MARCH 2011

to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 9:17 PM

subject Dépenses électorales: les conservateurs déboutés en Cour d’appel; HMCS Charlottetown to head to Libya for evacuation

Dear Stephen,

Sorry I didn’t write yesterday, I wasn’t in the mood. I was working on my taxes in the evening and I saw a disquieting email from my mom about my aunt Margo, who was back in hospital earlier this week, and who requested to be taken off life support, as she indicated she didn’t want a tracheotomy for breathing and feeding. She had caught pneumonia again and her pancreas has been going septic. They don’t think she will last long. It is a big blow, she and Mark have been travelling a lot this year seeking out new treatments, and she had been making progress, but when she falls ill it takes so much out of her and recovery is long and hard. What a terrible disease MS is. 

So anyway, I don’t feel much like writing, even if Rose has been trying to walk all the time and it is super-cute. Or how tonight after supper she pointed to the bowl of potatoes, took one, and started eating it like an apple while alternately cuddling up against me with it, as though it were her stuffed rat Poivre (with whom she goes to sleep with each night). She can be cute and also a bit strange, my daughter. 

Will the Habs hang on for a victory in Atlanta tonight? Currently 2-1.

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 9:00 PM

subject Le budget fédéral sera déposé le 22 mars; Canada moves to freeze assets of ousted Tunisian leader, family

Dear Stephen,

Near as I can figure, Margo gave up her fight against MS and passed away peacefully last night at about the same time I was writing to you. She was an incredible woman, full of strength, compassion, curiosity and despite her debilitating illness, a lust for life. I miss her already.

Today I received an email from an Administrative Assistant / Adjointe administrative fo the Curatorial Services / Services de conservation in the House of Commons / Chambre des communes. They were updating their records to send out letters of invitation to apply to paint Paul Martin’s official portrait. How exciting! I will certainly apply, it would be hilarious if I were chosen. Let’s see, you were elected 5 years ago, so that must be the turnaround time. Perhaps in 2016 I’ll get a chance to paint yours.

I am trying to clean the studio, in anticipation of having a bunch of people here for a birthday brunch on Sunday. We need my table. Claudine is practicing her choir. This Easter they are singing Mozart’s Requiem. It sounds fabulous.

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 9:57 PM

subject Christiane Ouimet a reçu 500 000 $ pour quitter son poste; Toronto 18 member sentenced to life in prison

Dear Stephen,

I had to suddenly sub in for an education group at work, as Simon was double-booked with an installation at the Foundry. It was fun, giving a tour and talking about the show I have spent the past few months working on. It gave me a different perspective on the works, seeing them as if for the first time as a viewer. So I think it is perfect to talk about the current show in my second “art review” letter to you. Ceal Floyer was raised and schooled in Britain (Goldsmiths) but has for some time been based in Berlin. She’s a bit young to be directly associated with the YBA crowd, though she shares some traits: a certain irreverence, a multi-disciplinary approach, and of course a nod to humour and irony. She’s clearly successful, though not in a Damien Hirst way. She didn’t send a ton of technicians to install on her behalf. She didn’t send any technicians, in fact. The only one who showed up did so last fall on the tail end of a cross-North American road trip, an extended vacation from Berlin, and he came of his own accord, and then just to chat. 

The show is sparse and contemplative. If you start on the fourth floor, you are faced with two light projection pieces, Door and Double Act. Door consists of a slide projector on the floor, aiming a very thin beam of light at the bottom of a utility door in the gallery, conveniently located almost directly in front of the elevator. The idea, of course, is that it looks as though the light is coming from behind the door. The humour, and irony, is that though it looks as though someone forgot the lights on in an apparently unused or behind-the-scenes part of the exhibition space, the obvious placement of the projector, and the sound of its fan, disrupts any sense of illusion at the very instant it is created. Bang, the first tautology, and not the last.  Double Act is, in my opinion, the most beautiful piece. The whole gallery empty and dark but for a glowing spotlight on red theatre curtains. Of course, the curtains themselves are just a light projection itself, an illusion, and the spotlight spilling on the ground in front, inviting viewers to take to the stage, part of the slide projection. The theatre light makes up part of the work; in fact, all the projection devices, whether they be slide, digital or theatrical, play a role in understanding the meaning of each piece. To Floyer, they complete a cycle of turning a light projection into a sculptural installation. Yesterday someone proposed to his girlfriend in the spotlight. She said yes. 

Walking down the stairs to the third floor one should be struck with subtle signage on each step: Attention à la marche. The signage calls attention to our feet, our placement, our bodies in space, but in a ridiculous manner. One sign is sufficient as a warning; two reinforces, three would be exclamatory; but on every step? There are over eighty! Here the artists uses repetition and redundancy to reinforce a particular preoccupation with the everyday. It forces us to confront our very cognisance. 

