Art Therapy

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1 / 12

Serpent got your tongue.

2 / 12

Nothing to smile about.

3 / 12

Dozy Don

4 / 12

Best ballroom evah! Now on hold.

5 / 12

Many people are saying he has a "huge" serve.

6 / 12

Fired AG says "What?"

7 / 12

Chairman of the Bored

8 / 12

Oblivious/Oblivion

9 / 12

Big boys get big toys.

10 / 12

No really, where is Europe?

11 / 12

Fake it 'til you make it!

12 / 12

The one and only FIFA Peace Prize Winner!

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Use the arrows or dots to go forward or back

I’m not a therapy kind of guy. Not because I believe a long bike ride is better than therapy, but because a long bike ride is more fun than therapy. Also, I do this thing where I write my feelings down in a private journal that I then post on the Internet for everyone to see but for no one to find. While my mind is full of ideas and things to try and stuff to make, I haven’t ever really expressed myself fully through art the way, say, professional artists do (presumably).

My very first day at design school, our professor said, “I wanted to be an artist, but it turns out I was too tidy.” I knew then I’d found my people. I’m not only too tidy to be an artist, but, I feel, how to put this kindly, I’m too happy. When I’m not being happy, I’m mostly OK. Of course, I get sad, perhaps depressed, frustrated, and an all-round sour puss. But not enough of a sour puss to want to make a painting about it and tell everyone it’s a picture of flowers when, in fact, it’s a symbolic representation of my unresolved grief over the loss of my parents.

Trust me. I’ve tried to be that kind of artist. There was bad poetry and some truly terrible paintings. Instead of projecting my real feelings, these terrible paintings looked an awful lot like the covers of bad sci-fi paperbacks. “The tiger represents my desire, but the chain around the tiger’s neck is the repression of my freedom. The comely woman in the fur bikini holding the chain represents an attractive woman I saw in a movie poster once.” You know what I mean.

In truth, the thing is, I am pretty repressed. It’s a condition most commonly called, “Normal”. Being too Normal can really hold you back in creative endeavours. We on the Normal Spectrum can often be found to be pleasant but unexceptional in any way. But our Normality is just a mask. Not a creepy Venice Carnival kind of mask, but the shield we put up to get by in this crazy world.

The only thing I’ve found to drop my shield, my force field of normality, is sketching. Even then, it takes quite a lot of sketching before a flow state is reached, and something comes loose like a cat that jumps to life and runs wildly around the house in a state of unknown euphoria. It may not last long, and then it fades away. That phase is outside of time. It is its own country. It has its own weather and phases of the moon. That, for me, is even better than a bike ride, which, as I’ve said, is a good bit of fun.

Like any rational person, I’m feeling a lot of stress from the cacophony of crises we find ourselves bombarded with this year. Many of these crises stem from or are embodied by one man. A single idiot has caused more harm in a year than a half dozen caused in fifty. I will not name him, as the existence of his name on yet another page only perpetuates his presence. How do you gain power over the powerful? You make them small and silly. That’s what cartoons are for. So here is my closure. My control. My anger. My spite. My spit. My venom. Some silly drawings of an unserious “short-fingered vulgarian”. These drawings are my art. They are my therapy.

The centre will not hold

William Butler Yeats, in 1932

This might be a long walk but please, walk with me.

Lately, everything’s been a bit much, hasn't it? Just everything. The growing environmental crisis leading to devastating wildfires, floods, landslides and droughts which the oil and gas sector and their minions in government who depend on their economic clout, choose to ignore. The ongoing attacks on Ukraine by Russia. The devastating, disproportionate and disgusting onslaught of Gaza by a west-backed non-democratic Israeli government which we accept because doing something might lead to something worse (though how that could be is beyond me). Continual economic strife caused by an American administration too daft to know what it is doing. That same administration’s quick step into trying to rid the US of all migrants and refugees through autocratic means using questionable arrests and deportations. The same administration is trying to rewrite several decades of advancement of women’s rights and LCBTQ+ acceptance. The same administration’s attempt to ban books and artistic expression which they deem anti-American. Lastly, I suppose, because to give any more examples would be overkill, is the bald-faced corruption of that same administration using their government platform to enrich themselves and their friends (either through cryptocurrency schemes or accepting large gifts from foreign governments). We don’t actually have to look that far. The Ford government in Ontario has made it their policy to dole out money to their friends and patrons who might benefit from any of their unnecessary schemes under the guise of infrastructure. I will also note that none of these governments causing such havoc are lefties. They are hard-right conservatives (from the MAGAites, to Putin, to Netanyahu). They are only growing in number from being elected in Italy, Hungary, and Poland to rising in the polls in Germany and France. Against their namesake, they aren’t conserving anything, especially not norms, which they are dismantling with glee.

