In light of the recent trend for consuming locally, St. Norbert Farmer's Market, is one of the first enterprises to promote this practice. Manitoba farmers, from St. Adolphe to Killarney, have been baking and crafting wares to sell here every Saturday for 22 years. When we arrive, we see everything from hand-made soaps, to jewellery, to peanut butter, to toys; and creators are on hand to speak about their crafts. Naturally, local produce is the focus of this market, with everything from beets to potatoes to grain on sale, many organically cultivated.
Paul and Catherine get in cues to snap up vegetables and beef for the barbecue they are hosting this evening, while Christine, Rob, Greg, and I enjoy the energetic, friendly vibe and warm sunshine. Greg and I take in the replica of a homestead set up on the market grounds, while Christine and Rob review the crafts for sale. Instead of being kitschy, the goods are notably sophisticated. I particularly appreciate the work of a local jewellery designer who uses semi-precious stones in wonderfully original ways and who would likely garner demand for her work in more urban settings.
Though not parallel, the designer and her jewelery remind me of my own experiences in selling wares. In the late 90s, having made the decision to design and make clothing full time, I take the opportunity for a paid-for trip to Montreal, to peddle samples of my collection. In retrospect, I had no idea what I was doing, merely relying on instinct, hoping an enlightened boutique owner or manager would take a sufficient enough interest in my work to place an order. Having been to Montreal many times before, I am familiar with the various shopping districts and choose St. Denis Street for its boutiques that carry adequately "directional" clothing designs that still reflect a certain timelessness, like my own.
The chosen day is hot and humid. Undeterred, I put on my best silk shirt and cotton pants - both in light shades of sand to fend off the hot sun - and sling the nylon garment bag filled with its precious products over my shoulder. I start at the southern end of the long street, at the corner of St. Denis and Sherbrooke. Feeling that this is where the more receptive portion of the street began, I feel no particular need to start further down, my merchandise not likely to appeal to tatoo parlour artists or Dollar Store managers.
For the next four hours, I make "cold calls" - unsolicited visits for the purpose of promoting and selling - to various boutiques whose merchandise I feel are compatible with my own work. I make small talk with perfunctorily friendly sales staff, and talk fashion with imperious owners. Consistently, they allow me to linger and chat, only to tell me, after half an hour, that they do not deal directly with designers. What I hope is a journey of design discovery is turning out to be an ordeal: "Desole. We only buy from wholesalers. Try next door."; "J'aime beaucoup les couleurs. But blue is what we are selling this season."; "Quel belle decolletage, mais pas pour l'hiver!" Quel horreur! Did Armani have to go through this!?
The go-sees turn out not to be too bad an experience, though; hours later, I have business cards from two separate boutique proprietors, both proposing collaborating on collections exclusive to their stores (likely their way of getting rid of pesky wannabee designers). I promise to send them sketches in two months, for the following spring-summer season. Elated, I take the metro back to the hotel room. It is only when I pass the foyer mirror in my room that I gasp in horror. My hair is matted and my shirt covered in unsightly splotches down the chest, lower back, underarms, and elbows: a result, I suppose, of the unforgiving heat and the enveloping nylon garment bag. What must those chic, French-speaking ladies have thought!!??
A week after my trip, I get a call from the University of Manitoba, offering me a teaching position in one of their Continuing Education programs. With virtually full-time hours and a generous salary, I do not hesitate. I suspend work on my designs and reassess. Perhaps adjusting my designing to teaching ratio - teaching full-time, designing part-time - is, after all, a more financially stable, more dignified, way to achieve fashion stardom!
Having run out of venues to browse, we conclude our market visit, exhausted by the heat. Having come in different cars, we go our separate ways. Greg and I explore the town of St. Norbert itself, though after driving around the near-deserted streets, we realize that everyone must be at the market. The local church and cemetery are not worth the sacrifice of leaving air-conditioned comfort, so we drive back downtown, and head for the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
Prior to its current location on Memorial Boulevard, the Winnipeg Art Gallery had homes, first in the Federal Building, on the corner of Main and Water Streets; then in the Manitoba Archives Building, between Vaughan Street and Memorial Boulevard. Largely cultivated by Dr. Ferdinand Eckhardt, a sophisticated Viennese curator with a vision and whose tenure as director spanned over 20 years, the Gallery collections, under his auspices, expanded to 23,000 objects, necessitating the creation of larger premises. The current building consists of eight galleries, a 320-seat auditorium, a rooftop sculpture garden and restaurant, a bookshop, a research library, meeting and lecture spaces, and a separate building for art classes.
Apart from the building's design, what I find endearing about the Gallery is my participation in a fashion show staged in its auditorium 25 years earlier. In the spring of 1985, after a few years of dabbling in fashion design as a serious hobby, I am contacted by a "leading light" of the Winnipeg Filipino community, asking if I would show some of my work, along with those of other aspiring Filipino designers, as part of a fund raising show. Being an undergraduate student at the time, my academic schedule is hectic; but, feeling this to be a rare opportunity to showcase my passion in a great venue, I accept the invitation anyway. As I had already several ready-made pieces, most of my effort for the show involved simply finding the right models and taking part in rehearsals. For the former, I do not have to look far. My friends Bryan, Jim, and Raymond - with their lithe builds, graceful moves, and unique individual styles - fit the bill. The latter, for the most part, were fun exercises in collaboration and self-effacement.