The small third floor gallery contains Overhead, which consists of an old-fashioned overhead projector with a standard incandescent light bulb sitting on the platen. The light bulb is literally “overhead”. In the same space a digital projection of the Mac trash icon sits in the lower right of a wall. Around the corner, in the alcove under fluorescent lights, pasted directly to the wall is a shopping receipt from IGA. This is a work entitled Monochrome Till Receipt (white). All of the items listed on the receipt are, of course, white in colour. This work combines a performative action (shopping), with the conceptual art ethos of documentation and lists, with the abstract art movement of monochrome painting. What do you think of the fact that the Tate Modern paid around 29 thousand pounds for this work?

The second floor I’ve dubbed the Earth and Waterworks room. There we find Ink on Paper, Working Title (Digging), Half Empty, and Stop Motion. The works on paper are very pretty, a tightly-controlled conceptual art experiment whereby the artist buys a pack of felt-tip pens and drains them over sheets of blotter paper, then arranges them on the wall in the same order as the pens appeared in the package. Digging is an audio piece, wherein one speaker emits the sound of a spade striking the ground, and after a slight pause, the sound of the earth dumped or tossed. There is about 12-feet between the speakers, and a beautiful, minimal rhythm is created between the dig and pile. A commentary on the grinds of daily work? The in and out, repetition of not just life, but perhaps the (conceptual) artists’ own process? Stop Motion is a poetic inversion of the Harold Edgerton stroboscopic photographs of droplets of milk, turned on their sides to mimic or reflect the viewers natural left-to-right reading of works on a wall, while also referring to the movement of both subject and observer. 

Back on the first floor we see another photograph, titled Reversed, which is an image of a typical restaurant reserved sign, but in reverse. The play on words here moves beyond the ‘v’ and the ‘s’ which are “reversed”, but the image itself is reversed, as is the photographic process itself, creating positive prints from negatives. Even our own vision is reversed: images from the real world are projected on the backs of our eyes much as a lens, upside-down: our brains correct this phenomenon for us. Highlight is a cartoon rectangular highlight projected on a blue balloon; Light switch is a slide of a standard North American light switch projected on the wall at the height and approximate placement of where one might expect to find an actual light switch. The title is important here: the work is comprised of light through a slide, meaning the light switch is made of light; to switch it on or off turns the work on of off. 

Boy, these art reviews are a bit tedious! What do you even make of this? Is even the description esoteric? Does it sound ridiculous or fascinating? Sometimes I think I’ve lived and worked in the art world so long I take so much for granted. Moving along to the DHC satellite space up the street, we see in the lobby another photograph just like Half Empty, only this one is titled Half Full. The same, but different, based on your own subjectivity, or possibly your mood. The biggest space is dark and features the projected image of a tree on the wall, about 14 feet high. The image is detailed enough to give one  a double-take; the image is of a Bonzai tree, which in reality must measure no more than 12 or 14 inches high. There is something slightly uncanny about seeing it so large.

One of the last galleries is packed with white pedestals which are devoid of objects. Instead, they each periodically emit the word “thing”, drawn from pop songs with everything from the song erased except the work thing. Pedestals, designed to hold things, especially art things, are now simply big speakers announcing their own innate “thingness”. Art isn’t necessarily where you are going to look for it (though of course that is only true to an extent: these “things” are still in an art gallery). Things like this make me wonder if only art aficionados care about work like this. 

After work Stacy and Jon came over for beers. I picked up Rose, and Stacy stayed for supper, a nice salmon and pasta that Claudine made, and we polished off a case of beer and bottle of wine while discussing girlfriends, roommates and art. Now I’m off to do dishes.

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 10:12 PM

subject Amphithéâtre: Ottawa garde le secret sur son refus; Ignatieff bets on education as winning strategy

Dear Stephen,

We had to cancel the birthday brunch today because Claudine became sick and lost her voice, couldn’t speak at all. I had brunch with Rose and Lucas and Simon at Le vieux velo instead. Had a mostly quiet afternoon, made a pork fillet to compliment the yellow beets Clo prepared, then we watched Solaris, the original 1972 version. looooong, but deeply satisfying, though Clo feel asleep in the final stretch. 

Last night was karaoke at La Remise with Karen, Stacy, Lucas and Jonathan. Stacy and I sang Nothing compares 2 U, wearing a cowboy and a sailor hat, so it mos likely appeared as though we were part of the Village People. Earlier we were at the opening at Oboro, a full-on paper installation. And Stacy and I spent the day filming his “indoctrination” video with Rose. He read the entire Communist Manifesto to her. It was a great way to spend my birthday.

