SEASONAL INSPIRATION: AUTUMN COMFORT

The full moon rises from the horizon, an orange sentry with an eye on us below. The nights are cooler but the crickets keep playing their fiddles, a little slower, but with the same hopeful chirp. Geese honk in the nights, talking their way south. Sight unseen, we know their V formation. 

The natural world in our temperate climate slows down. Orion rises high in the sky.  The light is getting shorter, and the dark a little longer. There is more time for rest, clear skies with stars, and cooler weather making outdoor activities more comfortable. 

School settles in as students hit the rhythm of a new year. Our education spanned at least two decades schedules that start at the end of summer. Fall always seems exciting; signalling a new beginning. 

These are a few of the signs of fall. Notice them. Enjoy them. Slow your breathing in this season of colours. Go for a walk in the leaves. Play a game in the park with friends or family. Put the busy away, and start preparing for something.

Enjoy your health. Enjoy your connections with others. Enjoy time by yourself. 

Move, sleep, eat well, but not too much, hydrate. Create something. Try something new.

Fall is the perfect time to check in with yourself. If you are not feeling well, consider your options. Do something to support your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Keep doing what is working. 

Let fall be a new start. Make a plan, take a deep breath, and take the first step.

Be well.

HOW TO DO A CROSSWORD A DAY

 My grandma had a basket beside her lazy-boy chair that contained books of crossword puzzles, and in her younger years, knitting. I was always aware that she could finish crossword puzzles en masse, but when I would attempt them, I couldn’t. That is, not until google, but it’s hardly a fun exercise if you have to look up the majority of the clues, and it would take me a month to do the Saturday puzzle.

Recently on holiday, my dad brought some crossword puzzles that he found online from the LA Times. I couldn't make more than a small dent, but my brother could always finish them. This is the same brother I have always relied on to remember what I couldn't remember. This is also the same brother who has made up crossword puzzle and submitted them to the NY Times! (One day they will see the light and publish them).

So I found myself going over answers when others were going for a walk, or when meals were not yet started or done. My nephew, my brother's nephew had as similar motivation, and taught me to see things differently. While I can never finish a NY Times crossword, the LA Times one seemed much less formal, and often employed simple phrases and jargon in place of an obscure word. When I understood this, it got a little easier.

So my brother found a Washington Post website where I can do the LA Times Crossword everyday. It's maybe cheating a little (I learned from my brother that you are not allowed to look up answers) because it gives me black letters if I have it right and red ones if I have it wrong. So on days when I don't work, I take an average of 30 minutes to do a puzzle with my coffee. I think that Sunday is the easiest, and it gets harder all week long, culminating to the Saturday paper. I have taken over an hour for those.

So at least I have a chance of finishing the LA Times crossword. I kinda love the tricks they use to make you think it's one thing when it is actually another. I like when I just know the answer and I can use the down to make the across clue. But mostly, I liked doing it with my dad and brother and nephew. So I do it with them in spirit, and with my grandma. It's a family affair, that gets a little easier every puzzle. 

HOW TO USE A CIRCULAR SAW

This is great video for the first time user, or the occasional user that forgets in between! It’s from a channel called Handymom, and it’s worth watching, and rewatching before you use your circular saw for the first time, or again!

NORVAL MORRISSEAU

My daughter’s art teacher last year spent a lot of time on the artist Norval Morrisseau. Apparently they were friends, and I really love the end product of a turtle that my daughter painted and brought home at the end of the year.

Cleaning up for the new school year, she gave me the photocopied sheets that she had received this year. I still find it amazing how resistant many teachers are in this day and age of laptops in going paperless. The pages were at least double sided, and contained several of his incredible works of art, but in black and white. It was essentially a copy of the Wikipedia excerpt, with three paintings from the Canadian Art Institute webpage. A wasted ecological opportunity, and a washed out portrayal that is so easy to find online. So, here I am, late at night, poring over the topic, in a mostly futile effort to give the papers a second life before I recycle them. The subject of Norval and his artwork was worth the study.

According to Wikipedia, Norval Morrisseau was born Anishinaabe, on the Sand Point Ojibwe reserve in Ontario. It was an Anishinaabe tradition to be raised by maternal grandparents. His grandfather was a shaman, and his grandmother a devout Catholic. He went to residential school in the 1930s. Another Anishinaabe tradition was to be renamed when dying, to give new energy and save life. At age 19, a medicine-woman gave him the name Copper Thunderbird when he was very sick. He survived. This is the name, using Cree syllabics, with which he signed all his paintings.

He contracted TB, and was sent to a sanatorium in his 20s, where he met his wife, Harriet. They had seven children together. At age 40, he suffered serious burns in a hotel fire in Vancouver. The following year, he was arrested and imprisoned for « drunk and disorderly behaviour », where he was assigned an extra cell for an art studio.

In 1973, he was among a « group of seven: » artists that Daphne Odjig organized to meet in her home, where they founded the « Professional National Indian Artists Incorporation » in 1973, showing first as a group at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) called Treaty Numbers 23, 287, 117 (a collective of their nations treaty numbers). The group also included Jackson Beardy, Alex Janvier, Eddy Cobiness, Carl Ray, and Joe Sanchez (in Canada at the time to dodge the draft).

He was self-taught. His early work resembled the petroglyphs of the Great Lakes region, and gave rise to a style now referred to as Woodland. He was initially advised to stick to earth-tone colours by early advocate and anthropologist Selwyn Dewdney, but, fortunately, he evolved to his most recognizable style of colours that became brighter over time, with characteristic black outlines. His subject matter covered a variety of themes, from Christian to mystical, from erotic to political.

He was introduced to a Toronto art dealer who, remarkably did not drive, so he had to be driven by Morrisseau’s friend Susan Ross to see his work. He was commissioned for a mural at Expo 67 in the « Indians of Canada Pavilion ». He was made a member of the Order of Canada, and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. He make cover art for Bruce Cockburn, and his exhibitions were international and included Rideau Hall and the McMichael. 

The later part of his life was spent with declining health from Parkinson’s disease, and in battles to keep fake and forgeries out of the market. He established the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society in an attempt to compile a database in order to discredit forgeries. His estate continues this fight today.

After his death, a 2019 documentary « There Are No Fakes » came out on this subject, and Ontario Superior and Appeal court ruled that the Maslak-McLeod Gallery acted fraudulently in manufacturing and selling fake Morrisseau paintings.

Notable works:

Androgyny ?Rideau Hall

Artist and Shaman between Two Worlds ( National Gallery of Canada:NGC)

Observations of the Astral World (NGC)

Indian Jesus Christ

The Storyteller

Man Changing Into Thunderbird

I cannot speak to the authenticity of this website, but the video has a number of incredible works, and boasts a large number of authentic vs fake paintings that seem to have a ring of truth. Truly, his art is worth looking for. From the McGill Visible Storage gallery, to the National Gallery of Canada, his work may be nearby. Certainly, there are plenty of beautifully works as an armchair tourist. Keep a look out for poor imitations if you are shopping. If you are painting, try out his style, and see what you can do with the inspiration.

My favourite quote attributed to him, that would resonate with my Princess Pirate:

« My paintings only remind you that you're an Indian
Inside somewhere, we're all Indians.
So now when I befriend you, I'm trying to get the best Indian,
bring out the Indianness in you to make you think everything is sacred. »