A leap in the void

Got so caught up with photography that I had to put writing aside for a while. Wondering whether my multitasking abilities are weakening. Or maybe I just can't take more than one leap at a time when facing the void. According to this quote which a friend recently read to me from Anne Bogart's book, A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre, "Every creative act involves a leap in the void."

I took a wild leap with Canadian Men Revealed and I'm relieved the landing wasn't that hard. I landed on a cloud, perhaps a bumpy one, but I'm still floating with the positive feedback while learning a lot about what I could improve. Now that I'm back to writing, I feel as if I'm ready to jump from a plane, parachute attached, knees wobbly, mind vacillating from fear of falling and thrill of flying. I'm still standing there looking down. I need a gentle push. Aaaaaahhhhhh h h h h ...

Thanks, thanks, thanks

Thank you to the 80 to 100 guests who came to the opening of my photo exhibition Canadian Men Revealed. Thank you for your warmth, your support, and your encouragement. It was wonderful to see smiles on everybody's face, and then their deep concentration as they went through each photo to guess the right profession and ethnic/cultural background. And it was so much fun to hear the light-hearted exchange of information between guests. The hors-d'oeuvres were delicious, especially the crispy, melt-in-your-mouth, noodle-wrapped shrimp. Thanks to Tony Merante and the terrific staff at Regal Heights Bistro.

A special thanks to Terry Fallis for coming to the show opening despite his busy schedule and the euphoria of winning the Stephen Leacock Medal for his self published book The Best Laid Plans. For more info, check his blog.

For those who could not make it to the opening, the show is on until May 31st. Please, drop by Regal Heights Bistro, 1079 Lauder Ave.. Hours: Tues-Fri 5:00 pm-11:00 pm/close, Sat & Sun 11:00 am-11:00 pm/close, Monday closed.

Canadian Men Revealed

Who is the Canadian man? Without the trappings that mark his station in life, can you tell the firefighter from the architect? Is his ethnicity skin deep? Peggy Lampotang presents portraits of men without their shirts. She invites us to look past his clothes, past his skin, to guess his profession and ethnic background in this suggestive documentation which attempts to reveal his special place in our history. Best guesses win prizes.

Photography by Peggy Lampotang
Exhibition: May 1 - 31, 2008
Regal Heights Bistro
1079 St. Clair Avenue West at Lauder, Toronto
Tel: 416-651-2109

Opening Reception: Saturday May 3rd, 3:30 -6:30 pm

This exhibition is part of Contact Photography Festival


Note: During my last photo exhibition (August 21/06 posting), a few friends from my karate club said, "What about photos of me?" How could I resist such an offer? I admire beauty in nature, every form of it, and people have always been one of my main interests. But I wanted to go past physical beauty and explore other elements, like how do we define the Canadian man? This is an invitation to view the results, have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, and lots of fun with the guessing challenge.

Anatomy of Love

I'm reading Anatomy of Love by Helen Fisher. It's fascinating, the numerous researches that have been done in the name of love. From Jean Henri Fabre's experiment with the female moth's "invisible secretion from her distended abdomen – a 'pheromone', the smell of which had attracted suitors from a mile across the countryside" to a study of how "we feel infatuation when neurons in the limbic system, or emotional core, become saturated or sensitized by PEA (phenylethylamine, a substance in the brain that causes feelings of elation, exhilaration, and euphoria) and/or other brain chemicals."

It's riveting to have love dissected and explained in scientific terms. It grounds us into reality, shakes up our romantic fantasy. Not that I'm now inclined to say, "The neurons in my limbic system are saturated by chemical reactions to your presence." Even though I don't agree with all her theories, it's certainly thought-provoking, Helen Fisher's conviction that love among couples lasts about four years, the time it takes to raise infants, then boredom settles and the search for another partner starts again - all this based on the premise that we still carry in us primitive, cavemen-type instincts when searching for love, or to put it more bluntly, a mate: woman looking for security, and man looking for fertile womb to bear children.