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 8:26 PM

subject Le ministre Kenney forcé de s’expliquer pour une deuxième journée; Tamil migrant to be deported over links to Tigers

Dear Stephen,

Happy International Women’s Day! Great news, I received the Canada Council travel grant to go to Saint John for the East goes East event. $750, which will come in super-handy as I have managed to spend almost all of the $630 reimbursement for the theatre light I bought for DHC on my personal credit card. Where does the money go? Shopping for groceries at the Jean Talon Market could have something to do with it, everything bio and what have you, or going out to sample whiskey flights at the Whiskey Café on Monday nights, perhaps? I ended up there with Sarah and her boyfriend and buddy after a $30 fixed menu at the new Nouveau Palais on Bernard. The folks from le depanneur pick-up bought the place recently and last night Beaver Sheppard was guest chef. The meals weren’t bad, and I felt like drinking, so I did. That’s where money goes!

The other good news is that I received the official letter of invitation from Curatorial Services at the House of Commons, inviting me to send a proposal in to paint Paul Martin’s portrait. Exciting! I have to send a letter of interest (no more than 500 words), a résumé (I guess my CV will suffice), six 8″x10″ images of my portraiture work (I will need to hunt for some decent images and print them off, I guess the House of Commons doesn’t do digital?), and the vague “method of work”, all by April 8. Yikes! There are other deadlines coming up at the end of the month, like Eastern Edge. I better get my arse in gear. 

Yesterday was a snow day, no work, so it piled up (like the snow!) today, and I felt rushed all day. Tonight I had a visit from some Greenpeace activists, going door-to-door to talk about le gaz de schiste. I upgraded my membership to include Greenpeace International.

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 10:23 PM

subject Le président des Communes donne deux blâmes au gouvernement Harper; Election talk heats up as Tories lose two ethics rulings

Dear Stephen,

Just came back from helping Jon with a vinyl text installation at the Foundry. He and Simon are currently super-busy on the Kelly Mark installation. Everything opens tomorrow, and they are waaaay behind. The three large free-standing walls were just getting plastered tonight. I’ll write more about this show in my letter to you on Friday. Right now I am tired and just want to go to bed. It is snowing again outside. Another 15-20cm is anticipated. The irony is the city is currently spending about 20-million on clearing away the snow from the snowfall on Monday. Some 2200 hundred pieces of equipment are out on the streets right now, clearing snow in the middle of a blizzard. And taxpayers dare call spending money on art ridiculous and a frivolity? Also, I think I may have lost my love and support of the televised, current version of North American hockey, NHL-style. Chara gets no additional punishment for his almost-crippling hit on Pacioretty last night? Even though Chara is not really a goon, he stands 6’7″ and weighs 225lbs, and it was a nasty hit. Pacioretty didn’t have the puck. The late actor Christopher Reeves fractured his C1 and C2 vertebrae, which led to his paralysis and eventual death. Pacioretty fractured his C4 vertebra, just millimetres below. The fact that hockey is already so fast, so hard, and involves rules that allow for big hits like this, as well as fighting, well that spoils it for me. I am not of the “rock ’em, sock ’em” hockey that Don Cherry purports to love. Either the NHL reigns this in or forget about it!

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 9:16 PM

subject Stockwell Day ne se présentera pas aux prochaines élections; B.C. parents anxiously await news from kids in quake zone

Dear Stephen,

Sorry I haven’t written in a few days. I also apologize for missing my scheduled Friday art-review letter to you. I had planned to write about Kelly Mark’s exhibition at the Darling Foundry which opened on Thursday, but then I missed the opening, so I haven’t yet seen the work. I did see some of the installation as I helped Jon with some vinyl lettering at the Foundry on Wednesday after work, but everything was a bit chaotic at that point. Walls were being plastered and projectors hung. However, Kelly does have a companion exhibition at Silver Flag, which opened on Saturday afternoon. I went with Claudine and Rose after Tamara and Jordyn left after a fun three-day visit chez nous. The cousins loved playing together. On Friday I took the day off work and we went to the Botanical Gardens and visited the Papillons en liberté exhibit. The girls loved seeing all the colourful butterflies flying about. Spending the whole day with infants is exhausting! We had Sarah and Cade over for supper that evening and Cade and I were the only drinkers so we polished off a couple bottles of wine. I made my near-famous Jamie Oliver lemon roasted chicken. Succulent. 