It’s hard to put into words or even to know how to react. Then I heard this from Ezra Klein’s podcast:

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What is good?

Everything is design. The work of Paul Rand defined modern design.

A short retrospective film created more than 20 years ago for American design icon Paul Rand's induction to The One Club Hall of Fame, by LA-based design studio Imaginary Forces, encapsulates a few of Rand’s greatest insights. The audio for the piece came from a 1997 interview, "Conversations with Paul Rand". As a designer, I was very aware of Rand's work (not to be confused with American politician Rand Paul), but wasn't as familiar with his writing or teaching. Born Peretz Rosenbaum in 1914, in Brooklyn, Rand (who later changed his name either due to misspellings or to avoid bias) took a $25 certificate course at the Pratt Institute to study art. Today, a semester at Pratt can cost $30 K. After extending his studies at the Parsons School of Design (another revered school) he began his career in 1932. This is really the very early days of design as a profession, from graphic design, industrial design, to interior design, when design specialties began appearing. This generation of designers created the practice and principles that define those professions today. Apart from being an influential designer, Rand was also a remarkable teacher. His belief that design should be visually pleasing as well as functionally effective drove his work for magazines, advertising and most memorably, logo design. His many mantras, such as “Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations,” demonstrate that he also had a knack for capturing heady ideas in a simple, concise fashion.

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Propagandanista

Propaganda? Advertising? Art?

"All art is propaganda.", or so wrote George Orwell.

"All art is political", so said Mao, or was it Hitler? Or Donald Trump?

"(The Movie industry) is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!"
Ah, yes, that was The Great Pumpkin.

The origin of the word propaganda comes from the efforts of the Catholic Church to "propagate" the faith. From Congregatio de Propaganda Fide in 1622. Thus, in simplest terms, whatever messages and meaning you wish to promote, and how you do it with material you create and disseminate, artistic or otherwise, is propaganda. Radio broadcasts, music, theatre, film, art, advertising… think of all the possible swag you can get from a conference. That's propaganda. It took on a negative connotation when governments created extensive information programs, especially between the Great War and World War II. That political relationship and the advent of the profession of Public Relations cast a malodorous pallor over the word and the tactic of using any means necessary to inform (or more particularly, to misinform) the public.

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All the Weirdness in the World

Bob Dylan, Newport Folk Festival, 1965.

Watching the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown it was striking to see not simply the florid period of Dylan’s output but how it was a part of the unfolding events shaking the world. At the heart of it was the postwar power and cold war shadow that was the USA. Sound familiar? Fear of nuclear armageddon, political upheaval, unwanted war, the environment, and fights for freedom and equality were the fabric of the quilt that was tearing at the seams of 1960s America.

I didn't appreciate the music of the 60s as I do now. Films like The Big Chill were a show of strength of the Boomer generation and when they were running things, all pop culture and music would directly refer to the time of their youth. We were constantly told by aging journalists, DJs, and music directors that Dylan was a mysterious deity, a genius, and oft suggested he might not be mortal. That was the bee in my bonnet and that bonnet was my cross to bear. As a Gen Xer, I recognize that the music of my youth is now popular and much revisited in many Marvel films and film franchises that returned from the dead for no particular reason (Top Gun, Beetlejuice, Ghost Busters etc.). Don't worry. This is just a brief blip as we Gen Xers are not a big bunch and we're getting older and would like to retire before the Earth is entirely engulfed in flames.

