I am a professional artist living in Toronto. But it took me a while to figure out that that was what I wanted to do. After high school I did an honours English degree at the U of M and then went into Fine Arts. I was married by then, to Michael Brotman, who was three years ahead of us at Kelvin. We travelled throughout Europe and Israel for a year before settling in Toronto. I then got my B.Ed. from U of T and began teaching high school Art and English. I don’t know how Rudi did it. I hated it — not the students (they were fun and challenging) but the institutional regimentation. After stints at the University of Toronto Fine Arts department as well as artist-in-residence in many schools, I ended up teaching at the Royal Ontario Museum, where I am a specialist in the art and social history of ancient civilizations. I teach three days a week which allows me to carry on an active studio art practice. I work in drawing, painting and printmaking. I exhibit primarily in Canada but have also been included in group shows in the US and Ireland. This spring I have three exhibits, a three-person show in Montreal, and solos in Toronto and Dawson City, Yukon. I was awarded an artist residency in Dawson last summer and fell in love with the North. So I’m going back with my artwork to lecture, give a workshop, and canoe and hike. I am also politically involved in Toronto’s art community. I have sat on the board and executive of an artist-run centre for nine years and this year was the acting chair. Our centre represents 150 artists and besides mounting exhibitions and offering educational programs, we have been involved in fighting landlords for fair studio rents and conservative governments for support of artists and the arts in general. Michael and I have three children, all of whom are at university now. Michael is a child psychiatrist in private practice. Before kids, we used to go wilderness camping. Our goal was to hit every provincial and national park in Canada. With the kids, we took very long driving and camping trips: to Utah and Colorado, South Dakota, the Maritimes, British Columbia, South Carolina and New York state. We’ve been caught in three tornadoes. And now that the kids refuse to be seen with us in public, we are continuing our Canadian park quest. Last summer we added Kluane national park to our roster. |
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--- My Best 100 Posts --
Preparing for Civilization's End:
What Would Net-Zero Emissions Look Like?
Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse
Being Adaptable: A Reminder List
A Culture of Fear
What Will It Take?
A Future Without Us
Dean Walker Interview (video)
The Mushroom at the End of the World
What Would It Take To Live Sustainably?
The New Political Map (Poster)
Beyond Belief
Complexity and Collapse
Save the World Reading List
Civilization Disease
What a Desolated Earth Looks Like
Giving Up on Environmentalism
Going Vegan
The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
The Boiling Frog
Our Culture:
What to Believe Now?
Rogue Primate
Conversation & Silence
The Language of Our Eyes
True Story
Cultural Acedia: When We Can No Longer Care
Useless Advice
Several Short Sentences About Learning
Why I Don't Want to Hear Your Story
A Harvest of Myths
The Qualities of a Great Story
The Trouble With Stories
A Model of Identity & Community
Not Ready to Do What's Needed
A Culture of Dependence
So What's Next
Ten Things to Do When You're Feeling Hopeless
No Use to the World Broken
Living in Another World
Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
A Long Way Down
No Noble Savages
Figments of Reality
Too Far Ahead
The Rogue Animal
How the World Really Works:
If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
Collective Intelligence & Complexity
Ten Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
The Problem With Systems
Against Hope (Video)
The Admission of Necessary Ignorance
Several Short Sentences About Jellyfish
A Synopsis of 'Finding the Sweet Spot'
Learning from Indigenous Cultures
The Gift Economy
The Job of the Media
The Wal-Mart Dilemma
The Illusion of the Separate Self:
Happy Now?
This Creature
Did Early Humans Have Selves?
Nothing On Offer Here
Even Simpler and More Hopeless Than That
Glimpses
Fragments
What Happens in Vagus
We Have No Choice
Never Comfortable in the Skin of Self
Letting Go of the Story of Me
All There Is, Is This
A Theory of No Mind
Creative Works:
The Ever-Stranger (Poem)
The Fortune Teller (Short Story)
Non-Duality Dude (Play)
Your Self: An Owner's Manual (Satire)
All the Things I Thought I Knew (Short Story)
On the Shoulders of Giants (Short Story)
Calling the Cage Freedom (Short Story)
Rune (Poem)
Only This (Poem)
The Other Extinction (Short Story)
Invisible (Poem)
Disruption (Short Story)
A Thought-Less Experiment (Poem)
Speaking Grosbeak (Short Story)
The Only Way There (Short Story)
The Wild Man (Short Story)
Flywheel (Short Story)
The Opposite of Presence (Satire)
How to Make Love Last (Poem)
The Horses' Bodies (Poem)
Distracted (Short Story)
Worse, Still (Poem)
Conjurer (Satire)
A Conversation (Short Story)
Farewell to Albion (Poem)
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