UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

Biographical Portraits: Exploring Identity, Gender, and Teaching in Narrative

Representations of Canadian Artists

By

Patricia Jagger

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

GRADUATE DIVISION OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

CALGARY, ALBERTA

JANUARY, 2008

© Patricia Jagger 2008 UMI Number: MR38059

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ProQuest LLC 789 E. Eisenhower Parkway PO Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract

In this thesis I engage in a critical and interdisciplinary examination of the intersections between film and life writing when exploring issues of representation, gender, and identity. At the centre of this is the pivotal question—where are all the women artists? I trace how my professional experience in the Canadian film industry and my studies in education led me to discover five Canadian documentary films, each offering insight into the experiences of male and female artists in Canada, predominantly around the time of the Group of Seven (1920-1933). Through these films I was introduced to Doris

McCarthy (1910-present), an artist-teacher who appears in two of the five films and whose collection of life writings are central to this thesis. At the foundation of this study is the intent to show that these modes of communication offer educative possibilities for imagining the multiple histories that exist in our world.

in ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Completing my Master of Arts has been a personally rich endeavour, one that I could not have completed without the ongoing and unfailing support of an amazing group of individuals. Throughout this journey it is those whose faith has never wavered and who have never questioned why I am on this path that have offered the greatest inspiration. To the following I extend the greatest thanks:

Lisa Panayotidis for always respecting my decisions, having the patience to wait for me to catch up, then knowing when to push, pull, and prod me to challenge myself.

Michael Brandman for his unconditional support and unshakable belief in me.

Jane Saunders for a safe haven and her generous spirit, which remains unrivaled in my life.

Michele Moss for helping me to remember, even in the most difficult moments, to breathe, dance, laugh, and rejoice.

Jemison Jackson for reminding me to slow down and enjoy the journey while being my voice of reason and calm.

Hans Smits and George Melnyk for taking the time to be on my committee and offering their insights into my work.

A special thank you to my parents, Bob and Marion Jagger for their patience and support over the years and helping to foster my love for life-long learning. Finally, my dog Jake who has been my constant companion, for always loving and trusting me know matter where I take him!

IV TABLE OF CONTENTS

Approval Page ii Abstract iii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Making Connections: Education, Film, and Life Writing 1 "Where Are All the Great Woman Artists?" 8 Rethinking History: Creating New Spaces 11 Weaving the Web: Introducing the Work 13

CHAPTER TWO: Exploring Theory: Seeking Understanding of Hermeneutics, Feminist Film Theory and Narrative 19 Exploring Visual Culture in Educational Contexts 20 The F Words: Feminism and Film 24 The Interpretive Spaces In-Between 30 Memory, Imagination, and Narrative 36 Autobiography and Gender: Forging Spaces 39 Unpacking Autobiography: Narrative Styles of Life Writing 42

CHAPTER THREE: The Artist on Film: Canadian Teaching Narratives and Gender as Portrayed through the Lens 45 Locating Canada on Film: Production Policies 47 Feminist Film Practices at the NFB 50 Filmic Representations of the Male Artist 53 The Female Artist on Film 57

CHAPTER FOUR Recovering Memory: The Life Writing of Doris McCarthy 71 "A Fool in Paradise" and "The Good Wine" 76 One Last Story: The Latest Auto/biography 88 Doris McCarthy: Artist/Educator/Woman 91

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION Acknowledging the Gray: The Stories In-Between 94

REFERENCES 105

v 1 Introduction: Making Connections: Education, Film, and Life Writing

Whenever I heard, read, or wrote narratives, meaning took shape. I could

understand why people did what they did, that what happened to people made

them the way they were. I learned that narratives were places where people had

the freedom and responsibility to tell the truth, however difficult. And I have

subsequently seen how the power of good narrative lends itself to the contextual,

complex, and chaotic matrixes of educational research. (Fowler, 2003, p. 162)

***

In his CBC Massey Lecture series, The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative (2003),

Thomas King tells us "the truth about stories is that's all we are" (p. 153). Stories have always been the easiest way for me to make meaning and sense of the world we live in, whether it is through losing myself in a novel or escaping to the anonymous, darkness of a movie theatre. Accordingly, I begin my thesis with a story as a way of inviting and engaging others into the inquiry that follows.

In September 2001, after five years of working full time in the film industry as a script supervisor, I returned to school and entered the Master of Teaching Program at the

University of Calgary. This was a momentous occasion for me. Personal and professional circumstances had caused me to become unsure if I wanted to continue working in film. The business of making movies is highly competitive, especially in a 2 small film community like that in Calgary; to achieve any level of success requires

diligence and sacrifice. Over the preceding five years I had persevered through the

financial challenges of volunteer training for a year to learn my craft, followed by four

more years of struggling to prove my abilities. Consisting completely of contract work,

those years confronted me with some complex realizations regarding working in a

competitive freelance business. To embark on a life working in film was to accept a life

of feast or famine, extremely long workdays, and the subsequent impact these factors can have on all aspects of one's life.

Starting out as a volunteer script trainee on a variety of film productions in 1995,1 was eager to learn the skills required for the job. I was incredibly passionate about movies, both with regard to making them as well as the belief that they were a powerful medium

of communication in our world. I loved just being on set, watching with fascination as the grips, electrics, and camera departments all worked together to light and compose every shot. To many it must seem like watching paint dry (I know this to be true as over the years I have invited many family and friends to set only to watch their eager

anticipation of meeting movie stars and seeing magic happen turn quickly to boredom and disappointment!) but for me, this was the only life I could imagine living. For almost a year, I volunteered on a number of both film and television productions and with three different seasoned script supervisors. Every day I would show up at call time and stay until camera wrap, soaking in the atmosphere of organized chaos that is always present in the process of making movies. Then finally, following a series of practical tests, and an unfortunate accident—the script supervisor on one show was hit on the head by a piece of 3 equipment and had to go to the Emergency Room forcing me to step up to take her place—I was deemed ready and given my first opportunity to undertake the position of

script supervisor on the feature film The Edge (1997). With a great sense of importance

and accomplishment I accepted the job believing I had found the one thing I was meant to do in this world.

Cut to five years later:

The time I had spent working in the film industry taught me some very difficult lessons regarding the nature of survival in a freelance business guided by its own logic. What I had come to realize is that the position of script supervisor is a technical position therefore limiting in its potential for contributing to the creative and imaginative process of filmmaking. I had also come face to face with the fact that I felt restricted in how and/or if my voice was heard in the world of film, at least on the sets I worked on.

Perhaps most surprisingly, I had discovered that the film industry is a business ruled by hierarchies and patriarchies; while technology has advanced greatly in the last 100 years capitalist ideologies continue to enact unspoken codes of conduct, which shape how films are made, by whom, and to what ends. The professional and personal experiences I encountered during the first five years of my career left me struggling for a sense of self and a need to discover a new way to express myself in the world. Although unable to name it at the time, I now recognize that I was engaged in a battle to reclaim the very things that had originally inspired me to pursue a career in film. In part, this meant rediscovering the sense of wonder and imagination that I had once felt while sitting in a movie theatre and watching a story unfold on the screen. Intertwined with this need to reawaken my love for visual narrative, was a need to reclaim a greater sense of whom I

was and what I wanted to contribute to the world. The film industry is indeed a world of

illusions - of financial success, glamourous people, and false magic. Mixed in with that

are the realities of sexism, ego, and hegemonies created by who controls the amount of

work and, subsequently, who receives it. What I had come to realize is that I could no

longer recognize why I had entered the business; my love for story and cinema had been

displaced, my identity had been lost.

Ironically, this led to a strong desire to return to university, a surprising realization as

upon graduating with my Bachelor of Arts degree six years earlier I had vowed I would

never darken the doors of a higher education institution ever again! At my parent's

insistence and despite my objections, I entered university for the first time immediately

after high school. At the time I did not feel that I was ready to make what felt like the

penultimate decision of what I was going to "be" when I grew up. While I envisioned

myself returning to school one day, my preference would have been to take some time to

travel and work before embarking on post-secondary studies. My father and mother had

not attended university, making it a critical venture for their children. Given that my

older sister had entered into university right after high school, the expectation was that I would do the same. As a result, I floundered during my early undergraduate years, changing my major from Drama to English to Anthropology, continually searching for the subject that would capture my imagination as a potential career. As I reflect on that time in my life, I recognize it had a tremendous impact on how my interest in developing a sense of agency in the world has evolved. Reflecting on my earlier experiences, as a 5 student as well as the time that followed working in the film industry, the importance and complexity of finding a voice through which I could express my own desires became apparent. Returning to school and while immersed in the Master of Teaching programme, I became cognizant that my identity is framed by specific events in my life as a student, woman, and filmmaker. While my decision to pursue teaching and education evolved partially out of many previous jobs and volunteer work with young people, I also believed that as a teacher I could have a voice, which Grumet (1990) refers to as the possibility of "presence, contact, and relations that take[s] place within the range of another's hearing" (p. 278). Ultimately, allowing me to contribute to my students search for their own sense of being. What I know now, that I could not name then, is that

I was seeking a place to rediscover my own passion for learning as well as the opportunity to reopen my imagination to the world.

My first day of classes in the Master of Teaching programme was September 10, 2001.

As it turned out, this proved to be one of the most complex and meaningful times to be immersed in a programme dedicated to inquiry and critical thinking. September 11th was my second day of classes and, along with millions of others I awoke to the infamous attack on the World Trade Center towers in New York. While I stood in front of the television, watching the NBC Today Show with shock and disbelief, I witnessed the second tower being struck. It was very difficult to tear myself away from the events unfolding on the television. In addition to the incredulity I felt, my sister lived in

Washington, D.C. at the time and I couldn't help but be worried for the safety of both her and my brother-in-law. I arrived late for my first class that morning and to my surprise 6

few of my classmates were aware of what was going on in the United States. My

professor, Lisa Panayotidis, knowing that these were important events to unpack, gave

the class time to discuss what was happening and how we felt about it. At that time, so

early in the sequence of events that have since been identified as 9/11, little was known

and much was speculated. Over the weeks that followed the footage of the planes hitting

the twin towers of the World Trade Center were played and re-played on every television

network and news broadcast. The world was captivated, or perhaps more appropriately, held captive by the images published on every magazine and newspaper. In addressing

the importance of including media literacy into schools, Elizabeth Daley (2003) refers to

9/11 as a "historic cinematic moment," asking "what would it be like to try to fully share

[this] and other momentous events without access to the language and power of the

screen" (p. 174)? In the months that followed, the importance and the mutability of language became evident as the words "freedom" and "heroes" were appropriated and redefined by President George W. Bush and the American administration.

Simultaneously, educators and scholars were reflecting on these events, the heightened need to "find a way of understanding the 'other,'" and the recognition that "possibilities

are multiple ... [noting] we have to pay heed, as never before, to contexts, to the notion of freedom for, not solely freedom from" (Pace, 2002, p. 34-35). I was not in New York

City that day, nor am I an American; however, I like everyone else with access to a television or the Internet, witnessed recurring images that will be forever embedded in our collective cultural memory. This is not a thesis about September 11th, however I cannot separate the impact of that day and the manner in which it was taken up in the world from what I have come to think of as my own turn towards the interpretive. For 7 what was represented in the media and by the American government as an isolated event and that gave rise to the ultimate dualistic Neo-liberal ideology—"You are either with us or against us"—has led to many discussions regarding the nature of language, the importance of critical thinking, the power of visual images and the notion that there is a complex and intricate relationship among the past, present, and future. While I may not have been able to articulate it at the time, what began to take shape that day was a new discovery of the interconnections between what we see/read, the meaning or interpretation that emerges out of that reading, and how this informs the way we engage with the world around us. Over the next two years, while involved in the Master of

Teaching programme at the University of Calgary, I found moments to explore these understandings as both a student and a teacher, but it wasn't until I entered the graduate programme that I was able to delve deeper; exploring the power of the visual/narrative/identity, the act of interpretation, and the nature of critical inquiry.

While I thought I was taking steps away from my life in film and my love for the visual, I was unwittingly starting down a new path that would allow me to engage with this passion in a deeper, more critical, and theoretical manner.

Since September 11th iconic images of that day have saturated our environment. The face of Osama bin Laden has been burned into the cultural conscious of the Western world as have the images of Saddam Hussein's capture and execution, the video footage of the 2004 Tsunami, and more recently the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. For an emerging educator this is a challenging time, as the import of visual narratives becomes an increasingly undeniable facet of how we make sense of the world in which 8 we live. My experiences as a student, both in the Master of Teaching programme and in graduate school, as well as my time in the classroom as a teacher, have lead me to delve into visual culture and the notion of visual literacy. What has emerged is an interest in understanding how the visual, particularly in film images and their attendant narratives, interconnects past and present.

