Emily Holton launches Dear Canada Council / Our Starland with fellow Conundrum Press author J.R. Carpenter’s Words the Dog Knows at This Is Not a Reading Series Nov 17. 7:30pm (doors 7pm). Free. The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, 1214 Queen W. 416-598-1447.
www.pagesbooks.ca.
With culture inexplicably on the national radar in the recent election, artist Emily Holton’s newest book, Dear Canada Council / Our Starland (Conundrum Press, 160 pages, $17), seems uncannily timed. Not the polemic the title would suggest, Holton’s book is a freeform letter and description of what kind of imaginary town she would establish in Central America if she just had the money for airfare from the Canada Council for the Arts. If it sounds like a perfect grant proposal, Holton never intended it as such. “The Canada Council hasn’t seen it,” she tells me. “I’ve been too scared to show them. I was afraid they would tell me not to use their name.”
That’s a shame, as Holton’s proposal is, in and of itself, good art. It moves from the direct, as in “Dear Canada Council, my intention is to do my best, never to waiver. It’s to be selfless; to be a selfless person sure in her selflessness,” to pure silliness. “I have been snipping at my boyfriend about things that don’t matter,” the letter continues. “I ask him questions to which I already know the answers. I stamp my feet on the way up the stairs, and am slow to descend. I don’t know why I’m acting this way, like an unhappy wife in a movie. But unhappy wives don’t know what they need. I am a powerful person. My intention is to found a town.”
Laced throughout are autobiographical details of Holton’s hometown of Hamilton and her obsession with the late celebrity journalist (and son of Hamilton) Brian Linehan. “Our fathers both worked at Dofasco,” Holton declares when I ask her to explain the presence of Linehan throughout. “He is a national treasure and his Wikipedia page is made up of strange, heartbreaking anecdotes.”
Unlike Holton’s earlier, photocopied artist’s books, Dear Canada Council puts writing at the forefront, yet the drawings here work well to unite the loping digressions. With a fine, quick line, Holton’s drawings have always combined delicacy with decadence (and a hint of perviness).
Broken hearts and arts grants are increasingly synonymous but Holton’s unique talent manages to bring a sense of fun back to both.