A Momentary Lapse of Reason

It all started when I saw this photo of Anna, of Anna's Island Style, wearing this pair of pants she found at Zara (not linking because I don't love)

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Before I tell the rest of this story, I need to give you a bit of background about me and pants.  I used to wear nothing but skinny black pants in my 20's and 30's.  I started wearing more skirts and dresses in my 40's but still liked to wear a great-fitting pair of pants.  Unfortunately, my waist is disproportionately larger than my mostly non-existent hips and butt, which makes finding pants that fit in both places almost impossible.   A significant weight gain over the past couple of years means that skinny pants don't look so good anymore, so I've gravitated towards higher-waisted wide leg ones.   I am always looking for stylish pants, (which oddly enough, are not so easily found in thrift stores)  that don't cost a fortune. 

When I saw the corduroy wide-leg cropped pants that Anna was wearing on her blog, I was excited until I saw that she had purchased them at Zara.   I haven't purchased anything new from a fast fashion retailer for several years.  The merchandise is poor quality, made by people who work in dangerous conditions for very little pay, and I prefer not to support an industry making items that end up in landfill by the following season.

Corduroy, high-waisted, wide leg pants from Zara

But did that stop me from becoming obsessed with these pants?  Noooooooo.  I looked at Zara's website for more details and I had to admit, they looked great on the model (as they always do), and they ticked all the boxes - corduroy (cozy), high-waisted (no muffin top), wide-legs (my favourite).  It was ridiculous to think I would go against my principles just for a pair of pants, but the more I obsessed about them (they came in several colours! ) and reminded myself about how hard it is for me to find cool pants, the more I convinced myself that there couldn't be any harm in just trying them on...

So I found myself in Zara.  There were no staff in sight, so I wandered through the racks and displays, looking for those damn pants.  I saw lots of oversized sweatshirts embellished with faux fur, fake pearls and fringe, and a lot of short skirts, but no corduroy pants.   Finally, after searching the entire store, I asked the woman guarding the fitting rooms if they had them and of course, the answer was no.   There had been a couple of similar styles I'd seen on the website that I liked, but they didn't have those either.  In fact, NOTHING I liked on the website was in stock.  ("we've been really slow in getting stock...")

To justify what was a major waste of time I decided to try some of their other pants, and a few sweatshirt style tops.  This is where it got ugly.  The pants, all size LARGE, were way too small, and the oversize sweatshirts were so oversized that they looked like shapeless sacks. The fabrics felt cheap, and everything looked like crap on me.  I felt fat and old. These are bad feelings to have when trying on clothes, and I realized that this what many women go through every time they go shopping.  I left as quickly as possible, and found myself doing what women have done time and time again when they've had a depressing shopping experience.  I went to the Lindt store (linking because I do love) and bought chocolate.   

I thought about how I feel when I go thrift shopping, and how that shopping experience is different from the one I had in Zara.   I rarely go into a Goodwill or a Talize searching for a specific item, but instead, I'm excited by the possibility of what I might find.  There are always things I like that are too small, but chances are, there will always be that one awesome thing that does fit.  And it costs $10.  And I don't feel old and fat, I just feel like me.  

 

Feeling good about myself, wearing thrifted velvet pants from a neighbourhood consignment store, and one of my favourite finds from my visit to Talize with Suzanne in early November, a never-worn Winnie The Pooh hoodie.

An Alternative Nativity

This past Thursday I took a few hours off work so I could attend the official presentation of First Nations artist Kent Monkman's installation, Nativity Scene, at Museum London.  The piece was purchased for the Museum's permanent collection with funds raised by the Museum's Volunteer Committee Acquisition Fund, and was dedicated to the memory of long-time volunteer, Shelagh Martin-McLaren.  Members of Martin-McLaren's family were present at the event, as was the creator of the piece, Kent Monkman.  I have been fascinated and moved by Monkman's work since I viewed his  installation "The Rise and Fall of Civilization" at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto a couple of years ago, which I wrote about here.

Nativity Scene, above, has been on tour as part of the Canada 150 celebrations, and is part of a larger exhibit of works by Monkman titled "Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience".  The phrase 'Amor Vincit Omnia' (Love conquers All) is carved into the peak of the front piece.

Monkman, a Canadian artist of Cree and Irish ancestry, works in the mediums of painting, drawing, installation and performance to put forth an alternative, and more historically accurate, narrative of the treatment of Canadian First Nations people at the hands of European settlers.  He incorporates just enough campy, sarcastic humour into his work to act as a counterbalance to his disturbing, symbol-filled narratives.

The Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience exhibit is divided into a series of chapters narrated by Monkman's alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, a play on the phrase "mischief egotistical".   Nativity depicts Miss Chief's birth.

The three figures in the piece have Monkman's face, the artist's comment on the dioramas he has seen in many galleries and museums where the same model was used for the faces of all the Indigenous figures.

Instead of a manger, the scene is set in a Res House, where the squalid living conditions include unsafe drinking water, and over-priced, unhealthy foods.

The beaver is an important and frequent symbol in Monkman's work, representing the fur trade, and often acting as stand-ins for indigenous people in his paintings.  In the Nativity piece, beavers appear as angels, heralding Miss Chief's birth, and on a crucifix, worn by the male figure.

