Waves on Stage, Collage by Catherine Raine, 2011 and 2013

“Waves on Stage” (2011) now has new curtains on top! The piece has been gussied up just in time for my July 2013 exhibit at Runnymede Library, Mosaic Dream Waves.

Waves on Stage, Collage by Catherine Raine, 2011 and 2013

Waves on Stage, Collage by Catherine Raine, 2011 and 2013

Turning to a new missive dated March 8th, 1988, Eric opens the letter with a response to a debate we’d been having about Christianity.

Repression, Collage by Catherine Raine 2013

Catherine, I think your analysis of the Christian as one who would deny hatred is more than unfair. The Christian knows hatred. In fact, the hatred of the Christian is a brutal form of masochism which denies and hates with more energy than you can imagine. It’s this denial of self which is more cruel than any form of hatred you are capable of.

Repression, Collage by Catherine Raine 2013

This self-hatred is linked closely with the key to Christian Ethics — that thought can in itself be a form of sin. This is the root of Christian masochism.

Repression, Collage by Catherine Raine 2013

This form of ethics replaces choice in action with guilt over having the thoughts which caused a choice. An ethical system in which thought can be wrong can only lead to unhealthy repression.

Repression, Collage by Catherine Raine 2013

I’m taking a class in Biblical Ethics next year. I think the prof. is going to dislike my ideas but maybe not. My minor is “Theories of Ethics.”

Repression, Collage by Catherine Raine 2013

Eric’s next paragraph turns to less abstract matters.

Love Exists, Collage by Catherine Raine 2012
(The text you see in this collage comes from a photocopy dyed with instant coffee).

Tomorrow I leave for a trip to the Grand Canyon. It is going to be really fun, I think. I’ll be gone for about a week.

Love Exists, Collage by Catherine Raine 2012

I’m going to be home in two week(s) for spring break (March 23-April 3, I think). I’d like to see you if possible. Love exists, Catherine. Don’t be depressed or alienated. I really care about you.

LOVE, Eric

Love Exists, Collage by Catherine Raine 2012

The third page of the letter contains a post-script dated March 18th.

Love Exists, Collage by Catherine Raine 2012

Well, I was rushing to pack for my trip and didn’t mail your letter. It was a fun trip. The Grand (Canyon) is an amazing place . . . I had a lot of time to be by myself and think.

I checked and my spring break does begin March 23 so I’ll drive with some friends and get home late that night.

Give me a call.

My library blog project started in 2007, and over the past six years it has taught me many new skills. One of the most important ones has been digital photography. When I look at some of my earliest posts, I notice that their lack of pictures or their not-so-great pictures show me how far I have come.

To fully do justice to all 98 libraries, I would like to photograph two branches that have been undergoing renovations (Mount Dennis and the Toronto Reference Library) and fifteen others that need better pictures. These branches include Black Creek, Weston, Bloor/Gladstone, Northern Elms, Amesbury Park, Gerrard/Ashdale, Albion, Humber Summit, Davenport, Perth/Dupont, Brentwood, Thorncliffe, Locke, Pape/Danforth, and Albert Campbell.

It will be satisfying to wrap up this project despite how much I will miss it!

This paper doll emerged from the scraps of a previous project. Many of the various elements just seemed to want to be together!

Purple Paper Doll by Catherine Raine, 2013

The metallic paper background is fun to photograph because it changes color depending on the location of the light source. From shiny to mysterious in two images!

Purple Paper Doll by Catherine Raine, 2013

Today my in-laws celebrate fifty years of marriage. Congratulations Heather and Robin! This collage is for you!

Golden Anniversary Collage, Catherine Raine 2013

My friends Dan and Tracy love books, gardens, music, fine food, and wine. This collage is for them! (I’m not sure if Tracy is as crazy about baseball as Dan, but I liked how the curve of the stitching seemed to flow with the grapes).

Dan and Tracy’s Collage by Catherine Raine, 2013

The boar with the headdress symbolizes Dan and I’s shared roots in Kansas City, Missouri. On 47th Street, there lives a statue of a boar who brings luck to people who rub his brass nose and drop a coin in a box.

