At long last, the post no one has asked for but is getting anyway. I haven't been idle on le internet, I've simply been working on other things, such as art and more art and I started a blog on that process as well and it is HERE.
But in the back of my mind, I was always thinking: I never finished writing about our Canada trip, entitled To Eastern Canada and Back (Part 1, covering Niagra Falls and Toronto is HERE). Better late than never and here it is: Ottawa and Montreal.
We arrived in the nation's capital city Ontario in the early evening, in time to make the 15-minute walk from our hotel to Parliament Hill to see Northern Lights, the light and sound show on the history of Canada. I had no idea what this was, but it was super-cool. You sit on the lawn in front of the Parliament building, which is beautiful and has one of many skyscraper-sized brick clock towers that we saw on our trip (theoretically to look more English than the English—at least that's my theory), with digital projections, narration and sound effects that summarize this nation's past, present and future. Here are some shots of this pretty show.
Besides covering the history of the indigenous populations, as well as European exploration and expansion (i.e., land grabbing), the show has an overall theme and that theme, surprising to us scrappy highly individualized capitalist U.S. citizens is: cooperation and collaboration. Coming from a land that had drilled the Give me Liberty or Give Me Death anti-English philosophy since age 5, this was refreshing to see projected onto a government building. Cooperation and collaboration: imagine the possibilities, U.S.!
The Centennial Fountain is a nice fire/water feature at night.
Ottawa is pretty and walkable. Also boatable. You can take the aqua taxi to Gatineau, Quebec, where everything starts getting very French, very fast. A brief clip of the aqua taxi ride with musical accompaniment supplied by the firework-competition rehearsal on the banks of the Ottawa River (WHAT?! Read on...).
The majestic view of Parliament Hill from the aqua taxi.
The Canadian Museum of History, a gorgeous and fabulous building full of historical artifacts, Canadian art and postage stamps is on the other side of the river.
The cavernous main hall in the Museum, with totems.
I have been so busy working on art the past few years, I have truly let this poor blog slide into Internet oblivion. Don't think it hasn't weighed heavily on my brain cells, dear readers. It has haunted me vaguely for a long while now. All my energies are pouring out in the art world here for the most part, and also here, due to political unrest in the U.S. And in this blog here.
Just on a whim, between bouts of anxiety over COVID-19, otherwise known as the Coronavirus—not the flu—stay informed! I happened to check out my "comments pending" page herein. And guess what? There were a lot (for me) of comments pending. I'm so sorry I let your comments pend for so long! Yeesh, truly this was a lapse in attention on my part.
My excuse is that for a very long time, there were no comments pending, except for the occasional spam-bot urging me to begin a lucrative business venture, and so I just gave up on ever receiving any comments. Sad! But I'm energized now. Your three years (!) worth of commentary has given me LIFE and for that I thank you, commenters. You are golden, and reading through all your thoughts has made today a lovely one.
Writers who gave up on publishing for filthy lucre (that would be me) and stuck to blogging for a long time, tend to write in a vacuum and although I happily would continue writing in a vacuum 'til the end of time, I dove back into the visual-making world and that takes a lot of time to figure out and master. I will be writing here again because I promised a Part 2 of my trip to eastern Canada and I never delivered and I so want to finish that because I really loved eastern Canada and I want other people to experience that part of the world. I mean, it took me decades to get there, which is crazy. It's far, but not THAT far. I mean, it's not like Antarctica. Anyway, that's on my list of THINGS TO DO.
Meanwhile, enjoy the day. Wash your hands. Avoid large crowds for the moment (subject to change), and make sure you're registered to vote and you know where and how to vote in your state (for U.S. voters—but good advice for any democracy). It's vitally important to get ethical and hard-working government in place on the Federal AND local levels, so jump in there, members of the Republic and make it a Democracy of the People once more. Love to you all. I'll be back.
Li'l comic I threw together recently, just for fun.
Oh, I've been so busy this year, drawing and painting and sculpting. Something happened when I turned 50--like an LED bulb went *blink, blink, blink, ON!* and I realized it was time to get back to art. The thing about art is that it's very time-consuming, and therefore the writing has lagged a lot. Sorry!
Not that huge droves of readers were waiting breathlessly for my every thought, but I do feel some obligation to post here at least once in a while. It's just that social media has taken over on that front, in tiny chunks of words as in: *hit send* and wait for responses to trickle in (if at all--as in life, I'm not exactly super-popular).
