Swan Song by Sonja Ahlers Wolfville, NS: Conundrum Press, 2021 $20.00 / 9781772620627 Reviewed by Jeff Stychin * Sonja Ahlers’ Swan Song makes me wonder if we’re taking full advantage of the written discourse we use daily to communicate. Ahlers seems to have found an improved precept in which the form of the page becomes…
Read more 1508 Panels and palindromes
Bog Treasure by Eileen Casey and Jeanne Cannizzo Dublin: Arlen House, 2022, distributed by Syracuse University Press $19.95 / 9781851322695 Reviewed by Jane Frankish * Editor’s note: readers might also like to hear Eileen Casey read a selection of her bog poems in Treasure, a short film commissioned by Offaly Arts for Culture Night, 2021,…
Read more 1493 Holding fast
Mother, the Verb, Swan Sister Treasure Book by Linda Rogers and friends Victoria: FriesenPress, 2022 $25.00 / 9781039124530 Reviewed Cathy Ford * Upon a time (note dear reader, not “once”), there arrived a beautifully dense green book on my desk. For me, it arrived just in time. As said more often than anyone ever wanted…
Read more 1470 Piecework and peace work
Occupying Chinatown by Paul Wong Vancouver: On Main Gallery, 2021 $80.00 / 9780969477778 Reviewed by May Q Wong * In this limited-edition clothbound book, the reader will share a personal journey with world-renowned artist Paul Wong, who pays homage to his mother and family, and by extension, the early Chinese immigrants who established Vancouver’s Chinatown….
Read more 1464 Chinatown settlers and letters
Art Exhibit Review: RABBIT LANE: DOUGLAS COUPLAND At the West Vancouver Art Museum, March 30-May 28, 2022, open Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Reviewed by Heidi Greco * Between March 30 and May 28, 2022, the West Vancouver Art Museum is hosting an exhibit of photographs, RABBIT LANE: DOUGLAS COUPLAND. Heidi Greco, on behalf of The…
Read more 1459 Rabbit Lane: Douglas Coupland
Bill Holm (1925-2020) An obituary by Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa * Think of a slow, gentle, deep-water earthquake. You may have missed it, but think how its waves reverberate for a long long time, repeatedly coming ashore and changing entire landscapes over time. That was American art historian Bill Holm. Bill Holm died in December 2020 at…
Read more 1438 Bill Holm (1925-2020)
Hampton Court: A History by Allen Specht Victoria: Privately Published, 2021 $15.00 / 9781778350450 Available at Books & Shenanigans (347 Cook Street) and Ivy’s Bookshop on Oak Bay Avenue, Victoria, or by contacting the author at <awspecht2@gmail.com> Reviewed by Martin Segger * The domestic arrangements that distinguish a ménage à trois from a ménage à deux…
Read more 1429 A fine Edwardian melodrama
Luminous: An Artist’s Guide to Radical Creativity by Linda Frimer Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2022 $39.95 / 9781989467220 Reviewed by Michael Kluckner * Linda Frimer’s Luminous is a complex and intriguing work that mixes memoir, spiritualism, and meditations on art and colour with reflections on Judaism and her own family’s roots through generations going back…
Read more 1427 An artistic and spiritual journey
The Atheneum by Trevor Newland Vancouver: Simply Read Books, 2021 $23.95 / 9781772290622 Reviewed by Peter Babiak * Whenever I’ve had the pleasure of teaching Children’s or Young Adult Literature, or even Graphic Novels, I’ve suspected that some students think the readings will be quick and easy, and that the critical thinking they’re called to…
Read more 1426 Farewell to the silent past
PHOTO ESSAY: Trevor Martin: Vancouver photographer by Bill Paul * Originally from Cornwall, England, Trevor Martin started taking photographs there in 1960 before coming to Canada in 1969. He is known for his images of Vancouver, the Canadian Prairies, the American Southwest, England, Paris, Rome, and Sicily. Here, Bill Paul shares a small sample of…
Read more 1412 Trevor Martin’s Vancouver
Pizza Punks Collection by Cole Pauls Wolfville, NS: Conundrum Press, 2021 $15.00 / 9781772620535 Reviewed by Jeff Stychin * I’m sure most reading this can remember a time when skateboarding and the punk rock attitude went together like ham on rye. Cole Pauls’ Pizza Punks Collection grabs at your desire for excitement and fun while…
Read more 1401 Vancouver’s pizza punks
Sea Salt, Lizards and Clay: My Ceramics from the Mediterranean to the Rockies by Santo Mignosa, with a foreword by Debra Sloan Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2021 $25.95 / 9781989467329 Reviewed by LiLynn Wan * Sea Salt, Lizards and Clay is both a memoir as well as an oeuvre of Santo Mignosa’s seven decades (and…
Read more 1387 Santo Mignosa & BC ceramics
So Much More Than Art: Indigenous Miniatures of the Pacific Northwest by Jack Davy Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021 $89.95 / 9780774866552 Reviewed by Alan L. Hoover * In this book Jack Davy discusses the making of miniature objects: model canoes, houses, totem poles, masks, by First Nations artists on the Northwest Coast of BC, Alaska,…
Read more 1334 In praise of the miniature
Things We Could Design: For More Than Human-Centered Worlds by Ron Wakkary Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (The MIT Press), 2021 $47.00 / 9780262542999 Reviewed by Thomas Girard * Ron Wakkary’s Things We Could Design: For More Than Human-Centered Worlds is a delightful book that brings us into an important conversation taking place in Vancouver,…
Read more 1333 Deep, beautiful, and a little quirky
The World According to Dogs: An Owner’s Manual by Adrian Raeside Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $14.95 / 9781550179699 Reviewed by Valerie Green * The World According to Dogs is a delightful book written in the words of a dog (aka Adrian Raeside) and is coupled with Raeside’s inimitable cartoons. I guarantee that this book…
Read more 1322 Our furry companions
One Man in His Time… A Memoir by Michael Audain Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2021 $36.95 / 9781771623001 Reviewed by Maria Tippett * No conventional memoir, One Man in his time. . . allows Michael Audain to roll out his life story in a randomly selected collection of “tales” and “anecdotes” that resemble fireside…
Read more 1275 The making of an art collector
Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto, illustrated by Ann Xu New York: First Second Books (Macmillan), 2021. Distributed by Raincoast Books. Please order from your local independent bookstore $24.99 (U.S.) / 9781626723566 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * Vancouver poet and novelist Hiromi-Goto’s graphic novel Shadow Life, brilliantly illustrated by Ann Xu, is a vollendungsroman, a story…
Read more 1253 Running away in old age
Unsettling Native Art Histories on the Northwest Coast by Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse and Aldona Jonaitis (editors) Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020 $39.95 (U.S.) / 9780295747132 Reviewed by Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa * A few years ago, a First Nations man told me a story of two masks. The original, held in a museum, had been lent to…
Read more 1238 Decolonizing Northwest Coast art
Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment by Sarah Milroy (editor) Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2021, in collaboration with The McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario $60.00 / 9781773271194 Reviewed by Maria Tippett * Today, we all accept that historically Canadian female artists were excluded from major exhibitions and art societies, given little financial support…
Read more 1232 Unwelcome in the academy
Tower 25: Strung out, homeless, and standing up again; a graphic memoir by PJ Patten Vancouver: Cloudscape Comics Society, 2020 $20.00 / 9781927742174 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * How does an artist draw a shiver? Behold the cover of PJ Patten’s first graphic novel. The central figure is almost all sharp edges, except for the…
Read more 1225 Stand up, take stock, get traction