Alex Colville's Family Gift

Alex Colville's daughter, Ann Kitz, in front of the restored mural called Athletes, in the Colville Gallery in Owens Art Gallery. (Owens Art Gallery)

Alex Colville is an artist I've long admired. This morning I heard that his studio is about to be recreated and displayed on site in the Colville House on the Mount Allison University campus, thanks to the generous gift from his family. I was very excited to hear this news.

This CBC article describes all the details, and the permanent exhibit will be on display July 2017. I can hardly wait to visit Alex Colville's studio space!

Alex Colville, in his Sackville home in 1961. (Owens Art Gallery)

Alex Colville - 110 Paintings

Seven Crows - Alex Colville

This Alex Colville painting is my absolute favourite of his. Perhaps because it embodies Nova Scotia to me, and where I live on the edge of a tidal river, were the sea marsh lies, and the crows fly. It is a scene I see from my studio window everyday.

This morning I was looking very forward to, and excited about listening to the Sunday Edition with Michael Enright, because of the interview and walk through tour he was going to have with Matthew Teitelbaum, the Curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The very special exhibit at the AGO, is the biggest collection of 110 Alex Colville's paintings.

The interview and Matthew Teitelbaum's talk certainly did not disappoint. It was excellent, and I hope you will take the time to listen.  http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/The+Sunday+Edition/ID/2530851581/

" Testaments of Honour "

Last night I was invited out for supper at my artist friend's house and joined a group of lively individuals with good discussion, great food, candle light and a warm wood fire. I felt very grateful and happy.

Being Remembrance day tomorrow, I've been thinking a great deal about war, veterans, soldiers and peace, over the past few weeks leading up to this time.
 After supper we were talking about Alex Colville, and the effect his war experience had on him personally, and on his art work and practice.

I had mentioned to my friend how Alex Colville had donated the gift of his silk screened renderings to the Owens Gallery at Mount Allison University, not long before he'd died, where he had once been an art student and a teacher.

We talked at length, and then she brought out a printed excerpt from the book, " Testaments of Honour ". This book by Blake Heathcote is a compilation of personal histories of Canadian war veterans.
In this print out, was Alex Colville's personal testament, which my friend lent me to read. He had served in the Royal Canadian Engineers Regiment in North Western Europe, as a war artist, during the Second World War.

 I had more of an in depth perception of who Alex Colville was, upon reading about his own insightful thoughts, and experience of the war, how this shaped who he was as a person, and an artist.

Alex Colville's Gift

I was unable to attend this special event last Saturday evening at my Alma Mater, Mount Allison University. This was on CBC TV and I wanted to share it. Very exciting and a wonderful gift! Thank you Mr. Colville for your work and for your life!

Alex Colville-Being and Time-A Free Man

As I listened to the radio morning news yesterday, I felt a sudden jolt of shock, and sadness to hear announced, that Canadian artist, Alex Colville had died. His death caused me to think why I would be surprised, as he was 92 years of age. But I realize in our death denying culture, human beings are often tempted to engage in a kind of magical thinking. We expect some how, some way, that those we love, will live forever, and often we do not want to face our own death. Even if we do not deny the reality of death, it is always difficult to accept. We all experience loss differently, and cope with varying degrees of acceptance, and ways of grieving, often being unprepared.

It is my belief that Alex Colville had a wise insight into knowing how to seize, and appreciate life with integrity, in the present moment, that seems to resonate through his painting, with himself as observer.
Listening to him in interviews, and what has been said about him by others who knew him, one gets the impression he was a gentle, humble, and very grateful man, for everything in his life, particularly his family, and his life as a artist.

In an interview Alex Colville gave CBC Radio in 2005, at the age of eighty three, his philosophy, and unassuming nature is evident. As well a more indepth interview was the CBC Sunday Edition, by Michael Enright.
The 1987 issue of Canadian Art magazine from the archives, there is a very comprehensive, well written article, by Hans Werner, who gave a wonderful poignant glimpse into understanding Alex Colville, the artist, and the man. There is much wisdom to be gleaned form this gifted, and insightful Canadian painter.

I am proud, and grateful to know Alex Colville and I share the same Alma Mater,  part of the Mount Allison University family, and I am very privileged to have been a Bachelor of Fine Art student, involved in it's wonderful Fine Art Department, in Sackville, New Brunswick. I am sorry I never had the privilege of meeting such a mentor, and benevolent human being, that has left a great legacy, who had the courage to truly be a free man.

Mary Pratt - The Love of the Simple Things

While slothfully lying in bed as I often do Sunday mornings, my ears were glued to the radio listening to a CBC inteview with Canadian artist, Mary Pratt. I don't know when it was I first became familiar with her work, but I know when I first heard her speak, I felt so much affection for her, because she has one of those infectious personalities that makes you feel like you know this person, as a friend. Every time I'd hear her I'd feel more this way, and this morning it was no different. Her wit, humble nature, and talent is so wonderful to me, which causes me to long for the chance to meet her one day.