Dan and Tracy’s Collage by Catherine Raine, 2013

Speaking of lucky, it was my good fortune to make soap sculptures and listen to the Chronicles of Narnia with Dan in the 1970′s and then four decades later meet his partner Tracy at their home in Oregon in 2008.

Dan and Tracy’s Collage by Catherine Raine, 2013

Happy Birthday, Dan! I hope you and Tracy experience a day so joyful that it sings!

Dan and Tracy’s Collage by Catherine Raine, 2013

Even though it has been a century since Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950) danced in his prime, his artistic energy continues to flow forward in time, crashing on the Four Season Centre’s stage in a wild wave of visionary brilliance. The stage held but could not fully contain John Neumeier’s ballet, Nijinksy. Two days after I saw the performance, I still carry it with me.

When I think about the ballet, I am most haunted by a performance set in a Swiss hotel’s ballroom in 1919. There, the title character improvised a solo that turned out to be his final public appearance before schizophrenia made it impossible for him to work (“John Neumeier’s Nijinsky,” by Michael Crabb, Performance Program, page 8).

In the hotel scene, Nijinsky stands holding one hand outstretched overhead, fingers spread wide, his body tense. Slowly, the hand turns into a fist. He drives the fist into his mouth, and as his arm continues to push down, the force of this movement pushes him all the way to the floor. He lies there with his fist still in his mouth, stunned by this primal act of self-inflicted violence.

When my eyes followed that cruel driving fist, I witnessed a moment of pain so raw and private that I felt I shouldn’t be watching it. The dancer’s anguish and despair felt real. The fist’s repression hinted at a buried scream it was desperate to silence. I saw how the character’s struggle within himself literally brought him low, a dancer known for his spellbinding leaps now slapping the floor with his hands.

The second scene that I cannot forget arrived in the second act. Asylum inmates in dove-gray ballet costumes raise up from among them a Broken Boy. While he stands on the shoulders of two male inmates, the group that encircles him raise one arm each straight up in the air, their palms the face of prayer.

When soldiers dressed in green jackets and underwear storm the asylum, the Broken Boy gets crushed as they stomp around him in unison, their aggressive dance not softened by the presence of a woman with long hair in a body stocking. The Broken Boy tries to run but gets stuck. He is bent over, a hand steadying him on the floor while the other flies up. His jacket flops over his head as his legs spin in useless circles, going nowhere.

Looming over all of this intense turmoil are two large illuminated circles that tilt oppressively. The choreography mirrors the circles in a pattern that Nijinsky follows as he twirls with his arms overhead in a perfect circle. At one point, a dancer circles the still figure of Nijinsky as if he is a Maypole. And during the Scheherezade dance, lines of dancers break off into circles like beads of earth magnets as Nijinsky swoops lyrically, his body and arms creating symmetrical half-circles of constant movement.

The heartbreaking beauty of Nijinsky communicated what human disconnection feels like (hands and arms that undulate in proximity but rarely touch) and the suffering of a person crashing on the rocks of isolation and pain. Nijinsky’s psychological struggle revealed itself in unforgettable images: the fist in the mouth, the Harlequin kicking the stage wall, the Golden Slave with his arms crossed overhead as if bound by a rope, the man in the straightjacket rolling across the floor, and the long lengths of red and black velvet that twine around Nijinsky’s limbs in the final scene.

As a grateful viewer of this powerful ballet, I’d like to thank John Neumeier and the National Ballet of Canada for expanding my understanding of Nijinsky and teaching me through dance what no psychology or history textbook could ever express.

Inner Map (Non-Political), Encaustic Painting by Catherine Raine, 2010

From above, the Teen Zone on the west side of the atrium looked like the cross-section of a cruise ship. Also, the area appeared so radically different from my 2010 visit that it called for a new description after last year’s renovation.

I think the new Teen Zone has done North York Central’s young adult patrons proud, creating a sleeker and more modern space without the indoor gazebo, irritating mural in a fake graffiti font, and jukebox diner theme (a throwback to the 1980′s dreaming of late 1970′s nostalgia of the 1950′s via Grease and Happy Days).

