Canadian Painter

Tags

Art Gallery, art., Halifax, life, Maud Lewis, Nova Scotia

We were in Halifax about 3 weeks ago, an easy drive of 3 hours from Charlottetown across the Sea Bridge down to Truro and a hop and a skip to Halifax. This time around I wanted to visit the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia to see the collection.

The Art gallery is housed in 2 buildings next to each other, one is an old government building facing the Legislature and the other is an Italianate style stone building called the Dominion building which has a statue of Britannia sitting on the roof.

The two building have an underground passageway connecting them. The collection of Canadian art is of good quality and interesting featuring many artists. The one in particular I wanted to see  was the works of Maud Lewis (1903-1970) born in Yarmouth and died in Digby, Nova Scotia. She married in 1938 Everett Lewis. Prior to being married Maud had a daughter out of wedlock named Catherine Dowley. Maud never acknowledged her daughter who moved to Ontario and had a family of her own.

I had heard much about Maud Lewis and she is one of those painters discovered late in life by the art world and the public and became a celebrity, though that did not enrich her at all. Today she is an icon in the Canadian art world for her simple ”naif” or folk art style of painting. Maud (Dowley) Lewis came from a simple background, her family were tradespeople, her father John was well known in Yarmouth for making good quality leather harness and other leather goods.  Maud was born suffering from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and for the rest of her life suffered from this crippling disease. She was a very small women described as gnome like and her hands were severely deformed.

Her interest in art came from her mother Agnes who would paint Christmas cards and sell them to supplement the family’s income.  After her parents death Maud lived as a recluse and her only brother grew distant and rarely saw her.

At the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia a section of the museum is dedicated to her and her tiny little house in which she lived with her husband Everett Lewis, it has been transported from its original site and reconstructed for visitors to see.  It is as it was during her life, quite small, basically a one room house, with all the furniture, paint brushes and other items one finds in a house. What is so special about this little tiny house, is that Maud Lewis painted and decorated every inch of the place inside and out including the glass windows.

 

The house as it appears re-installed inside the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia today.

Her paintings are joyful and full of vibrant colours, showing life and scenes around her and what she saw.

Though I was not particularly interested in Maud Lewis as a painter despite having heard of her, coming to the gallery and seeing her tiny house and several of her paintings, I was enchanted by her work. It was I think the simple beauty of it all, childlike quality and the joy which radiated from her work. She has no agenda, no ideology, no philosophy or trying to pass a message. It is simply art for the beauty of it.

 

 

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This week

Tags

AGCC, Art Gallery, Canada Day, Canada., Charlottetown, CN, national anthem, PEI, Railway, West Covehead

It was  a busy week both at the Art Gallery and in general, we were invited to attend a fundraising cocktail at the home of the Premier of PEI. It was all very informal, the food was prepared by the our Premier Wade MacLauchlan, he is a very good cook. The drinks or special cocktails were very good, one made with gin and the other with bourbon. He and his husband Duncan MacIntosh have a beautiful home on the beach. The scenery is spectacular and so peaceful.

Here we are at Covehead with our friends Blake and Alex. The Sunset in the West over the Gulf was amazing in its brilliance. Alex is the President of Pride PEI and Blake is the top hairstylist in Charlottetown. Will is enjoying one of the special cocktails.

The Art Gallery was also very busy this week, lots of visitors, with the end of June suddenly the tourist appear. We had the big opening night and now it is regular Summer traffic.

We were told by Robert Houle, the new commissioned canvass for the 150th Anniversary of Confederation.  Beside it is the famous and celebrated canvass by Jean-Paul Lemieux, Charlottetown Revisited, created in 1964 for the opening of the Art Gallery.

All the various canvasses on Canada and Confederation have a political message to them, my job is to steer clear of it and speak solely about the art itself and the artist.

