Mermaids greet a Captain Hailborne

A mermaid from a clip-art collection. The picture caption reads "Capt. Hailborne At St. Johns Newfoundland", the details suggest the 1600s, but the mermaid's welcoming gesture is a fantasy.

Jane Ash Poitras, a deliberate artist

 Virginia Eichhorn Consecrated Medicine. (2004) An illustrated monograph about Jane Ash Poitras, to accompany an exhibition at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery. Poitras is deliberate artist, she plans her works with meanings and messages in mind. Here, the meaning is indigenous medicine, and the colonial dismissal of indigenous knowledge and wisdom.

 

     The pictures are not easy; they’re neither elegant nor pretty. They are layered compositions of collaged images in several media, surrounded by or overlaid with painted symbols and figures and texts. These add up to densely complex and not easily grasped meanings. One must read the work like a book, which I think is Poitras’s intent. Reading is both an intellectual and an emotional investment in constructing meaning. The layered images make us re-read the texts, and create both ironic distance and dissonant emotions. We both deconstruct and reconstruct meanings.  It’s a journey from comforting cliche to unsettling insight. I think that’s what she intends.
     Her personal history is I think the impetus for her art. She was a homeless indigenous child found and raised by an elderly German immigrant woman. She embarked on a conventional career as a university-educated micro-biologist. She apparently always maintained links to her heritage. She was not assimilated after all. But reconnecting to her indigenous self meant deconstructing the settler persona acquired in her adoptive home, and reconstructing her Cree self. Making art was her method. Her artworks invite us to share in her journey. Reading her art, we follow her on that journey, and we deconstruct the comfortable settler persona we’ve developed. What do we construct out of the wreckage? I hope it’s a new awareness of and respect for the indigenous people who were here first.
     Poitras is part of the quest for what it means to be Canadian. It doesn’t mean what it was in colonial times. It doesn’t mean what it’s become in our multi-culturalist present. What does it mean, then? I don’t think we have the answers, but Poitras’s work contributes to the conversation. It’s a conversation whose meaning is constant reconstruction of the answers.
     Go look at Poitras’s art if you get a chance. ****

The Song of the Three Holy Children (Illustrated by Pauline Baynes)

 

 

    Pauline Baynes. The Song of the Three Holy Children (1986) A beautifully illustrated hymn from the Apocrypha, beginning O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: Praise him and magnify him for ever. It’s an addition to the Daniel, each verse names of lists one of the works of the Lord. Baynes had a good career as an illustrator, good enough that she could choose projects like this one. She adapts her style to the text, in this case alluding to medieval paintings and book illustrations. She has an eye for the telling line, and loves bright colours. Her books are always a pleasure to look at.

     A lovely example of the book as object. ***

 

Gardening Advice

 

Gerald M. Knox. Lawns, Groundcovers, and Vines (Better Homes and Gardens pamphlet 1988) Nicely done summary on the topic, good photos, useful information, but no warnings about invasiveness of some of the plants described. Good reference for a beginner, good reminders for the experienced gardener. Begins with the “fundamentals” (soils, water, fertilisers, tools), then treats each title topic, and wildflowers and summer bulbs. The climate zone map that ends the book is drawn in black and white, which makes it hard to read. Good buy if you find it at a yard sale. ***