With the space less cluttered with jukeboxes and gazebos, it was soothing to see a long stretch of wooden flooring. I also appreciated the way the lounges seemed to invite the presence of both unstructured groups of sprawlers and quiet individual readers.

On my recent visit, I arrived just after nine on a Wednesday morning, but I had to move quickly to take pictures of such a popular venue. (For privacy reasons, I avoid taking any photos of patrons). By 9:30, two out of three small study rooms were occupied, and the large study area and computer labs were filling up fast as well.

Not a hint of stuffiness pervaded the Teen Zone. Only a sense of spaciousness and freedom, a manifestation of limitless learning.

Indeed, it is a place to imagine new possibilities while perching on a glowing custard-tart. And whether you are looking down at the techno-trippy carpet or gazing up at the pods  above, the Teen Zone provides an exceptional atmosphere for dreams!

Tradition has it that a group of my hometown friends get together every Christmas holiday and exchange small gifts, many of them handmade. For the 2012 gathering, I decided to put together some holiday collages.

“Bling Donkey” for Mindy, Collage by Catherine Raine, 2012

To make the collages, I selected Christmas tree ornaments from my childhood, traced them on a piece of paper with colored pencil, and then filled in the outlines with scraps of regular and handmade paper as well as stickers.

“Green Gingerbread Girl” for Pam, Collage by Catherine Raine 2012

“Bling Stocking” for Carol, Collage by Catherine Raine, 2012

“Fancy Snow-woman” for Kristine, Collage by Catherine Raine, 2012

“Gothic Elvis Snowman” for Michelle, Collage by Catherine Raine, 2012

“French Teddybear” for Gina, Collage by Catherine Raine, 2012

I love to make art to give away, but I also like recording the results. My hope for this post is that these photos of the collages make you smile!

“Abstract Wiseman” for Stewart, Collage by Catherine Raine 2012

I’m grateful to WordPress for putting together yearly blog reports. Breakfast in Scarborough‘s 2012 results can be viewed here!

A visit to “The House in the Woods: Magical Tales of the Brothers Grimm” revealed the ways that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Children’s and Household Tales (1812) have evolved over the centuries, soaked into the very bones of our culture, and remain alive to this day.

From the second volume of Children’s and Household Tales (1819), the “engraved frontispiece by Ludwig Grimm is a portrait of one of the Grimms’ principal sources: Dorothea Viehmann, a tailor’s wife who sold fruit in the Grimms’ village of Kassel” (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

Martha Scott, the curator of this exhibit at the Osborne Collection, generously took the time to walk me through the collection of illustrations, pop-up books, and art that she had gathered to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Children’s and Household Tales. During the tour, I appreciated Ms. Scott’s extensive knowledge of the different versions of the tales and her witty engagement with the illustrations.

For background information, Scott supplied me with a copy of the notes that rested in plastic sleeves on the display cases.

The Sleeping Beauty. Told by C.S. Evans and illustrated by Arthur Rackham. London: William Heinemann, 1920 (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

From a very young age, the phrase “The Brothers Grimm” has captivated me, and when I see it in my mind’s eye, I visualize the letters G-R-I-M-M in mahogany-inked calligraphy with extravagant loops like twisted roots for the downward swoops of the “r” and double m’s.

In addition to the distinctive twin m’s, it is possible that the romance of the name is in the word order. Whereas “the Grimm brothers” sounds like a family singing act from Nashville, The Brothers Grimm could be the title of an ancient fairy tale that stars two solemn brothers who live in a dark forest cottage and spin tales by a hearth on winter evenings.

The real Jacob and Wilhelm, scholars with an interest in preserving oral history, most likely did not sit around hearths in cottages. (Indeed, they interviewed middle-class women to collect their tales). However, the imaginative illustrations I saw in “The House in the Woods” left the mystique of the Brothers Grimm intact. If anything, the more I learned, the more enchanting the stories became.