Taking or leaving what suits you, this book does offer some insights. It helps put some order and perspective if you're struggling to understand complicated emotions about love. It attempts to explain Blaise Pascal's saying: "Le coeur as ses raisons que la raison ne connait point." - The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of. It's wonderful to be enlightened by all that scientific stuff, but I still find the poetry and mystery of love more alluring.

Happy Chinese New Year

Today there's a new moon. It's the first day of Chinese New Year. Just like the first day of January, Toronto is covered in snow. Every rooftop, tree, sidewalk is white, a smooth white that leaves one breathless. By the end of the day, there is a white mist hovering over the city, giving it a sad, romantic look as if couples should hug and kiss in this white landscape to complete a perfect picture.

I haven't done anything to celebrate the new moon. I've lost the little bit of Chinese culture that my parents tried to teach me. This is perhaps the casualty of generations immigrating and immersing in new cultures. Or perhaps the melding of an increasingly global society. I feel as if I don't belong anywhere and yet I belong everywhere. Toronto has that ability to make you feel that way, with its multicultural mosaic, its openness and acceptance, the way everybody seems to have a connection to another country whether it's Ireland, Israel, or India.

I still have the evening left to celebrate Chinese New Year. This is what I will do: I will make some Chinese rice crackers for my children. And I will dance and sing love songs to the moon.

The family

I'm reading Don DeLillo's book, White Noise, and love his writing, the way he describes people, events, thoughts, with original imagery while always digging deeper at the meaning of everything in life. I'm quoting a few words he puts in the mouth of a professor who spews out ideas continuously, and reminds me of manic, neurotic Woody Allen.

"The family process works toward sealing off the world. Small errors grow heads, fiction proliferate … Not to know is a weapon of survival ... Magic and supersitition become entrenched as the powerful orthodoxy of the clan. The family is strongest where objective reality is most likely to be misinterpreted." Don DeLillo - White Noise

I see an element of lucidity in this comment which at first seems distorted. It makes one certainly ponder about the family unit, about how it's gong to survive in this century. It's already moved from the extended to the nuclear family. And now we hear of families as dysfunctional, and divorcing, splitting into even smaller units while raising children in a creative array of domestic combinations. Does the strong family unit really create its own limited world, and promote ignorance to survive in this increasingly knowledge-bound world? I think it's a bit over-simplified but there's something there worth thinking about.

Wishing you a great holiday

It's upon us already, the holiday rush. I'm not complaining. I love parties, catching up with family and friends, and the overall warmth and good feelings that spread through year-end celebrations.

Last week, I went to Scratch Gallery's and Laluque Atelier's show openings, and was totally inspired by the talented artists' knitted shawls, hats, jewellery, hand-painted t-shirts, ceramics, fibre art and paintings. Great places to buy presents.

Pamela de St. Antoine, a friend who lives in Washington, and writes for the Mauritian newspaper, Week-End, sent me an article she wrote about the Broadway play, Mauritius. It's cool to have the island where I was born featured in a Broadway play even though the play is really more about Mauritius' valuable stamps. You can read Pamela's article here.

Doesn't it feel as if millions of things keep charging at us before we can relax and enjoy the holidays? Hope you're having fun and not letting the shopping madness get to you. Wishing you all a wonderful time with family and friends and all the best for 2008.

Contre vents, marées et étoiles

".. nul ne t'a fait évader et tu n'en es point responsable. Tu as construit ta paix à force d'aveugler de ciment, comme le font les termites, toutes les échappées vers la lumière. Tu t'es roulé en boule dans ta sécurité bourgeoise, tes routines, les rites étouffants de ta vie provinciale, tu as élevé cet humble rempart contre les vents et les marées et les étoiles. Tu ne veux point t'inquiéter des grands problèmes, tu as eu bien assez de mal à oublier ta condition d'homme."