Back to the art. Kelly Mark’s show at Silver Flag is titled Letraset !@#$’S, and is a suite of her latest Letraset drawings. Mark uses Letraset letters, numbers, symbols and textures to create dense abstract geometric patterns that evoke Modernism, Surrealism,  impossible machinery, cell structures, twisted mandalas or humanoid forms. As Ingrid Jenckner states in a catalogue essay from 2004, “Through her seemingly idle play with letterforms, Mark channels the modernist formal syntaxes found in Constructivism, Dada, Futurism, even Lettrism – all of which incorporate letterforms – in response to the aesthetic genealogy of original Letraset font design”. In a word, these drawings are awesome. 

Some of her earlier Letraset works were applied directly to gallery walls in long, flowing scripts. Others have more circular, swirling open feeling. The current works are incredibly dense, focusing more on an intense, impossible geometry. There is something of Escher meets Klee meets Malevich about them. Language uses an alphabet with letters as symbols to codify the world around us. Mark takes these recognizable symbols and reduces them to sheer form, manipulating the inherent shapes to create whole new worlds and spaces that are at once unknowable and at the same time familiar and recognizable. Mark refers to the Letraset drawings as her “guilty pleasure”, as her others works are so often conceptually bound to rules, scripts, readymades or other clearly defined processes. With the Letraset she is free to combine and built the cellular / trapezoidal / rectangular / tubular etc. forms in any way she wants. The selection of Letraset, the positive/negative spaces, interplay of black and white and size of the mat board are her only restraints. For once, it is her creative impulse and design aesthetic that guides the process, each time creating something intricate and beautiful.

Between the two venues it does seem an odd pairing of exhibitions. The Public Disturbance: HB Series involves two actors filmed in three “takes”, and at the Darling Foundry is presented on three massive free-standing walls. As I understand it, Take One plays on the first wall, and features a mid-thirtyish couple arguing outside. Take Two opens on the second wall, moving the action further into the cavernous foundry while the couple are now indoors at a bar. It concludes, presumably, with Take Three on the third wall, with the the couple tipsy if not outright loaded, on the dance floor. The couple were played by actors and the dialogue scripted in Mark’s typical ingenious fashion: from bits of found dialogue from movies. This work pushes buttons, makes fun of domesticity, examines our social norms and turns the audience into spectators of something that is borderline shameful and hilarious. By contrast, the Letraset drawings are internal, exploratory, creative, sustained, ornate and almost regal. 

I’ve often considered Kelly Mark the hardest-working, most prolific contemporary Canadian artist, and her work never fails to disappoint. I love that it seems to move freely about in all directions, encompassing performance, sculpture, sound, video, installation, drawing :  you name it, she does it, and does it well. 

Sorry this is rushed, I have to go move the car. For some reason Montreal feels it necessary to continue with a full-fledged snow removal operation EVEN AFTER ALL THE SNOW HAS ALREADY MELTED. We all know about the corruption within the construction industry yet no one yet seems to have made the connection that the snow-removal gig must be corrupt as well. Plus those huge machines keep killing people.

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 10:22 PM

subject Les élections ne sont pas inévitables, estime Ignatieff; Canada launched nuclear safety review before meltdown panic in Japan

Dear Stephen,

I spent all my free time this evening playing with Sketchup. I wonder if I should charge some hours to work? I could have been working on my project proposals. At least we got our taxes in to Kim on Sunday. The Sketchup obsession started after I put Rose to bed and Claudine went to yoga and I found myself bored in front of Youtube and Twitter. There is only so much mudslinging in Canadian politics I can handle, and I refuse to watch tsunami or earthquake footage. Other excitement tonight involved washing dishes while Claudine bathed Rose, and eating supper, a veggie and beef stir-fry Claudine had prepared. Work was fine, I received my replacement Blackberry, but it took all afternoon to transfer the contacts. Simon and I set up a mock rear-projection screen for an early Amentia test. Fixed some wall repairs and changed a bulb in the overhead projector. You know, the usual. 

Tonight I had to move the car again, as they are planning snow removal on the other side of the street. There is even less snow than the side I moved from yesterday. I took pictures. Seriously, there is NO SNOW. I am irrationally upset over this, I know, but I can’t help it. I will call the city tomorrow and rant and rave.

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:06 PM

subject Libye: le Canada va envoyer six avions de chasse; Former Harper adviser’s fiance tied into lobbying scandal

Dear Stephen,

Rose was a great eater tonight. She ate, no, inhaled two portions of scallops, and a pile of green peas, and some broccoli. This was after a snack of animal crackers and popcorn. We took a nice long walk after I picked her up from the garderie, returning a movie and wandering through the market to buy the scallops and some tulips. I love nothing more after work than when it is my turn to pick her up. She was the last one there today, as all the other parents had come earlier than usual to take advantage of the spring-like temperature. 

Last night we watched Incendies, which is such a well-made film, but one that kicks you in the gut, a few times. The scenes of the atrocities of war are simply heart-wrenching. It is quite a story, but then again I’m sure you have seen it, or at least read the play. It was recommended to you in Yann Martel’s last reading suggestion for you.