Thorn Rose. The Brothers Grimm. Illustrated by Errol Le Cain: Faber and Faber, 1975. (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Illustrated by E.J. Andrews and S. Jacobs. Edited by Edric Vredenburg. London: Raphael Tuck and Sons, [1902]. (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

Snow White. V. Kubasta. Westminster, London: Bancroft & Co., [1958]. An ARTIA production. Printed in Czechoslovakia.
“In the first edition of Children’s and Household Tales (1812), the wicked queen is Snow White’s natural mother. In the second edition of 1819, the Grimms substituted a stepmother as villain.” (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Translated by Mrs. Edgar Lucas. London: Constable & Company, 1909. (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Selected and illustrated by Elenore Abbott. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937.
Instead of relying on a fairy godmother, Cinderella “sings to the magic hazel-tree which grows from her mother’s grave, and the birds toss down a splendid dress.” (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Pictured by Mabel Lucie Attwell. Edited by Edric Vredenburg. London: Raphael Tuck, [ca. 1907]. (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

Beauty and the Beast Picture Book . . . . with eighteen coloured pictures by Walter Crane: engraved & printed by Edmund Evans. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, [1900].
“Walter Crane’s The Frog Prince was first published in 1874 . . . . The Grimms chose “The Frog King, or Iron Henry” as their opening story because they considered it one of the oldest tales in Germany. In their version, the princess, disgusted by the frog’s request to sleep in her bed, throws it against the wall, whereupon it transforms into a handsome young prince.” (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

The Fairy Book . . . . by the author of “John Halifax, gentleman.” With 32 illustrations in colour by Warwick Goble. London: Macmillan and Co., 1913.
“British illustrator Warwick Goble pictures Snow White and Rose Red as they rescue the spiteful dwarf from an eagle.” (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

The Little Brother and Sister and Other Stories by the Brothers Grimm. Illustrated by Eddie J. Andrews, and Elsie Blomfield. London: Raphael Tuck and Sons, [ca. 1910]. (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)
The deer is actually the little girl’s brother who has unfortunately drunk from a bewitched stream.

Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten. [Illustrated by] V. Kubasta. Prague: Artia, 1965. (Panorama-Marchen). (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

Little Red Riding Hood. Illustrated by Patricia Turner. [London]: Folding Books, [195-].
“This ‘carousel’ book opens in circular fashion to reveal six three-dimensional scenes.” (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Translated by Mrs. Edgar Lucas: Constable & Company, 1909. (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

My Bookhouse. Edited by Olive Beaupre Miller. Chicago: The Bookhouse for Children Publishers, [ca. 1928].
“This wooden house contains the six volume My Bookhouse and the three volume My Travelship collections . . . . The My Bookhouse collection was first published from 1920 to 1922.” (exhibit notes, Martha Scott)

Thank you Martha Scott, Leslie McGrath, and the Osborne Collection for an enriching afternoon in the magical company of the Brothers Grimm! Your book house is a jewel worthy of the finest scholars in the land!

Before I took Drawing 1 at the Toronto School of Art, I always answered a dejected “Yes, I do” to the question in the title of this post. Even though I’ve been making collage and textile art for five years, I haven’t felt entitled to call myself a “real” artist because I lacked basic drawing skills (unless you count stick figures and blobs).

“Love, Eric” collage by Catherine Raine, 2012 (for the memorial project “Eleven Letters from Eric.”)

With very little formal training in art, I wanted to address the gaps in my knowledge that held me back from stretching into three dimensions. It was also time to overcome the limiting “I can’t draw!” belief.

On the first day of my TSA evening class last September, our instructor, Paul Turner, boldly asserted that anyone who could hold a pencil could learn how to draw. I thought to myself, “I hope I don’t prove him wrong!”

As an adult educator myself, I know how important it is convince students to move beyond negative assessments of their abilities. Now, from the perspective of almost twelve weeks of drawing instruction, I can happily report that the only thing I proved wrong was my own self-doubts.

To thank Paul and encourage anyone who wants to learn a new skill, I offer this illustrated blog post as evidence that if I (Ms. Stick Figure) can learn to draw, then others most certainly can, too!

