Category Archives: Personal

Good advice from the kids

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The palm trees down the middle of this small city’s main street still seem surreal to me. It’s not California, but Tsawwassen, north of the 49th parallel but just barely, tucked into the southwestern corner of the B.C. coastline, and somehow, in spite of our visits to our son and his family over the years, I’d forgotten about the palms. And now I’m walking by them nearly every day and they’re disturbing my notions of Canada. The cold north and all that. img_5900

It’s not a bad adjustment, I don’t mean that, just an adjustment. We’re here and more or less moved in, books unpacked, numerous trips to IKEA behind us, some pictures hung. Car insurance and driver’s licences and healthcare applications and internet installation are done and when I complained to our son about one of these procedures, which managed because of a system error to last several hours, he reminded me that these are things we only have to do once. Right. Continue reading →

Layers

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Last week we spent a couple of days in the Waterloo area with my brother, street photographer Al Doerksen, and sister-in-law, artist Agatha Doerksen. First up was the opening of Agatha’s stunning new show, “Off the Wall,” at the Red Brick Cafe in Guelph. The first pieces in this series were inspired by layers of peeling posters in downtown Toronto. Agatha gathers material life wherever she finds it–lists, wallpaper, bits of text, buttons, old photos, and much more–which she then maps and collages in new arrangements. These “remnants and discards” of daily life are variously re-layered, re-configured, revealed, perhaps covered again, perhaps painted upon, but thus preserved. The result is sometimes whimsical but more often–to my view–boldly provocative, and deep. Here’s “A Single Leaf,” one of my favourites in the show. If you live in the Guelph area, do stop by to view the exhibit, or see more of her work at Agatha Fast on Facebook.13645115_830262967108427_4770586795850250156_n

 

The opening itself had a layer of unexpected drama when one of the largest pieces was stolen the day before the opening. CBC told the story.

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Refreshment in Toronto

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I lived a year in Toronto more than four decades ago, and if memory serves me, it was an uncertain and sometimes lonely year, but as for the city, I was beguiled by it. Now I’m here again, for a couple of months—H. and I spending the summer with our Toronto children, having packed up our things and shipped them off to B.C. where we’re locating next—and once again this city offers its charms.

A woman I met the other evening told me that beauty in B.C., where she’s also lived, is “in your face” but appears more subtly in Toronto; it has to be discovered. Continue reading →