Today is June 24 and is the National day of all of us French Canadians across Canada, originally called Saint Jean-Baptiste Day. From this old celebration comes the Canadian National Anthem O’Canada, with original lyrics in French by Adolphe-Basile Routhier and music by Calixa Lavallée. It was originally commissioned by Lieutenant-Governor of Québec, Théodore Robitaille in 1880. Like everything else in Canada, the original French version is very different in its wording from the English version composed many years later.

Ô Canada ! Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux !
Car ton bras sait porter l’épée,
Il sait porter la croix !
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Sous l’œil de Dieu, près du fleuve géant,
Le Canadien grandit en espérant.
Il est né d’une race fière,
Béni fut son berceau.
Le ciel a marqué sa carrière
Dans ce monde nouveau.
Toujours guidé par sa lumière,
Il gardera l’honneur de son drapeau,
Il gardera l’honneur de son drapeau.
De son patron, précurseur du vrai Dieu,
Il porte au front l’auréole de feu.
Ennemi de la tyrannie
Mais plein de loyauté,
Il veut garder dans l’harmonie,
Sa fière liberté.
Et par l’effort de son génie,
Sur notre sol asseoir la vérité,
Sur notre sol asseoir la vérité.
Amour sacré du trône et de l’autel,
Remplis nos cœurs de ton souffle immortel !
Parmi les races étrangères,
Notre guide est la loi :
Sachons être un peuple de frères,
Sous le joug de la foi.
Et répétons, comme nos pères,
Le cri vainqueur : « Pour le Christ et le roi ! »
Le cri vainqueur : « Pour le Christ et le roi ! ».

Next week on Friday 1 July is Canada Day, in Charlottetown the tall ships are sailing in at 9am. Hopefully it will be a nice clear day, to watch this spectacle.

We will be able to observe them from our house and it will make the harbour look as it was in 1900.

This week Earle Macdonald who has a blog on Facebook about old Charlottetown published a photo of what the city was like before 1989 showing the rail yards across the street from our home. The waterfront which today has been reclaimed and turned into parkland was then a very industrial area.

In this photo you can see, barely, our house, hidden by trees.

The big round house for locomotives and the rail cars refurbishment buildings with other Canadian National Railway buildings. Only the Brass shop and what is now called Founder’s Hall remain today the rest is parkland. The cruise ships dock at the end of the wharf now Prince Street.

The old Brass shop, still standing and completely renovated housing today Receiver Coffee Co. and John’s Bread Works.

Today the Brass Shop c.1876 much improved.

Founder’s Hall today, to be soon re-developed into a market 

Art Weekend

Tags

2017, AGCC, Art Gallery, art., Canada., CCOA, Charlottetown, Confederation, Festival, PEI, Robert Houle, Saulteaux, theatre

This has been a busy weekend with the Opening of the Summer Theatre Festival at the Confederation Centre of the Arts and then on the next night the Opening of the Summer Exhibit at the Art Gallery. In both cases it brought out the whose who of PEI Society from the Lieutenant-Governor to Members of Parliament, Senators, Chief Justice and many others actors on our social scene.

The Opening play is Million Dollar Quartet which tells the story of the meeting at Sun Records in December of 1956 of four greats of the Rock and Roll scene, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins in Memphis.

The reception before and after was a lot of fun with a live orchestra and great food by the new Chef of Mavor’s Miguel Cervantes.

The next night was the opening of the Summer Exhibit of the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre. This being the 150th Anniversary of Confederation, the exhibit highlights the Collection of the Art Gallery, the best pieces of our 17,000 works of Art by great Canadian artists. The Art Gallery is mandated to show only Canadian Art since the Centre is a Memorial to the Fathers of Confederation.

We also unveiled a new giant painting by Canadian Native Artist Robert Houle Aka Blue Thunder who is a  from St-Boniface, Manitoba. It joins the other great canvasses on the same theme by Jean-Paul Lemieux, John Fox, Jane Ash Poitras, Yvon Gallant, Wanda Koop, Jack Shadbolt.