Terre des hommes - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"... no one has helped you to escape, and you're not responsible for this. You found your own peace by blinding with cement every crevice that opened to the light, just like termites do. You rolled yourself into middle-class security, routines, the suffocating rites of provincial life, you set up a humble wall against winds, tides and stars. You don't want to think of larger problems, you find it hard enough to forget your condition."

I'm dedicating this translation to a friend who once quoted this passage to me because it described so well how he felt about his life. I could not comprehend why he let his talents go to waste, and tried to revive the artist in him. But I went about it with too much enthusiasm, and shook up too many things that were deeply buried for too long. He has withdrawn into his own world. Friendships are so fragile at times. It is especially sad for me to lose the connection with a friend who shared such similar artistic affinities. But I've learned to let things be because happiness is a constantly evolving state, and he made his choices accordingly, to find his own peace. I wish him the best.

A weekend at Judy's farm

We trekked, prowled through acres of farmland
past stretches of pasture, into the forest,
marvelled at the moss, and quartz, granite
scattered among fallen leaves, then went down
towards the lake, watched seagulls fly.
In the woodstove, flames crackled and danced,
I'm your man, Leonard claimed, so we pranced,
feet moved, arms stretched, hips followed,
minds roamed for comfort, dreams unfulfilled
resurfaced, stirred the rawness of untouched land.
The night was black but when we looked up,
stars glittered, sequins on a swath of velvet sky
in the distance, the eerie hoot of an owl,
a still silence, no neighbours, the city so far
a conditioned presence coated with fear.
I woke up to an orange glow by the window
the morning sun stroking the farm.
Cayotes howled, breaking the calm of dawn
but the light called, pulled me from bed,
and out in the cold I strolled.

Memories and losses

October has been a busy month. I've been painting silk scarves for stores for Christmas. It was wonderful to be in Montreal last weekend, to indulge in the joie de vivre of a city that makes fun a priority. Strolls through McGill's campus, and Vieux Montréal, delicous dinners around lively Rues St. Denis and Duluth, martinis at Maison du Jazz listening to Michelle Sweeney's soulful voice, and even late night dancing.

But on coming back, sad news: A friend's mother as well as a friend in his early fifties passed away. I was sad for my friend's mother but even sadder for the friend I knew as a teenager. Memories unfurled as if from a reel that had been long forgotten. He was kind, self-effacing, a good listener, always ready to help. I remember getting a ride from him on his mobilette, carefree, hair blowing in the wind, zipping towards the beach to meet our group of friends. After losing touch for a long time, I met him and his wife this year when I went to Mauritius. He was an accountant with a soft heart, unable to take money from friends he knew couldn't afford it. It's hard to accept that his life has been cut short so suddenly, to imagine his wife and children's searing loss.

"Le souvenir, c'est la présence invisible." Victor Hugo
Memory is an invisible presence













A lone seagull at Place des Arts, Montreal

Friends

Isn't life beautiful? A few days ago, it was grey but when my friend Judy phoned, everything suddenly brightened. We walked down the damp street for a cappuccino at a café and on the way there, livened up the sidewalk discussing how we can deal with piranhas by shaking them roughly off our legs. And at Nuit Blanche on Saturday night, Suzanne and I joined the carefree atmosphere, meandered through crowded streets, a sense of adventure and wonder keeping us alert and hopping from alien crash site to haunted house. And for my show's opening reception, all these wonderful friends, so ready to share a good laugh, a kind thought. Friends are such great blessings.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
Anais Nin

Toronto Upstairs

An invitation from Sidespace Gallery for Toronto Upstairs, a show I'm also taking part in.

Photo & Writing © Schuster Gindin

September 20 – October 25, 2007

Opening Reception Thursday, Sept. 20, 7 – 9 pm

Up here along the Davenport ridge, our topography is unique. We are Toronto's upstairs.

