Category: History & Heritage
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What I See When I See Smiths Falls
This is the first in a series of visual love letters to Smiths Falls, one of my favourite towns. I’m from Vancouver, and while there are great things about the westcoast, I have called rural Ottawa home for the past 20 years. The single best thing I love about living in the east is the riches of… Read more
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Larry’s Christmas Cards
I didn’t so much as meet Larry Racioppo as find him. Home from NYC and working on this piece, I admired his photographic work on the 9/11 Memorial & Museum site and he agreed to lend me an image. Turns out, he’s lived a fascinating life; he’s been a NYC taxi driver in the early 80’s, staff photographer for the… Read more
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The Sham of Highest and Best Use
This triplet of houses in Québec City defies the modern logic of “highest and best use” and its inherent rule of being “maximally productive.” It flaunts every last morsel of economic thought except one: It is a keeper of history, and provides a vital and extraordinary point of interest in the city’s viewscape, arguably contributing to the profits realized by the city’s… Read more
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Capital Building: A View from Washington – Part 3
Click here for Capital Building: A View from Washington – Part 1 Click here for Capital Building: A View from Washington – Part 2 Not Set in Stone: Memorials for the Future The National Park Service (NPS), the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), and Van Alen Institute collaborated on Memorials for the Future, an international ideas competition that took place… Read more
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Capital Building: A View from Washington – Part 2
Click here for Capital Building: A View from Washington – Part 1 Having finally seen Washington, DC for myself this summer, it was great to connect with this presentation by Marcel Acosta, Executive Director of the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), the Federal Planning Agency for America’s Capital. In it he discusses how the city came to be shaped,… Read more
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Capital Building: A View from Washington – Part 1
In spite of the oppressive heat and humidity of August in Washington, D.C., I did what I like to do best: I walked around, looked at things and talked to people. This being my first trip to the capital, I focussed on the National Mall, exploring adjacent neighborhoods, and my relentless pursuit of Guastavino tile. In D.C., security is the conversational opener in the same… Read more
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Alex Janvier at the National Gallery of Canada
Alex Janvier is among the most important figures in the development of contemporary Indigenous art in Canada. This retrospective presents more than 150 works created from 1950 to the present day and recounts the story of a life devoted to art and the re-empowerment of Indigenous cultures. Over a prolific sixty-five-year career Janvier has produced… Read more
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Julia Child Cooks Thanksgiving Dinner
This is Julia’s house. This is Julia’s kitchen. This is Julia cooking thanksgiving dinner with Jacques Pepin circa 1999. In her house. In her kitchen. Wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends. May your year be filled with blessings. Read more
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Manhattan’s Divine Intervention
Unless you leave room for serendipity…how can the divine enter? ~Joseph Campbell A few minutes one way or the other, heading south instead of north, a conversation, a distraction, a photo or lunch. There’s no good reason I stepped into St. Paul’s Chapel at that precise moment and not another. Filled to the brim – standing room only… Read more
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Walking with Our Sisters
Over 1,181 native women and girls in Canada have been reported missing or have been murdered in the last 30 years. Many vanished without a trace, with inadequate inquiry into their disappearance or murders paid by the media, the general public, politicians and even law enforcement. This is a travesty of justice. ~ Walking With Our… Read more