"Where Are All the Great Women Artists"- Discovering the Question

The question that recurs throughout this thesis is "where are all the great woman artists?"

The first time this was brought to my attention was on viewing the film The Other Side of the Picture (1998), a documentary produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

Perhaps like many others, my knowledge of Canadian art was limited to knowing mainly about the Group of Seven - a group of male, Canadian painters who first exhibited together in May 1920 and who "developed a doctrine and a style of painting based on the idea that Canadian art could find sufficient sustenance in Canada alone" (Reid, 1973, p.

134). The only female Canadian artist I had any in-depth knowledge of was Emily Carr, whose own artwork, according to art historian Dennis Reid (1973), was influenced by the

Group of Seven (p. 156). Most important to my awareness of Canadian art was the veritable veneration of landscape, which took root from 1920-1933 and was popularized by the Group of Seven whose "vigorous gestures, bold palette, and northern panoramas broke with the restrictive confines of European academic tradition, creating a new 9 interpretation of the native landscape" (Millar, 1992, p. 3). Canadian collective identity became linked to images of the land. Viewing The Other Side of the Picture I was introduced to another Canadian landscape artist, Doris McCarthy, who was previously unknown to me. McCarthy was not only a prodigious and accomplished artist, but was

also (I was struck to discover) a long time art teacher (40 years) at Central Technical

School in Toronto, Ontario.

McCarthy's experience as an artist-teacher was of great interest to me. Through my work as a graduate research assistant, I was introduced to the interconnected history of arts and education in Canada. Through the research projects on which I was participating, I had learned about organizations such as the Federation of Canadian Artists and the Ontario

Society for Education in the Arts, which were led primarily by artist-teachers. By World

War II, these organizations assumed an important role in social reconstruction, believing that art in education could "re-shape the home, community, and nation into a pre- industrial version of the aesthetic 'good society'" (Panayotidis, 2002, 6). Such understandings had a substantive impact on the evolution of art education in Canada in the early twentieth century and in many ways continue to reverberate through our society and classrooms to this day.

Intrigued by the way in which Doris McCarthy spoke of and gave meaning to her experience, as both an artist and a teacher, in The Other Side of the Picture I performed a search of National Film Board (NFB) films to see if there were any other documentary films made on the subject of female artists. I discovered the film By Woman's Hand, 10 produced in 1994, which focused on an artists' group called the Beaver Hall Hill

Group that existed in Montreal in the early 1920's. Although this group consisted of both

male and female members, the film examined the lives of artists: Prudence Heward

(1896-1947); Anne Savage (1896-1971); and Sarah Robertson (1891-1948). This film was of great interest to me as these particular female artists, although contemporaries of

the Group of Seven, were unknown to me and perhaps to many others. I was compelled by their stories and as they unfolded on the screen I found myself returning to the question first brought to my attention in The Other Side of the Picture—where are all of the women artists? Seeking to learn more about these women, their art, and the world in which they lived, I reviewed these films and began to wonder how their lives and experiences connected to my own as an educator, a filmmaker, and a woman. What emerged was a series of questions regarding how women's experience has been included/excluded from history and how this informs women today, as they search for a sense of agency and identity in the world.

As I continued my search, the third film I discovered was Doris McCarthy: Heart of a

Painter (1986), produced by Wendy Wacko Productions. While not produced by the

NFB it provided an intimate portrayal of Doris McCarthy's life as an artist after retiring from teaching. Further to her involvement with these films, I learned that McCarthy had written a series of autobiographies chronicling her life from childhood through to her nineties. Having begun my journey with the question—where are all the women artists?—it was becoming evident that I had discovered one female artist who was eager, if not to answer that particular question, to ensure that her presence as an artist was not 11 lost to history like so many other women artists before her. As I engaged in my own reflexive dialogue with these varied texts, both visual and written, I was intrigued to discover that these two mediums of communication had their own rich histories, which intertwine and inform the cultural and performative nature of gender studies today.

Rethinking History: Creating New Spaces for Multiple Voices

What I have come to realize over the last few years, through my own studies in education as well as my experiences in filmmaking, is that my love for film is merely an extension of a larger love/need for storytelling; the sharing of our experience in the world through a narrative form of expression, whether that be through the reading of a story, the watching of a film, or examining a painting or photograph. These modes of expression, Maxine

Greene (2000) has noted, provide powerful prospects for the creation of new openings as,

"stories, poems, dance performances, concerts, paintings, films, plays - all have the potential to provide remarkable pleasure for those willing to move out toward them and engage with them" (p. 27). However, in the midst of celebrating these possibilities it must be recognized that such artistic creations have been historically controlled by patriarchal discourses and practices, which have excluded the voices of the Other.

Omitting the voices of women creates a vacuum as they have been 'hidden from history,' that is, systematically excluded from most historians' accounts of the past. Accordingly, feminists are now engaged in the task of 'writing women back into history'" (Jenkins,

2003, p. 9). Current interpretive theories of the past suggest that history (or his—story) is subjugated by a dominant discourse from which women have long been excluded. 12 Despite any assumed successes, fighting to create a framework through which

women's stories (perhaps a her—story) can be told continues to be a challenge in our

world today. In his book, Re-thinking History (2003), Keith Jenkins informs us that

"history is one of a series of discourses about the world. These discourses do not create

the world (that physical stuff on which we apparently live) but they do appropriate it and

give it all the meanings it has" (p. 6). In the course of examining the films and life

writings discussed in this text I have been challenged to confront my understanding of

what history is and whose stories it represents. For as Glenn Jordan and Chris Weedon

(1995) note:

To be without history is to be trapped in a present where oppressive social

relations appear natural and inevitable. Knowledge of history is knowledge that

things have changed and do change. Nothing is inevitable. History is one key

area where, until recently, women were virtually invisible, (p. 187)

Through my reading and experiences, I am concerned to think through what might

constitute a collective cultural memory and how it impacts understanding of self within a

gendered, culturally, and historically specific time and place. For example, Doris

McCarthy, her perceived successes and failures, her dreams and hopes for her own life were very much shaped by the time and place within which she lived and worked.

Grasping the contextualization of one's interpretive understandings is a critical notion in this thesis, as is recognizing both documentary films and auto/biographies as modes of remembering. I am aware, as Stephanie Kirkwood Walker (1996) keenly articulates, autobiography (and film) are: "Deceptive genre[s], positioned between fact and fiction and elusive in its purposes, biography displays an individual life, an existence patterned 13 by conventions that have also shaped the reader's experience" (p. 1). The question of

truth in the wake of imagination and memory echoes the complexity of these issues and

illustrates our need to examine them more carefully. Contrary to previously held beliefs,

the past lives in multiple tellings. Through acknowledging the power of memory and its

link to imagination, revisiting the past creates new and exciting sites of understanding for

identity. As Munro (1998) notes, "there is no identity outside narrative. Events or

selves, in order to exist, must be encoded as story elements" (p. 6). Through this study I

hope to open new spaces for understanding and constructing knowledge for women of all

ages as they struggle for a sense of history and agency in today's world. I aim to create a

deeper awareness of the fine lines that have been imposed on what we believe as fact,

what we easily dismiss as fiction and how they enact themselves upon how we construct

meaning.

Weaving the Web: Introducing the Work

In the process of exploring filmic representations of Canadian female artists and the life-

writings of Doris McCarthy I quickly discovered that the scope of my research required

an interdisciplinary approach encompassing theoretical discourses surrounding visual

culture, feminist film theory, interpretive curriculum studies, and autobiography studies.

Chapter 2, entitled Exploring Theory: Seeking Understanding of Hermeneutics, Feminist

Film Theory and Narrative, seeks to build connections between various fields of study. I begin by unpacking how I was introduced to contemporary studies in visual culture,

allowing me to draw from my own experience in the film industry as I ventured forward 14 in my studies in education. As a result, I became attuned to feminist film theory and

notions of the male gaze. Through Laura Mulvey' s seminal text, Visual Pleasure and

Narrative Cinema (1975), I briefly trace the evolution of theories examining how women

see themselves on the screen and how these images are created.

Encouraged to draw upon my career in the film industry, or my lived experience, I found

myself re-examining my encounters in the Master of Teaching programme, my work as a

research assistant, and my graduate workfiDprompting me to re-visit my past experiences

as a student/filmmaker/woman. This act of retrieval and reflexiveness was largely forged

by my study of hermeneutics. Chapter 2 builds upon an examination of visual culture

and feminist film theory and details the "nature" of hermeneutics. "Meanings [Josselson

notes] cannot be grasped directly and all meanings are essentially indeterminate in any

unshakeable way, interpretation becomes necessary. She adds, "this is the work of the

hermeneutic enterprise" (Josselson, 2004, p. 3). Central to my graduate study, it was the

work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, who "proposed hermeneutics as an interpretive,

historically conscious practice of working to achieve understanding" (Code, 2003, p. 4),

that emerged as most significant. By sharing an event from my own student experience, I

seek to locate this complex and historically rich approach to research, which is inclusive

of narrative accounts in its endeavour to discover what Gadamer called aletheia. Finally,

it is the importance of narrative I seek to unravel in chapter 2, inquiring into how the complexity of life writing opens up possibilities for women to locate and position themselves in the world. 15 In chapter 3 I investigate the history of documentary film in Canada and the role of the

National Film Board of Canada. Emerging after World War II as a major cultural

institution, the NFB also engaged in social reconstructionist practices, aiming to forge

collective notions of nationhood. While I delve deeper into the films previously

mentioned—The Other Side of the Picture (1998), By Woman's Hand (1994), and Doris

McCarthy: Heart of a Painter (1986)fiDthis Chapter also looks at two films representing

members of the Group of Seven, Canadian Landscape withA.Y. Jackson (1941) and

Lismer (1951) (examining the work of renowned art educator Arthur Lismer) which were

also produced by the NFB. In locating these films within both Canadian history and the

history of the NFB, I reach new understandings with regard to the lives and experiences

of male and female artists in Canada as well as the different ways they are represented on

film. Finally, it is with a closer viewing of Doris McCarthy: Heart of a Painter, that a

more intimate view of Doris McCarthy emerges. In need of a way to speak her way into

the world, McCarthy became for me the prominent female voice in these films - a recurring "character" determined to define her own identity.

McCarthy's resolve to distinguish herself as an artist, teacher, and woman is also starkly implied in the series of autobiographies that are the topic of Chapter 4. McCarthy's first autobiographical memoir, A Fool in Paradise (1990), gives significant insight into her life as a teacher and artist, documenting her life from birth (1910) until her early 40's

(1950). Her narrative is engaging as she speaks of her life as a student, her relationships with her family, childhood friends, and Arthur Lismer—who emerges as an important and influential figure in her development as both an artist and a teacher. In chapter 4,1 16 attempt to deconstruct and make meaningful the manner in which she speaks about herself and the significant people in her life. It was with great curiosity that I discovered that she had continued the process of life writing with A Good Wine: An Artist Comes of

Age (1991), in which she chronicles her next 40 years, and the subsequent Ninety Years

Wise (2004), which offers a glimpse into the summer of her 92nd year. Finally, over the period time that I have been writing my thesis, McCarthy has published a fourth autobiography, entitled My Life (2006) with co-author Charis Wahl. Combining excerpts from A Fool in Paradise, The Good Wine, and Ninety Years Wise, this fourth publication does not offer a lot of new information about McCarthy's life. It is, however, a more concise and streamlined amalgamation of her life story. Collectively, these life writings lead me to question why McCarthy felt the need to consistently recount the narrative of her life through autobiographical accounts both in text and on film.

The questions I am tackling are not new. Issues of representation, gender, and identity have been taken up in a number of disciplines including gender studies, education, anthropology, and film studies, to name only a few. Substantive scholarship undergirds feminist film theory, autobiography studies, and visual culture, which all explore the complex ways in which women's ideas of self have been and continue to be constructed, and perhaps more crucially, how these attendant meanings inform society and the opportunities afforded to women. Regardless of the wealth of scholarly work already published, I constantly find myself engaging in conversations with women of all ages for whom the experiences and struggles of those who have come before them have never been explored or even questioned. Whether discussing the importance of women voting, 17 the complexity of pursuing a fulfilling career while also trying to have a successful home life, or lamenting with female colleagues about the sexual harassment and discrimination still suffered (sometimes unwittingly) by women working in the film industry today, I am often disturbed to bump up against a lack of awareness surrounding the discursive and hegemonic spaces that inform the way women perform in the world.