They say "Victors write history", but they forget to mention that the generation that comes after the victors get to rewrite history. I have reached the age when history starts repeating itself and it is very ugly. Let's go back some 40 years ago. Oh, I was a bright-faced boy who could not keep up with being cool, so I didn't bother. I couldn't afford it (the looks, the music, the whatever). I discovered my musical tastes later than a lot of people. In fact, I think I discovered that any of my tastes (music, film, art, books) would never be fully "discovered" but would be a continuous thing I am always chasing, finding, understanding or being wrong about. It's often said that the tastes, likes, and dislikes that you form as a teen are the ones that influence and inform your choices for the rest of your life. I can't really argue against that though I'm sure many would. One thing I think The Olds get wrong about teenagers in general, is that they don't know and understand the flotsam and jetsam of the world. Of course, teens don't have the weight of bills, work, and taxes on them, but they can have a keen eye for simplifying big issues into black and white. The moral greyness of adulthood hasn't clouded their eyes with corneas of experience.

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The New Egg

Leave your morals at home.

There’s been a lot of talk about a scientific paper from Italy purporting to make the perfect boiled egg using the periodic method. The methodology described uses two pots and takes 32 minutes to complete. The reason for such complications are because the white of the egg cooks at around 85°C, while the yolk cooks at around 65°C. It's this difference that generally has flummoxed many a home cook. Over a decade ago the sous vide technique lead to the 50-minute egg and became the new standard of eggy perfection. Neither of these methods compare with my Sunday ritual that requires four pots set at three different temperatures and takes six to eight hours, depending on your elevation above or below sea level.

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Word Play

I think this is how movie ideas are generated now.

Epic Penile Picnic Panic
There’s a hot dog joke in there somewhere.

Each morning I do a series of New York Times puzzles including Wordle, the Mini crossword, Connections, and Strands but I start with the Spelling Bee. That's how this gem of a sequence of words appeared as I puzzled away on the possible anagrams (where you try to create as many words as possible with the seven assigned letters).

It even included the word “Alien”. I only wished I hadn’t thought of it out of sequence. Can you imagine being confronted with “Epic Alien Penile Picnic Panic” first thing in the morning? Even separately there's fun to be had: "Epic Penile-anything" could be fun or terrifying. Who hasn't had a "Picnic Panic"? Or, if I may say so, who amongst us hasn't suffered a "Penile Panic"? The less said of "Penile Picnic" the better.

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Time After Time

Patek Philippe: Begin your own tradition, price on request.

In the 19th century, an entomologist discovered that the oak beams of Oxford's New College dining hall were infested with beetles. As the dining hall was founded in 1329 there were concerns that such large beams, up to 45 feet in length, were no longer able to be sourced, until a junior fellow suggested consulting the college forester. The forester confirmed that Oxford did, in fact, own property with trees that included some oaks planted 400 years before. Though it's apocryphal that these trees were planted for this very purpose, it was common that 14th-century foresters planted oaks, hazels and ash for construction purposes, and would harvest the hazel and ash about every 25 years while the oaks were allowed to continue growing. The presence of these trees shows the long-term thinking we used to have, thinking that today only survives in the minds of commuters left waiting for the Eglington Crosstown LRT to open.

Somewhat similarly, consider the luxury watch brand Patek Philippe and their advertising campaign, "You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation." Often in their ads, an adult is seen engaging with a child in some meaningful activity like playing chess, solving a puzzle or laughing in a carefree manner. Isn't life grand? What they are trying to sell you is a watch worth more than most cars with the idea that this device will outlive you and you can pass it along to the next generation. Again, someone is out there thinking of the world continuing beyond their lifetime.

Now picture keeping a smartphone or a smartwatch for 50 years and passing it down to some poor kid.

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Someone stole my art and I don’t know how to feel

Here is a weird thing that happened. One night, a close friend who I've known since I was 13 and lives in the UK, sent me a message -
"Hey, didn't you do a painting in high school called 'My Sweet Old Et Cetera?'"
Yes, yes I did.
What made him ask about a painting I did almost 40 years ago?

He sent me a link to an auction site of a company in St. John's. It turns out his brother, who lives in St. John's, often forages estate sales looking for interesting things and saw my name on two items. A painting and a drawing, both by me, created in high school, now in a lot that included pieces by renowned Newfoundland artists such as Scott Goudie, Christopher Pratt, Mary Pratt and David Blackwood. The last time I had been home, I looked at them, was embarrassed by them, and asked my brother to dispose of them. Bundled in a box along with other items, my brother threw them in a dumpster, that was locked to prevent illegal dumping.