Davenport Road was originally a pathway formed along the shoreline of Lake Iroquois which began to recede 12,000 years ago. Along this, the oldest pedestrian route in the city, several little-known staircases take us up to the residential neighbourhoods adjacent to St. Clair Ave. Climb the steps at Glenholme, Via Italia, Hillcrest Park, Earlscourt Park or Spadina. At the top, turn around and you can see across the whole downtown and city skyline, built on the ancient seabed, to Lake Ontario. These public access points along this high escarpment allow all of us to savour our location.

Our stairways link up and down in the city. They afford pedestrians a ceremonial sense of arrival as we surmount the steps, and of immersion as we descend.

In Toronto Upstairs, thirteen artists will explore the staircases leading up from Davenport Road as transitional space, and contemplate and express the upness of here.

1080 St. Clair Ave. W. www.sidespacegallery.com

Feminine Mystique

Feminine Mystique

A study of women in watercolors, sketches and photographs
by Peggy Lampotang

September 27 to November 30, 2007

Join us for opening reception: Thursday, September 27, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Regal Heights Bistro, 1079 St. Clair Ave West at Lauder

Paris

We rented an apartment in Paris for a week. It was a few minutes walk from the Latin quarter and we hung out there a lot, in the cafés, bistros, bookstores, by the bouquinistes along La Seine. Paris is the kind of place where you can let your feet guide you and no matter where you are, history pulls you in. Here, in front of Victor Hugo's house, there, the hotel where Oscar Wilde died. You let yourself drift and a delicious surprise welcomes you at every corner. One day, as we strolled behind Notre Dame, we heard the plaintive notes of a saxophone. A band was setting up. A dark man with a Tati bag stopped, a grey-haired couple, holding hands, took tiny steps towards a bench, a young woman slowed down and wrapped her boyfriend's arm around her waist. They all silently moved closer. I leaned against a tree and watched the theatre of life unfold. A quiver of an eyebrow. A bent head. A humming. A tap of the feet. A caress. A sigh. The rhythm, at times fitful, at times melancholic, reached deep within the private drama of each spectator. The musicians felt the connection, and rode on its wave. That's what I love most about Paris, those little incidents of spontaneous connections.

The true voyage

Le véritable voyage de découverte ne consiste pas à chercher de nouveaux paysages, mais à avoir de nouveaux yeux.

Marcel Proust

The true voyage of discovery is not to seek new lands but to see with new eyes.

Heaven and Earth

In your own bosom you bear your heaven and earth and all you behold; though it appears without, it is within.

William Blake

So many things to do

So many things to do and so little time. At the insistence of Tony Bolla, a man dedicated to bringing his community together, I've written articles about art exhibitions and artists on mystclair.com, a website that Tony created to inform residents about events, restaurants, businesses, artists, etc. in their neighbourhood.

I wish I could stretch time, wish it were sort of elasticized. As an advocate of renewable energy, I volunteered in a committee that plans to install solar sculptures on a small stretch of St.Clair Ave. West. I'm still somewhat involved with WISE (West Toronto Initiative for Solar Energy). If you want to use solar energy to reduce your household's dependency on air-polluting, coal-fired plants, check this site. It's such a thrill to see communities eager to clean the earth. We are so bombarded with news of wars, terrorism, murders, incurable diseases, decadent greed etc., that the future seems doomed, eager to self-destruct. And I despair when problems are not dealt with at the roots but with the bureaucratic superficiality of let's-spend-a-few-millions-on-research to-confirm-what-the-problem-is, or let's-throw-a-pile-of-money-in-this-project-to-calm-people-down, or other inefficient initiatives geared towards political and financial gains rather than the well-being of people and the earth we live on. Fortunately, human nature comes with built-in optimism, and rather than dwell on the depressive state of things over which we're helpless, we do take steps to change things and make the world seem wonderful again. Finding time to dedicate to one's beliefs is the challenge.