Greene (1990) encourages:

If women are in touch with themselves and in concrete communication with

others, they have a ground against which to consider the mystifications that work

on them, I believe it is necessary to look into the darkness, into the terrible

blankness that creeps over so many women's lives, into the wells of victimization

and powerlessness, (p. 20)

These are revelations that I have been exposed to through my graduate studies and that I am still learning how to dwell within so that I may make a constructive contribution to the ongoing struggle not only for women's stories to be heard but also those of other disenfranchised people. In her own search for women artists Linda Nochlin (1988) stated:

The arts as in a hundred other areas, are stultifying, oppressive, and discouraging

to all those, women among them, who did not have the good fortune to be born

white, preferably middle class, and above all, male. The fault lies not in our stars,

our hormones, our menstrual cycles, or our empty/internal spaces, but in our

institutions and our education - education understood to include everything that

happens to us from the moment we enter this world of meaningful symbols, signs,

and signals, (p. 148) 18

Recursively returning to King's notion that "the truth about stories is that's all we are" (p.

153), I have discovered that stories can take many shapes and forms, all of which can

serve to create new opportunities for learning about one another. Whether written, painted, filmed, danced, or spoken, our stories are what we carry with us and

subsequently leave behind. In the effort to respond to the provocative question of where are all the women artists?, I draw connections between the films and the life narratives of

Doris McCarthy. I am hopeful that I can add my voice to the ongoing conversation regarding how we understand the lives lived by the women in these film narratives, as well as listening/seeing for those women who may continue to live in silence and marginalization. 19

Exploring Theory: Seeking Understanding of Hermeneutics, Feminist Film Theory and Narrative

Returning to the events of September 11th and the months that followed, the connections that I was making while immersed in the Master of Teaching program largely had to do with the discovery of the study of visual culture. Having spent the preceding years working in a business involving the production of visual images, my initial months in the teacher-training program offered me practical opportunities to connect my previous experience with my studies. For example, while participating in a community work place practicum through the Centre for Gifted Education, I was asked to put my knowledge of editing to use by creating a video out of the footage shot at their annual summer camp. I also began working as a research assistant for Dr. Lisa Panayotidis, whose own research in the areas of visual culture and arts education began to influence and shape my own understandings. As part of that work I was invited to go on a research trip to the

University of Toronto archives in the spring of 2002 to research representations of the professoriate in Torontonensis, the University of Toronto's yearbook. My first introduction to archival research, this experience encouraged me to draw connections between the past and the present. In the course of our time at the archives, many rich and thought-provoking discoveries were made, and I began to develop a new awareness surrounding the complexity of interpreting texts, both visual and written.

Simultaneously, I was beginning to see the particular ways in which my own experience intertwined with the interpretive work I was beginning to undertake. This resulted in the bursting forth of new and creative spaces for understanding and an emerging sense of wonder—which Huebner cites as a "form of participating with the time and being of. We are only free to the extent that we maintain and develop our capacity for wonder"

(Huebner, 1999, p. 6). A sense of wonder has become integral to my evolution as a teacher, filmmaker, and woman.

Exploring Visual Culture in Educational Contexts

The power of visual images is everywhere in our world and their impact on how culture evolves (or devolves) is irrefutable. In 1998, Rogof stated that the study of visual culture was considered to be a still "emerging field" that has been characterized as opening "up an entire world of intertextuality in which images, sounds, and spatial delineations are read on to and through one another, lending ever-accruing layers of meaning and of subjective responses to each encounter we might have with film, TV, advertising, art works, building, or urban environments" (p. 14). In the preceding 10 years, this has also grown to include the vast multitude of images presented to the world through access to the Internet. Women and children, particularly, are inundated with images in magazines, music videos, and in films that impress upon us ideas of how we are to act, speak and look in the world. Maxine Greene (1990) has stated: "Film art, particularly, may be of special relevance today because of the importance of the visual in our lives and people's growing familiarity with the language of visual images" (101). Constructed through what

Gillian Rose (2001) refers to as modalities: the technological, the compositional, and the 21 social, "interpretations of visual images broadly concur that there are three sites at

which the meanings of an image are made: the site(s) of the production of an image, the

site of the image itself, and the site(s) where it will be seen by various audiences." Rose

recognizes that "all visual representations are made in one way or another, and the

circumstances of their production may contribute towards the effect they have" (p. 16-

17). However, while educators are becoming familiar with the language of the visual -

one that I argue is rooted in patriarchal discourses - we are not always critically aware

about what and whose voice these visual images represent. Over the course of my

graduate studies, I have engaged in a multitude of discussions with various people from

different areas of my life regarding my thesis and my research areas of interest. The

conversation always evolves in different ways, but what remains constant is that the

majority of people, while willing to admit to the power of the visual, are reluctant to open themselves up to the cultural significance of what they see, or create if they are filmmakers, and how it has embedded itself into one's everyday understanding of self

and, ultimately, how we live in the world.

The study of visual images and the impact they have on how critical understandings of our world are formed spans across a variety of disciplines. In his seminal text, Downcast

Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth Century French Thought (1994), Martin

Jay notes the way "visual metaphors" arise in disciplinary contexts such as sociology, anthropology, and linguistics. "Historians of technology [Jay notes] have pondered the implications of our expanded capacity to see through devices as the telescope, microscope, camera, or cinema." He continues to note that due to this "remarkable range 22 and variability of visual practices, many commentators have been tempted to claim

certain cultures or ages have been 'ocularcentric,' or dominated by vision" (p. 3). In

Visual Methodologies (1990), Rose refers to Jay's notion of "ocularcentrism [in order] to

describe the apparent centrality of the visual to contemporary Western life" and as "part

of a wider analysis of the shift from premodernity to modernity, and from modernity to

postmodernity" (p. 7). Currently, we live in a time where:

The profusion of images produced through film/video/television inform and

persuade us about our 'imaginary' selves in multiple forms of representation... In

television, every broadcast makes a connection between the 'reality' of the image

and the cultural constructs operating within any given society. Therefore, each

narrative contains within its illusionistic framework a cultural power to mediate

reality based upon actual historical happenings or events. (Gazetas, 2003, p. 191)

The importance of creating a space for critical inquiry in our schools, and in our world,

for the visual should not be underestimated as, "by gaining an awareness of the cinematic

structures and genres used by most filmmakers, educators can gain a new understanding

of several key concepts such as culture, ideology, ethics, and aesthetics, as filmmakers re­ present and reinterpret events and people in their film narratives" (Gazetas, 2003, p. 191).

Attending critically to the visual world around us must be acknowledged as being more complex than handing kids a camera or turning on the DVD player to allow them to be

swept away by the latest Hollywood rendition of a Shakespeare play.

I have often participated in discussions with educators regarding the potential for incorporating filmmaking into their lessons. During my student teaching practicum at an 23 elementary school in Calgary, I worked with a cohort of teachers who had made a video production of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937), the previous school year. Upon learning of my background in film production they were eager to discuss the complex questions that had emerged through the process that they had shared with their students.

Through these conversations, it was suggested that while the world we are living in is increasingly ocularcentric, our education system is still learning how to integrate visual culture into the curriculum. As the predominance of visual culture becomes more and more dominant, it must be recognized that:

Images are never transparent windows on to the world. They interpret the world;

they display it in very particular ways. Thus a distinction is sometimes made

between visual and visuality. Vision is what the human eye is physiologically

capable of seeing... Visuality, on the other hand, refers to the way in which vision

is constructed in various ways. (Rose, 2001, p. 6)

Through the creation of their own film, the students and teachers who produced The

Hobbit embarked on a complex journey. Even the smallest-scale productions I have worked on as a professional filmmaker have employed the expertise and talents of a number of people, all with varying degrees of knowledge specific to the job they perform on set. Large Hollywood productions employ hundreds of people, all responsible for their own small piece of the storytelling process, culminating in the creation of a visual text. Gazetas (2000) argues that "film narratives are politically committed and involved in a cultural 'politics of representation.'" With the evolution of home video technology they "have become a major source of visual information and expression about our world in 'imagining ourselves'" (p. 5). By integrating film into the curriculum these teachers opened up new and exciting educative opportunities for their students, collaboratively

making connections between the curriculum, the visual, and the narrative power of film.

In the process of becoming a teacher, these discussions forged new openings for me to

incorporate my experience of the film industry into my own emerging practice. As time

passed different questions began to take shape surrounding the intersections among film,

education, and the notion of 'imagining ourselves.' How did my career in the film

industry inform my studies in education? As I began to tackle this question, the issue of

gender continually emerged as being relevant to how I would locate and describe my

experience, resulting in new inquiries into feminist film theory.

The F Words: Feminism and Film

During my first semester as a graduate student I remember sitting across the room from

another white woman and listening to her say, "I don't understand why we need to use

the term feminism. What's wrong with humanism? We all live in the same world."

Perhaps those weren't her exact words, but they are close, and they were said in relation

to the use of a feminist research methodology. The words startled me, for while I have

not experienced great hardship in my life, I am well aware that I am positioned in this

world in a particular way due to my gender, colour, socio-cultural background, and the experiences to which these factors have afforded or limited me. I was shocked and disturbed to be reminded how many women dismiss what has been, and continues to be,

an ongoing struggle for equality. I was equally shocked to discover that in a class of 25 about 20 "educated" graduate students, and in many cases educators, perhaps four or

five raised their hands in willingness to claim themselves a feminist. It seems, somehow,

in recent times, to call yourself the "f' word is to invite shock and disdain.

It is critical incidents like the one described above to which I often find myself returning

as I engage in the process of writing, as they have led me to many of the questions I am exploring - What does it mean to be feminist in the world today? What did it mean 50, or a 100, years ago? Do women have a greater sense of agency today? How do visual images—films in particular—impact how women see themselves and other women in the world?

This past summer, I was asked to read a script with the potential of employment on a film shooting in Winnipeg. One morning, with coffee in hand, I sat on the couch and opened the emailed file on my computer expecting to read what had been described to me as a

"psychological thriller." What unfolded before my eyes was a script, severely lacking in story but filled with stereotypes about woman. Ironically, unlike many scripts that I read today, the majority of the characters were women. However, it was discouraging to see that these characters embodied two stereotypical representations of women; of the four female characters, the oldest fell under the categories of bitter and man-hating and, in contrast, the younger women in the story, who were often referred to as "sluts" and

"whores" in the dialogue, were beautiful and sexually "liberated." As I sat and read through the over 80 pages of horribly written dialogue I kept hoping for some miraculous narrative turn, hoping that the story would redeem itself and its characters. It never happened. Once I was finished I called the production manager, a pleasant man with whom I have worked in the past. He had informed me, prior to reading the script, that it was a very rough draft and the director was revising it as we spoke. I expressed my concern about working on a project that treated women in such a limited and stereotypical way. With a note of embarrassment in his voice he agreed with my observation, but couldn't make any promises with regard to how the material would evolve. What was most disturbing about this event was not necessarily the way the women were written in the script (at this point in my film career little surprises me, particularly the hollow crafting of female characters) but the admission by the production manager, that until I drew it to his attention he had not even noticed the demeaning and stereotypical portrayal of women in the draft.

In 1975, when Laura Mulvey wrote her groundbreaking essay Narrative Cinema and

Visual Pleasure, she prompted an important discussion around representations of women in film. Presenting the possibility of a feminist film theory, she posed critical questions regarding the act of seeing within the context of gender. Mulvey's article:

Identifies three main arguments in this analysis of women's place in culture. The

first is the claim that women have, in fact, produced more mainstream culture

than has ever been recognized. The second, which in many ways runs counter to

the first, is the insistence on women's absence from cultural production, in

inverse proportion to the exploitation of female images in the subject matter of art

and popular culture. Finally, she argues, there was a revival of 'minor arts and 27 crafts,' where women have produced cultural artifacts, in [a] however

marginalized and undervalued way. (Thornham, 1997, p. xiii)

Working from a psychoanalytic perspective, Mulvey questioned the idea of a male gaze

which assumed that, "all members of the cinema audience, whether male or female, are positioned in the same way in relation to the figures on the screen and that all see them in the same way" (Rose, 2001, p. 115). Creating a "cinepsychoanalysis," Mulvey and her contemporaries sparked a conversation around the representations of women in film and how the female identity is constructed on screen. Since the publication of Narrative

Cinema and Visual Pleasure (1975), work in feminist film theory has disputed the notion that there is not a particular female gaze. In Technologies of Gender (1987), Teresa de

Lauretis challenged Mulvey's original conception noting that:

When I look at movies, film theorists try to tell me that the gaze is male, the

camera eye is masculine, and so my look is also not a woman's. But I don't

believe them anymore, because now I think I know what it is to look at a film as a

woman, (p. 11)

De Lauretis interrupted the work of previous feminist film theorists, influenced by

Mulvey, who claimed that only those participating in the production of a film, the pro- filmic event, could offer insight regarding how it should be interpreted. In that theory, the filmmakers destroy the potential for the audience members to participate in the construction of meaning, as they watch the screen in front of them. This also refuted the possibility for a subjective reading of the film as a text open to interpretation, by a variety of agents, in front of the screen and behind the camera. Through her work, which moves outside of psychoanalytic theories to the realm of poststructuralism and the attunement to 28 the work of language, de Lauretis has created a textual in-between space in the watching, or the reading, of films, that extends to the spectator's lived experience and knowledge that he or she can bring to the film. Although de Lauretis' research is focused on the notions of gender and feminist film theory, her work can also extend to both how children, as well as other disempowered populations, live in the position of the "Other" in our society, and how they are implicated in film watching and interpreting.