Robert Houle, Blue Thunder (born 1947) is a Saulteaux First Nation Canadian artist, curator, critic, and educator. Houle has had an active curatorial and artistic practice since the mid-1970s. He played an important role in bridging the gap between contemporary First Nations artists and the broader Canadian art scene through his writing and involvement in early important high-profile exhibitions such as Land, Spirit, Power: First Nations at the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, 1992). As an artist, Houle has shown both nationally and internationally. He is predominately a painter working in the tradition of Abstraction, yet he has also embraced a pop sensibility by incorporating everyday images and text into his works.

We were told or ‘O-ween du muh waun’ by Robert Houle, 2017

Me and the artist

This great canvas represents the Delaware in the classical pose from the celebrated propaganda painting of Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe which is in the National Gallery of Canada.

The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West, 1770. The Official story as told is of Wolfe dying on the Plains of Abraham in September 1759 during the famous battle against French General Montcalm. This scene was pure fantasy but it was necessary for propaganda purpose in England to raise taxes to pay for the Seven Year War, the tax raise led a few years later to the American Revolution.

In his painting Houle presents a different narrative, he rejects the fantasy painting of West and presents not a battle scene, stating that who won the battle is not really important and should not be celebrated. For Houle on this anniversary we should celebrate today’s Canada. Further being from the Saulteaux First Nation the idea of 150 years does not apply to his people since they have lived in North America for 15,000 years.

 

I also got a very nice gift this weekend, I often give tours to school children aged 8 to 12.

Once class sent me several thank you notes designed and written by the students.

Each card as a personal message addressed to me as a thank you from a student. I am very proud of this gift and happy that for some kids the day at the Art Gallery meant something.

 

classes in Art

Tags

Art Gallery, art., CCOA, Charlottetown, museum

For the last 4 years I have worked in National Museums here with school children presenting Art to them. I was trained at the National Gallery in Ottawa for 3 years and have read quite a few books on the topic and how to do it.

In Ottawa, I did presentations in school rooms and in the galleries of the National Gallery of Canada. My groups are about 20 to 25 students, which is fairly large and demanding. What helps of course is having a school teacher present who is also interested and engaged and on whom I can depend if a student misbehaves or if there is some problem.

National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Art Gallery, Confederation Centre, Charlottetown.

 

In the last two days I had 5 classes of grade 4 – 5 students in age 10 years old.

They came from Charlottetown, Summerside, Stratford. Some came by school bus and others like this morning came on foot. On the whole it went well and the exercise was about introducing them to Art in general, explaining how to look at Art and doing some exercise so they understand that art in itself is a large concept and not confined to what bourgeois society tells you it is. The students for the large part have never been to a museum, so it is a very new experience for them. The art I was showing them is all on display in the galleries and it is all contemporary, some is installations, all very modern with no easy reference, as I told them it is not about meaning but about observing and looking closely, trying to understand what the artist is trying to achieve and what the artist is conveying.

Getting 10 year olds to look closely at something can be difficult, attention span is short and by today’s standard anything you look at as to be self-evident, not so with contemporary art.

Some kids are good at observation, others have imagination, others have skill at drawing, others do not have a clue. In a class of 25 kids, at least 7 will not be interested and look bored, another 4 will try to wander away, look at other things in the gallery, will not be able to focus. Some will be talkative, others will be silent and withdrawn. From time to time there may be one autistic child or a child who is so painfully shy they stand apart of the group. By job is to try to include everyone and get everyone to share, talk and ask questions. I always make a point of encouraging them, there are no wrong answers, encouraging them to feel free to draw whatever they want, some children have a hard time with that concept, they prefer to be told what to do, being imaginative does not come easy in a world preparing them to be good little consumers.

