Veils Suite: Child’s Play
Veils Suite: Child’s Play
collagraph 120 x 80 cm. (47″ x 31.5″)
Please the story behind this work and its companion piece Child’s Dream
Edited Jan.14th, 2013 to display larger view.
by Marja-Leena
by Marja-Leena Weekend
We were away this weekend on a pleasant little trip. Some family stuff was happening, so we took a drive up to the Kamloops area of BC. We enjoyed the scenic Coquihalla Highway route through mountains that were already partly covered in snow at the higher elevations. Our trip took about four hours to the eastern area beyond Kamloops.
We stayed in a lovely bed & breakfast in the village of Chase on Little Shuswap Lake, run by a very friendly recently immigrated German family. The best Greek food ever was had in a big new Greek restaurant in Kamloops (sorry I did not note down the name). Oh, and we picked loads of delicious McIntosh apples off a tree at the family members’ property, so will have to cut and freeze some for pies and apple crisps!
It is always good to get away, and it is great to be home again! The only unpleasant thing was to find 68 comment spam when I went to check my emails and comments! Have you noticed that I recently upgraded to Movable Type 3.11? This has comment approval by me, so those spam comments do not make it directly into the blog, and a new MT anti-spam plug-in just got installed to allow me to easily add the spammers to a blacklist and delete in one step! Begone, scum!
by Marja-Leena Betty Goodwin exhibition
Chris posts a long list of reviews at Zeke’s Gallery, including two in the Globe & Mail about the current exhibition of works by Montreal artist Betty Goodwin at the Sable-Castelli Gallery in Toronto.
Sarah Milroy writes that this “may well be the artist’s last in Toronto. At 81, her health is failing, and her production is finally, after decades of consummate grace, beginning to falter.”
Gary Michael Dault calls it “An unabashedly moving experience”.
Reading these reviews sent me to find my precious copy of the catalogue of Betty Goodwin’s traveling exhibition from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts that came to the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1987. Looking again at the drawings, prints and paintings brought back the powerful feelings her work evoked in me when I first saw them in the VAG. I wish I could go to Toronto to see the current show! I wish there was a website devoted to Goodwin’s huge body of work. Here are a few links where one can see some examples:
– Sable-Castelli Gallery
– Canada Council for the Arts – Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2003 with high resolution images – scroll down to “Betty Goodwin”.
– 3rd Biennale de Montréal 2002
– at Artnet
Thank you, Chris!
by Marja-Leena Burnaby Art Gallery exhibitions
Wayne Eastcott: Diagram Lambda, serigraph.
City of Burnaby Permanent Art Collection.
The Burnaby Art Gallery features two interesting exhibitions.
1. A Survey of British Columbia Printmaking – November 9, 2004-January 2, 2005
From the invitation (links added by me): “The Burnaby Art Gallery has been collecting, on behalf of the citizens of Burnaby, prints by local, regional and national artists since 1967 that explore many social and political issues. Artists such as Arnold Shives, Carel Moiseiwitsch, Gordon Smith, Wayne Eastcott, Doug Biden and Jack Shadbolt are well represented in the collection and exemplify some of the best work in printmaking that has occurred in British Columbia.”
Read one of my posts about Wayne Eastcott.
2. The British Columbia Landscape by Toni Onley – November 2, 2004-January 2, 2005
The late Toni Onley has left an indelible mark on the history and development of art in Canada. Works for this exhibition focus on pieces from the Permanent Collection that relate to the British Columbia landscape.
Read a post about Toni Onley.
Burnaby Art Gallery, 6344 Deer Lake Avenue, Burnaby, BC Phone: 604.205.7332
Tuesday to Friday 10:00am-4:30pm, Saturday & Sunday 12noon-5:00pm
by Marja-Leena about the Dreams series
At the end of the ‘Veils Suite’ series of prints, I created some prints called ‘Child’s Play’ and ‘Child’s Dream’, based on an actual dream I had.
In this dream, my little daughter danced happily into our bedroom early one morning, waking us up. She was in a ‘dress-up’ costume with a sheer veil over her head, like a bride. It was a very vivid image and a rare experience for me to be able to recall a dream so clearly, perhaps because I really did wake up then, fully expecting to see my veiled girl in the room. The titles reflect the make-believe dreams that children act out in their play.