More recently, Laura Mulvey has addressed the criticisms and concerns of her earlier interpretations within a vastly different social context. Recognizing the technological and societal evolutions that have occurred in the last three decades since she introduced a feminist film theory, Mulvey (2004) has stated:

New technologies can transform the way that the cinema of the past is seen and

thus understood, creating a fundamental paradox: while the electronic and digital

have aged the celluloid medium, they have also revitalized cinema and given new

life to its past. In the 1970s I wrote about the voyeuristic spectator, my original

point of engagement with feminism and film theory. Then the concept depended,

in the first instance, on certain material conditions of cinema exhibition: darkness,

the projector beam lighting up the screen, the procession of images that imposed

their own rhythm on the spectator's attention, (p. 1288-1289)

Mulvey acknowledges that her original assertions, regarding how women view other women in movies, do not hold true if one is to believe in interpretive spaces that are inclusive of experience. As a woman who has participated in the mainstream film community and culture, I cannot deny that the presence of the male gaze is predominant 29 in both film and television. My experience has led me to question whether evolving

theories surrounding visual culture and gender have had much impact in the mainstream

world of filmmaking. Most women I have met who desire to move into positions such as

director and producer are forced to move outside of the mainstream into smaller, more

independent areas of production. Hollywood remains remarkably untouched by the

feminist movement as such productions are pieced together:

Generally [by] the gaze of a White middle-class male as those who enter the

profession are usually from the wealthier classes, with access to education or

contacts within the industry. The film industry is a very closed and guarded old

boys' club because of its glamour. (Dirse, 2003, p. 437)

The film and television productions watched by the majority of the viewing public are

still very much under the control of this "boys' club," creating a form of hegemony

through the visual which has ramifications for how identities are constructed, shaped, and

cast. In response, academics such as Mulvey have suggested that the only way for a true

women's cinema must be located outside of the Hollywood system in the more avant-

garde and independent film world. However, while this does provide a site for the telling

of stories by those who are under-represented in contemporary films and television shows produced by the studio system, it also works to maintain a status quo where these narratives are still being told from the margins. While the majority of people behind the lens are men, specifically those who are most closely involved with the construction of images such as the director, the director of photography, and the camera operator, women have begun to make progress towards these positions. Women Filmmakers: Refocusing

(2003), edited by Jacqueline Levitin, offers a variety of female perspectives from female directors to film technicians with regard to the nature of working as a woman in the

film industry.

The Interpretive Spaces In-Between: "Pointing at the Moon "

Because the things of art have form, they invite perception and can be described.

Because things of art are deliberately bound in space and time, they are set off from the tools of the trade, the bird's song, the neighbour's complaint, and the funeral cortege.

Anthropologists, philosophers, and art critics regularly inspect the boundary that distinguishes art from life, seeking to understand them both. They examine the objects that fall to either side of the line as well as the allegiances and manners of those who

identify with each territory. They are most intrigued when the border drawn between art

and life, due to frequent or infrequent crossings, falls into disrepair, requiring negotiation, judgment and specification (Grumet, 1983, p. 29)

***

During my first semester of graduate studies I was handed an article in my "Studying

Curriculum" class, entitled Pedagogy of Buddhism (2003), that introduced me to the idea of "pointing at the moon." Describing what the author called "failed pedagogy," it tells the story of a person attempting, unsuccessfully, to communicate with her cat:

Whenever I want my cat to look at something instructive—a full moon, say, or a

photograph of herself—a predictable choreography ensues. I point at the thing I

want her to look at, and she, roused to curiosity, fixes her attention on the tip of 31 my extended index finger and begins to explore it with delicate sniffs.

(Sedgwick, 2003, p. 168)

Meant to prompt discussion around the problematic nature of outcome-based education, this reading raised complex questions surrounding what it means to teach as well as to learn. During my teacher training, the difficulty of being a good teacher was often discussed. Through revisiting our own experiences as students and reflecting on qualities embodied by our own former teachers, my colleagues and I were able to quickly identify the characteristics we did not wish to take into the classroom as educators.

During my years in the public education system, there was one encounter in particular that stood out as reflective of what Sedgewick might call "failed pedagogy." This critical incident occurred after I had finished writing my English 30 departmental exam in grade

12. Upon leaving the test I ran into my English teacher with whom I had always had a contentious relationship. She inquired about the test, asking on which text from that year

I had chosen to focus my essay. I responded that I had chosen Horses of the Night (1967) by Margaret Laurence, a short story that had been a favourite of mine that year. When I began to tell her about the essay I had written she looked at me quite plainly and stated,

"You are going to fail." My interpretation of the text differed from what she had taught in class that year. As a matter of fact, we had agreed on little over the course of my time in her classroom. She was far from my ideal teacher, as I was probably far from her ideal student. However, it is that final interaction with her that stands out the most in my mind, for it did not matter to her how effectively or eloquently I had made my argument, or that the "true" meaning behind the text was not necessarily that which my teacher had taught 32 in her classroom. It was that my gaze had not followed to where her finger had been

pointing that defined our relationship as student and teacher. We had failed one another.

Luckily for me, fate was on my side and who ever marked my exam must have seen the

merits of my argument. I did not fail the exam; I received a high mark. I carry with me a

memory of walking quite haughtily up to my teacher and telling her that she had been

wrong, rubbing my more than passing grade in her face. Whether this actually happened,

I am not sure. I have found that the trick of memory can often recreate our actions with

greater bravado than they actually occurred. As I reflect upon this event in my life, I

wish there was the possibility to discuss what had happened with my teacher. If this were

possible I would inquire whether she remembered saying those words to me, if indeed

she remembered me at all. I would like to ask if for her this was a moment of "failed

pedagogy," and if in the following years her encounter with me as a student informed her

teaching.

In the Master of Teaching programme it was with great excitement and enthusiasm that I

was able to develop a pedagogy that is founded on the belief that my students possess both the experience and knowledge to make meaningful contributions to the evolution of the classroom and the lessons that were enacted within its walls. In contrast to an outcome-based approach, I was taught that the "art of teaching invites teachers to have children participate in the construction of their identities in classrooms .... The art of teaching recognizes that each student brings a history of relation to each classroom moment and engages that history in the learning" (Grumet, 1993, p. 206-207).

Intriguingly enough, the word art seemed to emerge in a variety of contexts throughout 33 my studies. The "art of teaching," as described by Grumet, as well as in discussions

surrounding teaching art, not just as an elective subject, but also as an approach to education and the curriculum—more appropriately teaching through art/the arts. Maxine

Greene (2000) writes about the arts as a way of inspiring a "social imagination" within cross-cultural contexts as well as in the construction of identity through the development of multiple literacies—"connecting the arts to discovering cultural diversity, to making community, to becoming wide-awake in the world. For me as for many others, the arts provide new perspectives on the lived world" (p. 4). As my understanding of a potential inclusive and imaginative pedagogy began to unfold, the interconnected nature of the arts, education, and lived experience began to e/merge. Suddenly that space in-between the tip of my finger and moon seemed fraught with possibilities.

This notion of the in-between space has, over the last five years, become integral to the way I understand the world and the way I inhabit it as a teacher, filmmaker, and woman.

At the centre of this is the study of hermeneutics, a philosophical approach I was first introduced to in the Master of Teaching programme. Hermeneutics engages one in a search for understanding as a "methodological concept which has its origin in the process of human life itself. Human understanding is a 'category of life' in texts, artifacts, gestures, voices, and so forth, and we understand them to the degree to which how we can show how they emerge from 'lived experience'" (Smith, 1999, p. 31). Rooting itself in the search for understanding of experience, hermeneutics seeks a historical consciousness, as described by Hans-Georg Gadamer who believed in a fusion of horizons between past, present, and future. "It is this process alone that enables a text to 34 say something, to address us and tell us something that we don't already know.

Through interpretation a text comes to speak. But no text and no book speaks if it does not speak the language that reaches the other" (Weinsheimer, 1985, p. 224).

Hermeneutics challenges the interpreter of a text to be aware of his or her own language in the world. As well as addressing the prejudice that may influence an interpretation in order to be able to discover a truth or to unfold an aletheia, which, as Gadamer would say allows for an "experience of truth [that] comes when we take the time to dwell on the matter at hand in conversation with another" (Dostal, 1994, p. 49). As a result, hermeneutics has found a place in educational research and critical pedagogy, making necessary the acknowledgement of the value of the experience of the research subject.

For Gadamer, experience was crucial, defined as that "which strikes us and becomes a part of us" (Grondin, 2003, p. 20)—resulting in the inclusiveness of "lived experience" in how we perceive the world.

The process of understanding both written and visual texts is one that requires openness to interpretation. Engaging in hermeneutics requires an attunement to and with experience, as the "practice of interpretation attempts to show what is at work in different disciplines and, in the service of human generativity and good faith, is engaged in mediation of meaning" (Smith, 1999, p. 28). To an educator, this offers an opening for the creation of an in-between space of teaching and learning, a third space acknowledging that "the pact of interpretation is never simply an act of communication between the I and the You" (Bhaba, 1994, p. 53). It is within this space that the interplay between watching, listening, and speaking unfolds, allowing for the art of teaching to 35 take place, honouring the idea that "good teaching at every level requires the construction of a new language, a language in the middle, that bridges our many ways of

speaking about the world" (Grumet, 1993, p. 208). Hermeneutics, in honouring the in- between spaces and through its dedication to understanding and interpretation, "works from a commitment to generativity and rejuvenation" responding "to the question of how can we go on in the midst of constraints and difficulties that constantly threaten to foreclose on the future. The aim of interpretation, it could be said, is not just another interpretation but human freedom" (Smith, 1999, p. 29). Within educational contexts, this creates an openness and respect for the complex relationships that exist in the world and the discourses that erupt as a result, forging new ways to conceive of such dualities as parent/child, student/teacher, educator/curriculum, and curriculum/world.

One of the greatest gifts that emerged out of my graduate studies was the recognition that there can be a fusion between my career in film and my passion for education. At the centre of this is hermeneutics and the connections it draws between truth and art. Greene

(2000) tells us that:

Aesthetic experiences require conscious participation in a work, a going out of

energy, an ability to notice what is there to be noticed in the play, the poem, the

quartet. Knowing 'about,' even in the most formal academic manner, is entirely

different from constituting an fictive world imaginatively and entering it

perceptively, affectively, and cognitively. (p. 125)

This notion of the aesthetic, which Gadamer linked to hermeneutics, provides a space for challenging previously held notions of what it means to have an aesthetic consciousness. 36 Recognizing the transformative nature of art, Gadamer believed "What stands out in a work of art is the truth of the world such as its metamorphosis into a work, which is for us an experience of recognition in both its meanings: that of knowledge and that of thanks. Art opens our eyes" (Grondin, 2003, p. 44). Hermeneutics also brings awareness to the question of subjectivity in reference to the search for truth in art:

"Artistic creation is less a clear mirror of reality than the effusion of subjectivity, and aesthetic experience seeks to recreate a memory or an expression rather than to make sense of existence" (Grondin, 2003, p. 45). The idea of memory, what it is and how it informs our understandings of the past, becomes increasingly significant as we examine the lives and work of women artists, and the ways in which they have endeavoured to speak their way into the world.