I recall the farcical rehearsals, which include the Filipino community's go-to hairdresser, Joey, coaching the models on the finer points of catwalk modelling, reproaching those who do not comply; Romilyn, one of the designers, and her large multi-compartmentalized personal make-up kit; and my model, Jim, and his run-in with a surly Gallery security guard. He sweetly reprimands the man, using sailor-blushing language. Jim is a great sport: when I discover, at the last minute, that the jacket I design for the show turns out to be too long, he helps me fold up and (masking) tape down the hem, later modeling the piece as if the oversight were part of the design.
Typical of my team: defiance (so much for self-effacement)! We ignore Joey's cliched modelling directives and the top 40 musical choices of the other designers. Our modelling inspiration: the Christian Dior fall '85 show, with designs reminiscent of the house's New Look, and models chanelling the great 50s icons, Dovima and Carmen. For musical selections, we opt for ones from obscure European bands, including Propaganda, Cocteau Twins, Bronski Beat, and Malcolm McLaren. The musical choices best capture the tone of the designs: jackets and suits in black satin, burgundy brocade, and Mexican blanket prints.
The show is a rousing success, and I enjoy working with the WAG's auditorium stage, the crew, and the technology that allows us to create the desired effects. However, I do not recall how much money is raised for charity, in the end, nor what happens to the the sketches I provide for display purposes. They mysteriously disappear, never to be recovered.
When Greg and I visit the Gallery, there are four main exhibits (hover and click on each item, for more information):
1. We Are Sorry - by Cathy Busby
2. The Nude in Modern Canadian Art: 1920-1950
3. Diana Thorneycroft: Canada, Myth, and History, Group of Seven Awkward Moments Series
4. Kiugak Ashoona: Stories and Imaginings from Cape Dorset
Neither of us is particularly impressed by the Busby exhibit: an exercise in comparative analysis between the apologies of Prime Ministers Stephen Harper (of Canada) and Kevin Rudd (of Australia) to their countries' respective aboriginal communities, as a result of the abuses incurred by church-run residential schools. I do not really see the point (both sets of apologies, to me, ringing hollow, disingenuous, and long overdue), though the piece itself is sufficiently enormous to be attempting to make one. The nudism exhibit is similarly banal, despite the parental advisory. There are some wonderful pieces, but ultimately, I ask: "What's so remarkable about Canadian artists painting naked folks in the early part of the 20th century? Hadn't these artists ever heard of Canaletto and Michelangelo?" The Thorneycroft, on the other hand, is hilarious: an irreverent and gruesome take on iconic Group of Seven work. We had seen the exhibit a year earlier at the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg, Ontario, and enjoyed reviewing it. The pieces are original, thought-provoking, and beautifully rendered. The Ashoona exhibit is compelling, with some truly beautiful pieces. Though I easily tire of the constancy of the material, style, and imagery of Inuit Art, this exhibit is remarkable in how many pieces look to me like minimalist abstract art - a favoured style - a distinction from others of the genre that tend to be representational.
I see myself and other children, in the spring, floating paper boats and other found objects in ruts created by car wheels in the melting snow, and down which water flowed, to the end of the lane. We would use long sticks to steer our boats. In my early teens, the lanes would be short cuts to regular haunts or as escape routes from bellicose bullies, their function two-fold: to hide one physically as well as emotionally. I never could stand to fight; back lanes helped to obscure my shame over this. On such occasions, I would regularly and mercifully run into a solitary neighbourhood dog or cat, who would provide immediate, unconditional comfort, or at least hit me up for some sweets. I was always happy to oblige and would instantly feel better. Regularly, too, I would observe a stranger, fishing for food out of garbage bins, the scenario teaching me humility and empathy.
There are Maria, Roberta, and Michael, three Italian-German siblings, who, in 1975, befriend my three siblings and me. They live down the lane from us and parallel us in age. We attend the same elementary school (Laura Secord), and parish church (St. Mary's), where our friendships blossom, and, in the case of Christine and Roberta, endure to this day.
In addition to English, Maria, Roberta, and Michael speak fluent German, and undergo the same extra-curricular activities, such as piano lessons, Sunday school, and Brownies, that my siblings and I do. They also have a craftsman father who built them a puppet theatre. We spend hours playing together, conjuring plots based on classic nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and our own rich imaginations. My grandmother regularly scolds us whenever we get too rough in our play, or when we take our pretend roles too seriously. Glancing out a window, one winter day, she sees me, surrounded by assorted siblings, cousins, and neighbourhood kids bending down to kiss, repeatedly, a reclining Maria. She is aghast! She screams for all of us to come inside. "But she's Snow White, the others are the Seven Dwarfs, and I'm the Prince. I was only trying to wake her up!" For a time, we do not see Maria, Roberta, and Michael.