I also realize that some parents are largely absent from their children lives and leave it up to the State to look after them, some come from troubled homes. Some children are never spoken to at home, there is no conversation between adult and child, no sharing, that is very sad to see. Parents themselves may never have been to a museum or art gallery, never read a book, have just basic education, enough to get a job and pay the mortgage. They have kids but what to do with them, in other words their parental skills are poor.

I had one autistic child in one group, he stood apart from the group in silence, he was lost in thoughts, he was in his own world, the teacher told me that at first he did not want to come to the gallery and would wait outside in the great hall. He appeared fearful or maybe not understanding what was going on. He did change his mind, was it something I said, I do not know. Once in the gallery he became animated, the art works seemed to speak to him and he had a keen interest. He even asked me questions , he noticed things other kids did not, he certainly appeared much more mature and very intelligent.

Next week the new Summer program will be installed in a period of 4 weeks, I am looking forward to it.

Caroline L. Daly

Tags

Art Gallery, art., Canada., caroline louisa Daly, CCOA, Charlottetown, paintings, PEI, sketches

There will be a Vernissage at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery this Saturday 28 January at 7pm. Featuring the sketches and water colours of Caroline Louisa Daly (1832-1893)

She was the daughter of Sir Dominick Daly, Lieutenant-Governor of Prince Edward Island from 1854-1859. The family lived at Government House also known as Fanningbank in Charlottetown.

The Official Residence was built in 1834 and the first Lieutenant-Governor moved in and died promptly in 1835 of pneumonia,the house is on an expose piece of land facing the Strait of Northumberland, very windy and was not then well insulated.

When the Daly family moved in some 20 years later the conditions in the house had been improved. Caroline who was born in Montreal in 1832 when her father, an Irish native of Galway, was serving as Colonial Secretary in Lower-Canada. Sir Dominick would have a long career in the Imperial Service and the family would move all over the world as he was promoted from post to post.

Caroline documented where they lived and what she saw in her sketches and water colours. She left us a wonderful record of life on the Island between 1854-59. We have precious few artistic rendering and documented memories of Fanningbank and thanks to her and her father we have a link to the past. The curator of the exhibit Paige Matthie also did a wonderful job of clearing up a long standing mistake on attribution of those sketches. Many decades ago poorly done research had attributed the work to two fellows also named Daly who lived in Montreal. They had never visited the Island and there was no link between the artwork and them but for some unknown reason it was assumed they were the authors.

The Daly family has also given us more works by Caroline Louisa Daly and other documents related to Sir Dominick.

This is truly a beautiful exhibit and it is opening in a few days.

Fanningbank in Winter

If you look closely you will see on the right in the background the steeple of St-James Presbyterian and people skating on Government pond.

What is interesting, because of her water colours and sketches of Fanningbank during renovations in the 1930’s and later, these art works were used as a reference for historians and architects.

The Ice Sugar Cone in front of Momontrency Falls near Quebec City

Countryside PEI

This and that

Tags

Art Gallery, Farms, Parliament, PEI, Piazza Navona, Rachel Beach, Rome, sculptures, winter, XMAS

Our morning today started with this view looking South to the Hillsborough River from our kitchen window.

Meanwhile in Ottawa in Parliament, the Central Column of the Hall of Honour was decorated with Christmas greenery.

Back in PEI in the countryside this view

While in Rome on Piazza Navona they are having a Christmas Fair.

This evening I was at the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre of the Arts for a Vernissage of works by Rachel Beach from NYC.

 

Interesting works, she told us that Matisse was one of her inspiration and that her work is all about texture, context, ideas on fabric and colours, forms and shapes and language. Think of ethnography, archeology, symbolism used by all cultures to communicate.

 

 

Leviathan

Tags

Art Gallery, CCOA, Charlottetown, Leviathan, Paul Griffin, PEI, Sackville NS

The Leviathan is something that is described as large and powerful. I remember towards the end of my high school, we read this book; Leviathan or The Matter, Form and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiastical and Civil—commonly referred to as Leviathan—written by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and published in 1651. It was not easy going because it requires a lot of attention, reflection and in 1975 at 19, I probably did not have the sufficient academic background to understand it all.