Work is going along swimmingly. I am advancing with my self-training of Sketchup, planning the Amentia project layout for the PHI centre, and bookshelves. Tomorrow I am thinking of bringing Ros ein to the offices for show-and-tell, it has been a while. 

Off to watch the Social Network.

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 8:41 PM

subject Le sénateur Raymond Lavigne démissionne; Flaherty to table federal budget as government faces threat of defeat

Dear Stephen,

I think I am going to move the art letter permanently to Sundays, as I don’t ever seem to have the time on Fridays. Also, I mostly go to see art shows on Saturdays, so it would make sense to write afterwards. This weekend I didn’t see any art at all, as I had some friends from work over to eat leftover oysters on Saturday, which we tried to cap off with karaoke at La Remise, and after walking all the way there we didn’t get a chance to sing, as we arrived too late and the lineup to sing too long. And then I walked back home! It must have taken me an hour, when I am drunk I tend to stop periodically and think about random vandalism. This is better than in my not-so-recent past, when I would initiate random acts of violence, or jump into construction holes, or climb towers or Lord knows what else. Sunday Clo and Rose and I went to the west island for a quick family visit.

The only art I saw all week was Kelly Mark’s show at the Foundry, again. I finally went with Jon so it was more under the guise of checking out the technical equipment, to make sure things were running smoothly. At least, that was our excuse for not paying the admission. The videos and their sequence and their titles now make much more sense to me. In an earlier letter I had erroneously described to you that the three videos (Take one, two and three) were a sequence of arguments between a couple in various public spaces, but in fact each video is a separate “take” of the same scripted argument. There is a progression of time within the sequencing in that the couple start outside, move inside and then end up a little drunk, but what is even funnier now is that the arguments are the same. The videos are in fact quite funny. The crux of the argument is that the guy can’t believe his girlfriend professes to like two different restaurants the same, yet one in French, the other Chinese. 

Actually, I did see some other art while visiting Jon’s studio before heading to the talk at the MBA by critic Jan Verwoert, last Tuesday. Jon is making some nice primary colour paintings, also some nice studio floor frottages but without paint. Instead, he stretches a coloured canvas over a frame and lets the dirty floor make the marks. A bit like Robert Morris’s Box that contains the sound of its own making, only for paintings. I quite like them.

This must sound pathetic, but I am exhausted from all the washing of the dishes. I swear, my dream is to buy a dishwasher and install it this spring. Is that a ridiculous thing to do as a renter?

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 10:05 PM

subject L’opposition votera contre le budget; Canada barrelling toward spring election campaign

Dear Stephen,

I received an email from Michael Ignatieff today: “And then I saw today’s budget. The Conservatives are “staying the course” on $6 billion for tax breaks for the largest corporations.$13 billion on failed US-style mega-prisons. $30 billion for an untendered stealth fighter jet deal.” Is this true, or pre-election hyperbole? Actually, if all the opposition leaders reject the budget, as it seems they will, we are very likely heading into an election. If not over the budget, then probably over your party’s contempt of Parliament. And what of the “act of war”, sending our C-18s into Libya? I know it is a UN resolution, but still, doesn’t attacking or taking part in an attack on a sovereign state involve some sort of parliamentary decision? I, for one, welcome elections, I just wish they were a little more democratic. None of this First Past The Post business.

Tonight after work there was a “Skolège” at Skol, a type of Master Class led by a prof at UQAM where we discussed the role of Skol as an ARC on the “map” of art, as it were. It was a bit of a theory-heavy discussion which just started getting good, or more practical, when I had to leave. Caro had put Rose to bed. And now, after eating some leftovers and washing the dishes, there is laundry to fold.

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 10:54 PM

subject Une motion de censure libérale pourrait défaire le gouvernement ; Canada steps up import controls for Japanese food, resists outright ban

Dear Stephen,


As we near ever-closer to an election it seems a good a time as any to review who has been painting the official PM portraits over the years. As I am working on my proposal to paint Mr. Martin, I thought I would procrastinate a bit by compiling a list of all the past artists. Here is a partial list, I’ll finish it tomorrow, and then work it somehow into my proposal or an offshoot project. 

