From the tree-trunk street furniture recycled from Regent’s Park demolition rubble to the containers of crayons provided for the kids, Parliament Street Library’s attention to detail sends a caring message. My most recent visit to the branch reminded me once again how much it does for the local residents.

When I arrived at 9:30 on Tuesday morning, the library was already busy. Almost all of the early bird patrons were men who quickly took their places at the study carrels, computer units, and large tables. One man guarded a trolley that seemed to contain all his possessions, including water bottles, a bag of bread, and some clothes.

I started my personal tour at the east wing. Happily, it contained lots of windows, including a curving bank of them with a view of the butterfly garden and tree-stump sculpture (the result of two recent projects by the Ward 28 Greenspace Committee).

The east wing also reached out to language lovers, immigrants, and the bilingual with its collections in Spanish, French, Tamil, Chinese, Vietnamese, Somali, and Amharic. Music lovers also had a nearby haven, a piano practice room that could be booked for an hour.

Adjacent to the piano room was a quiet study room. As I sat there taking photos of book covers, it was a poetic pleasure to hear classical melodies (slightly muffled) coming from next door.

The art on display in the central part of the library was almost as cheering as the piano music, especially this funky assemblage called “Memory Box” by Inge Vandermeulen. I liked the curving trail of puzzle pieces and the plastic mermaids glued to one side of the box.

And when I walked over to the Children’s Area in the west wing, I was immediately struck by the tapestry piece on the south wall. The charming result of children’s artistic collaboration during a TD Summer Reading Club program, what appealed to me about this wall-hanging was its wild woven strands on the horizontal combined with knotted strips of fabric hanging on the vertical. A fabulous textile!

My third object of art enthusiasm was a colourful piece depicting apartment dwellers with model reading habits. I later learned that the literary apartment picture is actually a plasticine original from Barbara Reid‘s Read Me a Book. (It was fun to encounter Reid’s work again after seeing it at Oakwood Village Library). All told, I really enjoyed the eclectic charm of assemblage, tapestry, and picture.

In addition to the lively visual art, a group of stuffed animals lent their plush hospitality to the west wing. For example, a giant Clifford dog sprawled on the ledge beside the red ramp leading to the Story Hour Room, and dotted along the upper ramparts of the shelving were Curious George, an alligator, Franklin the Turtle, and Babar the Elephant.

The Children’s Section was empty at first, except for a solitary reader who had pulled up her chair right next to a window sill. However, as the magic hour (and a half) of 10:30 drew nigh, librarians began to bustle in preparation for Preschool Story Time. Soon, a number of young story-seekers and their caregivers began to file into the Story Hour Room and gather in front of the puppet theatre. It was heartening to see that even in the 21st century, the prospect of a good old-fashioned story-reading can still create a buzz!

It would have been fun to hear the story, but I just had time to see the second floor before I left. As I walked up the steps, I remembered a field trip to this library that took place about five years ago: “(some) very helpful staff . . . gave a large group of ESL students from my centre an orientation, and the nerd in me thrilled when so many students got their first shiny blue library cards!” (quotation from Libraries, the sequel). On my Tuesday visit, an ESL class was in progress in the same room where my former students once had a mass filling-out of library application forms.

More good work takes place on the second floor, which also houses the Toronto Centre for Community Learning and Development as well as the Neighbourhood Information Post. I learned from one of Parliament’s gracious librarians that many patrons visit the Information Post to fill out forms, pick up mail, and receive welfare cheques. I’m so glad there’s a service that provides that crucial piece of assistance to deal with bureaucracies’ demand for permanent addresses. This is quiet heroism at its best.

I came away from my Parliament Street visit with a strong sense of this library’s commitment to serving children, immigrants, aspiring artists, and low-income patrons on the very edge of survival. Of course, all of the TPL branches provide these important services, too. It’s just that community work seems especially visible at this particular branch. For this reason, I believe Parliament Street deserves extra credit for its valiant role in supporting Toronto’s most vulnerable citizens.

“Waves on Stage” by Catherine Raine, 2011

A recent trip to Great Britain inspired “Waves on Stage.” When I visited Whitby, Saltburn, Eyemouth, and North Berick, I was mesmerized by the wild North Sea waves each time. I still have a landlocked Midwesterner’s appreciation of the sea!

“Waves on Stage” by Catherine Raine, 2011

“Waves on Stage” by Catherine Raine, 2011

“Dream Fans” by Catherine Raine, 2011

The second collage was influenced by the shape of “Waves on Stage.” And I liked the idea of fans floating above our heads while we dream.

“Dream Fans” by Catherine Raine, 2011

“Dream Fans” by Catherine Raine, 2011

To reach Saint James Town Library, I needed to pass through Wellesley Community Centre. An up-tempo game of table tennis was in progress in the lobby, and the cheerful sound of basketballs thumping on the gymnasium floor punctuated my steps to the library.

At 12:35 p.m. (five minutes after opening), the library was almost as crowded as the gym. Every computer unit’s dance card was full, and a number of patrons were lining up for their turn.