What struck me most about what she said, was her attitude toward loving and appreciating the simple things around us in our everyday lives. It made me think once again about simplicity, which has been on my mind a lot lately.

This is one of Mary Pratt's realistic renderings. Just amazing how beautifully and skillfully she captures the light and colour.

A close and long time friend of mine just sent me  one of Anne Lamott's recent books entitled, Help. Thanks .Wow. The Three Essential Prayers. Anne Lamott is one of my very favourite non-fiction authors, because she makes the simple deeply meaningful, with a real honest attitude and she has great sense of humour and humanity, as does Mary Pratt, who depicts her subject matter, as being what the stuff of every day life is made up of.

As I age, I increasingly realize as time passes, how important it is to keep it simple, to find love, pleasure, and gratitude in the present moment. Finding happiness and contentment wherever you find yourself, and to grow, flourish and even thrive where you are planted.

Our lives in this world can be, and have become complicated in so many ways. We are either regreting the past or projecting into the future. We say I'd be happy if, or I'll be happy when, always looking outside of ourselves in search of that elusive happy state of mind.
Striving to capture and hold that present moment in time, or having a mindfulness with appreciation, relishing every bit of happiness with what we have, and being grateful to be able to do this, is what brings me happiness.

My day wasn't completely slothful. I had a simply enjoyable afternoon of making more rope baskets sitting on the front porch is the sunshine. Here's what I been making this week and into the weekend.

Who Is Rhoda Colville?

Today, on the news I heard, Rhoda Valentine (nee Wright) Colville, died at the age of  91 years, on December 29th, 2012. She was a talented artist and poet, wife of renowned Canadian painter, Alex Colville, his muse, and subject of many of his paintings.

 
Looking at Alex's paintings of Rhoda, I always sensed he was very much in love with her. They were a handsome couple indeed.

My years of attending many Art History seminars, and learning about numerous artists, has been a great education. What was and is often, more interesting and compelling to me, is the many women artists, the wives of those male artists, who unfortunately in most instances, there is little to nothing known or even mentioned  about these talented women artists, their lives and the art they made. Many women artists seemed to live in the shadow of their husband's careers, due to the cultural mores of the generation and times. Fortunately times have changed however you still have to dig for historical information regarding women artists.

I searched for information on line about Rhoda Colville. I found some basic facts, and mention of her talent as an artist and poet. She attended Mount Allison University, where she met Alex Colville. They were in the same fine art class. She wrote a booklet of poems entitled, Rhymes For Alex, dedicated to her husband.

I found this fine and lovely photo of Rhoda and Alex Colville  in Wolfville home, taken by artist, Tim Lowly. They both look very happy and of this I am certain they must have been, after seventy years of marriage. In this soon to be New Year of 2013, it is a rare and beautiful thing to see  love like this between two people. Here's to Rhoda and Alex, and creative love. Long may it live.

“I do have a fear of chaos and a strong sense of the fragility of civilization.” - Alex Colville

In one of my recent Canadian Art History classes, we were covering the work of Alex Colville, and we were asked if we liked his work. One of the class members was very emphatic that they did not like his work stating it was even rather misogynistic and another adjective that was very critical that has escaped my memory right now. I will have to refer to my Professor and ask her, and update this blog entry in order to address the criticism. I expressed that I loved his work as a matter of fact I greatly admire it and am thrilled to know that he once studied at Mount Allison and taught painting. It makes me wish I had known him I would love to have been a student of his.

I may be mistaken but I think some subjectively and reactionarily judge artists like Alex Colville based on misconception or misunderstanding or simply because they don't think the tradition of what has gone before within the art world is important to their own practice.

I am very interested in egg tempera, which is the medium Alex Colville often worked with to produce his paintings. I remember the first time I actually saw one of his paintings, Seven Crows, at the Owens Gallery. I was awe stuck, because it was a scene very Maritime to me, where I live, in the place I love . I felt it was almost a spiritual experience. Perhaps this was the magical realism I was experiencing, the term that is often used to describe Colville quality of style. There is a timelessness and atmospheric essence in this painting, and in others I have seen, simultaneously one is acutely aware that time and life pass. All the more reason to savor the present moment and to be live life in a mindful way.

Egg Tempera - a slow process - Alex Colville Transcript
I wanted to be able to work for a long time on one image, that I couldn’t achieve the kind of thing I hoped to achieve in a short time. This is a kind of limitation in the …you know a great Chinese painter of the great period does something and it’s done, it may be done in a matter of minutes actually and it may, he may do, you know, thirty of them and one of them seems perfect. It’s a kind of gestural thing, it’s more in a sense like dancing or something in a way. My stuff, it’s a much more plodding procedure. Incidentally I should just mention extremely boring to watch, you know, that is a person would be just bored to death if they could watch me work. Far from it being interesting or exciting as some people think.