Love of the Salish Sea Islands: New Essays, Memoirs and Poems by 40 Island Writers by Mona Fertig (editor) and Gail Sjuberg (introduction) Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2019 $23.95 / 9781896949734 Reviewed by Theresa Kishkan * I first encountered the term “islomania” in Lawrence Durrell’s sublime Reflections on a Marine Venus, a memoir…
Read more #560 Arbutus, sandstone, & Salish Sea
Eppich House II: The Story of an Arthur Erickson Masterwork by Greg Bellerby, with an introduction by Michelangelo Sabatino Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2019 $45.00 / 9781773270470 Reviewed by Martin Segger * This is the second volume in a series edited by Geoffrey Erickson and authorized by the Erickson family. (The first was Francisco Kirpacz:…
Read more #555 Arthur Erickson’s steel house
Flow: Poems Collected and New by Roy Miki, edited by Michael Barnholden Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $49.95 / 9781772012101 Reviewed by Grahame Ware * Condemned in utero as an Enemy Alien by the Dominion of Canada in 1942, the scholar and poet Roy Miki (born 1942) emerged as a pioneer of the Japanese-Canadian redress movement of the 1980s. Reviewer…
Read more #553 From alienation to adulation
Chinatown Ghosts: The Poems and Photographs of Jim Wong-Chu by Jim Wong-Chu Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9781551527482 Reviewed by LiLynn Wan First published April 13, 2019 * When Chinatown Ghosts was first published in 1986, Jim Wong-Chu broke a silence in Canadian literature. This slim volume of poetry was one of the…
Read more #529 Poems & portraits of Chinatown
Graffiti, Canadian Style by Ernest Hekkanen First published in The Ormsby Review, April 9, 2019 * It was twenty years ago, in 1999, that Ernest Hekkanen wrote this diatribe about why Vancouver public art is so godawful, why Canada’s granting agencies can be foolish or corrupt, and why he rejected a contract from a respected…
Read more #527 Canadian graffiti
Growing Up in Wild Horse Canyon by Karen Autio, illustrated by Loraine Kemp Vancouver: Crwth Press, 2018 $25.95 / 9781775331902 Reviewed by Ken Mather * At the heart of Growing up in Wild Horse Canyon is the beautifully illustrated story of the life of a Ponderosa Pine from a seed in the year 1780 to…
Read more #512 A Ponderosa Pine time capsule
Out of the Woods: Woodworkers along the Salish Sea by Pirjo Raits (text) and Dale Roth and Michele Ramberg (photos) Victoria: Heritage House, 2018 $34.95 / 9781772032604 Reviewed by Grahame Ware First published Feb. 3, 2019 * There are trees … which in their single lives have spanned the entire history of civilized man. We…
Read more #477 Art of the forest & turbulent sea
Re-awakening Ancient Salish Sea Basketry: Fifty Years of Basketry Studies in Culture and Science by Ed Carriere and Dale R. Croes Richland, WA: Journal of Northwest Anthropology (JONA), Memoir Number 15, January 2018 $54.95 (U.S.) / 9781973968221 Available from Amazon.com through CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform Reviewed by Andrea Laforet First published Jan. 8, 2019 * In this…
Read more #462 Baskets across the border
Harold Kalman reviews three books: Copp House by Adele Weder, with photography by Michael Perlmutter Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2017 $24.95 (U.S.) / 9781939621887 * Downs House II by Christopher Macdonald, with photography by Michael Perlmutter Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2016 $24.95 (U.S.) / 9781935935285 * Merrick House by Anthony Robins, with photography by Michael…
Read more #457 Long live West Coast Modern
Revolving W and Flying Pigs: A Neon Journal of Vancouver Vintage Cafes and Theatres by Keith McKellar/ Laughing Hand Victoria: BoneYard Ink Books, 2018 $50 / 9781775357704 Orders: direct from author at www.laughinghand.com Reviewed by Grahame Ware First published Dec. 16, 2018 * This publication is an exciting and colourful recasting of Keith McKellar out-of-print,…
Read more #449 Keith McKellar’s Vancouver
