Tag: Canadian Art

November 8, 2006 Anthology, Art Exhibition Catalogue, Writing

THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EMILY CARR’S WRITINGS

In Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon. Curators, Charles C. Hill, et al. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2006.

"Sophie Frank was an artist and a thinker and, in spite of her life circumstances, she continued to create many beautiful weavings. She maintained a long friendship with Emily Carr. A thirty year relationship between women is never devoid of personal thoughts and conversations about love,work,and tragedies. Sophie would have shared her cultural knowledge and many of her insights on art with a woman whom she was so fond of, a woman who would nevertheless go on to demean and primitivize her existence after her death."

I wrote this essay with Shirley Bear for the exhibition Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon organized by the National Gallery and the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2006. It is based on a performance piece Shirley and I created together called Dear Emily / Dear Sophie about Salish basket maker Sophie Frank and her long time friend Emily Carr using correspondence between the two women we discovered in the archives in Victoria. We presented it at the VAG when the redesigned Carr galleries were opened in 1996. The piece was billed as “a contemporary dialogue about art, appropriation and friendship”. It was later performed and the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria, and Emily Carr College of Art in Vancouver.

Download a PDF version of  the essay “The Presentation of Self in Emily Carr’s Writings.” Buy a copy of Emily Carr: New Perspective on a Canadian Icon here.

March 4, 2004 Book Review, Writing

BOOK REVIEW: “REID REDUCED” IN NOW MAGAZINE

Book Review of Bill Reid: The Making of an Indian by Maria Tippett (Random House) in Now Magazine, March 4, 2004 

Maria Tippett is first out of the gate with her bio of renowned Haida artist Bill Reid. It covers the bases, delivering a readable, informative text about the artist's life and work (Reid died of Parkinson's disease in 1998), but it's a cranky, limited first read of the man. Tippett's subtitle - The Making Of An Indian - identifies the theme of her study, and it's obvious that she perceives Reid as something of a charlatan. The inconsistencies in his story about his relationship to his Haida ancestry are seen as opportunistic, as are his collaborations with other artists and his use of assistants in his large-scale carvings.

Read Susan Crean's book review "Reid Reduced" of Maria Tippett's Bill Reid: The Making of an Indian online here.

November 8, 1994 Anthology, Writing

WITNESS TO WILDERNESS: THE CLAYOQUOT SOUND ANTHOLOGY

In Witness To Wilderness: The Clayoquot Sound anthology, Arsenal Press, 1994.

An all-star collection of essays, poems, and photographs by 120 writers and artists to celebrate the ancient forests of Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island. Contributors include: Don Coles, Susan Crean, Lorna Crozier, Des Kennedy, Joy Kogawa, Patrick Lane, Mary Meigs, Susan Musgrave, P. K. Page, Al Purdy, Raeside, Phyllis Webb, and George and Inge Woodcock.

August 9, 1987 Article, Writing

“THE EROTIC NATIONALISM OF JOYCE WIELAND” IN THIS MAGAZINE

In This Magazine 21.

"Hers is not museum art, in format, size or feel; and you don’t have to come equipped with a theory in order to understand it. The images, stories and symbols she uses are the stuff of daily life and everyone’s history: airplanes and sailboats, hearts and flowers, flags and beavers, Laura Secord and Nellie McClung."

"Forbidden Fruit: The Erotic Nationalism of Joyce Wieland," was featured in This Magazine in the August/September issue in 1987.

April 8, 1987 Article, Writing

“LABOUR WORKING WITH ART” IN FUSE MAGAZINE

Fuse, Volume 34, Number 3; Summer 2011 (Originally published in 1987).

"The first critique of cultural policy that tends to emerge, then, is a class analysis expressed in terms of the twin issues of accessibility and portrayal (or the right of working people to see themselves reflected and respected in the media)."

I wrote this piece to document the extensive work being done by a handful of activist visual artists who were busy making connections and common cause with unions, in many instances working with groups like the Steelworkers on cultural projects. They often were active organizing artists in their own communities, too. Some of them, notably Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge, and Mike Constable, are still around and much in evidence. Last year, editor Gina Badger put together an issue of Fuse, titled Performing Politics for 35 Years republishing a number of articles from the archives. Writers include Deborah Root (1996), bell hooks — interview by Ayanna Black (1990), Rachel Gorman (2007) and Greg Staats (2001). A great issue!

Read Labour Working With Art in PDF.

March 10, 1987 Article, Writing

“NOTES FROM THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTION, A CONVERSATION WITH JOYCE WIELAND”

In Canadian Art, Spring 1987.

"JW: In New York there was a strong male Establishment and once you got in the door it was like joining the biggest bank in the world. You were bankable; you were the item. I recognized how easy it would have been to go along with the aesthetic and even remember a woman asking me, "Why don't you paint like them and then maybe you would get a gallery?" But where would I have been as a woman?"

Susan Crean interviewed Canadian artist Joyce Wieland for Canadian Art.

January 10, 1984 Anthology, Article, Events, Writing

“THE THIRTY PERCENT SOLUTION: SEXISM IN FINE ART” IN THIS MAGAZINE

In This Magazine, January 1984.

"In 1978 Ottawa artist Jane Martin was the first to brave the opprobrium of the art world by tallying up figures on the number of Canadian Council grants awarded to women in the visual arts, comparing that to the number of women present on the juries. What was truly startling about Martin's findings was the underrepresentation of women."

Susan Crean's "The Thirty Percent Solution: Sexism in Fine Art," was reprinted in Canadian Women's Issues: Volume I: Strong Voices. By Ruth Roach Pierson, Marjorie Griffin Cohen, Paula Bourne, Philinda Masters. Lorimer: (Jan. 1 1993).

December 10, 1983 Book Review, Writing

BOOK REVIEW “BODY BLOW TO ART HISTORY” IN BROADSIDE

Book Review of Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany, Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, eds., New York: Harper & Row. 1982  

They are the gatekeepers of Official Culture and responsible for devising an aesthetic which legitimizes the values of the modern artistocracy—the mandarins, tycoons and idle rich who hold the purse, strings and govern the policies which control the arts. Excellence, it turns out, is in the eye of the beholder and from experience we know that it is rarely either female or Canadian.

Read Susan Crean's review "Body Blow to Art History" online from the Broadside archive.

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