  • Christan Nicholson, who is apparently « Canada’s most famous living portrait painter », painted Jean Chrétien. He is from Saint John, NB. 
  • David Goatley is « widely recognized as one of North America’s leading portrait painters », and who states « A portrait affirms, it gives the gift of self to its subject. It says: yes, you are worth spending this time over, your story deserves to be told, you’re worth recording, we will not see your like again ». He painted Kim Campbell.
  • Igor V. Babailov is a « nationally and internationally renowned portrait figurative artists, scholar and spokesperson for the traditional school of classical art », and painted Mulroney, as well as George W. Bush. He was born in Moscow. 
  • Brenda Bury is a « Toronto-based portrait painter with extensive experience in Canada, England, and around the world. Her many subjects include Her Majesty the Queen, Margaret Thatcher, John Diefenbaker, Jeanne Sauvé, and John Polanyi ». She painted John Turner, and doesn’t believe in painting from photographs.
  • Patrick Douglass Cox « takes chances. In a world of contemporary art which values metaphorical painting he is a realist ». He painted Joe Clark, though makes no mention of this accomplishment on his website.
  • Victoria artist Myfanwy Pavelic, « who was mentored by Emily Carr, painted an array of high-profile subjects ». She painted Pierre Trudeau, and was one of the few Canadian artists to be shown at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
  • Hugh Seaforth Mackenzie was born in 1928, and has no website or even a listing in Wikipedia. He painted Lester B. Pearson.
  • Cleeve Horne « lived the majority of his life in Toronto, raising himself to the mid-upper ranks of society by wise marketing and excellent business skills », and painted Diefenbaker.
  • As Audrey McNaughton-Dalglish « explored this world, she had the confidence and sense of purpose to bridge many nontraditional roles for women of her generation – pilot, advocate, student and dreamer ». She painted Louis St. Laurent.
  • In 1967, Kenneth Forbes « was made an Officer of the Order of Canada “for his contributions to the arts as a landscape and portrait painter” ». He painted Richard Bennett as well as Robert Borden.
  • Frank O. Salisbury was « steadfastly conservative and a vitriolic critic of Modern Art – particularly of his contemporaries Picasso, Chagall and Mondrian ». He painted William Lyon Mackenzie King.
  • George Ernest Fosbery’s painting of Arthur Meaghan is not listed amongst his most well-known works. He died at Cowansville, Quebec in 1960.
  • In 1927 John Wentworth Russell « caused sensation with a large nude at Paris Salon and at the CNE, which doubled the number of visitors to 150,000 ». He painted Laurier.

That’s the list for now, there is still Tupper, Bowell, Thompson, Abbott, Mackenzie and Macdonald to go, but I’m tired and want to go to bed. 

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 8:54 PM

subject Pancartes électorales: le Sud-Ouest rappelle le PLC à l’ordre; Tories begin campaign far ahead of Liberals, poll shows

Dear Stephen,

Received an email from the Green Party regarding your budget. I thought I’d share some of it with you:

Here’s what we liked:

  • $400 million to extend the ecoENERGY Home Retrofit program for one year.
  • $300 million to benefit low-income seniors.
  • $300 a year in Family Caregiver Tax Credits for family members looking after sick or disabled relatives.
  • Forgiving a portion of education loans for doctors and nurses if they work in rural and remote communities.

Here’s what outright scared us:

  • The budget doesn’t even mention the $29.3 billion (Parliamentary Budget Office estimate) the Harper government plans to spend on 65 fighter jets.
  • Also unaccounted for is the estimated $9 billion for building new prisons that the Harper government is committed to–despite the fact that crime rates are falling!

That’s $40 billion of spending (as much as transfers to all the provinces or total support for seniors) that’s missing from this budget. That’s not financially responsible.

And here’s what made us roll our eyes

  • $400 million to support the nuclear industry but nothing to support alternative energy.
  • $1 billion in subsidies to oil and gas companies that already made a profit of over $8 billion in 2010.
  • $10 million for the Grey Cup and Calgary Stampede versus $2.5 million for the Great Lakes (which supply drinking water to 8.5 million Canadians) shows pretty clearly how much the current government values clean water.

And here is the rest of the list of Canadian Prime Minister portrait painters:

  • Victor Albert Long « resided for many years in Winnipeg, making a living by painting portraits ». He painted Sir Charles Tupper.
  • Joanne Tod is the third female artist thus far, and though she was commissioned to paint a fairly stoic Sir Mackenzie Bowell in 2002, she has been making weird portraits since the seventies.
  • John Wycliffe Lowes Forster was among the most popular academic portraitists in Toronto during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Though the Canadian Encyclopedia states that his sitters included prime ministers Laurier, MacDonald and King, it is his portraits of Sir John Sparrow David Thompson and Alexander Mackenzie that hang in the House of Commons Gallery.
  • As with Joanne Tod, « internationally known portrait artist acclaimed for the graceful realism that is his stylistic signature », Muli Tang painted his PM portrait in 2002. He painted Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott.
  • And the official painting of Canada’s first PM was made by Henry Sandham, who was born in Montreal in 1842 and developed an intricate technique for making photographic compositions, one which won an award at the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris.