Memory, Imagination and Narrative: Opening Spaces of Possibility through Autobiography

An autobiography is a series of stories that spans your life. Each story is a slice of life— a scene or memory that show something about who you are or what you have experienced. Writing your life can be like a movie .... As a writer, the film is in your mind's eye. You create a slice of life when you search for and record a memory that tells something about your inner nature. Each slice of life you create is a scene. Later, you can splice those slices together and create an autobiography. (Davis, 2003, p. 9) 37 Thinking about what it means when I say I want to explore the way in which women

"write their lives," I am taken back to an evening about four years ago. It was a book

reading for Canadian author Anne Marie MacDonald's last book The Way the Crow Flies

(2003). As I am a fan of her writing I was excited to hear her read an excerpt from her

book, particularly as I was at the beginning stages of conceptualizing the 'work' of

narrative in my thesis. As MacDonald stood at the front of Knox United Church in

Calgary, she spoke openly about the complexity of locating herself in the world as a

woman. She spoke of a struggle to author-ize herself, noting that despite the acclaim she has received as an author, she has had a hard time describing herself as such. As I sat in the back of the church, her words resonated with me and in that moment a multitude of questions that had been building inside of me suddenly began to take shape. Why do women struggle to author-ize themselves in the world? Why do we not believe that our

stories are worth sharing? Why do we struggle to recognize and believe that others learn

and grow from what we have to tell, from our similar or divergent lived experience in the world?

As I embarked upon the journey of examining representations of female artist-teachers in film, I was introduced to Doris McCarthy's autobiographies. This led me to discover the growing importance of autobiographical accounts in contemporary women's studies.

Allowing for the intertwining of ideas such as agency, memory, identity, and the ways in which women embody the world, autobiography can be understood as an act of narration through which the creation of new, performative spaces exploring the multiple histories of our world can be forged. The process of engaging in an autobiographical narrative has 38 been identified as a. performative act as it "enacts the 'self [and] has given rise to an

'I.' And that T is neither unified nor stable—it is fragmented, provisional, multiple in

process" (Smith & Watson, 2002, p. 9). The idea of performativity has taken on

particular importance for me, connecting to both representations on film as well as on the page. Beginning with the work of Judith Butler, who looked at "the 'materialization' of

identities within speech acts," Redman (2005) connects film, gender, and performance through "the concept of suture—the means by which subjects are said to 'appear' in

language via unconscious identification . . . [which] was developed in film studies during the 1970's" (p. 27). This notion of performance engages not only in the study of those who "perform" on stage and screen but also in how the reader or viewer takes in that performance, incorporating it into their own lives. As individuals and as groups, we are always engaged in acts of interpretation and identification that call upon the imagination for understanding. This has also been identified as a type of "body knowledge," as

Grumet (1988) informs us. She adds, "Maurice Merleau-Ponty called it knowledge of the body-subject, reminding us that it through our bodies that we live in the world. He called it knowledge in the hands and knowledge in the feet" (p. 3). What is an autobiographical telling? How has this form of narrating one's life become so important to exploring women's experience? In search of answers to these questions it becomes vital to recognize the distinctive differences between writing about experiences and critically reflecting upon them. 39 Autobiography and Gender: Forging Spaces in Contemporary Women's Studies

In recent years, the study of autobiography has gained new relevance in the examining

and understanding of woman's lives, particularly the functions and roles women have

historically held and currently hold in the world. Claiming a positive space for

understanding experience, "autobiographical memory subverts official history[,] serving

to illuminate repressed history and opening dialogue" (Staskowski, 2004, p. xiii).

Autobiography, Staskowski argues, allows "women ... to communicate ... a historical

understanding of their personal experience" (p. 3). In recognition of the constantly

shifting nature of the world and the complexity of trying to locate oneself within it, Smith

and Watson (2002) have suggested that "autobiographical narration" is a bit of:

A moving target, a set of shifting self-referential practices, [it] offers occasions

for negotiating the past, reflecting on identity, and critiquing cultural norms and

narratives. The life narrator selectively engages aspects of her lived experience

through modes of personal 'storytelling' - narratively, imagistically, in

performance. That is, situated in a specific time and place, the autobiographical

subject is in dialogue with her own processes and archives of memory, (p. 9)

The study of life writing is an emerging field that has developed close ties with women's

studies. In her book Auto/biography in Canada: Critical Directions (2005), Julie Rak

states that "it is not an exaggeration to say that feminist autobiography criticism has had the most impact on the study of auto/biography as a field" (p. 14). She adds that Western androcentrism has served to negate women's life experiences from consideration: Early feminist scholarship sought to bring women's life writing into the

auto/biographical canon, and it developed what I call a paradigm of failure to

account for why they thought so many women before the twentieth century

treated their experiences as non-representative, or apologize for their stories or

their lives. By the late 1980's, scholars were questioning this paradigm of failure

and were beginning to develop a poetics of women's autobiography that

principally saw women's auto/biographical writing as exempt from androcentric

assumptions about the development of self in relation to an "other" (p. 14).

The spaces between truth and fiction are often brought to the forefront when discussing

issues of women's stories. As Virginia Woolf stated in 1929 in A Room of One's Own,

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as

you will see, leaves the greater problem of the true nature of women and the true nature

of fiction unsolved" (p. 6). Women's absence as authors is a recurrent theme in Woolf s

text. During a trip to the British Museum she reflexively asked, "Have you any notion of how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any

notion how many are written about men? Are you aware that you are, perhaps the most

discussed animal in the universe?" (p. 32). Accordingly, as in cinema, women's stories have almost always been written by men, thus begging the question: How are women to recognize and understand their experiences in the world and conceive them within a framework that allows us to live imaginatively? Recent strides towards a female auto/biographical voice has allowed for an identification that "focus[es] on the personal not only allowing] women to describe, in their own words, their experiences, but also illuminates the contextual, subjective and relational processes from which our 41 understanding of the world emerges" (Munro, 1998, p. 6). While a growing space for

the representation of women's lives in Western culture has apparently emerged, the

complexity of how the past imprints itself on current discourses surrounding

representation and identity cannot be disregarded. "Writing women's lives is ... no easy

task. How can we write as women when the 'women' subject is a construction of

masculinist language, or, in other words, a fiction (Munro, 1998, p. 5)?" In her study of biographical portrayals of Emily Carr, Stephanie Kirkwood Walker (1996) addresses the

complexity of "writing" an artist's life:

Instead of patterning my progress according to the occasions and concerns of

Emily Carr, even of her advocates or detractors, I have drawn this particular life

into the arena of life writing. Thus I write of what we infer from encounters with

the genre and the alterations in the genre's meaning as beliefs, philosophies and

creative impulses change. As much as my concern is with how Emily Carr wrote

herself, it is also with the pivotal place held by accounts of the lives of women

artists and the manner in which a single life—like a pebble dropped in a still

pond—can affect any number of concerns on its periphery, (p. 4)

This recognition of the interconnected nature of the lives of Emily Carr, Doris McCarthy, and their contemporaries has helped me to defy a commonly held assumption that there were no women artists of note before a certain historical juncture. Accordingly, through examining the film and autobiographical texts that narrate their experience, a new light has been cast on the limited exposure we have had to the works they created and the lives they lived. Such absences speak loudly of a systematic ordering of their worlds, rather than any meritorious judgment of artistic 'quality' or 'excellence.' 42

Unpacking Autobiography: Narrative Styles of Life Writing

Current understandings surrounding the act of writing about one's life can be identified

as engaging in the narrative telling of the experiences of certain people or personalities

who are considered to have lived " 'great' public lives." Described as a "self-

representational act," the commonly held perception of writing an autobiography is that it

is predominantly representative of great men whose lives "inscribe themselves textually,

visually and performatively" (Smith and Watson, 2002, p. 8). The implications of this

limited vantage point excludes narrative vehicles that might offer possibilities for women

and other marginalized groups interested in claiming and naming their experience,

whether it be termed: life writing, life narrative, memoir, biography, or auto/biography.

However, to the uncritical eye, little distinction exists between these various theoretical

permutations. In their, Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives

(2001), Smith and Watson take up the complexity of these terms, aiming to make clear

distinctions, specifically between life writing, life narrative, and autobiography. They

state "we understand life writing as a general term for writing of diverse kinds that takes a

life as its subject," including biographical accounts, novels, and historical representations.

"We understand life narrative as a somewhat narrower term that includes many kinds of

self-referential writing," inclusive of memoirs. They identify autobiography as "the definitive achievement of a mode of life narrative, 'autobiography' celebrates the autonomous individual and the universalizing life story" (p. 5). Later, in Interfaces: 43 Women/Autobiography/Image/Performance (2002), they make a further distinction

between biography and autobiography noting:

Although life narrative and biography are both modes of narrating lives, they are

not interchangeable .... In biography, scholars of other people's lives document

and interpret those lives from a point of view external to the subject. In life

narrative people write about their own lives and do so simultaneously from

externalized and internal points of view .... The life narrator confronts not one

life, but two. One is the self that others see—the social, historical person with

achievements, personal appearance, social relationships. These are the 'real'

attributes of a person living in the world. But there is also the self experienced

only by that person, the self felt from the inside that the writer can never get

'outside of.' (p. 5)

Rak (2005) contests this though, calling into question the "privileging of autobiography over biography." She notes that the word autobiography "literally means 'self-life- writing' illustrating how this has evolved through a variety of disciplines to create the current auto/biography field, "which in the use of the slash highlights the instability of autobiography as a genre, and expresses a continuum rather than an area of absolute difference between biography and autobiography" (p. 16). The practice of looking back and bringing the past into the present allows auto/biography to exist as a site of new understandings and possibility. Adopting the stance that the notion of experience must be taken up as being discursive and historically located, life writing opens up spaces to be

"self-reflexive about what we understand as 'our experience'" (Smith and Watson, 2001, p. 26), acknowledging that it "is at once always an interpretation and is in need of interpretation" (Scott, 1992, p. 37). In the nature of hermeneutic inquiry, which calls for both openness to experience and a recognition that the past, present, and future are

intertwined, it is this term of auto/biography that I adopt when examining the life narratives of Doris McCarthy. 45 The Artist on Film: Teaching Narratives and Gender as Portrayed Through the Canadian Lens

As I reflect upon my involvement with the film industry over the last 13 years it does not

surprise me that the majority of films that I have worked on have not been Canadian

productions. Rather Canada, from the late 1990's through to the present, has become a

haven for what is referred to in Hollywood as "runaway productions." Due to the once

low Canadian dollar and the development of innovative provincial tax credit programs,

film crews in Canada have grown in numbers and experience over the last 15 years,

creating what is considered, in many provinces, to be a lucrative and viable source of

revenue, based on a service industry.

My list of film credits it consists mainly of American television movies and more

recently American feature films. My Canadian credits consist of television series,

including North of Sixty (1992-1998) and Pit Pony (1999), two quintessentially Canadian

CBC shows, and more recently the series Falcon Beach (2006-2007), which, although

created and produced by Canadians, was partially funded by ABC Family, an American

cable network owned by the Disney corporation. As a result, while filming a show set in

a small beach town in Manitoba, albeit a fictitious one, we had to make sure that if we

shot a scene showing money we did it twice, once with Canadian and once with

American bills. Similarly, when a city was referred to in the dialogue, it was necessary to film a Canadian version mentioning Winnipeg or Toronto and an American version referring to Boston or New York. Our all-Canadian cast was consistently harassed (by 46 me, the script supervisor) to speak with a generic American accent. This was required

to appease American network executives worried that their audience might notice that an

"out," "about," or "mom" may have a decidedly "un-American" twang. Jointly funded by

Telefilm Canada and the Canadian television network Global, Falcon Beach represented

the interrupted links created through a complex system of co-production with which

Canadian filmmakers must engage to get their stories produced. Recently, while working

on another film production, I was speaking with a fellow crewmember about my work on

Falcon Beach; she expressed her surprise that it had been filmed in Winnipeg.

Interestingly enough, her astonishment was a result of having watched the show briefly

and believing that it looked unlike a traditional "Canadian TV series." Sadly, it was with

some satisfaction that we spoke of the show as having broken down the conventional

portrayal of Canada and Canadians in film, having achieved a more conventional

"American" quality of production.

The evolution of "Hollywood North," a term for American film production across

Canada, has been examined in a more detailed manner by Michael Spencer in Hollywood

North: Creating the Canadian Motion Picture Industry (2003). It opens with the

statement:

Hollywood North—the phrase echoes through the countless newspaper stories and

magazine articles written over the years about the Canadian film industry. It's not

a location, but a concept: that the success, glamour, and ail-American dream of

the motion picture industry can be recreated in Canada, (p. 1) 47 Spencer's book is a memoir of his own experience as a filmmaker in Canada and

speaks to the cultural bureaucracy entrenched in the film community in Canada.