It turns out, someone (most likely an employee from the waste management company) had retrieved them and brought them to be sold at auction. I received none of the proceeds, but it definitely stirred up some odd feelings. Outrage? A little bit. Pride? An even smaller bit. Embarrassment. Definitely. Mostly it made me confused as to how it happened at all or even how I feel about a stranger paying a few bucks to have my work in their home.

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Hurkle-durkle 

An unbiased interpretation of hurkle-durkle.

Hurkle-durkle. No, not the first draught of the lyrics of Helter Skelter, but a word, of Scottish origin, to describe lounging in bed when one should be up and about. Apparently, some time ago this word became a meme on social media that I clearly overlooked while busy experiencing reality in real life. I realize to those of you with children or more than one job, that the idea of lounging about is not only remote but perhaps even angering. Merely thinking that someone else has such leisure may be triggering for you. I assure you, to those of us without children, that having such time is a luxury that is never unappreciated.

It was on a recent Sunday when I hurkle-durkled my way to idly watch online videos, read inconsequential articles and flip lazily through a book or two. How was it that time, essentially poorly spent, was such a luxury? Just as scarcity creates value, abundance depreciates it. If you have too much free time, it's boring. Only when you're busy do you find the gaps with nothing planned, nothing scheduled, without errands or chores to do, that time feels as luxurious as high thread count cotton. Leisure like this can feel like a pause in a meal when you enjoy the scent of wine in your mouth, or chocolate melting on your tongue.

So it was that I enjoyed the nothingness. I could've easily manufactured some busyness. Laundry could've been laundered, dust could've been swept, bills could've been paid, e-mail read or written, groceries procured, but all of it took a backseat to this most important of tasks. The task of not doing any tasks. The absence of tasks.

I'm reminded of reading about a book, Voyage Around My Room, written by Xavier de Maistre while under house arrest, in which the author describes his room as if part of a travelogue. Within the boredom of his confinement, he discovers an appreciation for the smallest details of life. Sure, some may call it a "stay-cation" but I like to think of it more as a vacation from myself. A holiday from my everyday. It was like I was on an all-expenses paid trip where my bed was the cruise liner.

It should come as no surprise, a fair amount of guilt had to be ignored if I were to truly enjoy this decadence. It seems this kind of guilt is built into a society that despite our many advances believes that your time is better spent by working, regardless of what the work is. This is true in religious communities, capitalist countries, socialist countries and, despite the stated goal of setting the worker free, communist countries. Even in the laziest of modern occupations, the "influencer" is a job where people who found success are quitting as the demand for content has led to a kind of creator burnout. This demand on us to busy ourselves seems to me, to be the single biggest factor in suppressing creativity. Though let's be honest, there is much creative work made while in the middle of a grinding schedule. In fact, there are plenty of people who will say they were at their peak creativity while at the same time, at their peak productivity. Many people, be they entrepreneurs or artists had their best ideas while they were also at their most prolific. Yet that just isn’t sustainable. I’m in this life for the long haul. I’m not aiming to be the flame that burns twice as bright for half the time. I want my creative life to simmer on the back burner, always bubbling at the ready, always warm to the touch. If a little hurkle-durkle helps maintain a frothy fermentation, then so be it.

On Art 

“I just liked the look of it and thought it was funny to put it on the wall.”

Again this year I passed on Toronto's all night art thing, Nuit Blanche. It used to be an important date on my calendar until I just grew tired of the crowds. I particularly grew tired of crowds at any interactive art piece, where mostly the audience participation involved taking photos of themselves to post on social media. That's not to say I no longer think about art. What I wrote below was written in the café at the Art Gallery of Ontario after an afternoon of ambling through its galleries.

The more the merrier.
More is not always better. Much of modernity is a Minimalist act (in spite of maximum consumerism), famously encapsulated by the credo, "less is more". Sometimes art is nothing more than a moment but there is also a lot of art where there are so many ideas packaged so deeply into a single piece that no idea emerges at all. Is a work the piece itself, the performance during its creation or the personal essay that accompanies it?