In addition to the draw of free internet, I could see why people were eager to spend time in such a vital space as Saint James Town. With the entire west wall (and part of the south) composed of windows, only a vampire with a hangover could complain about so much sunshine flooding the space.

I liked the quiet jellyfish corner, a contrast to the constant foot traffic at the corner of Wellesley and Sherbourne. In keeping with a sea-creature theme, fishing-rods sprouted from the wall and spun out lines to catch paper fish on a column. And sailing overhead was a colourful ship.

Joining the ship in the air was a watchful dragon who could oversee the entire library from his vantage point. Included in his domain was a large paper castle with fairytale inhabitants and a dragon comrade.

Fortunately, the smaller dragon’s flames weren’t real, for the smoke might have damaged an amazing book collection. Although Saint James Town isn’t large, its linguistic reach is wide enough to include Chinese, French, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, and Urdu.

A fire drill cut short my visit, but I had definitely seen enough to feel admiration for this well-utilized branch in the heart of the city.

Similar to Dawes Road and Thorncliffe branches, Flemingdon Park Library sits low among multiple sets of high-rise apartments. Located just south of the Don Mills and Eglinton Avenue intersection, the branch shares its quarters with a pool and community centre.

On my second visit to Flemingdon Park, I went directly to the sunny reading room that I remember admiring. An elderly patron was reading a newspaper in her first language with the aid of a magnifying glass, and a pleasant silence reigned among the wooden tables.

After some time getting reacquainted with the reading room, the skylight drew me back into the main section of the library. On my previous visit, I hadn’t noticed the mural that hung beneath the skylight. I liked the central Canadian flag and cheerful panels, each containing an individual picture.

For me, the heart shape composed of nestling face-crescents captured the beauty of multiculturalism, and I liked how the library materially supported the concept with resources in French, Chinese, Gujarati, Hindi, Persian, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, and Urdu.

A famous extra-terrestial also inhabited the mural, making me wonder if it might have been painted in 1982, the year the Spielberg movie came out. This would make historical sense, as Flemingdon Park branch opened in 1981.

Even though the library wasn’t as slick and shiny as some of the more recently renovated branches, it displayed a lot of heart. The Children’s section was unadorned but functional, and the multilingual collection impressive.

With such a diverse collection, it was easy to travel from a modest library to a world where you can meet a moon-fish, hipster bears, Persian heroes, or a jaguar on a jungle branch!

I rediscovered my love of art when I was 38 years old. The spark was a wonderful course facilitated by Erica Ross called “Create Your Own Healing Deck” at Sheena’s Place in 2007. By the end of the class, I had created more than a dozen cards that contained encouraging words and images to help me address my struggles with emotional eating.

My collages were exhibited at Sheena’s Annual Art Show (2007 and 2008), and I continued to attend classes there, including Erica’s “Dance Our Way Home” and Ellen Jaffe’s “Writing Your Way.” The prose-poem which accompanies “Ruined Barn” in this exhibit emerged from a writing exercise in which Ellen asked us to imagine ourselves as a landscape. “Barn Memory” wrote itself in a white-water rush, a lament for past and current losses:

I am a ruined barn, empty but smelling of ancient hay. I sit in a lost valley, no longer a shelter nor part of a living farm. I used to be warmer, to glow orange from lanterns on February mornings, to retain animal heat. Now my shadows fill in their outlines, random headlight baths from the highway my only relief.

 All my sounds are whispers and echoes now, where once I heard grunts, shouts, whinnies, cries of pain and hunger. It’s so quiet now. Ruin is quiet . . . . I miss being whole. I miss being real. I miss the animals I used to protect. (For complete text, see “Ruined Barn” collage in the exhibit).

“Ruined Barn” by Catherine Raine, 2010 ($250) All photos of exhibit artwork by Stewart Russell

 I believe “Barn Memory” and the collage I later composed to illustrate it were the “grief-seeds” (Rumi) at the root of Maps of Loss: Rivers, Ruins, and Grief.  Even though I made the encaustic painting “Inner Map: Non-Political” three years after I wrote the barn piece, there is a living connection between these two inner landscapes and the eight other works of art you see at Richview Library today.

“Inner Map (Non-Political) by Catherine Raine, 2010 ($200)

Maps of Loss has helped me articulate feelings of grief and map them visually, divining underground rivers of emotion that I hadn’t detected beneath the surface. This personal excavation has revealed unexpected artifacts, including a “Trippy Pier to Nowhere,” a heron (“Heron and Ladder”), a “Woman in Purple Bed,” and rivers (“Tidal River” and “Encaustic River Beast”). For me, these pieces speak to mystery, solitude, and a sense of moorings washed away.

“Trippy Pier to Nowhere” by Catherine Raine, 2009  SOLD!

“Heron and Ladder” by Catherine Raine, 2009  SOLD!

