Chronicling COVID-19

25 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by michelinewalker in Canadian art, Canadian wilderness, Music in Canada, Pandemic, Quebec Art

Tags

Arrogance, Covid-19, Early Music, Hank Knox, Quebec lockdown, Self-Isolation

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

My posts are delayed because of essential business. Quebec is closed.

My main meal comes from meals-on-wheels. As I was going to pick it up, wearing protective gear, I bumped into an assembly of people who doubted we should take authorities seriously. They were not standing at a distance from one another and I saw a person coming out of the swimming pool room.

I didn’t think I had it in me to transform myself into the manager of the building. It was an incredible moment. What I said and wrote in emails was, basically,

disperse immediately and do not let anyone into the building. If something is delivered, it stays in the lobby and someone rings your apartment. Three apartments are for sale. Real Estate is not an essential service. No one comes to visit apartments. If a rule is broken, I’ll call the police, the RCMP (Mounted Police), la GRC (Gendarmerie royale canadienne) …

This morning I saw a sign asking people not to use the swimming pool.

Our worst enemies are the people who are too arrogant to obey the law. They don’t know that their freedom ends where the freedom of others begin. Only food, medication and the mail can be delivered.

I then had a conversation with a friend who is a postmaster. Mailmen will not ask you to sign if there is a delivery. That is contact. Covid rests on surfaces, which may include the mail.

One must also realize that there is very little medical help. I often tell people that if they wish to be well treated, they should go to the vet’s office. They have to learn medicine carefully as animals do not speak, except “en son langage.”

I am embedding music played by Hank Knox, a member, by marriage, of Sir Ernest MacMillan‘s family. My dear friend Andrea, whom I lost to cancer recently, was Sir Ernest’s niece. I knew the family but not closely, except for Andrea. We became friends when David and I rented the lower floor of her house.

David had found employment in Toronto. We were in a hotel looking for a home. David drove through streets he knew I would like. He saw a sign on a big tree and Andrea standing outside. He learned that she loved music and cats. So David said he would pick me up because he was certain I wanted to live in that house and that a friendship would grow. I must phone Betsy. She sent me harpsichord music.

https://www.mcgill.ca/music/hank-knox

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Hank+Knox&&view=detail&mid=4484F90DC0AD59DEDB0C4484F90DC0AD59DEDB0C&&FORM=VDRVRV

Barns by A. Y. Jackson, 1926 (The Group of Seven) (WikiArt)

Walter J. Phillips’ Manitoba

02 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, Canadian art

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Japonisme, Ode to Manitoba winter, Tomas Luis de Victoria, Walter J. Phillips, Winnipeg, Woodcut

Little Log House, a woodcut, by Walter J. Phillips

Walter J. Phillips (25 October 1884 – 5 July 1963) was born in Lincolnshire, England and studied at the Birmingham School of Art.

He moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1913 where he lived for 28 years. He died in 1963 in Victoria, British Columbia. He was a resident artist at the Banff Centre, then known as the Banff School of Fine Arts. He became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. I love his art.

Phillips was very interested in Japanese prints. The work shown above is a woodcut.

Many new Canadians first settled in Winnipeg. My husband’s grandmother, the wife of a British aristocrat, was sent to Winnipeg. Her husband claimed their son was conceived by a “lover.” I suspect he wanted a younger wife. Fortunately, her son received a good education and always looked after his disconsolate mother.

You may remember that Winnipeg had been the Earl of Selkirk‘s Red River Colony. After Rupert’s Land was purchased by a fledging confederation (c. 1867). Louis Riel negotiated Manitoba’s entry into Confederation. He was hanged in 1885 for the execution of Orangeman Thomas Scott. Orangemen prevented French-speaking and Catholic Canadians from settling in the land the legendary voyageurs had opened up. They were educated in English-language schools. The matter was not solved until the Official Languages Act of 1969, and not altogether.

Moreover, the newly confederated Canada sent Amerindians to reservations. Many Canadians have Amerindian ancestry, prairie Métis, primarily, but also the people of Quebec and other provinces. Many settlers to New France married Amerindian women because France was not sending women to its colony.

The Great Plains

I lived in Regina in the late 1970s, but my work was not related to my professional qualifications. I was offered a position as translator in Winnipeg, but decided to accept a teaching position at St. Francis Xavier University, in Nova Scotia. I loved Nova Scotia, but regret my decision to teach at StFX. Everything went wrong. The life of a translator would have suited me and I loved the prairies. One could see forever.

So here I am. Probably a descendant of an Amerindian who lived in the 1600s and the former wife of a British aristocrat. My past has been leaping at me from behind. Do you think this is a temporary disorder, or am I about to write a book?

What will 2019 bring?

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation just published an interesting document which I am enclosing:

Ode to Manitoba winter: Love it or hate it, season has inspired artists for 200 years

It features this lovely painting.

Season’s Greetings to everyone 💛