I’m trying to gather some images and write the letter of interest for painting Martin’s portrait, but the hockey game is distracting, even if only by radio. Heading into the third the Bruins are battering the Habs 3-0. 

 

 

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 11:20 PM

subject Le gouvernement Harper renversé; Three E’s — economy, ethics and the elderly — could define this election

Dear Stephen,

I guess now that your government has been found to be in contempt of parliament we will be having an election. Funny how the election is nobodies fault: no party claims responsibility. Why are elections seen as such bad things? We should do them more often. 

While you go to the GG,s house tomorrow we’ll be having Etienne and Sarah and Femke over for brunch. Will you have brunch with the GG or is it more formal? 

After daycare I took Rose on a long walk, enjoying the bright blue sky and crisp, not-spring-yet air. She is now able to climb up on the couch, and from there transfer to a stool by climbing over the rail. We will have to be much more vigilant in watching her, as she also seems to enjoy provoking falls. Also, her balance is not so good when she tries to alight on the stool. Sometimes her bum is completely off it.

Stacy and George edited his indoctrination video, he is going to upload a short version on Youtube but keep it private. I will send you the link when I get it. It’s a hilarious video. 

I am becoming addicted to the Google Sketchup software. I am learning it at work as the 3D modeling is incredibly helpful in exhibition design layouts. The when I come home and should be working on art proposals I find myself tinkering around on random things, just learning the software. It’s a lot of fun. I should probably find a way to make art with it. 

I don’t yet know who I will vote for in this election. If there was a box to check off for it I would probably vote for the coalition. 

Claudine is already in bed, I am off to join her. What a wild Friday night!

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 9:20 PM

subject Harper plus près que jamais d’une majorité; Canadians head to polls on May 2 after GG dissolves Parliament

Dear Stephen,

We had a great brunch with Etienne and Sarah and Femke today. On the radio this morning I heard your comments after you visited the GG to declare the election date. Looks like you are really going to try to demonize the completely legitimate and democratic idea of a coalition. In fact, didn’t you yourself try to form a coalition with the Bloc and NDP back in 04 or 05, when the Martin Liberals had a minority? Anyway, we visited the Belgo this afternoon, had a great conversation with Jean-Michel and we might try to organize a WWKA vs. Fermières Obsédées performance night, part of VIVA perhaps? I’ll tell you more about the art shows tomorrow in the art review letter. Now I’m watching the Habs-Caps game on CBC, even though they are down 1-0 in the third. We’ll watch a film afterwards, I am currently downloading The next three days on iTunes.

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 9:33 PM

subject Coalition: Harper refuse d’expliquer ses contradictions; Opposition says Harper talked coalition in 2004

Dear Stephen,

Happy day two of the election campaign. I see you are continuing to demonize a hypothetical coalition government. Maybe you don’t know that coalition governments are actually quite common in democracies? An Irish coalition government formed between Fine Gael and Labour on March 11, 2011. Britain formed a coalition government between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in May 2010. In Australia, the conservative Liberal and National parties are united in an effectively permanent coalition, known simply as the Coalition. Historically, control of the Israeli government has alternated between periods of rule by the right-wing Likud in coalition with several right-wing and religious parties and periods of rule by the center-left Labor in coalition with several left-wing parties. India’s present governing coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, consists of 13 separate parties. In Finland, no party has had an absolute majority in the parliament since their independence from Russia in 1917. In Germany coalition government is the norm. And of course don’t forget that Canada’s first government from 1867-1872 was a coalition led by prime minister John A. Macdonald. So please, can you just give demonizing a coalition a rest and maybe run your campaign instead on how important it is to spend $30-billion on fighter jets.

Yesterday I was at the Belgo to see some exhibitions and an opening. The opening was of Chih-Chien Wang at Pierre-François Ouellette. In this new series of photographs and video, called Short Sentences, Wang offers an introspective view of domestic life captured through a dialogue of glimpses and gestures. Small, found objects are isolated and photographed, enlarged and presented as curious, matter-of-fact monuments to the everyday. Each has a suspicious quality, that of being used, and part of a larger purpose. Lived history imbues these photos, whether they be of a pineapple or a slightly worn flower. Found objects are an important part of his work and process; flowers, leaves, pieces of metal or glass, are presented much larger than life.  The photographs are vivid and rich in colour. 