Monkman's painting Les Castors de Roi (The King's Beavers) is an example of beavers used as symbols, representing the slaughter of indigenous people.

 I have known the woman on the left for many years, and she is a devoted fan of Monkman's work.  She was moved to tears by the opportunity to meet him.

Nativity Scene will be on tour after this weekend, but will return to Museum London in March,  2018 to be part of their permanent collection.

At Home With Monsters

This wall-sized photo of the entrance hall of Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro's home base greets visitors to the current exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Guillermo del Toro: At Home With Monsters.   Del Toro's residence (which he named Bleak House after the novel by Charles Dickens), located in Los Angeles, is home to his vast collection of art, books, and movie props.

The only thing I knew about director, screenwriter, producer and novelist Guillermo del Toro before viewing this exhibit was that his films featured freaks, outsiders and monsters (some human, some not).  I had seen several films he has written and/or directed, such as Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy and Hellboy II,  Pacific Rim, Blade II, and Crimson Peak.  The exhibit at the AGO features approximately 500 pieces from his personal collection of props, artifacts, art, and books and is a journey into del Toro's world of the things that move and inspire him.

This photo of del Toro (age 10) wearing a monster mask, as he pretends to attack his sister, was an interesting personal addition to the exhibit.

The exhibit is organized thematically into different galleries, the first being Childhood and Innocence.   Children are often the central figures in his films, and they are usually much smarter and more aware of what is going on around them than the adults.  In my favourite del Toro film, Pan's Labyrinth, a young girl meets several strange and magical creatures, including....

The Pale Man, one of the creepiest creatures to appear in Del Toro's films

The lifesize silicone and fibreglass models in the exhibit are amazingly detailed - above is the Faun's "Fairy bag" from Pan's Labyrinth.   

Other themes include:  Victoriana, Insects, Death and the Afterlife, Magic, Alchemy and The Occult, Outsiders, and Frankenstein and Horror.  Del Toro is extremely well-read, and finds equal appeal in comic books and Victorian literature; both feature largely in the exhibit.

The gallery dedicated to Magic, Alchemy and the Occult features a life-size figure of author H.P. Lovecraft (a favourite of del Toro) and a re-creation of the author's library.  It also included a young man playing a grand piano which created a suitably eerie ambience throughout the exhibit.

Yours truly in the comic book room, where the walls are covered with approximately 1,500 comics, on loan from Toronto comic shop, The Beguiling, where del Toro has been a customer for many years.   It is said that del Toro owns over 50,000 comic books.

Large display cabinets like the one above contain items related to the theme of the specific gallery.

The cabinet above contained items from, or inspired by, the Victorian era, including these fascinating Victorian mourning objects.

I was pleased to see that del Toro and I share an admiration for the work of New York artist Travis Louie   (the three larger black and white portraits). 

Above is a costume from Crimson Peak, a gothic romance set in the Victorian era. The colour red is a dramatic and significant colour in the film.

Del Toro's favourite space to work in Bleak House is his "Rain Room", a space that exists in a perpetual dark and stormy night.  Del Toro set up the projections and fake rain-splattered window himself.   A figure of author Edgar Allan Poe keeps him company in the room.

The Outsiders section of the exhibit includes a video of del Toro speaking about his attraction to outsiders, and the "other".  Del Toro's films feature terrifying visual monsters, but he believes that human beings can be the real monsters.  Tod Browning's 1932 film Freaks, which features real circus sideshow performers, is one of del Toro's favourite films.  It was the first film to explore a different take on the idea of the "outsider" and belonging.  In the film, so-called "normal" people behave monstrously towards people with disabilities.

del Toro owns several life-size figures from Freaks, including this one, based on Minnie Woolsey, also known as Koo Koo the Bird Girl, born with a rare condition called Seckel syndrome.

The exhibit invites viewers to add their own drawings and thoughts in answer to the question "What monsters do you embrace".

A large section of the exhibit is devoted to Frankenstein's monster, which is the most important monster in del Toro's life.  As a teenager, del Toro felt a deep connection to the Monster's outsider status.  The Frankenstein and Horror section includes the five foot long head of the monster made by Mike Hill that greets visitors to Bleak House, paintings, comic book art, and life size silicone figures.

Artist Bernie Wrightson, who was the co-creator of the comic book character Swamp Thing,  spent seven years working on an illustrated version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; a number of his illustrations, including the one above, are on display.

Detail from a tableau created by Mike Hill featuring the Monster, the Bride, and Professor Pretorius

del Toro selected pieces from the AGO collections to compliment the exhibit, and it was cool to see that he included the above illustrations from local artist Seth, one of my favourite cartoonists. 

There is so much to see - I spent over two hours wandering through the exhibit - and didn't spend as long looking at some things (like del Toro's notebooks from his films) as I would have liked.  There are televisions scattered throughout the exhibit showing clips from del Toro's films, and viewers are welcome to sit at the communal table in the comic book room and peruse a variety of comic books and copies of the book connected to the exhibit.  If you're a fan of del Toro's work, you'll love this exhibit.  If you haven't seen any of his films, but have an appreciation for the strange and the scary, you'll find lots of things to enjoy.

Guillermo del Toro: At Home With Monsters is on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario until January 7, 2018