“Woman in Purple Bed” by Catherine Raine, 2009 ($150)

In July 2010, my childhood friend Jenny died of cancer at age 41. On the day she died, I went to the Picture Collection at the Toronto Reference Library to look for meadows and purple irises, Jenny’s favourite flowers. I felt connected to Jenny when I pored over a folder containing peaceful scenes from nature. And when I memorialized my friend in “Jenny’s Purple Iris,” I used the irises to create an organic gown, a vision of peace in her body after the suffering ended.

“Jenny’s Purple Iris” by Catherine Raine, 2010 (Not for sale)

In the fall of 2010, I distracted myself with a continuing education course in encaustic painting at the Ontario College of Art and Design. I learned how to melt wax to create tactile pieces that smelled of beeswax, and the three encaustic paintings in Maps of Loss come from my time at OCAD. Two of these pieces contain rivers, which reflects one of my earliest influences. Having grown up near the banks of the Missouri River, rivers mean home, time passing, movement, and change. They also represent uncensored feelings: unpredictable, fierce, embodying invisible currents and the wild mystery of eddies.

“Tidal River” by Catherine Raine, 2010 ($150)

“Encaustic River Beast” by Catherine Raine, 2010 ($150)

The remaining two pieces, “Lenin’s Mosaic” and “When Ruins Swoon,” flow back to the beginning, connecting me to “Ruined Barn.” The central photographs in both collages depict ruined houses in the former Soviet Union that have partially returned to nature after nuclear disaster. These images of Cold War wreckage haunt me because my father’s health was also ruined by this war. When he was in the United States Navy in the late 1950’s, he witnessed atomic blasts in the Pacific Ocean as part of a testing program during the nuclear arms race. From his post on Midway Island, he and his naval comrades watched the blasts without any protective gear, and the cancers he later developed correspond to cancers caused by radiation exposure. He died in 1995 at the age of 58.  (Jenny promised to give him a hug for me).

“Lenin’s Ruins” by Catherine Raine, 2011 ($250)  Central image photo by Gerd Ludwig

“When Ruins Swoon” by Catherine Raine, 2011 (Not for sale)

A ruined barn, house, or room can symbolize a body stricken by illness, once vital but now a broken husk. Ruins also represent loss, mortality, and history; they are relics of forgotten worlds. Like rivers, they testify to the inescapable passage of time. Like maps, they locate a particular grief or loss in a specific time and place. They are both tangible and abstract, accessible and remote.

To add an element of hope to the ruins, I have enveloped them in mosaics that suggest new colour and growth. Thank you for taking part in my own artistic growth by viewing Maps of Loss. Your presence helps me answer Rumi’s question: “Where will you plant your grief-seeds?”(Illuminated Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks)

“Maps of Loss: Rivers, Ruins, and Grief” Exhibit at Richview Library (September 2011)

The following short article was recently published in the Summer 2011 edition of First Light (a biannual publicationo of the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture). I’d like to post the article on my blog for readers who may not otherwise have heard of First Light.

Transformative Student Testimonies from Two CCVT Journal Entries

By Catherine Raine  (LINC Instructor 2004-2010)

            When Ezat Mossallanajed invited me to contribute some writing on the topic of “love, compassion, and forgiveness in the rehabilitation of survivors,” I went to my journals to look for stories. I found a couple of entries which speak to survivors’ extraordinary inner strength, gratitude for life, and desire to help themselves and their communities.

January 20, 2010

I’ve been enjoying the student presentations in my CCVT English class because they’ve created a listening space that feels fresh and new.  So far, students have talked about computers, Albania, Eritrea, and fun places to visit in Toronto.

We also listened to a more personal narrative about a student’s struggle as a refugee claimant. She told us that she fled from her home country not once, but twice. The first time was because of war, and then her family returned when political independence was achieved. Sadly, conflict flared up again, so she left for good. Now she lives alone in Canada while her children and grandchildren reside in Europe and the Middle East.

I asked the speaker how she stayed so positive. “You smile all the time. How do you do it?”

“I have a lot of friends, and I like to help them. I am part of a community. When I break the fast at Ramadan with everybody, I don’t feel alone.”

She then asked me why some people in North America stay so negative: “Why they don’t give thanks for all the good things they have?”

 February 22, 2010

This morning one of my students gave a very moving presentation about the struggle to come to terms with her new life in Canada. When she came here less than two years ago, she had no English, no money, and no friends or family. In the shelter, she slept all the time because she was so homesick.

“Then I decided to have a talk with myself. I told myself it wasn’t good for me to sleep so much. I needed to study English.”

She was scared because she hadn’t gone beyond middle school in her home country. Regardless, she steeled herself for the task because she knew she had to have English communication skills to survive in Canada.

“On the first day of my class at CCVT, I cried because I couldn’t understand my teacher, Susanna. She was kind and told me not to cry. She said that she would help me.”

With Susanna’s compassionate encouragement, my student didn’t give up, and in two years, she has progressed from not knowing a single word of English to speaking in front of the class for fifteen minutes. She found the strength to fight for her new life when she could have just kept sleeping all day to escape reality. She’s a heroine to me.