So much self examination.
There seems to be so much discussion of the uniqueness of hybrid lives (I am indigenous-, Polish-, gay-, straight-, Canadian etc). I understand the language of the "multi-hyphenate", but sometimes I think some artists should understand that the search for their identity, be it a stage of their life or a life-long quest, while a personal interest, just may not be that interesting to other people. They should also accept that lack of interest isn't a rejection of anyone's identity. Sometimes your audience isn't rejecting you, they are just saying your journey of self-discovery is boring. We are all multiples of ourselves (mothers, sisters, professionals, friends). Self-expression has self-examination built-in, no? Can you have one without the other? In any respect, it feels like there might be too many "journeys of identity" taking up space in our limited galleries. 

Colonization.
While Colonization is often considered where a white culture overwhelms, suppresses, destroys or seeks to control an indigenous one, it shouldn’t be forgotten that within Europe there are many cases of white colonizers attempting to erase neighbouring white populations. (Russian v Ukrainian for example). Not to mention the definition and inclusion of "whiteness" has historically changed. At one time Toronto was seen as an Anglo-Saxon Protestant town excluding all other groups, namely Jewish, Catholic, Irish, or Italian, who would all eventually be considered some flavour of white. Basically, it's good to know the time, place and context of any art you are consuming to understand whether it is an act of colonization or a reaction to it.

On exoticism
We sometimes “other” those different than ourselves both in a discriminating way or in a fetishized way. Both are objectifying. The art of any given culture, but particularly the art in European institutions is not just evidence to this but a map to what was considered "exotic" or "other". I like to wonder what caveats we will have to give contemporary art in 50 years. 

What does it mean?
Art does not have to mean something. Why can’t there simply be a formal exploration of image or sound or whatever? I have a paper shooting target framed and hanging on my wall and I’ve been asked “What does it mean?” My guess is this question comes from an over interpretation of art from Rembrandt to Pollock. If you ever were shown art in a class in school, the teacher probably read in their course syllabus that this art had "the following symbols and meaning". I don't just mean art shown in an art class, but any class like history or geography. In my case of owning a shooting target, I could argue that framing and hanging a cheaply produced graphic meant to practice marksmanship was an act of “recontextualization” - changing its context from a bit of performative violence (the act of shooting) to a contemplative consideration as art. But the truth is I liked the image, the form, the balance and proportions of the figures in what to me looked as much like a music poster than as disposable collateral for target practice. Or I could recognize that someone who used it for shooting practice might save it as a souvenir if they had shot well and I saved it as souvenir of never having shot anything at all.

Mostly though I just liked the look of it and thought it was funny to put it on the wall.

Life is short 

“Life is short,
and art long,
opportunity fleeting,
experimentations perilous,
and judgment difficult.”
– Hippocrates

It sounds a little cooler in Latin, “Ars longa, vita brevis”, the entire quote is considered to mean, “skillfulness takes time and life is short.” It can take a lifetime to acquire a skill or master a craft but a lifetime is too short of a time to put it to use fully. Two practitioners of such skill who are favourites of mine have died recently, Bruce McCall and John Romita Sr.
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It's About the Journey (or Journal) 

"Gramps" Memory Books

A few years ago, after moving into my new place I discovered a box of sketchbooks. Empty sketchbooks. I realized I'd moved with them at least twice. They were roughly A5 format, some were stitch bound, others were wire coil bound, some were 80 pages, some were almost 200 pages but all of them were blank, open white pages. I determined I should either use them or give them away. Giving away some were easy, but I couldn't give up others and I didn't know why. I decided I would have to start using them. For whatever reason it made natural sense to use them as they were intended, as journals. It seemed just as natural to use the comic book format - either four boxes or six or more to simply fill in what was going on during any given day. Plus, I felt I wanted to teach myself how to tell stories in that format. When I began I almost obsessively drew everyday. At some point that seemed too much and there was about a four month gap when I only drew three or four times. Since then I usually do two or three a week and they capture the most ridiculously mundane details of my life. Dentist visits, biking in the rain, baking bread, going for a run, or reading on the couch. I'm not sure you'd really learn anything about me from them other than I have terrible penmanship and the quality of the drawing has remained woefully poor, but I will say, occasionally, a page of wordless images are some of the best things I've ever done.

