Tag: art

52W Mark III – Week 45: Colourful

I’ve written a fair amount about my Aunt Diana (Helen Diana Burgess 1951 – 1999), but usually I’ve focused on her scientific side. However, I’ve always considered her a true Renaissance Woman, because the arts were just as important to her. It’s why her scientific pursuits lead her into the colourful world of art conservation.

According to the obituary published in the Canadian Conservation Institute Newsletter in November 1999,

Helen loved paper and textiles, flowers, beautiful ceramics and glass, and cats. She was often teased by her friends for picking flowers wherever she could find them, including, in one instance, the Faculty Club garden at Queen’s. Helen enjoyed painting flowers and donated several of her watercolours to the Lupus Society.

Diana took me to the first movie I ever saw in a cinema, Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Going to that movie was also the first time I rode a city bus. She also had some marvelous record albums, which included the original edition of Jesus Christ Superstar. I remember listening to it over and over again while reading all of my uncle’s comic books whenever we visited my grandparents.

This is the copy my Aunt Diana gave me, which my sons now have.

Books were often a welcome gift from her, often titles I had never heard of but came to love. Diana had a huge library of fiction and non-fiction books. In particular, she loved detective novels. The best book she gave me was from the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series, Mystery of the Flaming Footprints. The books are about three boy detectives, which were everything boring old Hardy Boys books were not. I went on to buy many more from the series. I’ve passed them all on to my sons, who have read them all several times over.

When I was in undergrad, Diana introduced me to L.R. Wright and her first novel, The Suspect. That book quite blew my mind – a detective novel not only set in Canada rather than the US or UK. Moreover, it wasn’t someplace like Toronto, rather, it was set in the small town of Sechelt, only a short drive away from where live. It’s now been turned into a TV series, Murder in a Small Town.

Diana took me on tours of art galleries, including the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was wonderful having someone so knowledgeable about art as my guide. Diana loved to paint as well. When I was 10, she gave me my first set of oil paints, along with a small canvas, brushes, turpentine, and linseed oil. It didn’t take long for me to accidentally spill some on the gold shag carpet in our living room. Oops. At least it was purple, which pairs well with gold.

She mostly painted still life, often in vibrant or bright colours, although sometimes she used a more muted palate. My mother has a few of her works, one of which now hangs in her living room.

52W Mark III – Week 22: Creativity

In addition to being a scientist, my Aunt Diana was also liked to create. My mother has several of her paintings hanging in my parents’ home. In addition to amazing books and sciency items, gifts from Aunt Diana would occasionally be pieces of art.

I don’t have any photos of Aunt Diana’s paintings (I’ll have to rectify that next time I visit my parents), but I do have some of the little art pieces she gave to me when I was a kid. However, in going to find them, I came across these pysanky – Easter eggs – my great aunt Connie made.

Aunt Connie is my mother’s last living aunt. She was married to Ralph Burgess (1935-1999), my grandpa Leo Burgess’s youngest brother.

Until recent years, Aunt Connie made pysanky – Easter eggs. While associated with Ukraine, pysanky are common to many slavic cultures. I have not researched Aunt Connie’s lineage, but if memory serves her heritage includes Germans from Russia, people from the various German states who settled in the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. This included colonies in what is now Ukraine.

Writing about Aunt Connie, I am reminded of two things. First, she also made some of the most delicious sausage I’ve ever eaten. Second, I owe her a letter!

52 Weeks – Week 29: Fun Fact

When I noticed that the theme for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge was “Fun Fact”, rather than assume what people might consider to be a fun fact, I asked each of my boys, “what’s a fun fact about our family tree?” The 11-year-old answered, “that we have ancestors from the Bailiwick of Jersey!” The 7-year-old said, “that we’re related to someone who has a school named after them!”

 Manoah Steeves Elementary School.
Manoah and my sons are first cousins six times removed.

Pity. Great ideas, but I’ve covered both those topics. It’s as if they both deliberately conspired to suggest my Week 5 post, in which I wrote about both those things.

I gave it a few days and asked again.

“What about having Mayflower ancestors?” Great idea, but that doesn’t actually really interest me or strike me as a fun fact. When I discovered a connection to a Mayflower passenger, I was actually rather disappointed because it’s such a genealogical trope.

“What about that we’re related to three U.S. Presidents?” Three for them, only one for me. Again, that’s as interesting to me as finding a Mayflower ancestor. To me, that’s another well-worn genealogical topic.

The death warrant for Rebecca Nurse

That said, there is one group I can trace my line to that is a popular genealogical goal, which for some reason I have found somewhat interesting. My Gx10 grandmother was Rebecca Nurse, who was one of the women of Salem Village executed on the false accusation of being a witch. I had avoided reading The Crucible until I made the discovery, because I had no previous interest in that historical event. However, this doesn’t strike my fancy as a “fun fact”.

“What about the fact that we were the missing branch of the family?” That’s a brilliant suggestion. Unfortunately, it’s another thing I’ve already written about!

Despite their enthusiastic responses that all fit the query, I had pretty much written about all the fun facts they suggested. Rather than dampen their excitement, I let them know that they had some brilliant and interesting ideas.

So what’s a fun fact I haven’t already written about?

After sleeping on it, I realized that while I stated on day one that my focus in this blog was on my side of the family, I also noted that from time to time I might delve into my wife’s side of the family “because there are some fairly interesting stories there.”

So, finally. Fun fact: my wife’s 4xG grandfather, William Norris Venning, was a silversmith in Saint John, New Brunswick.

William Norris Venning (1795-1877)
Attributed to  Joseph Brown Comingo
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia

William was born sometime about December 1796, likely in Devonshire, England. I don’t know when he came to North America, or if he came on his own or with his parents. It was sometime before he was 19, the time by which he had begun his work in Saint John.

William’s silversmith mark.

William was active as a silversmith from 1815 to 1871, although one source has him also doing some watchmaking early in his career. Some of William’s work is in the National Gallery of Canada, while the Royal Ontario Museum has a teaspoon he created.

A silver teaspoon by William Norris Venning