Category: History & Heritage
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How to Get An Artist Residency
Because every creative project deserves a great origin story: One early morning in late November 2019, I was shooting on Deas Island in South Delta, B.C., on the outskirts of Vancouver. The mist was low, the sun was rising and hoar frost covered the ground. It was a spectacular morning. As I began walking up island, a… Read more
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Kingston Pen: The Original Social Distancing
I was going to refer to incarceration as the “ultimate” social distancing. But it’s not. Death is the ultimate social distancing. Prison is purgatory, a reduced state between life and not life that, hopefully, ends in a return to some kind of normal. In the meantime, the Correctional Service of Canada battles Covid-19 outbreaks in… Read more
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Mid-Century Modern Ottawa: Briarcliffe
Briarcliffe’s twenty-three houses represent mid-century modern domestic architecture at its best… This is one of Canada’s first protected heritage areas of midcentury modern architecture. ~ Exploring the Capital: An Architectural Guide to the Ottawa-Gatineau Region I turn left off Montreal Road and onto Blair, coast down the hill, brake and turn into the wooded subdivision.… Read more
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Architecture of Salvation – St. Clare’s Catholic Church
A friend and follower of Frank Lloyd Wright, [Francis Conroy] Sullivan designed this impressive church [St. Clare’s Catholic Church] in his mentor’s Prairie School style, incorporating flared overhanging eaves and geometric wood accents on stucco to emphasize a strong horizontal form. ~ from Exploring the Capital: An Architectural Guide to the Ottawa-Gatineau Region If you… Read more
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Kent Monkman: Shame and Prejudice
EXHIBITION: Shame & Prejudice: A Story of Resilience by Kent Monkman 06 January – 08 April 2018 @ the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queens, Kingston, ON It’s interesting, artist Kent Monkman said. When he posts a new painting to social media the predictable response is around 500 likes. But this one, he said gesturing… Read more
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A Psycho House on Top
While most people who drive the I-81 through Syracuse, New York are focussed on the gargantu-signs that foretell their arrival at the state’s largest shopping complex, I am fixated on another architectural curiosity: a decrepit Victorian house on top of an abandoned warehouse. Read more
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Nicolas Cage Returns to Burritts Rapids
Also see the Facebook Page: Nicolas Cage in Burritt’s Rapids ***** In 1986, a 22-year-old shirtless Nicolas Cage starred as world-champion sculler Ned Hanlan in the Canadian film production of “The Boy in Blue,” partially shot in the village of Burritt’s Rapids, Ontario over eight days in September 1984. On Wednesday, April 19th, 2017, Cage… Read more
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I Am Not Your Negro
The question you have to ask yourself, White America needs to ask itself: Why was it necessary to have a nigger in the first place? ~ James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro In a neighbouring village more English than England and whiter than white, I found Agatha Christie’s book in the stacks of the church’s charity book sale. I was… Read more
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More Than Enough Refugee Blues to Go Around
Refugee Blues was published by writer and poet W.H. Auden in 1939, at the start of World War II. It’s safe to say not much has changed and, perhaps, it never will if war and hatred continue to be our modus operandi. The million dollar question is this: Are we doomed as humans to this destructive cycle of scapegoatism… Read more
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What I See When I See Smiths Falls – Part 2
This is the second in a series of visual love letters to Smiths Falls, one of my favourite towns in Eastern Ontario. You can find the first installment here. Read more