However, as the Canadian dollar rises and the individual American states adopt tax

incentive packages created to lure Hollywood production to film in their location, this

dream of Hollywood North becomes increasingly more fragile and the question of what

the Canadian industry will look like without the influx on American service productions

hangs heavily in the air. Contemplating this has led me to confront the difficulty of

locating what is implied by the identification of a film as Canadian, leading to a critical

unravelling of the cultural policies that led to the creation of our national cinema.

Locating Canada on Film: Production Policies and Dominant Narratives Represented by

the NFB

The distinctive look of movies and television shows produced in Canada is exemplified

by the immense volume of work produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).

Through its influence, Canadian filmmakers are seemingly engaged in what Zoe Druick

(1998) describes as a process of "documenting, in a style reminiscent to varying degrees of ethnography, sociology, and political science, the everyday life of 'ordinary'

Canadians from all parts of the country" (p. 125). A particular style has been adopted by contemporary Canadian film and television productions, often depicting what life might have been like for pioneer Canadians. This is demonstrated in the two of the very different television series that I worked on. Pit Pony, which explored the challenges of working in the coal mines of early 1900's Nova Scotia, and North of Sixty, the story of an 48 aboriginal community that addressed the complexities of living as an "Other" in the present day. Neither of these productions were funded or produced by the NFB, nor were any of the others I have worked on over the past 10 years. However, it is through exploring the past of this cultural agency, whose original mandate was to "help

Canadians in all parts of Canada to understand the ways of living and problems of

Canadians in other parts" (Druick, 2007, p. 22), that we can locate the foundations of what has emerged as a Canadian filmmaking style.

The NFB was formed as a result of the National Film Act of 1939. The position of Film

Commissioner was offered to John Grierson, a documentary filmmaker from Great

Britain who had been invited by the Canadian government to "study the state of Canadian film production and make recommendations that would revive it" (Gittings, 2002, p. 79).

At the helm of the NFB, Grierson placed the emphasis of Canadian film production on the documentary, believing that the documentary film was the "creative treatment of actuality" (Gittings, 2002, p. 79). Not in favour of the feature film format, Grierson referred to it as "a low, escapist cultural form" which, rather than engaging it's viewers in an educative viewing experience, catered to "moods of relaxation." In contrast to this,

Grierson imagined a "more erudite, formally instructional Canadian national cinema" whose objective was to create a cultural institution that would enable Canadians to present themselves to the world (Gittings, 2002, p. 79). Contending that a need existed in

Canada to create our own style of emotional presentation, under Grierson the NFB adopted a mandate to create imaginative and educational spaces through film, intended to draw understanding between its diverse and widespread populace. 49

Founded at the beginning of World War II, production at the NFB was quickly drawn

into the world of propaganda filmmaking, employing social reconstructionist discourses.

Believing in the power of the arts to address questions regarding what it means to live in

a democratic and "good" society, the NFB was positioned to produce works that would

fall under the auspices of "capital C culture," that had a "significant role to play in the

reorganization of the home front and the world, both in a practical way and in a

philosophical contemplation" (Panayotidis, 2006, p. 150). As a result, as the NFB evolved and grew, so did its impact on the development of a utilitarian cinematic style

committed to social realism and concepts of nationhood.

In recent years a number of studies have been conducted examining the history of the

NFB through postmodernist frameworks, which seek to "unveil the shifting ways in

which Canadian cultures make sense of, and locate themselves in an imagined Canadian community" (Gittings, 2002, p. 1). In her most recent book, Projecting Canada:

Government Policy and Documentary Film at the National Film Board (2007), Zoe

Druick makes the argument that, " Film Board films are statistical, in that they present visual narratives of probable scenarios and outcomes in relation to social policy objectives" (p. 7). Adopting the "narrative strategy" of being the "teller of statistical tales," the topics of early NFB films included such things as mental and social hygiene, labour management, national security, and education (Druick, 2007, p. 26). Druick is not alone in her work to locate the impact of the intentionally educative mandate set forth by the NFB. Malek Khouri's Working on Screen: Representations of the Working Class in Canadian Cinema (2006) addresses the history of labour in Canadian film. Carmen

Robertson, in Reel Artists: National Film Board of Canada Portrayals of Contemporary

Aboriginal and Inuit Artists and Their Art (2005), also takes up the teaching agenda

apparent in NFB films. Likewise, Brian Low's NFB Kids: Portrayals of Children by the

National Film Board of Canada 1939-1989 (2002) begins with an examination of the mandate of the NFB and the cinematic representations of children which played a vital role in the "cinematic readjustment of Canada" (p. 65). Low adds: "As a body of films, the postwar portrayals of children constitute a panoramic record - an unfolding field of

visions - of the changing physical, intellectual, and social realities of the peoples of

Canada" (p. 66). These scholarly works are significant as they identify the social practices and historicizing of Canada by the NFB as being less concerned with the production of an aesthetic vision, than seeking to guide Canadians' perceptions of self and nation in particular ways, predominantly through the depiction of "everyday life" in

Canada.

Feminist Film Practices at the NFB

With the 1970's and the introduction of feminist film theory, it became increasingly difficult for female voices to be excluded from the landscape of Canadian film production. Film was not the only site of cultural production that was being transformed:

The starting point for much feminist cultural politics after 1968 was the

invisibility of women. Women's lives and experience were absent from most

history writing, sociological studies, and the literary and artistic canons. Women 51 artists rarely featured in exhibitions whether historical or contemporary;

women writers and critics were marginalized. (Jordan & Weedon, 1995, p. 186)

In 1974, the "universalizing pan-Canadianism of earlier NFB films was extended to the funding of images of gender difference [with] the founding of Studio D, the first publicly funded women's production unit in the world" (Gittings, 2002, p. 90). The mandate of

Studio D was concerned not only with how women were represented on screen, but also with ensuring that they developed a voice behind the camera. Studio D strove to bring

"the perspective of women to all social issues through the medium of film, promoting personal, social and political awareness," (Anderson, 1999, p. 47), providing an opportunity for a female perspective to contribute to the imagined community of the

Canadian nation. In 1997, after Studio D had been disbanded, a documentary entitled

Kathleen Shannon: Film, Feminism, and Other Dreams (1997), directed by Gerry

Rogers, was released by the NFB. In the film Shannon, the founder and the executive producer in charge of Studio D, states:

Things that relate to our own lives fascinate us, that had always been true for men,

so yeah, they hadn't done much for women because they weren't interested or

didn't know. But to see things related to our own lives is so important, it gives a

validity to our experience. Our experience is real too, which up to that point it felt

like being the Women's Auxiliary to the human race if you looked at Film Board

films... Even if you look in the equivalent of an encyclopedia there can be

tremendous bias, in terms of whose put the information in, what is considered

important, what is considered "the truth." There is no acknowledgement that

there may be many truths from different perspectives. 52 Over the 22 years of its existence Studio D produced over 125 movies. It has been concluded that "Studio D's attempts to give greater voice to marginalized groups and to produce more varied images of women were largely token effort's," as they were not viewed as having led to any "substantive structural change or to power sharing"

(Anderson, 1999, p. 54). Following it's demise in 1996, the NFB tried to continue to support women filmmakers through inclusion in the Reel Diversity program, identified as

"the latest strategy for attracting 'marginal' citizens to make films about their experiences, continuing to reinscribe Canadian "others" on film" (Druick, 2007, p. 175).

Reflecting upon the era of Studio D, scholars now recognize that its productions catered to a "middle-class feminist ideology" (Melnyk, 2004, p. 168). However, that does not deny that Studio D created a space for a discursive interchange of ideas and for women to express their own experiences in the world.

In its 2002-2006 Strategic Plan, the National Film Board of Canada's mission statement was extended to include the directive "to produce and distribute distinctive, culturally diverse, challenging and relevant audiovisual works that provide Canada and the world with a unique Canadian perspective" (National Film Board of Canada [NFB], Mission section, para. 1). The word that stands out in this statement is "relevant," prompting me to question who dictates what and whose stories are "relevant" enough to be translated on film. Reflecting on the vast array of films produced by the NFB, it is clear that it has sought to forge and explain group identities on film, "like Indians and Inuit, labourers, the poor and unemployed, women and immigrants" (Druick, 1998, p. 125). In the process, the NFB has influenced contemporary Canadian filmmakers and audiences, 53 acknowledging that "film acts, both parliamentary and performative" engaging

Canadian filmmakers and audience "in a dialogue, in a struggle over what culture - in all

its senses - could be or should be" (Druick, 2007, 184). It is not my intention to retell the

chronology of the NFB in this thesis, as a plethora of material already exists detailing its

history, including One Hundred Years of Cinema (2004) by George Melnyk, which offers

a comprehensive history of film in Canada, both inclusive and exclusive to the NFB.

However, it is this notion of relevance that echoes throughout this text. Recognizing the

hegemonic discourses of empire, colonization, and power in which the discursive

narratives told by the NFB are engaged, that are of significance as I proceed to look at the

films discussed in the following pages.

Filmic Representations of the Male Artist in Canada

The first two films I will look at, Lismer (1951) and Canadian Landscape with A.Y.

Jackson (1941), were both produced in the early days of the NFB. My initial discovery of these films happened quite by chance. In preparing to view the films on the Beaver

Hall Hill Group and Doris McCarthy, I performed a search on the NFB website and in the

University of Calgary library catalogue for films on artists in Canada. At first, I dismissed these two films as not being relevant to my study, as they focus on male artists.

However, upon further consideration I realized that by watching these films and examining the lives and work of these men, I would be better able to locate the experience of the women who were their contemporaries. What unfolded on the screen were depictions of the "quintessential Canadian identity," as well as representations of how the "male artist was constituted versus the "female artist" on film. Through the

narration of Stephen Dale, who did the voiceover for a number of films for the NFB in

the 1940's, it is stated at the beginning of Canadian Landscape with A.Y. Jackson,

"Though man has brought the wilderness under his hand, the frontier is never far away."

With these initial comments about the relationship of the male artist to the land, I began

to situate my understandings of the larger artistic community in which the female artist

lived and worked in pre and post-World War II Canada.

In Canadian Landscape with A.Y. Jackson, the portrayal of Jackson, a member of the

Group of Seven, positions art in Canada within the framework of a country with strong

ties to the land, constructing a vision of Canada as vast and unyielding. With respect to

the work of the Group and their homage to the grandeur of the Canadian landscape, the

film's narrator notes: "Like all artists, these men owed much to tradition but they spoke

with a new voice, a voice of Canada." Produced in 1941, a mere two years after the creation of the National Film Board of Canada, Canadian Landscape is a confirmation that "art, social policy, education and moral convictions are never separate but bound up inextricably in broader workings of the state" (Panayotidis, 2002, p. 2). Making the claim that "artists look at Canada through Canadian eyes," Canadian Landscape emphasizes the construction of a fixed Canadian national identity within a place of rugged cliffs and grand landscapes. This portrayal of Jackson, in which the artist is crafted as a heroic figure, argues that "the artist must be able to wield a paddle as well as the brush" as he is accompanied by a sweeping soundtrack, indicating possible peril while he solely traverses the wilderness alone, in search of a scene to commit to the 55 canvas. The definition of what is "Canadian" is manifest in this short film. The

influence of artists like Jackson in creating a sense of nation building, a breaking free

from the old traditions to chart new paths, is reinforced through his landscape paintings in

which he "has produced his own essence of Canada, vast, rhythmic, vigourous." The

Group of Seven resonates with many Canadians today. Although many people are unable

to name the individual artists by name, their influence is deeply embedded in the

Canadian psyche, representing the rugged landscape to the forefront of our aesthetic

understanding of what it means to be Canadian. Once exhibited, the artistic works

produced by the Group quickly became nationally and internationally recognized as the

"best the country had produced." Displayed and disseminated by the National Gallery of

Canada and its education programme - the Groups work was promoted as a way to

"provide an aesthetic sustenance to nourish the nation, providing the requisite 'sense of

beauty' and the 'intellectual and moral' impetus that would create a great society"

(Zemans, 1995, p. 27). Reproductions travelled as far as Western Australia in 1935,

resulting in a comment from one local teacher that "through these works which had been

framed and shown throughout his school, students had come to truly understand the

Canadian experience" (Zemans, 1995, p. 22).

