The National Gallery of Canada | "“I don’t know why some people become artists ...."
I visited the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa this past weekend for no other reason than to visit my friends ~ paintings.
Some were done by well known artists like Tom Thomson and Lawren Harris, Clarence Gagnon, Emile Borduas, and some by artists not so well known (to me) I can’t even remember some of their names but eventually those names will pop up quickly as I go back time and time again.
Lawren Harris
The architecture of the gallery does everything it can to welcome you and wrap you up in an experience that can change every time you go there. And while I walked up and down and through the various exhibits, people gathered in the grand hall, pulled up chairs and listened to a choir sing with angel voices songs that were at once familiar yet foreign. Are they singing in Latin? Italian? Doesn’t matter. It sounds so beautiful in that hall.
Gauguin is coming in May and I certainly won’t miss that. But I don’t need a special show to entice me to the Gallery. We have an annual membership and take advantage of it often. One of the bonuses is the Gallery’s restaurant. It’s affordable and actually quite good! I remember stopping at the Louvre in Paris for lunch and was shocked when a coffee was $6 and a sandwich $12. This was in 1989! Prices in our national gallery are reasonable, and it offers healthy and delicious menu choices.
I ended up checking out the Dave Heath exhibit Multitude, Solitude: The Photographs of Dave Heath. It’s an arresting show with a multitude of provocative images.
David Heath exhibit
The following quote by Dave Heath spoke to me.
“I don’t know why some people become artists and others don’t, but there was some deeper sense within myself of survival, of having to define and declare myself on my own terms and not in other people’s terms. And the way I found to do that was through being an artist.”