I tend to put the art on my art site here, and/or Instagram here. But today: Crossover art! Throughout the Brent Kavanaugh hearings and debacle, I comforted myself by doing quick sketches of the disgusting trash people on the 115th Senate Majority Judicial Committe with Sharpie pens on a stack of colored paper. I use these whenever I tweet to any of these guys. In time, other members of this Nation's GOP-majority administration were added. They were quick--some are better likenesses than others, but I didn't care--I just wanted to get their essence.
And here they are--so many of them--and I haven't even finished yet. I'm working on a series of Emotional Support Animals and that's proved a more satisfying and pleasant endeavor. But I'll be adding more of these monsters, once I can stomach looking at their likenesses for a few moments at a time.
Print and color, or use as snail-mail stationery to write to your Trump-supporting friends, if you have any left. Or paste them around town as political commentary. Or share on social media for and make a visual statement. It's a free Nation and they're copyright-free!
Greetings! It's been too long over here in this blogspot. I'm going to lay out our last big journey here, in case anyone is looking for an enriching cultural road trip in the northern regions of the North American continent. Let's go!
Back at the tail end of summer, we landed late at night in Buffalo, NY, and drove the 25 minutes or so to cross the border--on the other side of the poetically named Rainbow Bridge.
It was after midnight when we arrived in Ontario, a block from the Niagra Falls (town of) strip, known as Clifton Hill. At some point in time, a demon-from-hell developer showed up on the banks of spectacular Niagra Falls (the actual falls) and visualized the most demonic tourist trap one block away from one of nature's natural wonders. By dawn's early light it was our first impression of eastern Canada, and it was, and I'm being diplomatic here, a massive bummer.
We could walk to the Falls from our hotel and the first indication that something was amiss on our stroll, was this upside-down house. We've visited upside-down houses before (at least one that I can recall). This one was very tidy in comparison, but somewhat sterile in scope.
Here's the view on the way to the Falls.
Burger King and the Frankenstein Monster, together at last
Dracula's castle between Gags 'n Giggles and a Maze of Lasers
Perhaps reflecting its origin-from-hell, Clifton Hill has an abundance of haunted-house attractions, including Dracula's Castle, Frankenstein's Castle, and a haunted house, which as you can see here, is air conditioned.
There's a lot of horror to get through--a true vision of hell that asks you to pay upon entry.
Wax tyrants
You know you're getting closer to the splendor of water and gravity when the surroundings become less of a psychedelic horror-show tourist trap and more of a misty, color-coded rain-poncho and zip-line tourist trap. Keep right on strolling past the USA Falls, which fooled me into saying out loud, "Is that all there is?"
The U.S. Falls - nice, but *yawn*
As you continue down the boardwalk to wonder, you finally arrive at the Canadian horseshoe Falls, and it is quite a payoff.
Due to the ridiculous drop-off, you can easily walk all the way to the top of the Falls and watch the Niagra River fall off the face of the Earth. Well, actually just this part of the Earth, before flowing to its way-station at Lake Ontario before becoming the St. Lawrence River on route to the Atlantic Ocean.
The exciting world of Niagra Falls in less than 20 seconds.
Jackson wanted to take the "Journey Behind the Falls" tour, which wasn't something we would have thought of doing, even though the tour slogan is "Witness the Wonder," which sounds pretty good. The Falls' history as a power generator in years past resulted in some some amazingly engineered tunnels beneath the Falls. They're as impressive as they are damp, if you're into civil engineering and being under one a solid curtain of endlessly falling water.
Beneath Niagra Falls
Plus there's a lookout point that Jackson made good use of.
Niagra Falls - photo by Jackson
On to Toronto--just a two-and-a-half hour drive away. The first rule of Toronto seems to be: everyone is cool. I know we only spent two-and-a-half days there, but coming from the current volatile political and cultural situation in the U.S., Toronto is a city that knows how. It's a diverse, cosmopolitan, cultured city with an international flair. And everyone is dong their thing and that's good--that's the vibe.
The other noticeable trait is pointy towers. So many pointy towers. It's as if Eastern Canada had a architectural chip on its shoulder during its foundation, and had to out-tower the tallest towers of Great Britain, and had to do it with trillions of bricks. This is something that we as Californians rarely see--bricks are not earthquake-proof building materials.
Get ready for more extra-tall pointy architecture as we make our way through Canada, but first: DOG FOUNTAIN!
Yes, it's the dog fountain of Berzcy Park and it's delightful. A stroll through the city becomes magical when city councils vote in these high-concept projects. Hail, the stellar work of landscape architect fountain designer Claude Cormier.