The second film I discovered that day in the library was Lismer (1951), which explored

the work of another pivotal member of the Group of Seven and art educator, Arthur

Lismer. For Lismer:

Art... [was] an integrating force for good, with a common language that could

unite people of all races and creeds. The process of making art offered opportunities for gathering individuals into cohesive groups through the sharing

of ideas and skills and working towards common goals. In this way the individual

would be enlarged and society enriched. (Grigor, 2002, p. 345)

Placing particular emphasis on his ongoing commitment to art education, Lismer portrays

the artist/educator at work. Speaking to Lismer's passion for his students, the narrator

states: "Through them [his] influence has contributed to the gradual change of formal

education. Whatever the project... Lismer has emphasized the development of

personality and ideas rather than technical skill, understanding rather than factual

knowledge, experience rather than imitation." Lismer is portrayed as a grandfatherly

figure, patiently supervising and encouraging both precocious young children and adult

art students (albeit, in both cases, all female) to explore the world through a brush and

canvas at school. The film also takes a cursory glance at his work as an artist, which like

his contemporaries, focused on the Canadian landscape serving as "a background of epic

grandeur." Both Canadian Landscape withA.Y. Jackson and Lismer serve as strong

examples of the type of documentaries that were produced by the NFB in its early years.

In Lismer, we watch the artist and educator at work, as he sits with a young child who is

struggling to paint. With great ease and encouraging words he illustrates how to paint a bird. McLeish (1955) notes, "Lismer's faith that if one could only influence the early education of children, one could make an important contribution to the country" (p. 119).

It must be remembered that the process of filmmaking is a mindful act. Portraying a story on film requires as much direction as writing a novel or short story. Once production begins, even the spontaneous moments become mired in complexity as cameras, lights, and members of the crew surround the players. Regardless of the scale

of the production, these are all ingredients required to make a movie, allowing for a

constructed truth to be set forth, one that serves the agenda of the filmmaker and

requiring the cooperation of the subject. It must be flexible in its desired outcome. The

end result then becomes a merger of ideas and events. It is not by chance that A.Y.

Jackson was found paddling through the vast Canadian wilderness, or that, in Lismer, a

woman was "caught" on camera making the comment, "Art is so educational, isn't it? It

really makes you see things doesn't it?" Druick (2007) mentions, "In watching

documentaries, the viewer is formally suspended between having access to reality and

having an awareness of the filmmaker's enframing, as well as other limitations and

constraints placed on the interpretation being shown" (p. 12). In recognizing that these

were moments that were acted for the camera, as well as locating when, where, and by

whom these films were a made, a new critical awareness can be brought to the viewing of

these films. Lismer and Canadian Landscape with A. Y. Jackson were produced in the

pioneering stages of a national cultural institution, long before the consideration of a

feminist or social realist cinema evolved, leading to the production of films more

inclusive of women's voices.

The Female Artist on Film: The Beaver Hall Hill Group and Doris McCarthy

In contrast to the films about the male artists, By Woman's Hand (1994), focusing on the relationships between a group of female artists who were contemporaries of the Group of

Seven, and The Other Side of the Picture (1998), raise the complex question: "Where are 58 all the women artists?" Both of the Lismer and Jackson films were made with the

cooperation and participation of the artists themselves, allowing for their experiences to

be reflected upon and portrayed from their vantage point. In contrast, the women

portrayed in By Woman's Hand were deceased by the time of the film's production in

1994. Examining the experiences of the female members of a group of artists known as

the Beaver Hall Hill Group—"most remarkable for a group of Montreal-born women

who dominated its membership during the twenties" (Reid, 1973, p. 187) - the voices of

the artists portrayed are never heard directly in this film. Rather, the director, Pepita

Ferrara, frames their life experiences in a manner that makes it impossible to ignore the

choices they were confronted with in life, so that they could pursue their art.

Accordingly, we are only able to see their lives and experiences through the eyes of the

filmmaker, with contributions from historical documents and friends and family who are

still living, resulting in the construction of a particular interpretive account of their lives.

By Woman's Hand (1994) opens with a dramatic re-enactment of the life of Prudence

Heward, informing the audience that while "she [once] stood at the centre of Canadian

art, after death Prudence Heward's work simply vanished into obscurity. In a world of

male masterpieces, woman's art tends to disappear." Much of By Woman's Hand focuses

on Heward and her close relationships with her fellow artists, Anne Savage and Sarah

Robertson. In stark contrast to Canadian Landscape, where the identity of the artist is defined as that of a solitary man of the land, able-bodied and capable of living in the wilderness on his own, the woman as artist is depicted in a very different manner. The viewer is led through more dramatic re-enactments of Prudence Heward, pensive and 59 thoughtful in her studio and images of women (presumably Heward and Savage)

walking through the snowy parks of Montreal. While the man as artist was portrayed as

an isolated and independent entity, the woman as artist is shown as a part of a community

of fellow artists, both male and female, defined by her strong emotional ties to family and

home. The result are constructed, dichotomous representations of the rural male at home

in the wilderness, in contrast to the urban, sheltered female bounded by her situational

context. Looking at the artists represented in By Woman's Hand, it becomes evident that

while not all of their families struggled for financial stability, the options available to

women were very limited. While they were afforded the patience to pursue their art up to

a point, at a certain age the expectation of marriage became evident, with few options of

living lives outside of the societal expectations of the day. Interestingly, none of the

women discussed in By Woman's Hand ever married, leading them to live lives on the

fringes, caring for aging parents or teaching to support themselves, while they pursued

their passion for painting.

The motto of the Beaver Hall Hill Group, borrowed from Shakespeare's Hamlet

(1602/1963), was "this above all, to thine own self be true" (p. 52). As these female

artists are depicted through the lens of By Woman's Hand the motto appears to be a pledge that they all followed ferociously. The choice to pursue the life of an artist would not have been an easy one for women of their day. The complexity of this struggle is

shown most clearly when looking at the relationship between Anne Savage and A.Y.

Jackson. Introduced to the "character" of Anne Savage in By Woman's Hand, we are told that she shared a love for landscape painting with members of the Group of Seven. As the leader of the Beaver Hall Hill Group, A.Y. Jackson developed a close friendship

with all of the female members. However, By Woman's Hand draws particular attention

to the relationship between him and Savage. Although both are enamoured with the

Canadian landscape, the film states, "I think up close is more comfortable for a woman

than great sweeps .... While A.Y. Jackson and the Group of Seven are out hiking and

paddling through uncharted Northern wilderness, Anne Savage sets out to explore the

countryside near her country home." In contrast, to the isolated and rugged landscape

portrayed in the work being put out by the Group of Seven, "The landscape that inspires

Anne and her friends, is one where the human hand can be seen and felt." As a young

woman, Anne Savage's career appeared rich with possibility. "After attending the

Minneapolis School of Design, Anne dreamed of heading to New York to continue her

studies in art, however in 1922 her father dies. As the last unmarried daughter, Anne

does what is expected of her. Anne stays home to care for her aging mother, she takes a teaching job, and spends every spare moment painting the landscape she loves." In the film, Savage (or at least the narration) speaks passionately of her landscape painting,

suggesting that it was " at the root of everything I did." We are later informed that at one point A.Y. Jackson proposed to Savage, but she turned him down both out of obligation to her mother as well as out of fear of having to give up her own life as an artist. The internal landscapes she painted echoed the life she lived, immersed between the world of nature she so loved and the society within which she was confined. This tale, of the female artist forced to abandon or compromise her pursuit of an artistic life, seems to resonate throughout popular understandings of the history of female artists. Nochlin

(1988) points to "institutional structures" and the "view of reality which they impose on 61 the human beings who are part of them" (p. 3), as influencing the manner in which

women as artists envision themselves and are envisioned by the world.

As By Woman's Hand continues we are also introduced to Sarah Robertson, a close

friend of Prudence Heward and Anne Savage. Robertson, we discover shared a similar

fate to Anne Savage. Identified as Prudence Heward's best friend, the film states, "Life for Sarah became a constant struggle. With no money of her own she is trapped at home by a mother she can never leave. Art becomes her only escape, self-expression her

greatest freedom." As the portraits of these women are painted on film, we see the

struggles with which they were confronted, and ultimately how these were represented in their work. As it draws to a close, the film returns to the life of Prudence Heward noting,

"Like Sarah, Pru finds inspiration within the narrow social confines of a woman's world.

Windows become a recurring motif in her art." Heward's work is possibly the most famous of the three women discussed in this film, best known for her portraits of women in whose, "alienation and suffering, defiance and dignity . . . Pru explores the strength and fragility of human life." Suffering from asthma, Heward was forced to give up painting in 1946 and died five years later, essentially suffocating to death from her asthma. Sarah Robertson died 21 months later of bone cancer and Anne Savage, who left behind a strong contribution to both the world of Canadian art as well as to the world of education, died in 1971. Much has been written about Anne Savage in recent years, most likely because her pedagogical and personal papers were archived and are currently held at Concordia University in Montreal. Less is known or has been written about Heward and Robertson, although the former is still recognized as "the best" of the women of 62 Beaver Hall, creating female portraits "each displaying a more intense union of colour

and form, reflecting personalities of vigourous individuality" (Reid, 1973, p. 188).

However, in the midst of searching for literature on these women, it cannot be overlooked

that they are overshadowed by the vast amount that exists on their male counterparts.

The Other Side of the Picture, produced in 1998, addresses the topic of women's history

as a counter-history that is still struggling for a place in the world. It introduces its

audience to a number of female artists and begs the questions, "Is it true that there are no

great woman artists or is it simply that we've been led to believe that they're really not

that great after all?" This film expands our view beyond the history of Canadian art,

acknowledging the lack of representation of female artists that pervades museums and art

galleries throughout the world. The Other Side of the Picture includes a visit to the

National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and a trip to the

Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It also tracks the tale of a sculptural exhibit entitled The Dinner Party:

A massive ceremonial banquet in art, laid on a triangular table measuring 48 feet

on each side. Combining the glory of sacramental tradition with the intimate

detail of a carefully orchestrated social gathering, the artist represents 39 "guests

of honor" by individually symbolic, larger-than-life-size china-painted porcelain

plates rising from intricate textiles draped completely over the tabletop. Each

plate features an image based on the butterfly, symbolic of a vaginal central core.

The runners name the 39 women and bear images drawn from each one's story.

(LewAllen Contemporary Gallery, 2007) 63 The Dinner Party stands as an excellent example of the discursive history of women's

art and how its existence has been subverted and dismissed. It spent many years sitting in

boxes, waiting for a space, large enough, and a gallery, brave enough, to exhibit it. The

Other Side of the Picture offers a variety of perspectives and understandings on why,

indeed, women are so under-represented in the history of art. Through various interviews

and examples, the trials and tribulations confronted by female artists seeking recognition

of the voice and story that they possess, the work they have accomplished, and their lived experience are presented. In the film, Dennis Reid, senior curator at the Art Gallery of

Ontario at the time, states, "Women have suffered from the fact that the dominant social order is of course male-oriented, it has been always, so that the values and ideas that

seem most compelling, the most important, tend to be male and are to derive from male experience." Reid's provocative statement reminds us that, "feminists are acutely

sensitive to the historical nature of knowledge and therefore mutable nature of both knowledge and social organization [as] a source of empowerment" (Staskowski, 2004, p.

76). Again I am led to question whose stories matter in our world and what narratives have been incorporated into the discourses that have influenced and informed our society.

I wonder what educative possibilities exist through film, as an alternative form of communication, to imagine the world we live in and in cultivating a different future?

Central to this inquiry is the dilemma of living within the confines of a "Western postcolonial society" as it "attempts to break free of the Western discourses based on race, class, and gender" (Gazetas, 2000, p. 6). As a result, film in this context opens up avenues for accessing counter-histories, recognizing the societal challenges within which women artists have historically and culturally operated. In The Other Side of the

Picture, Reid informs us that "the more we delve into what the actual circumstances of the production of woman artists was, the more we're going to understand, and the more meaningful these works are going to become to the broader segment of the community."

Revisiting the National Museum for Women in the Arts, the film begins to open the discussion regarding the power of the museum or art gallery as a cultural institution that informs and influences our understandings of the histories of art. The curator of the museum, Susan Fisher Sterling, addresses the importance of education in the development of future generations. She notes that "certainly one of the things that this museum looks at is the opportunities that were available to women and the opportunities that weren't available to women." This statement, which seems so simple and obvious in its message, is one that must not be overlooked, for women to:

Establish their traditions—to know one's tradition is a source of strength. To

know that for centuries women have been grappling with the same issues which

concern women today legitimizes a train of thought which social pressures have

all too often derailed. (Staskowski, 2004, p. 76)

Madeleine Grumet (1988) likens this idea of "tradition" to the process of "looking back through our mothers." This familial relationship is embodied by the teacher/student relationship, one which, Grumet suggests, is "more self-consciously intentional....