I'm trying to stretch time while working on an exciting photo project, writing short stories, painting on paper rather than silk. But summer is clamouring for attention, from neighbourhood street party to rampant garden screaming to be tended, not to mention the lure of coffee breaks and lunches on sidewalk cafés with the sun winking through leafy greens. And, yes, the kids are out of school, and the gravitational pull of motherly love makes me feel like those rock debris that form a ring as they madly circle certain planets. And those are just a few reasons why I can't keep up with this blog.

Peonies from my garden. A great summer to all!

Trouver du nouveau

"Nous voulons, tant ce feu nous brûle le cerveau,
Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe?
Au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau!"

Les Fleurs du Mal - Charles Baudelaire

Such a fire burns our brain,
we want to plunge in an abyss,
who cares if it's heaven or hell,
in deep unknown to find the new.

Luminato

We took the Art Boat from Harbourfront to the Distillery District. In the middle of the lower deck, an artist was painting a dark landscape on a canvas larger than herself. There was a light breeze, enough to let your hair blow in the wind and feel carefree. A singer crooned Moon River. The woman in the photo mimed and coaxed us into dancing. When we docked. large shipping containers were lined on arid brown soil, against a backdrop of grey steel and asphalt. Upon closer inspection, each ribbed-metal container was the size of a small room, and displayed creative videos, sculptures with fluorescent lights, and other multimedia artwork. We crossed the highway, and walked under the bridge towards the Distillery. The huge brick buildings, where whiskey was distilled in the 1860's, have kept their ancient allure. History reverberates thoughout. It is almost palpable when the soles of your shoes adjust to the uneven contours of cobblestones, and you slow down as if moving back in time. A whiff of old Montreal. Jazz bands and singers, scattered around the site, filled the air with wistful melodies. The crowd milled about happily. It was fantastic to see creativity, in all its forms, accessible to a larger public. Food for the soul.

A friend had an extra ticket to see Gore Vidal interviewed by Adam Gopnik at the Elgin, so I tagged along. Toronto seems starved for culture during Luminato events. The line up to see this writer was so long that it wrapped around the block. Mr. Vidal was on a wheelchair but it didn't stop him from being his witty, perspicacious, arrogant yet self-deprecating, gossipy and opinionated self. It's interesting to hear him talk about U.S., his own country as being a liar that always acts in bad faith and hides behind a cloak of invisibility. And he calls Canada, Lady of the Snows ...

Quantum Healing

I'm reading Deepak Chopra's book about healing the body through the mind. It's really neat to speculate on the intricate power of the brain. I'm not the science oriented type, but somehow this book makes synapses and dendrites seem like little friendly guys roaming in one's head. I like his simple descriptions, like this one, "The material body is a river of atoms, the mind is a river of thought, and what holds them together is a river of intelligence." What Mr. Chopra is trying to prove, taking into consideration the fact that 2% of terminal cancer and aids patients have been able to defy science with miraculous, spontaneous remissions, is that we all have in us the power to cure our sickness, but we don't know how to access the intelligence which guides that power because science sees the mind and the body as separate when it comes to healing. I've been thinking a lot about the mind's healing power lately as I know so many people with cancer, some very close to me. I have a hard time believing that we can cure ourselves of cancer without medical intervention, by just empowering our intelligence to pass the right messages to our cells. But I do think that those who believe in the ability of the mind to heal are more empowered and positive in the way they deal with cancer. And who knows, maybe those positive vibes do stop the cancer from spreading further.
















Art Moderne at The Carlu, College Park


On a brighter note, Toronto is bustling with activity. Doors open was fun. Last weekend, Suzanne, Yolande and I felt like tourists in our own city. Suddenly the sculptural details at the top of College Park were more visible, and the limestone carvings on the Legislative Building at Queen's Park were precious works of art previously ignored. The Luminato Festival, a celebration of arts and creativity, covering everything from film, dance, music to literature, is on from June 1 -10.























Legislative Building, Queen's Park