Two-point perspective homework

In the first two weeks, our class focused on the humble yet crucial box in one-point and two-point perspective in addition to the equally essential ellipse. Paul encouraged us to “get comfortable with non-parallels” such as a box resting at a different angle from the table it’s sitting upon. The trouble was that I was distinctly uncomfortable with non-parallels.

In fact, I was actively alarmed when Paul stacked a pile of books on top of each other and suddenly shifted all of their spines into different angles. How could I possibly draw that pile? I was barely adept at boxes floating in space, and my ellipses looked like squashed peaches discounted for quick sale.

Imagine my discomfiture when a variety of boxes on tables greeted us in week three. I had a drawing board, paper, and a skewer in my hand to gage proportions but little clue how to use it. (There was a reason why I scored low on spatial-relation skills on standardized tests in junior high).

Paul had demonstrated the skewer technique, and he even drew me a picture of a thumb holding a skewer next to a box, but I still felt hopelessly out of my depth. To my horror, I was actually close to tears!

Week three drawing, proportion exercise

Luckily, our instructor exhorted us not to give up. And a quick comparison of the drawings above and below offers testimony that measuring proportions became much easier for me.

Week seven still-life exercise

In week four, I loved the opportunity to “respond to the total form with one line” and build a “relationship of trust with (my) eye, hand, and mind” (Paul Turner). The total form was a male model who changed poses frequently, and the rapid shifts encouraged us to draw from “head to toe, boom, one line!”

Jazz Coat Hanger (title by Stewart Russell)

Bauhaus Man (title by Stewart Russell)

Defiance

Starting Block Stance

The looseness and freedom of this gesture exercise lifted my spirits after the previous week’s disappointment with myself. Many of my sketches seem to express this joy.

Yes! Leap

Jaunty Dancing Sailor

Insouciant Businessman

In week five, we considered “how objects behave in space.” I liked the challenge of truly looking at a lantern, a bottle of dish detergent, and a lampshade to determine proportion, shape, and line. I also greatly appreciated Paul’s advice to be in the moment while engaged in drawing: “Don’t focus on where you think you should be (skill-wise) or what your drawing should look like. Be here now!”

The following week, I learned to pay more attention to the spaces between objects. Our task was to “go after” the shapes created in the gaps between items such as a chair, a goblet, and a sled propped up together on a table. We used white charcoal on colored paper to depict the negative space, allowing the objects to take form from the absence of charcoal.

Negative space exercise

It was the objects’ turn to live in the gaps and let so-called empty space take center stage for a change. Why should positive, filled-up space always get all the attention when so many fascinating patterns are waiting to be noticed in the between places, the edges of objects, and the sea of animated air between them? I loved the radical shift in visual and conceptual perspective that the lesson in negative space inspired.

Mid-term negative space and contour assignment

During week seven’s still-life exercise with two objects, I was very aware of the lovely negative-space shape made by the inside of my grandmother’s silver teapot’s handle. As I gazed at the teapot and a green vase from TSA’s closet of diverse objects, Paul suggested, “Let the shape lead you to the line.”

Week seven still-life exercise

On the eighth class, we had a new model, and Paul instructed us to “build a height and width for the form and then plant a shoulder.” I liked the use of the verb “to plant” in a drawing context because it implied bold, purposeful action, a deliberate sowing of a seed from a burlap bag, a strong line from which something new can grow.

Planting the first shoulder of the form is an act of bravery, a commitment that changes a blank scroll of paper into a potential drawing. The first line transforms an idea into artistic reality, the abstract to the concrete, and fear-paralysis (“Will the line be perfect?”) into definitive action.

Value was week nine’s topic, and I struggled to get my head around the terminology and grapple with the sphere resting in front of me on a draped table. At one point, I sighed, “Vanquished by a styrofoam ball!”

Week nine value exercise

I was disappointed in my value drawing even though I managed to improve it somewhat. However, I did like this artistic and psychologically-applicable advice from Paul: “Deal with the dark side of the form first and then work your way into the light.”