Seeing this short film on The Atlantic and hearing the narrator's father talk about his father's journals and how sometimes he would just grab a journal from the bookshelf and relive moments from the past resonated with me. I do the same thing even though I only have been doing it since 2015 and only have eight sketchbooks. Still, I can recall the week around Mom's heart surgery, or a summer trip or a weekend when something odd happened.

Curiously verbose. Absurdly quotidian.

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Page from one of my own journals

Design is a Verb 

Amik, designed for the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, George Huel, Yvon Laroche, Pierre-Yves Pelletier and Guy St-Arnaud.

Seeing the documentary Design Canada opened a bit of an old wound for me. One where I remembered that time in frustration I acted like a bit of a jerk. The film highlights the quality of graphic design work, primarily in the "international" or "Swiss" style. It showcases roughly a decade of Canadian design from the early 60s to the late 70s. Primarily the time just before Expo 67 and the time just after the 76 Montreal Olympics. This was a tremendously optimistic era for Canadians and several important symbols for Canada and Canadians came to life. In 1960 the Canadian National railway were convinced of needing an entire brand identity system and not just a logo. From those efforts came Allan Fleming's classic CN logo. Only a few years later a committee was struck to determine a new original flag design for Canada based on the maple leaf. By some miracle, a committee of politicians and bureaucrats actually choose a great design, which was later carefully crafted and fine tuned by a small design team.

These two designs seemed to be the beginning of a genuine emergence of talented designers making great work in Canada. Well, to be fair, talented European men who had come to Canada and worked from Toronto and Montreal. In most respects, this wave of talented immigrants and the work they did is the story of Canada. We are nothing if not a community of communities. In fact, I would stop there when describing any kind of Canadian Character or … ugh, I hate this expression but here goes, "Canadian Identity". Therein lies the salt in my old wound.

“…did these symbols, in fact, design Canada?”

When I studied design, almost the entire staff consisted off immigrant Canadians from places such as the UK, the Netherlands and Poland. It was great and really eye-opening for a Newfoundlander to meet and learn from these fine fellows. Except, it grew very tiring to hear of the golden age of Canadian Design (and in particular of the federal agency Design Canada - never mentioned in the film of the same name) as having come and gone. Yup. It was over. Oh those halcyon days were so fine and never to be repeated. Rather than imbue their students with the confidence to create from their own world view, they instilled a cynicism that took a generation of young Canadian designers to shed. I also grew very tired of having the Canadian Identity explained to me by these guys. There certainly is a truism that "newcomers" have a unique view of their adopted land and that is immensely valuable. Yet the view they had was one of the two solitudes of Protestant Ontario vs Catholic Quebec or even more succinctly put, TO vs MTL. The view of the teaching staff - even the Canadian born ones - was so incredibly myopic, they had no idea of the insult they gave every time they extolled the Canadian virtues embodied in maple syrup and Muskoka chairs. So, as a young man I routinely struck back. One thing I said then, to a particularly disagreeable Anglo-Canadian was that I was tired of "having a bunch of old European guys lecture me on what the Canadian Identity was". That came out wrong - I may have even been more forcibly insulting and said "old foreigners" - which was shamefully more xenophobic than ever intended. If a 20-year-old woke bi-racial woman asked "Why should a bunch of old white European men tell me what my identity is?" it would go viral today. That certainly wasn't the case then and in truth, I wasn't offended by "foreigners", but by Ontarian and Quebecois identities being offered as some kind of ethnic simulacrum of "Canadian Identity". What I really meant was I was fed up with "mainlanders" telling a Newfoundlander that to be Canadian was to drink beer while eating maple soaked bacon sitting on a rock in Northern Ontario, listening to Neil Young. Or as Brent Butt put it, the all-Canadian story is that of a Moose who wants to play in the NHL but his father wants him to take over the canoe factory. People in places like Newfoundland, Quebec, the Yukon or New Brunswick never really have to ask "what is the Canadian Identity?" because they know that is a telling question fielded largely in by Southern Ontarian media concerns.


Parks Canada,c. 1970 Roderick Huggins.