The print ‘Untitled (Dream Passages)’ is a later development of ‘Child’s Dream’ and became a transitional piece between the two series. From these works grew a desire to continue to explore the concepts of dreams and memory, as I was at that time caring for my father in his last years. He was living with us, missing my mother greatly after she passed on, and had health problems that affected his memory. His confusions about past and present and his mixing of dreams and reality really made me aware about how much our memory and even our dreams make up our unique personalities, and how we function in day-to-day life.
by Marja-Leena Untitled I (Dream Passages)
Untitled I (Dream Passages)
etching & collagraph
120 x 80 cm. (47″ x 31.5″)
Edited Jan.13.2013 to show larger image.
by Marja-Leena Halloweeeeen Apples!
That’s what we, in our childhood, called out as we rang neighbours’ doorbells, dressed in inexpensive home-made costumes. Today it’s “Trick or Treat” and often some pretty sophisticated costumes that Mom bought! Treats most desired by the little goblins are mini chocolate bars and candies – no more candy apples or homemade goodies after some bad tricks with hidden razors. Lots of carved and candlelit jack o’ lantern pumpkins line every doorway, then lie smashed on roads the next morning after the older goblins have made their rounds.
This type of Hallowe’en is predominantly a North American phenomenon, though originating in the British Isles. Immigrant parents reluctantly allowed their children to go join in this strange new form of “begging”.
Increasingly commercialized, Hallowe’en now ranks third in consumer spending in Canada, behind Christmas and the back-to-school season. And this is ironic…according to the Telegraph:
“thanks in part to a vigorous drive by supermarkets to import America’s Hallowe’en traditions and rituals to Britain, it has become the second biggest seasonal event after Christmas.”
I guess I’d qualify as a Scrooge for only buying two pumpkins and about $25 worth of the mini chocolate bars for the neighbourhood kids (and the at-home “kids”).
So, if you are out trick-or-treating tonight with your young ones or attending various fireworks (apparently a Canadian tradition!) or parties, have yourself a fun and very SAFE Halloween!
Links: some history of Halloween
Stanley Park’s Hallowe’en Ghost Train, a popular Vancouver family event.
Thanks to Erika for the skeleton drawing!
Update Nov.1.04 (All Saints’ Day): Thanks to Mark at Wood s Lot for finding this fascinating site about Halloween, Samhain, Day of the Dead, All Souls, All Saints at Mythology’s Myth*inglinks
by Marja-Leena a drawing
Drawing for Memory/Dreams II
conté on paper 76 x 58 cm. (30″ x 23″)
Please view the print Memory/Dreams II to compare.
Edited Jan.13.2013 to show larger image.
by Marja-Leena Memory/Dreams IV
Memory/Dreams IV
collagraph, etching, hand-colouring
120 x 80 cm. (47″ x 31.5″)
Edited Jan.13.2013 to show larger image.
by Marja-Leena Rare Sami Music CD
This is very interesting – ” Sámi singer releases CD in waning language”- from Helsingin Sanomat. Here are some excerpts, but do read the whole fascinating article.
Palgah, a new CD by Inari Sámi singer Aune Kuuva, contains what is perhaps the rarest music in the world. She has composed the songs and written the lyrics in the language of the Inari Sámi people in the eastern part of Finnish Lapland. It is apparently the only recording in a language that is teetering on the brink of extinction. The musical traditions of the Sámi (Lapp) people in the Inari region are also in danger of disappearing.
Aune is an Inari Sámi, one of the fewer than 1,000 who are left. They are a minority among the Sámi minority, and they live along the shores of Lake Inari and in Nellim, near the Russian border. With local people leaving their villages and getting dispersed around the world, the number of people speaking the Inari variant of the Sámi language has declined to about 300.
Kuuva’s CD does not have any of the traditional Sámi “joiks”. “We are not joik people”. Kuuva says that the Inari Sámi are natural singers and storytellers. The melody is important for them. The recording was sponsored, and it is being sold by the Association for the Inari Sámi language.
I emailed Helsingin Sanomat and they have provided me with the email address of a contact person, from whom one can order the CD. Email me if you are interested.
More about the Sámi in this earlier post, in Wikipedia, and about”joiks”.
Update Oct.30.04: Just came across this interesting page on the Sami of Norway, via Torill Mortensen
Update Dec.27.04: I ordered this CD for ourselves as a Christmas gift and I’m pleased to write that we enjoy it very much!