In week ten, we had the opportunity to do sustained drawings of another model and integrate what we’d learned about proportion, shape, gesture, negative space, and line. I also learned some new phrases to describe the long line of the body from shoulder to hip: “the line of action, the bow of the torso, and the C-curve.” I enjoyed thinking in terms of active lines. These lines are alive, humming with tension like an archery bow and curved like fruit in a bowl.

Even though I had trouble visualizing the planes of the body and understanding what Paul meant when he said, “Let the interior shapes guide you the exterior,” by the end of the evening I had two sketches I particularly liked. In addition, I anticipate adding a few more when the class finishes next week.

Reflecting on my experience as a novice student of drawing, I am very grateful for such a stimulating class that taught me to have faith in my learning potential. I especially appreciate the invitation to look at objects, space, form, and light in fresh ways. What a gift to an artist and a writer!

Contour exercise, week four

Subway contour sketch, week four

Two hours after Judy Lysy’s talk, my throat still carries its impact, an ache weighted with gratitude for this 84-year-old great-grandmother’s bravery. Ms. Lysy’s physical presence in Locke Library‘s program room testified to a beautiful fighting spirit before she even said a word.

Before the testimony started, I looked up some biographical facts in the booklet “Culture of Memory” published for the 32nd Annual Holocaust Education Week: “Judy Lysy was born in Kosice, Czechoslovakia, in 1928. She lived with her parents, sister and grandmother. In March 1944, Judy and her family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and from there to various slave labour camps. She was liberated in May 1945, by the US army. She immigrated to Canada, in 1952, with her husband and daughter” (page 32).

I was glad for the informative booklet, but nothing can compare to listening to a survivor tell her story in person. When Judy occasionally leaned on her cane or wiped her eyes with a tissue, these simple gestures found a way into my heart-memory that letters on a page cannot easily reach.

I heard the pain in her voice when she remembered that not a single one of her Christian neighbours made an attempt to protest or even look out of their windows when Judy’s family was being marched to the ghetto. And the spoken narrative provided more images that made history shockingly real:

The feathered cap of the gendarme who came to take the family to the ghetto. Judy’s grandmother praying in the cattle car for God to intervene. The brutal shearing of Judy’s ribbon-tied pigtails after she arrived at Auschwitz. The German guard eating his lunch of bread and meat with 45 inmates watching him intently, waiting for him to drop a piece of rind.

I’ll never forget Judy’s description of a tank smashing through the fence of the last of five concentration camps that she and her sister and mother endured: “An African-American man looked out from the tank and said, ‘We are the Army of the United States of America!’” Until that point in the talk, her voice had been steady, but it broke when she started to say the first part of the name of my home country. She cried through the pauses she made between “the United . . . States . . . of . . . America,” and the release of powerful emotions in a November 2012 talk seemed to mirror the beginning of release from horror in May 1945.

I’ve never felt prouder to be an American than when Judy Lysy made me see and feel the meaning of liberation. (Barack Obama’s election wins have created a similar pride). I felt the traumatized survivor’s cautious relief, her gratitude for the way the Americans provided baths and “pablo” (baby food) for the survivors, one of the few foods their stomachs could cope with after long periods of starvation.

I was very proud of Canada, too, when Judy spoke of how its acceptance of immigrants and refugees from all over the world actually restored her faith in God: “I love Canada! Living here with people of every colour and religion, I felt free to be me. And my children could go to any school they wanted.”

She leaned forward to address the two classes of grade sevens in attendance and said, “I want to give you some advice. When you grow up, vote for a government that protects minorities. I’m eighty-four years old and I know without a doubt that we all have hearts. We all have souls.”

Today I’m thankful for Judy Lysy and her willingness to share her heart, soul, and exquisite wisdom. Thanks to her generosity, I take her story with me into the world.

I was lucky to attend Emily Tinkler‘s free Altered Books workshop at S. Walter Stewart Library a couple of weeks ago. More than a dozen participants eagerly listened to Emily describe how to fold, cut, and poke pages with an awl to turn an old book with a sewn binding into a work of art.