This attitude was distilled in a line from the documentary, "…did Canadians design these symbols or did these symbols, in fact, design Canada?" Okay, dear designer, climb down from thine lofty perch for a moment. Was the period from Expo to the Olympics a golden one? Undoubtably. Were these designers working at the highest level, creating some of the best graphic design anywhere in the world? Yes. Did those symbols create our identity as a nation? Not so fast, friend. I would agree that era, particularly after WWII, Canada was an optimistic, progressive, forward looking, history-unshackling place of nation builders with growing self-confidence. That socio-economic moment combined with a generation of designers who, as another designer in the film states, were essentially "Swissed" or worked in a very disciplined "International Style" led to that moment. To me, the fact that the CBC accepted a great modern icon or that the government commissioned and chose a really great icon for introducing the metric system was a reflection of a country that was forward looking and bold. The design activity of the time reflected our confidence and our imagined place in the world which in general is what we can say of most media, visual art, or literature created during any historical period. Compared to recent updates of the Ontario Trillium icon, the CBC logo or even the Parks Canada icon, which reflect a contemporary fad of "re-branding" and creating symbols designed to avoid offence, the graphic design of the 60s and 70s was bolder, more adventurous and more disciplined. When we see contemporary designs that look like they fell off of a clip art truck that reflects a lack of desire to pay someone the time to come up with something better or that the decision makers of those corporations lack the knowledge or resolve to make better decisions. If we are in some kind of current design doldrums (and who says we are) it may be more due to the abundance of branding firms doing so much work simply to justify their existence. Whatever the case, can we just stop calling what happens in Toronto and Montreal, our "Canadian Identity" because it never was, never should be and never will be.

Daring and Devilishly Good 

Marvel's Daredevil image via theMovieDB.org

I wouldn't describe myself as a Marvel fan-boy nor an aficionado but I did grow up reading the Spider-man and Daredevil comics of the 70s when Hell's Kitchen really was a crime riddled neighbourhood and I was enthralled by Frank Miller's re-imagining of characters like Batman and Daredevil in the 90s. What I loved about those original Marvel comics were their placement in the real world of New York City and the interconnectedness of the heroes (now often referred to as the Marvel Comics Universe or MCU).

Now comes the Netflix series of Marvel stories which are unique to the oeuvre in how rooted to a real time and place they seem. Every thud or punch thrown is felt like a cracked rib. The characters eschew spandex costumes and logos and fight in gritty urban streets, rooftops and alleyways. Just as each of the series revolve around a singular character like Matt Murdoch, Jessica Jones or Luke Cage, (I’ll exclude Iron Fist for now, due to its failings) each show has its own look and voice despite being connected thematically by shared characters. Each show also has its own colour palette.


Daredevil. Interior, Indian Restaurant.

Instead of yellow boxes filled with hand-lettered captions, or thick black frames, these shows use colour to thematically and spiritually connect them to each other and their source medium, comic books. This approach of distinguishing the separate series by colour is obvious but I’m not sure I could say “red” = “fear” or something but in the early episodes, before Matt Murdoch dons a red suit, his silhouette is often drenched in red neon or framed against a red wall. It’s a great way to connect a television series to the lurid palette of comic books in a way that’s doesn’t seem contrived or convoluted but fitting to the medium and storylines. A lot of the episodes reveal themselves in the dark under artificial light. Murdoch describes his sense of enhanced vision as “a world on fire” and as if to echo this without special effects the sparks of a relationship that is beginning to bubble with Karen Page takes place in an Indian restaurant with the same myriad of coloured strings of lights as in the liquor store scene in Birdman. I doubt there was any intended connection but both scenes capture the weird magic of moments in our world within the world of film. I realize that last sentence is a bit of jibberish but I think those scenes stop us, the viewer, with the intention in both scenes of being a momentary pause in the swirling events of the character’s lives.
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Some Serious Zeitgeist 

A photo posted by IMAN (@the_real_iman) on Dec 19, 2015 at 11:58am PST

How better to catch the "nowness" of January 2016, more than this image from Iman's Instagram feed on a day when Star Wars: The Force Awakens is busting the box office and we awoke to find that David Bowie, musical and artistic icon had passed away at the age of 69.

