Dear Artist, This evening, the Orchestre Nationale de Lille, France will embark on a two-week tour performing the music of contemporary electronic composer Wax Tailor. Dusty Rainbow From The Dark is a multi-sensory experience incorporating text and narration, video projection, beats…
Dear Artist, My dad used to say that I led a charmed life. He’d say, “He’s never had a job, he loves what he does, he’s a happy guy and he always seems to have enough money to do what he…
Dear Artist, On recent afternoons, I’ve been preparing panels for Dad’s archives. This involves a good cleaning, examining the varnish and, if necessary, re-coating. When done, I’ll take a small selection up to the bedroom. In almost every case, he…
Dear Artist, I couldn’t help but notice little traps placed inconspicuously at the bases of some of the totem poles in the Great Hall of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. The poles, some dating from…
Dear Artist, I’m laptopping you from the rotunda at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology. In the centre is Bill Reid’s monumental cedar carving, The Raven and The First Men. According to Haida legend, the Raven found himself…
Dear Artist, Relining a larger work onto a smaller, rigid support can be a re-imagination of possibilities. For canvases below 16 x 20 inches, I choose from a selection of quarter-inch mahogany panels pre-cut to standard sizes. Here are the…
Dear Artist, Have you ever noticed how a silhouette can tell you such a lot by saying less? That’s because the human mind is capable of filling in needed information to complete a picture or to recognize a familiar image. Silhouettes were…
Dear Artist, Not being in the habit of making comments on international affairs, I asked my American friend Elmer Waite what he thought of former U.S. President George W. Bush’s portrait paintings of world leaders. “Everyone,” said Elmer, “no matter…
Dear Artist, In the corner of Mrs. Haddleton’s seventh-grade art class stood a potter’s wheel and a kiln. I straddled the little stool and threw down a grapefruit-sized ball of clay — my first pot. Gently kicking the wheel’s power…