Flying Bookfish by Catherine Raine, 2012

My husband had given me an out-of-date computer book for my project, and I soon went to work folding the pages to create an accordion shape. I was inspired by the examples that Emily had brought to show us, especially one with wire and ribbon rioting through the pages of a former book.

Flying Bookfish by Catherine Raine, 2012

I took my unfinished piece home, where it sat on a table mutely calling out for something to spring from the folds of paper. Meanwhile, I continued sewing clumps of paper together with saffron and fern green thread.

Flying Bookfish by Catherine Raine, 2012

A trip to the sticker aisle in an art store supplied me with the missing element. Fish! When I saw the fish collection, they just seemed to want to be flying out of a book.

Flying Bookfish by Catherine Raine, 2012

Flying Bookfish by Catherine Raine, 2012

Flying Bookfish by Catherine Raine, 2012

Back home with my stickers, I experimented with enlarged color copies of them, and Stewart kindly offered to print out mirror images on photograph paper to resolve the issue of looking at the back side of the piece and not seeing fish.

Flying Bookfish by Catherine Raine, 2012

With my fish assembled, it was just a matter of cutting and arranging twelve skewers and affixing the energetic yet dignified creatures to them. As a final touch, I tied short lengths of the saffron and green thread around each skewer. I also added stickers to the decorated inside covers of the book. And that’s the story of Flying Bookfish!

Flying Bookfish by Catherine Raine, 2012

Consisting of one square room in a community centre near Avenue and Wilson, Armour Heights branch had a very sheltering feel to it, especially with its substantial brick fireplace on the east wall. (On my second visit, I noticed the fireplace had been papered over, but it was reassuring to know it still existed).

A long low eave spanning the length of the fireplace had been been converted into a reading bench. The bench was covered with inviting cushions, teddy bears, and other assorted animals, including Minnie Mouse. Completing the cozy scene was a wooden chest with Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig decals topped by sleeping tigers.Not far from the tigers, intense living sunlight warmed a padded seat set into the middle of the north wall. The very hours etched on the glass were hyper-illuminated, inviting an imaginary chorus of celestial music to celebrate the library. Ah-ah!

The wooden table in front of the window was the perfect place to study a few books from the small French collection. Other patrons nearby contentedly tapped on their laptop keyboards.After photographing the French books, I discovered a reading lounge that made for a calm northwest corner, and soon I had travelled the length and width of Armour Height’s compact dimensions.

A small branch with a big sense of service, it was great to see large numbers of patrons at Armour Heights on a Friday morning. In the corridor outside the library, people swung badminton rackets in anticipation of their next game, and the notice board was overflowing with news of local events and activities.

At this community-oriented hub, even the back entrance was animated. Cars drove up and parked for a moment to let passengers scurry in to return their library books. Squirrels rushed around the tree trunks. And the sun smiled on this welcoming branch.

Last year I visited the Textile Museum of Canada courtesy of a library Map Pass. I enjoyed the experience so much that I returned last week just in time to see Dreamland: Textiles and the Canadian Landscape before the exhibit ended.

Signature Quilt, New Brunswick 1875-1900

Fascinating art and artifacts populated Dreamland in every direction I looked, almost overwhelming me with visual delight. I loved the hooked rugs holding memories of the lost farm of a New Brunswick couple (“The Gagetown Hookers”) and the remarkable examples of ordinary nineteenth-century clothing.

Lydia and Raymond Scott
New Brunswick
Mid to late 20th Century

Lydia and Raymond Scott, New Brunswick, mid to late 20th century

Man’s Shirt, Quebec, 1870-1890′s (wool, hand-spun, hand-woven)

Child’s Shirt, Ontario, Mid 19th Century

The quilts and samplers reminded me of my grandmother Raine, a beautiful textile artist who knitted a pink poncho with pearl buttons for my Barbie and sewed doll clothes for Her Barbiness, too. Grandma’s favorite quilt pattern was log-cabin, a very disciplined form, so I wonder what she would have made of the crazy quilt I saw in permanent exhibit one floor below.