27 cast-iron dogs
and one cat
We split up the following day for two Toronto experiences. Keith and Jackson headed over to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Keith comes from a family of Canadian hockey players, a legacy that continues with our nephew's team's Eastern Connecticut State Championship win this year (go Eagles!). Last spring, Keith and Jackson flew across the U.S. for a three-day trip to watch the Eagles' final game, so I can say with confidence: they are hockey fans.
I chose to visit the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), after careful consideration and no further research other than a blurb in our guidebook. So I didn't know AGO is one of the largest museums in North America, nor did I know that it would be one of my favorite museum visits ever. I just knew it had some great architecture.
Much effort was put into the making of this hallway at AGO
View from the AGO hallway
There was such a wide-ranging selection of galleries and exhibits. I was lucky I had most of the day to wander around in a ecstatic daze. The sights and sounds of the Kenojuak Ashevak (1927-2013)/Timootee (Tim) Pitsiulak (1967-2013) retrospective, were colorful, stylized and inspirational. Stonecut prints, stencils, pastels, colored pencil, India ink, paper--these humble tools in the hands of masters like Ashevak and her nephew Pitsiulak inhabit an Inuit world of bird spirits, sun faces, arctic creatures, snow equipment, the cockpit of a small aircraft--all so impeccably rendered in fluid, colorful simplicity and power. A reverberating soundtrack of poetry, wind- and whale-song echoed throughout the extensive exhibit. A true celebration of artful and spiritual expression.
Kenojuak Ashevak - Enchanted Owl - stonecut on paper, 1960
Tim Pitsiulak - Swimming with Giants - graphite, colored pencil, Pentel pen, 2014
Without knowing what lay ahead, I wandered into a back-corner gallery and found a retrospective of one of my favorite portraitists, Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945). Kollwitz was another illustrative magician with her charcoal, pencils and etchings. She studied human faces and never looked away from human suffering, poverty and mortality, including child mortality. She is dark, but then, so is life. One of art world's great humanitarians.
Kathe Kollwitz - self portrait - look what she did with lines
Another evocative Kollwitz self-portrait
At the children's hospital - Kollwitz' husband was a medical practitioner
Interesting that the preliminary sketch features happier expressions
More wandering around brought more surprises. Here's John Scott's Trans Am Apocalypse No. 3(1998-2000), a 1980 Pontiac painted in black house paint with the entire text of the Biblical Revelation of St. John the Divine etched into its exterior. It was being restored throughout the summer months in full view as part of its exhibit. I don't know in what ways this piece affected me, but it did, and even though this was made in Canada, I think it's a brilliant method for U.S. citizens to read their Bibles.
Rebecca Belmore's solo show "Facing the Monumental" was truly monumental. She is a multidisciplinary force to be reckoned with--sculptor, photographer, videographer, installation artist, performance artist--this 30-year retrospective was a museum in itself. Some artists are world creators. Belmore is that as well as a world truth-teller. She makes you face the world, even its hidden parts we rarely hear about in our information age. Her work says, "Look at this. Think about this. Know this."
Belmore is a member of the Lac Seul First Nation (Anishinaabe), and after spending some time with her work, I have a much deeper understanding of the injustices suffered by Canada's indigenous people, particularly the women. This is only amplified because I know the U.S. is a mirror image of Canadian policies. I'm still waiting for our government to address this publicly and to make amends.
Rebecca Belmore - Mixed Blessing, 2011
Tower, 2018 - shopping carts and clay
Belmore uses nature as part of her materials. I can't do Fountain justice, but this dark room featuring a video projected onto a wall of falling water, was an immersive experience. You could hear it throughout the gallery--a whooshing tremendous rainstorm of a sound. Upon entering the room, the pipes and spigots and trough that make up the projection screen take up an entire wall. The force of the falling water into the trough sends drops up and around the screen and there's puddles on the floor from this upward water motion. That alone is stupefying. Projected onto the water screen is a video of the shoreline, Belmore herself in the ocean, a bucket, and blood. It's just amazing--cinematic, yet of nature and the elements.
Fountain - excerpt
Fountain - excerpt
A tiny snippet from the video:
What is the overriding theme of an AGO experience? All the contemporary artists are Canadian. And they aren't messing around.
More pointy buildings of Toronto. From the delightful Kensington Market neighborhood--an entire neighborhood, closed to cars, featuring vintage architecture, murals, restaurants, produce markets and shops--this is a thing in Canada and I highly recommend it, city planners of the world.
Next time: Ottawa and Montreal! Meanwhile, enjoy brick towers of Toronto splendor:
Daniels Building, University of Toronto
Ontario Legislative Building with some restoration on the left