Spaces and Places for Art: Making Art Institutions in Western Canada 1912-1990 by Anne Whitelaw Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017 $39.95 / 9780773550322 Reviewed by Martin Segger First published Nov. 16, 2018. * Geography challenges power. Anne Whitelaw has written an impressive geopolitical history of art institutions in western Canada. She demonstrates how…
Read more #425 Let them have art galleries
Ken Foster’s Vancouver: Life, Art and Alleyways by Sean Nosek and Ken Foster Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2018 $49.95 / 9781926991917 Reviewed by Robert Amos First published November 05, 2018 * I like this book. I like the energetic paintings, I like the way the writer presents the artist’s unique life story, and I admire…
Read more #414 Good art & bad habits
Live at the Cellar: Vancouver’s Iconic Jazz Cub and the Canadian Co-operative Jazz Scene in the 1950s and ‘60s by Marian Jago, foreword by Don Thompson Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $29.95 / 9780774837699 Reviewed by Brian Fraser First published November 02, 2018 * Good books on jazz are filled with intriguing stories about the relationships…
Read more #412 Vancouver jazz scene
A Not-so-Savage Land: The Art and Times of Frederick Whymper, 1838-1901 by Peter Johnson, foreword by Robert Amos Victoria: Heritage House, 2018 $24.95 / 9781772032208 Reviewed by Michael Layland First published October 29th, 2018 * The English artist Frederick Whymper (1838-1901) spent the years 1862-66 in colonial Vancouver Island and British Columbia, producing technical and…
Read more #409 With Whymper to the Pacific
Rebel Muse: My Life With Peter Paul Ochs by Monika Ullmann Victoria: ProWord Publishing, 2018 $25.00 / 9780992144937 Reviewed by Grahame Ware First published October 12, 2018 * Editor’s note: In an email to the Ormsby Review, freelance writer and journalist Monika Ullmann recalled that when the new Provincial Museum of British Columbia (now the Royal…
Read more #397 B.C. sculptor lost and found
Out of Concealment: Female Supernatural Beings of Haida Gwaii by gid7ahl-gudsllaay lalaxaaygans (Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson), with forewords by Wade Davis and gwaaganad (Diane Brown) Victoria: Heritage House, 2017 $29.95 / 9781772031607 Reviewed by Gillian Crowther * In Out of Concealment: Female Supernatural Beings of Haida Gwaii, Haida artist and activist Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson encounters 33 supernatural beings of Haida mythology….
Read more #394 Supernatural Haida Columbia
Those Born at Koona: The Totem Poles of the Haida Village Skedans, Haida Gwaii by Carolyn and John Smyly Surrey: Hancock House, 2018 (first published 1973) $29.95 / 9780888391018 Reviewed by Dan Savard First published Sept. 27, 2018 * In 1957, John Smyly (1924-2002) was hired as carpenter by the Provincial Museum of British Columbia…
Read more #385 The carpenter of Koona
Tom Burrows by Scott Watson and Ian Wallace Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2018. Co-published with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery $50.00 / 9781927958889 Reviewed by Robert Amos First published September 11th, 2018 * Born in Ontario in 1940, Tom Burrows moved to Vancouver in 1960 hoping to study medicine, but instead earned a B.A….
Read more #371 Burning down the house
Smith House II by Michael Prokopow, with photography by Michael Perlmutter and a foreword by Douglas Coupland Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2018 $24.95 (U.S.) / 9781940743387 Reviewed by Harold Kalman First published Sept. 2, 2018 * Historian of architecture Hal Kalman appreciates Michael Prokopow’s Smith House II, the biography of a house in West Vancouver designed…
Read more #363 An Erickson-Massey masterpiece
Julia by Michael Kluckner Vancouver: Midtown Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9781988242200 Reviewed by Yvonne Van Ruskenveld * Born into a wealthy manufacturing family in Durham, England, in 1868, and educated there, Julia Henderson came to Canada in 1884 with her sister and brother-in-law. They settled in Montreal, where Julia married broker and merchant Charles Henshaw…
Read more #338 Julia, graphically yours