The Medicine Dream (1974)

Daphne Odjig's The Medicine Dream (1974) is from a series of drawings commissioned by Dr. Herbert T. Schwarz for their jointly authored Tales from the Smokehouse (1974).

Schwarz has a complicated history (he introduced Odjig to Picasso) and his contribution to the Smokehouse book is unclear. Toronto Star art critic Peter Goddard describes the texts as a compilation of "First Nations erotic tales," while Odjig's Wikipedia entry says the tales were "written by Herbert T. Schwarz." The ArtSask site suggests both versions are true.

Whatever the case, Odjig's The Medicine Dream is not on display at the Kelowna Art Gallery.

Exhibition Tour

On September 30 I will be giving a walking tour of the Legacy of Canadian Art exhibition at the Kelowna Art Gallery. Curated by Roger H. Boulet, the exhibition is comprised of works held in private collections by Kelowna area residents.

Among the works included are by artists Cornelius Krieghoff, A.Y. Jackson, Emily Carr, Lawren Harris, A.J. Casson, Jack Bush, Gershon Iskowitz, Jack Shadbolt, Daphne Odjig and Joe Fafard, whose painted bronze sculpture The Candidate (Chretien), 1987, appears above. 

Although I am only just now gathering my notes, I am fairly certain I will spend time on Fafard's The Candidate. Less the work itself than the significance of its subject (Chretien is the author of Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969, also known as the "White Paper") and the placement of the work at the centre of the KAG's southernmost gallery.

Works-in-Progress

Came upon these while strolling through Sunnyside Park on Sunday.

Weekend

On Saturday afternoon I visited the VAG. The Monet show, which shares its ground floor with some lifeless Stephen Shore pictures of the painter's garden at Giverny; the Lassry show, with its wholly appropriate dollar store busy-ness; the Pictures from Here show that I did not need to see again; and an Emily Carr I had never seen before, called Grey (1931-32).

On Sunday morning I walked south through Kensington to the Value Village at 45th and Victoria. The retaining wall in the foreground is falling -- and you can tell from the shadow of the wall beyond it that its wall has cracked.

A small room inside a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

The arbour in back was built to support a grapevine. In fortifying it eight years ago I only made it safer for racoons.

I know when the grapes are ready because that is when the racoons show up. Last night there were four of them.

The grapes are ready, and now they are gone.

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Facts (Alternative or Otherwise?) vs Convictions

The first line in Walter Benjamin's "Filling Station" (from One-Way Street, 1928)):

"The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than of convictions, and of such facts as have scarcely ever become the basis of convictions."