yet it is not my culture. What is Canadian identity?

I like to think of the cement houses on Manitoulin as if they were pioneer women who looked at the lake.

the brown motherly furrows
the whole estate
we walk on air
there is only the moon, embalmed in phosphorous
there is only a crow in a tree
make notes

Sylvia Plath

site specific

The Halcrow House on Highway 6 Manitoulin Island, on the hill above our house.

The degree work I am doing this winter has to do with creating site specific installations. We are asked to choose two sites, and ensure that the body of work we make fits well into both of them. That it does not impose on, but rather exposes the site. I've chosen the Sudbury art gallery and the Halcrow House as my two sites. Why? They are both pioneer houses built on hills looking over water is one reason maybe. That I'm interested in the house as metaphor is another, maybe. The Bell Mansion, Art Gallery of Sudbury

I think about the women who have lived in these houses and what they saw as they looked out over the water, how they managed their days. You can see a painting I made of the Halcrow house by clicking here.

Waiting for spring

It's April today but still cold and white here on Manitoulin Island. Novelist Robert Goddard calls this time of year "the brittle edge of spring" and because I want to remember that evocative description I have noted it here in my journal.

Mantra

Ever tried.
Ever failed.
No matter.
Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.

Samuel Beckett

Northern Ontario Art

The exhibition Local Colour opens at the Art Gallery of Sudbury today to inaugurate the art rental program.

This conte drawing, Protection Dress can be rented or purchased.






Today is also the gala auction celebrating 20 years at the WPK Kennedy gallery in North Bay. My painting of the Halcrow House is on the block.

Margaret Atwood

The text for this painting is from a poem by Margaret Atwood. Here is the original.

A Place: Fragments

i
Here on the rim, cringing
under the cracked whip of winter
we live
in houses of ice,
but not because we want to:
in order to survive
we make what we can and have to
with what we have.

ii

Old woman I visited once
out of my way
in a little-visited province:

she had a neat
house, a clean parlour
though obsolete and poor:

a cushion with a fringe;
glass animals arranged
across the mantlepiece
(a swan, a horse, a bull);
a mirror;
a teacup sent from Scotland;
several heraldic spoons;
a lamp; and in the centre
of the table, a paperweight:
hollow glass globe
filled with water, and
a house, a man, a snowstorm.
The room was as
dustless as possible
and free of spiders.

I
stood in the door-way,
at the fulcrum where

this trivial but
stringent inner order
held its delicate balance
with the random scattering or
clogged merging of
things: ditch by the road; dried
reeds in the wind; flat
wet bush, grey sky
sweeping away outside.

Identity

I'm packing this stitched watercolour for shipping to North Bay this week. The WKP Kennedy gallery is having an art auction and 20th anniversary birthday party on November 24th and I am proud to be included. Some of the other artists who have donated work are Alex Colville, Mary Pratt, Jeannie Thib, Dennis Geden, John Hartman and many more, all of the work can be seen on the website. This painting is one of a series that features the abandoned cement house not far from where I live. The preview exhibition opens November 8th. A print catalogue is also available.

Manitoulin Island

These old cement houses and split rail fences are hauntingly beautiful, and are one of the things that make this island unique. I noticed a photo of one on Our Manitoulin last night when I checked out island blogs. According to Life on Mantioulin this is "de-lurking week". I guess this might be a good time to mention that the new blogger format has allowed me to re-configure my comments section. So if you have been trying to comment on this blog and haven't been able to, well, now you can! Another well maintained island blog is Dylon Whyte's. Dylon is my website designer who also happens to be an author of chain mail jewelery books. Last but not least is Freshisle Fibers, a knitting and dyeing blog that I am thrilled to discover and shall return to. Yes, we are an interesting bunch of bloggers here on Manitoulin Island.

Winter

It's dark when we wake up and it's dark again by 5 p.m.
I feel as if there is just not enough time in each day.

The well would often go dry

I've been reading about Paul Cezanne, considered to be the most significant 19th century painter. He sought to show a world in his paintings that was similar but also quite distinct from the real world. He discovered that the eye is able to understand the image even when traditional one point perspective is absent. Instead, everything is on the surface of the picture and colour planes seem to slide under each other. This new kind of reality is "the reality of the painting".