Why would teachers pull out such a book in our sociology classes, maybe to expose our young minds to a difficult topic, forcing us to think.

The work concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory. Leviathan ranks as a classic western work on statecraft comparable to Machiavelli’s The Prince. Written during the English Civil War (1642–1651), Leviathan argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature (“the war of all against all”) could only be avoided by strong, undivided government.

We also read The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli and found that book much easier to understand with it’s lessons still applying to our society today.

The Leviathan by Paul Griffin of Sackville N.S., at the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown, PEI. Weighing 5000 lbs. or 2267 Kilos.

This sculpture is an Elm tree from New Brunswick that Paul Griffin selected and brought to PEI by truck. Just the fact that he was able to move such an incredibly large fragment of a tree over to the Island is amazing to me.

In August 2015 we were visiting the Island and saw Paul Griffin hammer daily the galvanized nails into the wood, some 100,000 of them. The Leviathan was then left on the upper terrace of the Art Gallery, until October 2016.

It was moved to the entrance gallery which is underground and leads to the Art Gallery. The new space inside the building with proper lighting gives a far more dramatic effect to this sculpture. A huge crane was required to lift the Leviathan unto a flat bed truck which then travelled around the Centre to the garage entrance on Richmond Street and from there moved inside into the Art Gallery.

Looking at this sculpture I am reminded of another sculpture by Rodin, the man that walks.

I really like this piece, for its texture and the sheer presence and mass and it occupies now a strategic area leading into the Art gallery.

 

End of Summer?

Tags

Art Gallery, Charlottetown, Gold Cup, muffins, Parade, PEI, Summer, Water Street

Officially Summer ends on 21 September but schools and Universities re-open next week and so with the Gold cup and Saucer Harness Race, the Season ends here in PEI. Much of the Summer theatre ends this weekend and the restaurants and other venues will be much more quiet, which to me is a blessing.

We had a lovely parade today from 10:00am to Noon time, 50 floats and marching bands. I have discovered that on bagpipes you can play 3 tunes and they are always the same. We have quite a few Islanders whose ancestors came from Old Scotland, so you can imagine bagpipes and tartans are all the rage. We also have the PEI Regiment and the Canadian Royal Navy and many Service Clubs participating and the RCMP were there also. It was a lot of fun, our friend Pico made wonderful muffins and I went to watch the parade from the house of our friend DS who lives just a few doors down from us. The weather was perfect, beautiful sunshine and a lite breeze.

Then I had museum duty and it has been a very busy season for me, on any given day at the Art Gallery I have about 40 to 60 visitors wanting to know about this or that painting or installation. In one gallery is the portraits of Robert Harris (1849-1919) in another I have prints by Landon Mackenzie, her 1975-2015 period, she gave a talk yesterday and I was able to speak with her afterwards and it was very helpful. We then have this installation by Graeme Patterson called the Silent Citadel, a lot of people love it, exploring the theme of friendship and solitude.

Graeme Patterson, Silent Citadel

Robert Harris, Bessie in her wedding gown, 1885. Bessie Putnam was his wife.

L

Landon Mackenzie speaking with a group of visitors.

And now for photos of the Gold Cup and Saucer Parade 2016, 155 edition

Muffins made by Pico with blueberries and strawberries from his garden. The flowers are also freshly cut. 

Water street before the parade around 9:30am.

The RCMP on parade, they are the Police force of the Island.

The First Nation Mi’kmaq, they had a powwow in the park next to our place, drums and chanting for 2 days an free lobster dinner for anyone coming. Pretty nice.

Colonel Gray Marching band, named after John Hamilton Gray, Premier of PEI 1864. Pretty good musicians and great costumes.

a hunk in the parade because you need one.