Another incredible image from the ether of the Internet shows an exuberant Bowie in a photo by Jimmy King and in the same post it seems to indicate it was taken on his birthday (the same day as the release of his last studio album). It seems hard to fathom that in this image he was in the throws of an illness that would take his life only two days later. I suspect, given the sockless nature of his besuited self, the image was from perhaps earlier in the year. Nevertheless, here is an artist, in his late 60s, relentlessly progressive and experimental, appearing stylish, dignified, joyful and vital. If I have one goal in life, it would be to have one thimble full of the grace and intelligence of this artist.

#Repost @davidbowie with @repostapp. ・・・ HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID BOWIE AND ★ “That’s the message that I sent...” Why is this man so happy? Is it because it‘s his 69th birthday or that he has released his 28th studio album today and it’s a corker? Who knows, but we’re sure you’ll want to join us in congratulating him on both. Many happy returns of the day to David Bowie and ★ (Fashion fans may like to note that our man is wearing Thom Browne) #Blackstar #imablackstar #BlackstarAlbum #BowieBirthday #BowieBrowne

A photo posted by IMAN (@the_real_iman) on Jan 8, 2016 at 5:36am PST

In the strange flux that is life, I was recently reading a list of questions you could ask someone to get a conversation started. One classic is, if you could have dinner and a conversation with anyone, from any point in history, who would it be? The only person I could think of was David Bowie. I mean, why have dinner with some historical giant who, out of their own time, might happen to be a bigot, chauvinist, or worse? But by God, the stories and insight I imagine Bowie could tell.

Laid Bare 

Weegee: Murder is My Business. Image via The International Center of Photography

I don't understand the incoherency of the mentally ill. I don't understand the hunger of the addicted. I don't understand the entitlement of the affluent. I don't understand the hate of the angry. I don't understand the broken hearts of the dispossessed and the lonely. I don't understand the stupidity of the dullards, nor the pain of the afflicted.

I also don't understand the kindness of the open-hearted nor the awe of the open-minded. I really don't understand those that see the beauty in the chaos. I don't understand the hope of the faithful. I don't understand the logic of the powerful or the economics of the monied.

I'm starting to think I don't understand this city.
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Goodbye Mr. Colville 

On a River, 1996

What to say of Alex Colville's passing? Like many, I admired his work, even had prints of his paintings on my walls. In some ways, it was the proliferation of those prints and success of those images, superficially seen as simple, that led some to think of him as a Canadian Norman Rockwell. He was much more than that to me. Seeing a Colville image is as strong a neural connection as a long forgotten memory forced to the surface by a passing scent.


Moon and Cow, 1963
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Ball Bearings of Berlin

Found via Co.Design

Hypnotic kinetic sculpture in a Berlin gallery by Finnish artists Tommi Grönlund and Petteri Nisunen.

Not Quite Christmas

It wasn't quite the night before Christmas and I'm pretty sure some creatures were stirring including a mouse. After a last minute decision to pick up something for the shortest people I know (it is my prerogative as height-challenged to refer to children as "short") I decided my soul needed some attention and thus did my bicycle fly me over the now icy black tar MacAdam and carry me to the AGO's current show "Chagall and the Russian Avant-Garde".

I have a sort of self-conscious curiosity about Russian Jewish artists. It feels like that world should be familiar but it's entirely foreign. From what appears as a repressive Hassidic tradition springs an almost uncontainable expression. There were two paintings in particular that almost made me laugh out loud (imagine the tweet: "Chagall! LOL!") – I know that makes no sense but you could really feel an infectious joy in these paintings. Or maybe you feel that way because the rest of the exhibit is full of dire death and seriousness of socialism. Take a pill, Socialists, seriously bumming us out.


The Dance, Marc Chagall, image via Terminartors Artist Database

You can see the vibrancy of the painting above and can imagine it can just seem like "Well, someone's having a good time over here." The exhibit did a nice job of putting Chagall's work in context of his time and just how those artists were influenced by folk and religious iconic art but in general, you know, these shows are always a little too much of "his contemporaries" and not enough Chagall himself.

Still, I'm glad I went. Consider it a mini-recharge. The building itself offers so sunny moments too so it was some time well spent. It's funny but there were definitely a lot of parents with their grown children, back on their university break, walking and talking at the gallery, catching up and just seeming to be happy to be in each other's company. At least that's the story I conjured for myself.