Crazy Quilt, Ontario, c. 1890

Crazy Quilt, Ontario, c. 1890

Crazy Quilt, Ontario, c. 1890

Even before I knew it was the work of a loving Canadian grandmother, I was drawn to a display of a doll’s complete Red River winter outfit. I also learned from the explanatory text that Anna McLeod Gilmor “would make a doll’s dress as a Christmas present for Margaret (her granddaughter).” She did this “each Christmas from 1945-1950.” Decades later, Margaret Johnson donated these doll clothes to the Textile Museum of Canada.

Doll’s Red River Outfit, Anna McLeod Gilmor, Toronto 1945-1950

In addition to the poignant textile legacy of an awesome grandmother, the exhibit that affected the most strongly was Michael Snow’s “Solar Breath/Northern Caryatids.” Snow’s cinematic illusion of a window in a house off the coast of Newfoundland was so effective that I thought it was real.

Michael Snow, “Solar Breath/Northern Caryatids,” 2002 (62 minutes)

The sound of the wind pulled me into the darkened viewing room and I was hooked. Although chairs were available, I settled down on the carpet to better surrender to the meditative peace of a film in which the star actor was the wind flapping the curtains, offering brief revelatory glimpses of a woodpile, solar panel, trees, and the Atlantic Ocean

Michael Snow, “Solar Breath/Northern Caryatids,” 2002

TPL and Map Pass, thank you for giving me the opportunity to experience Solar Breath, marvel at quilts, sashes, long underwear, dresses, rawhide stuffed animals, and a camel cover from Turkemenistan!

Coverlet, John Campbell, Ontario, c. 1880

Coverlet, John Campbell, Ontario, c. 1880

 

Quilt, New Brunswick, late 19th century (cotton)

Quebec, 19th century (wool, finger woven)

Man’s Long Underwear, Quebec, 1870-1890′s

Girls’s Dress, Quebec, 1870-1890 (indigo blue top)

John Henry Fine Day, “Rez Dog in Flight,” 2006

John Henry Fine Day, “Rabbit,” 2006

Camel Cover, Turkmenistan, early 20th century (red wool probably recycled from Russian army uniforms)

Four summers ago, I enjoyed a self-conducted walking tour of Urban Affairs, Sanderson, and College/Shaw libraries. Yesterday I returned to Biblioteca College Shaw to take some pictures.

I was pleased by the walls of this small branch because they were the colour of key lime pie muted by Cool Whip. I also liked the way the green carpet combined white and lighter green in a vine-leaf pattern. A potted tree and sunflowers constructed from hemp accentuated the nature theme, and a fake aquarium, an old sofa, and wicker chairs added to the cozy feel of the place. (Tree, aquarium, and wicker furniture were absent on the 2012 visit).

On my second visit, I was much more aware of the secret garden at the back of the library. Actually, it wasn’t very secret. I just wasn’t paying proper attention previously. Maybe I had been distracted by the twirling romance carrell with titles like “The Bride and the Bargain” and “Nerd in Shining Armor.”

As I took in the rest of the room, it was inspiring to see how busy it was on a late Monday afternoon. Every table had readers bent over their work, and each computer had an absorbed user in front of its screen. It was equally busy on the Wednesday morning of my second encounter with College/Shaw.

Next, I wandered over to the Chinese and Portuguese collections. They were housed in a contemplative corner near a curious circular window overlooking Shaw Street.

In the southwest corner was the children’s section, which included a low window bench with a red leather cover. The window above the seat was plastered with a paper-plate craft display.

On the 2012 visit, fanciful stickers had replaced the paper plates. The dragon sticker was especially interesting. Why was the dragon licking a bicycle hitching post?Unconcerned by the hungry dragon, two teddy bears surveyed the active reading scene from the top of a nearby shelf. They added to the warm community air of this welcoming branch.

After I finished taking pictures, I plunked myself down at the long computer table in front of the south windows. I enjoyed the animated street scene on College Street as I checked my e-mail and Facebook. I felt very fortunate indeed to type among the trees, roses, and bicycles of Little Italy at College/Shaw Library.