The piping school band, yes you can take courses to learn to play the bagpipes. But as the old saying goes, a gentleman knows how but abstain from playing.

Canadian Sailors

Charlottetown Police and Fire Service our taxes at work.

The Grand Marshall, Anne Shirley, (of Green Gables), who said she was fictional.

In all 50 floats and 5 bands, lots of fun and all the neighbours were out, so we all had a chat.

Visitors!

Tags

Acadians, Art Gallery, AZ, CCOA, Charlottetown, dachshunds, Dunes Café and Gallery, Ferragosto, Matos Wines, MCCA, PEI, Point Prim, Stanhope Beach, theatre

Summer time in PEI brings tourists and visitors/Friends. In the last week leading to Ferragosto (15 August) which is also the Acadian National Day in the Maritimes.

*Acadians are known as Cajuns in Louisiana. The Acadians are the descendants of French colonists who settled in Acadia during the 17th century going by ethnic identification, some would define an Acadian as a native French-speaking person living in the Maritime provinces of Canada. The Expulsion of the Acadians starting in 1755, also known as the Great Upheaval, the Great Deportation and Le Grand Dérangement, was the forced removal by the British of the Acadian people from the present day Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island —an area also known as Acadia.

Matos Winery on road 9 in Cornwall, PEI. The Rosé, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are very good.

View from the river of the City at Confederation Landing with the Spires of St-Dunstan Cathedral.

We had two friends with whom we have been on vacations to Stratford, Ontario for the theatre season. This year we convinced them to come East to the Maritimes to visit PEI, something they had never done. They were with us for a week. The height of the tourist Season is July and August, it tapers off after September 1, then we get cruise ships with retired and seniors coming in for the day. They got a pretty good view of the Island, met a lot of people, we introduced them to, saw many sights, fine dining, wine sampling, theatre and shopping. We also went to the beach on a quiet rainy day, the only one of their stay. We also did things with them we would not normally do such as taking a city and river cruise on the amphibious bus and saw seals in the Hillsborough river, they are pretty big seals, not cute little things. Also on two separate nights while walking back home we came upon a Fox which looked nervous at seeing us and moved on pretty quickly. Obviously a young fox, the older more mature ones will sit at a distance and look at you.

Our friends at Point Prim Lighthouse (1847) the oldest lighthouse on PEI, still in use.

Will and I walking from the Beach at Stanhope on that rainy day.

The garden at Dunes Café and Gallery with it’s cluster of multicolored flowers in the large gardens surrounding the sea side property. Peter and Nash have over the years done a superb job, it is such a pleasure to go and visit, just 20 minutes on Brackley Point Road. 

This week is Olde Home Week and Saucer and Gold Cup Week with harness races everyday. The 14 horses competing for the Cup have been named and now is time to place your bets.

We are going to see Anne Kenstein and Friends at the Guild Theatre this week, it is a play adaptation of Anne of Green Gables done as Rocky Horror Picture Show, it is described as the Mother of all PEI Comedy shows. This play has not been done for a few years but it was a huge success when it premiere. Some of the original cast are back this year, I am looking forward to it. There is quite a lot of theatre in town at the moment, Mamma Mia and Spoon River which I liked a lot, it takes place near Joliette, Illinois in a small town cemetery. The dead on the Hill come back to talk about their regrets and what they should have done while alive, great music and quite entertaining. There is also a lot of musical venues not only in Charlottetown but also in many smaller towns around us. All of it is really affordable, there is no lack of things to see and do and shows to go to. On the 25 August at the Guild there will be a special show Tower of Tease Burlesque which as the title indicates will be a mix of Gypsy Rose Lee meets Magic Mike, who said we did not have entertainment in this town.  The Art Gallery has 4 shows running at the moment, I am conducting a tour in French for a group of University students from UPEI next week.

All in all a busy Summer so far.

 

The puppies on the balcony amongst the flowers.

The Provincial Flag of PEI now on the front of my car.