Every year as I honour Thanksgiving, I’m mindful of the complicated history that accompanies it – and in particular the legacy of pain for indigenous folks in America. I find myself sitting square in the middle of this contradiction. I want to hold space for this holiday’s tangled past – and it seems to me, …
Category Archives: Art
Amanda Gorman: a reminder of the beauty and power of words
I’m not sure anything else can really be said about this. What a poem. What a moment. Here’s to hope. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Do you want to be seen – or are you trying to be admired?
Art is a process of making things visible. The thing we most often end up making visible is ourselves. In my earlier days as an artist, I wanted so strongly for the piece to be viewed as separate from me. Ideally, I wanted to disappear, and have people only see the work. I didn’t realise …
Continue reading “Do you want to be seen – or are you trying to be admired?”
Alanis Morissette’s ‘Such Pretty Forks in the Road’ is a masterpiece (plus: a mini-manifesto on artistic criticism)
This album has been the soundtrack of my pandemic life. It first came to my attention when my mom sent me this video, which was making the rounds on social media: This song is called ‘Ablaze’, and it is a manifesto about a mother’s love for her children – declaring ‘my mission is to keep …