Images of landscapes initially seem typical of family vacation or everyday life, and perhaps they are, but they manage to generate an idea of something deeper or underlying: a zebra in one photo, a kangaroo in another. His partner Yushan appears in two landscapes, presented side by side, standing on the shore of a lake. Are they two different lakes? She is facing tow different directions: why? The lake could be anywhere, the stance seems to express a longing, but for what? Of this work Wang says:

“It is a small world made of short sentences. They murmur, and they unsettle. The sentences come quickly and leave quickly. They are almost weightless, I thought, then I started to reassure myself: they are weightless, and this is normal”. Another photograph of Yushan illustrated these fleeting moments perfectly: the subject is asleep on a futon, sitting up while her infant son feeds at her breast. It describes a perfect domestic moment because it is what it is. 

Rose liked the videos, or at least the carpeted room they were displayed in. I had forgotten to bring her shoes so she was getting quite dirty from crawling on the dusty floors. There seemed to be a ton of babies in attendance as well. The videos feature images on a leaf or water, a couple closeups of eyes, the flickering pixels most likely the result of a low-re image made into still video. The process of turning a still image into video, or vice versa, is a trope often employed by Adad Hanna, another artist in Pierre-François’ stable, who was also at the opening and told me that he just happened to received a letter from you. Apparently he wrote asking if you would sit for a portrait and received the standard form letter reply, so he wrote again complaining that his original letter had not been read, and then he received a more personal reply. However, even though it was signed by you, it was written in the third person. Do you typically refer to yourself in the third person when writing letters? If I were ever to receive a personal response from you, could it read something like this: 

“Dear Chris, 

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper wishes to acknowledge that he has read your letter and found it quite amusing. He wishes you all the best in your future projects. Sincerely, Stephen Harper”.

The other show I wanted to see was Duke & Battersby at Galerie B-312, but travelling with a baby it is hard to watch long video, so we went though rather quickly. Beauty plus Pity continues their investigations into animal-human interactions that played a large part of their Sobey Art Award show at the MAC. The small room contains drawings, including some classics from their time in Halifax in the late nineties. The video is a seven-part  animation that uses as characters the taxidermy animals on display: miniature sheep, goats, deer, a chick riding a type of lynx, all wearing colourful capes, furs, brooches, jewels, etc. Formally,  the animals and their costuming form compelling, uncanny arrangements that play on notions of society, royalty, and hierarchy. Rose quite liked the stuffed animals, especially the little chick riding the cat. I’ll have to go back and watch the videos when I have more time, and when I am without a baby. 

Speaking of videos, and babies, I uploaded a new video to Youtube of Rose crawling. You should check it out, if you can find time during the coalition smear campaign.

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 9:33 PM

subject Sondage: les conservateurs maintiennent leur avance; Harper promises tax cut for families — but not until 2015-16

Dear Stephen,

Happy Day Three of the election campaign. Is it beginning to feel like your tactic to demonize any idea of a coalition might be backfiring? It doesn’t seem to be affecting your poll numbers, but it is a word on everyone’s lips, it seems. Coalition. I find it odd when you say things like “The only democratic outrage in this election is the idea of Mr. Ignatieff that he can lose this election and get a mandate to govern, not from Canadians in an election but from a backroom deal with the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois”. Why do I find it odd? Because I think it is more of an outrage that in our First Past the Post system, you could conceivable get a majority government while the majority of Canadians will have voted for other parties. I wish Ignatieff had taken your threat of the coalition and turned on it, accepted it as viable and began to work with it right away. If only I could vote for the coalition!

from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 8:42 PM

subject Sondage: les conservateurs maintiennent leur avance; Harper promises tax cut for families — but not until 2015-16

Dear Stephen,

Happy Day Four of the Election Campaign 2011. Today for lunch Stacy and I attended the CAM Awards Gala along with a half-dozen other DHC folks. It wasn’t quite as exciting as last year, when Oboro was a finalist, but it was interesting because both our neighbours were in contention: Christophe with the Off Festival du Jazz and Jeremy with the Theatre La Chapelle. Neither won – the $25 thousand prize went to Cirque de l’Éloise – but it was fun to see our whole apartment building represented. Claudine was there as well with Bernard but we didn’t get much chance to talk. There are lots of speeches at these events. I noticed that there wasn’t any federal deputees, but maybe everyone is busy campaigning.

Speaking of the campaign, I’ve decided how I am going to integrate my long-standing, never-realized promise to donate $200 to the Conservative Party (they called again last week and I renewed again) into something closer to art. I’ll write a big fat cheque, for $30 billion – to pay for the fighter jets. How does this sound? What do you think your fundraisers will do when they get a cheque like this? Would they try to cash it? I only have overdraft of $300, so would I just get an NSF charge? I think it is worth it.

Off to clean the studio and look for some of those PC fundraising letters from last year. I stored them someplace safe and of course now can’t find them. I’ll listen to the game while searching. The Habs broke their scoreless streak and currently lead the Thrashers 2-0.

-chris