Town Talk: Gordon Smith will benefit children long after his 100-year lifetime
Credit to Author: Malcolm Parry| Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 15:00:54 +0000
NEVER LOOKED BACK: If Gordon Smith had created paintings as sparingly as his publicly uttered words, his seven-decade output might not have filled an average home’s garage. Instead, until two years before his recent death at age 100, his canvases could be wider and higher-priced than the average family car. Smith often walked on larger works while painting them in his West Vancouver home-studio.
Discerning a sneaker print on a 244-by-340-cm Smith canvas, fellow artist Jamie Evrard said: “He should title it Nike.” She also identified what heavy-wallet collectors mightn’t. “Step back from it,” she said of another painting, “and it looks like a pond. But when you get closer, it’s completely abstract. That’s what’s so fascinating about it: it’s both.”
So was Smith. For sold-out exhibition openings at Liz Nichols’ and successor Andy Sylvester’s Equinox Gallery, he would slip in through the alley door and chat with a few other artists and friends. Often, he would leave before many knew he’d arrived. Seventy mentions in this column contain less than 30 of Smith’s ever-modest words. Such self-effacement moderated slightly at the Vancouver Art Gallery’s 2008 benefit auction where, as bidding for his donated painting hit $60,000 — $20,000 above estimate — he murmured: “I’m here to buy a Smith.” Since 2002, The Gordon and Marion Smith Foundation for Young Artists endowment has supported North Vancouver school district’s Artists For Kids program and provided exhibition programming through the Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art. Echoing Sylvester’s 272-page monograph, Gordon Smith: Don’t Look Back, Smith himself would doubtless appreciate that his legacy will entail youngsters looking forward, too.
British artist Patrick Hughes’ eye-boggling $217,500 work has been donated for auction at the $5-million-targetting For Children We Care gala.
LOOKING FORWARD: Another British-born artist, Patrick Hughes, is benefiting B.C. youngsters. Valued at $217,500 and donated by Open Road auto dealer Christian Chia and wife Carol, his Andy, Jeff, Damien painting will be auctioned live and by advanced bidding at B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation’s For Children We Care gala on March 7. Simulating perspective by being painted on pyramidlike raised elements, the work boggled gala supporters’ eyes at a recent preview reception.
Seen with B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation’s Teri Nicholas, siblings Jane Young and Ben Yeung are not daughter and father as reported here Jan. 18.
SETTING IT STRAIGHT: Peterson Group executive chair/CEO Ben Yeung is For Children We Care gala co-chair Jane Young’s brother, not father.
Science Worlder Janet Wood’s “reverse spherification” drink and Brian Anderson’s lycopodium powder flashes anticipated the Science of Cocktails event.
FLASH ONE: With Science World’s fifth annual Science of Cocktails fundraiser due Feb. 6, a handful of its 50 or so food-and-drink providers participated in a recent teaser event. Science World performance-and-fun-time director Brian Anderson added drama by generating fireballs from finely ground clubmoss spores. Known as lycopodium powder, it is used in movie-and-music-biz pyrotechnics and for such diverse applications as coating pills, stabilizing ice cream and lubricating medical gloves and condoms. Anderson’s over-her-shoulder pyrotechnics didn’t distract interim president/CEO Janet Wood’s from a Boodles Gin cocktail that, after “reverse spherification,” kept its kick while somewhat resembling bubble tea. Her eye is firmly on the main event raising $300,000-plus for Science World’s Class Field Trip Bursary program.
FLASH TWO: Powdered vegetation can be hugely destructive. When exploding grain dust severely damaged a North Vancouver grain elevator in 1975, five employees died and 400 nearby residents were evacuated as 50 kg concrete chunks landed near their homes.
Bacchanalia gala chair Jana Maclagan and Wine Festival chief Harry Hertscheg toasted the Feb. 22-March 1 running at a 13-country, 34-winery preview.
Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival brass Claire Sakaki and Christopher Gaze welcomed the upcoming Bacchanalia gala’s continuing support.
BARD TIMES: Executive director Harry Hertscheg was as ebullient as freshly popped champagne at a pre-tasting for the Feb 22-March 1 Vancouver International Wine Festival. He had champagne literally in hand, too. From feature-nation France, the Taittinger Prélude Grands Crus will be the first of 10 wines guests imbibe when Jana Maclagan chairs the festival-opening Bacchanalia gala to benefit the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival. There’ll be no bibulousness in Bard’s July 3-Sept. 26 staging of Love’s Labour’s Lost, in which young men resolve to improve their studies by swearing off booze, gambling and women. The festival will feature 1,450 wines. Even the pre-tasting provided 34 from 13 countries. Croatia’s Transylvania region sent a dry white Liliac Fetească Regală rather than the blood red you’d expect from Count Dracula’s homeland.
Rosana Wedenig and Yuliana Sirman showed Beta5 chocolates and Blue Grouse Estate Winery’s Quill Q White at the Great Big Taste celebration.
Paella Guys’ Javier Blanc, Maria Gomez, Shay Kelly and Antoinette Posehn served Great Big Taste attendees a huge version of the classic Spanish dish.
WINE & WOOF: Lots more wine was poured and food served when producer Lucas Pavan’s Great Big Taste event kicked off the 300-restaurant Dine Out Vancouver Festival. Chow samples ran from Wildebeest chef Ian McHale’s tiny rabbit liver and foie gras parfait to a metre-wide meat-and-seafood dish from Javier Blanc and his Paella Guys partners. Yuliana Sirman and Rosana Wedenig upped thumbs for Beta5 Chocolates’ multi-hued selection and Blue Grouse Estate Winery’s Quill Q White.
Lawyer-beekeeper James Hatton and wife Jennifer’s Cowichan Valley farm grows many fruits, including medlars that the French liken to dogs’ rear ends.
As assistant to James Hatton, Wedenig might taste oddities from that Farris law-firm partner and wife Jennifer’s Cowichan Valley farm. High among them would be medlars, an ugly-looking fruit the French call cul de chien — dog’s bum — and eat only after months of “bletting,” i.e. rotting. The Hattons’ newly planted truffles won’t mature until 2028 when they may be detected, in the French manner, by nez de chien — dog’s nose.
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Imagine the foofaraw if Archie Sussex gets a sibling — Betty, Veronica or Jughead perhaps.
malcolmparry@shaw.ca
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