There is George, our craftsman neighbour directly on the other side of the back lane from my parents' house, whose wife, one rainy Saturday evening, waylays our family car as my dad is about to back out of the driveway. She has locked herself out of their house, after rushing George off to the Misericordia (Hospital) and returning home to retrieve a forgotten item within. She is in hysterics, pleading with my mother, as the latter rolls down her window. At that instant wife shoves, directly under my mother's nose, a Tupperware container within which is what my mother initially thinks to be a rather large prawn. Wife screams "George severed his finger with his band saw. I need ice!!!!!"
We carry on to the other side of the lane, to Kennedy Street, still hopeful for an ATM. I notice the Manitoba Law Society building, admiring its simple, modernist facade of decorative hollow concrete blocks. I remark on the number of wonderful mid-century buildings in Winnipeg, a reflection of the post-war building boom that took much of its direction from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba. Until today, I had never appreciated these buildings.
Greg and I hurry back to the car. Time has run out and we drive back to the Wolseley area to re-unite with Dave, a former graduate classmate of Greg. We meet at Stella's Restaurant on Sherbrooke Street. Greg and Dave re-connected when we were in Winnipeg two years before. Greg and I were at another Wolseley neighbourhood coffee shop, when Dave, on recognizing Greg, had come to our table to re-introduce himself.
Like Greg, Dave has an urban planning background, though he now works for the Province of Manitoba, in its Office of Municipal Affairs. He and his wife had been living in Toronto until three years before, when they re-located to Manitoba to be closer to their aging parents, living in Saskatchewan. Their sons attend university in Toronto. Dave is a highly affable and sensible fellow. Our conversation ranges from our visit to Winnipeg to Greg's progress on his Ph.d to my work as a university instructor to Dave's continual familiarization with his new home, three years after arriving here. He comments on the friendliness of his neighbours, the growth of his wife's editorial service, and his downtown biking expeditions. His observations on Winnipeg, when compared to those on Toronto, paint a picture of a still-parochial city, fragmented in its organization, and slow to respond to urban issues. We talk about Paris and London, where Greg and I recently were, and what makes them truly great cities. We talk about how a long cultural history can make a difference in the growth, culture, and energy of a city: it informs, provides lessons, and presents options that encourage risk-taking and experimentation.
After a couple of hours, Greg and I part company with Dave and head over to Paul and Catherine's, for a family barbeque. This has become an annual event, with guests including two sides of my maternal grandmother's family: her daughter, Alice's and son, Tom's. In all there are eighteen of us, including four recent additions.
Joe, Ruby and Matthew's son, being the eldest of the bunch, has already made progress, his unabashed curiosity and humour endearing him to all. His cousin, Luisa, Iris and Chris's daughter, shares his curiosity, and though only a year old, possesses a quiet independence. Joe's sister, Indy, is equally feisty and energetic, eager to bestow affection on anyone receptive to her. Even Alec and Dani's son, Renzy, still an infant at nine months, already demonstrates a self-possessiveness and equanimity that parallels that of older children.
In reflecting on these young personalities, I look back on my own childhood. I was far less outgoing and self-possessed than these kids. Indeed, diffidence characterized my siblings, cousins, and me. I recall my first few weeks of kindergarten in the Philippines. Accompanied by my mother on the first day of class, I do not permit her to leave, nor even let her out of my sight, once in the classroom. This continues for the next three weeks, resulting in my mother being reprimanded for being chronically late for work. Worse, when I do notice she has left, I vomit, in a fit of panic. As pre-teens In Canada, when colleagues of our parents come to our home for a dinner party, my siblings and I peer over railings, slowly making our way down the stairs, for a better glimpse; then, on being discovered and approached by a friendly, unsuspecting guest, shrieking with terror and running back upstairs. The guest, frozen in his tracks, is mortified.
I wonder what factors contributed to our characters. Were they partly based on culture, upbringing, or the effects of immigration? I believe all three played a role. Culturally, Filipinos of my generation were taught to be polite, but not assertive. We were taught to regard adults with deference and respect, not with a sense of equality. Immigrating to a new country as children, also had its challenges. I felt at odds with the the way Canadian children behaved. They were more aggressive, more self-absorbed, than those in the Philippines. Regularly, I felt intimidated, especially in the school yard, affecting the way I felt towards school, in general: I hated Sunday nights, but loved Friday afternoons.Seeing how well adjusted these youngsters are is reassuring; being so will help them cope with the potential social and emotional tumult that occurs during adolescence to their late teens.
It is another successful barbeque party. Much lively conversation about work and child rearing, together with fawning over babies and toddlers, ensue. With such distractions, there is less attention paid to the food, though there is plenty to be had: from Angus beef burgers to chorizo to pizza to Filipinio carioca (sweet rice balls) to a selection of wines and beers. A family gathering would be incomplete without such an array.
Greg and I return to the suite well satiated, spent after another full day of stimulating activity.
References:
1. St. Norbert's Farmer's Market Website
2. Winnipeg Art Gallery Website
See slide show below for more images (click on slide show to enlarge):
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