Teachers and students manipulate signs and symbols. The medium through which we communicate is knowledge" (p. 107). Significantly, creating dialogue, knowledge, and understanding among women from different generations, races, and life-worlds is vital to our individual and collective whole. 65

It was in The Other Side of the Picture that I was first introduced to Doris McCarthy.

Although occupying only a small amount of screen time in this film, her presence and

voice are formidable. The film opens (and closes) with images of McCarthy painting the

landscape. Hers is the first voice heard, as she makes the provocative statement, "When I

was growing up I heard and actually believed that there were no great women artists."

McCarthy, as both an artist and educator, is depicted in The Other Side of the Picture as

living in the in-between spaces, existing between the generations that came before and

after her. Citing Arthur Lismer as her primary influence, she recounts how "[he] was my

teacher and my inspiration and my friend, and I think probably he is responsible for the

decision I made way back in my teens that I was going to be a landscape painter."

McCarthy, much like her contemporary Emily Carr, encountered great difficulty

achieving respect as an artist. Carr, we are told in The Other Side of the Picture:

Never had greatness thrust upon her. She achieved it at great personal cost. Sure,

people say we have lots of other artists, but many of those artists owe an

incredible debt to Emily Carr as she had to shelve a portion of her personality to

be able to devote herself to her art. She had to make a conscious decision whether

she was going to be an artist or whether she was going to be a wife and mother.

And art won out.

Both Carr and McCarthy have left a lasting influence on the Canadian art world. For

McCarthy, her influence will also be felt for generations to come through her work as an artist-teacher at Central Technical School in Toronto where she taught for over 40 years. Later in The Other Side of the Picture, McCarthy's relationship with Joyce Wieland

(1931-1998), the first female Canadian artist to have her own show at the National

Gallery of Canada within her lifetime springs to life on the screen. Doris McCarthy describes Wieland, her former student at Central Technical School (Toronto), as "very creative and adventurous." The warm relationship that existed between them is palpable on the screen as the student and teacher sit down to discuss their experiences with one another. The narrator of The Other Side of the Picture echoes Joyce Wieland's contention that she "dislikes being called a feminist. She says she takes it for granted but she's convinced that men and women create art that 'just comes out different.'" This statement central to the early feminist movement of the 1970's, which Chadwick (1990) refers to as the "belief in a female nature or feminine essence, which could be revealed by stripping away layers of patriarchal culture and conditioning" (p. 9). Wieland, who was both a mixed-media artist and filmmaker, recognized that:

Art is not a free autonomous activity... but rather, that the total situation of art

making, both in terms of the development of the art maker and in the nature and

quality of the work of art itself, occur in a social situation" (Nochlin, 1988, p. 6).

What becomes apparent through viewing The Other Side of the Picture is that there were a multitude of female artists, both past and present, who have shared in the struggle to have their work recognized. However, the experience of each woman is individual and subjective, resulting in a multitude of "her" stories, which recognize and locate the complexity of women's lives within the grand narratives of our society, offering a creative and imaginative space to dwell. 67 To historically and artistically locate Doris McCarthy within the context of Canadian art, we have turned to a selection of other films about those who came before her, as well as those who greatly influenced her work. Doris McCarthy: Heart of a Painter (1986), is the only film to be discussed in this paper that was not produced by the National Film

Board of Canada. Focusing solely on the life and art of Doris McCarthy, it follows her on a painting trip to Alberta as well as showing her evolution as an artist and teacher through historical re-enactments. As an introduction to the life and work of Doris

McCarthy, this film serves to depicts her as having lived in the in-between spaces of the male, rugged, Canadian landscape artist and the fragile, confined, female artists depicted in other films. Heart of a Painter is representative of what Druick (2007) refers to as, "a shift toward the autobiographical in documentary production" in the 1980's, that allowed for the subjects/participants of a film to make a contribution towards "a blurring of lines between personal and historical" (p. 165). Travelling west at the opening of the film,

McCarthy ruminates on her role as an artist. As the movie progresses the choices that she made in order to pursue her own path in life become more evident:

I realized some years ago that no life can hold all of the riches that are offered, so

if I didn't have the husband and the children and the grandchildren that my friends

had, what I have had is an incredible richness of friendship, opportunities for

moving around and travelling in my work. When I was teaching I thought it was

possible that as soon as I was finished teaching I would stop painting because 1

would be relieved from the pressure of having to paint in order to be a good

teacher. So one of the great joys for me was to discover, when I was finished

teaching, that I'm painting because I love to do it, in spite of the struggle, in spite of the discouragement and the difficulties and the sheer physical difficulty of

being an artist. It's the thing I love to do.

Existing as a visual text that stands as a biographical, as well as an autobiographical, representation of her life and experience, Heart of a Painter helped me to recognize that,

"film images not only [give] spectators a subjective perceptual experience of viewing

'reality,' they also provide a film experience that [gives] meaning and expression to ways of seeing and interpreting cultural discourse" (Gazetas, 2000, p. 1). It is in this film that the complex relationship between the identity of Doris McCarthy as artist and Doris

McCarthy as teacher becomes evident, constructing an image of a woman for whom art and teaching were very much intertwined, sometimes happily co-existing and at other times in great conflict.

In the opening frames of Doris McCarthy: Heart of a Painter (1986), we are introduced to the elderly face and powerful voice of the woman whose life and experience informs this thesis in rich ways. Beginning with a medium close-up, the filmmaker familiarizes us with McCarthy through her own words: "What I am trying to do is to see our country with love, with appreciation, and to try to express that on canvas. I use the tools that every artist uses, form, colours, texture, tone; I am never satisfied, it is never good enough." This theme of dissatisfaction with her own work extends beyond her art.

Through her extensive use of the medium of autobiography, McCarthy has continued to

"speak" her way in to the world well into her 90s, perhaps in the search of a sense of agency, or perhaps out of fear that she, like many before her, will fade into obscurity after her death. Heart of a Painter follows McCarthy on her journey to Western Canada, to 69 the Badlands, at a point in her life when she was able to retire from teaching to pursue life fully as an artist. It delves backwards though historical re-enactments to explore her artistic youth under her mentor Arthur Lismer, her later life as an artist-teacher. The love for landscape was not lost on Doris McCarthy, who "during the Great Depression of the early 30's, [was] one of the fortunate few to win a teaching post in the Art Department of

Toronto Central Technical School, allowing her to continue to develop artistically while working as a teacher." In the film, she also speaks to the financial struggles she encountered as a young artist. She acknowledges that before this she had been

"scratching out a living as a freelance artist," so with the teaching position at Central

Technical School a new chapter of her life was to begin.

Heart of a Painter begins its narrative at a time in McCarthy's life when she had retired from teaching, moving from the present backwards to inform us of her past. After 40 years of dedication to the teaching profession Doris McCarthy retired and "earned the right to become a full time artist. Her goal was to paint Canada." As can be seen through her paintings, McCarthy's vision of Canada was influenced by her connection to the land.

As the viewer journeys through the re-enactments of her past, and out to Alberta with the contemporary McCarthy and the filmmakers, her passion for her art is clear, as is her desire to be an independent woman. In Subject to Fiction: Women Teachers' Life History

Narratives and the Cultural Politics of Resistance (1998), Petra Munro claims that, "to represent is to inscribe knowledge and what knowledge counts. Representation is a curriculum act" (p. 3). As such McCarthy, in contributing to the representation of herself in this film continues her legacy as an educator, bridging the gap between the 70 representation of the male artist who conquered the wilderness and that of the fragile female artist. 71 Recovering Memory: The Life-Writing of Doris McCarthy

Just as I walk the coulees where I live, searching for animal tracks, beaten paths,

deer trails, old cairns, and holy rocks, trying to know and understand this place

and my place in it, so too am I drawn to the landscape of memory. Just like my

memory, at first glance, the coulees do not seem particularly remarkable. They

appear as a series of undulating hills that simply relieve the boring flatness of a

silent prairie. Yet with a second look, points of color become visible: a pear

cactus in yellow spring-bloom, rose hips fully ripened midst brittle autumn leaves

(Chambers, 2003, p. 103).

***

There seems to be something fitting about beginning a chapter, whose purpose is to examine the life writings of Doris McCarthy, with a metaphor likening the act of remembering through landscape. For McCarthy, the practice of bringing the Canadian tundra to life on her canvas was an act of love, an act of remembering, and an essential part of her identity as an artist and teacher. In this chapter, I unpack the life-writing of

Doris McCarthy to gain deeper insight into her experience and understandings of self. I am particularly interested in discerning how her work as an artist informed her life as a teacher and as a woman, and equally, how her identity as a woman/artist/teacher was shaped by her art and her life, within the context of a nation searching for an identity of its own. My introduction to autobiographical writing occurred during my first degree in a senior level undergraduate English class exploring the lives and experiences of the "Other."

The course reading included Maria Campbell's Halfbreed (1973); Maxine Hong

Kingston's The Woman Warrior: Memories of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976);

Michelle Cliff's The Land of Look Behind (1985); and Michael Ondaatje's Running in the

Family (1982). In each case the authors explored the complexity of living on the fringes of Western society while struggling to maintain a connection to their originating culture.

Unknown to me at the time, this was my first foray into the difficulty of living in an in- between space. Sitting here now, more than 10 years since taking that course, I understand that the impact of the readings that I took up in that class as they reverberate within the pages that I write today. Such understandings, propelled me down the road of exploring the intersections of culture, identity, representation, and memory. As Michael

Ondaatje beautifully writes in his latest novel Divisadero (2007), "with memory, with the reflection of an echo, a gate opens both ways. We can circle time. A paragraph or an episode from another era will haunt us in the night, as the words of a stranger can" (p.

268). Thus the challenge becomes to maneuver oneself within this "circle of time," to seek meaning and truth. This also connects to what is referred to as "the hermeneutic circle" which reflects the "three themes in hermeneutic inquiry that have always been present: namely the inherent creativity of interpretation, the pivotal role of language in human understanding, and the interplay of part and whole in the process of interpretation" (Smith, 1999, p. 104). The hermeneutic circle engages the reader in an exchange of ideas with the text—according to Gadamer "the [hermeneutic] circle comes to describe the constant process of revision in the anticipations of understanding, in the 73 light of a greater knowledge of the parts and in the name of a greater coherence of

interpretation" (Grondin, 2003, p. 81). Smith reminds us that, "all writing is in a sense

autobiographical" (Smith, 1999, p. 129). As such, McCarthy's life narratives—whether

textual or filmic—are significant to a study of women artists in Canada, prompting the

critical question of "Where are all the great woman artists?" and exploring the discursive

nature of historical narratives that have long excluded voices such as hers from

recognition.

Often when attempting to conjure a specific time and place, we close our eyes and create

a mental picture of past events. Memory is tied into the senses, it is through sight, sound,

touch and smell that we are often reminded of both the beautiful and the horrific

moments of life. However, this is memory on an individual level. It is the larger

question of how an individual memory is imprinted on a culture, gender, or nation with

which I am concerned; how the experiences of the individual can be shared so that transformation within a larger context can be enacted. In Memory, History, Forgetting

(2004), Paul Ricouer forms a hypothesis of the "threefold attribution of memory: to

oneself, to one's close relations, and to others" (p. 132). Examining the complex relationship between personal (the tradition of inwardness) and collective memory (the external gaze), Ricouer offers the following suggestion:

Does there not exist an intermediate level of reference between the poles of

individual and collective memory, where concrete exchanges operate between the

living memory of individual persons and the public memory of the communities

to which we belong? (p. 131). Viewing the films discussed in Chapter 3, it appears that the lives and identities of

male and female artists in Canada, from 1920 to the present, were embodied and

experienced in very different ways. In her auto/biographies McCarthy constructs a life

narrative that situates her historically in a long-lineage of female (and male) artists in

Canada. In some ways McCarthy is not unlike Anne Savage and Prudence Heward;

however, she seems to stand apart from them in that the artistic life she speaks of

resembles more closely that of the men who both preceded her and directly contributed to

her formation as an artist. As I examine how she describes herself, her art, and her teaching I am reminded that all of McCarthy's auto/biographies were published after she had contributed to the two films, The Other Side of the Picture (1998) and Doris

McCarthy: Heart of a Painter (1986). Upon reflection, I was struck with the possibility that McCarthy, in agreeing to participate in the making of the films, had been confronted with the complex and perhaps troubling question of "where are all the women artists?"

Offering the possibility that the struggles confronted by her peers and predecessors influenced the manner in which she framed her personal experience through her life writing. As I worked to unpack both the filmic and written texts I discovered that they have become intertwined for me, much as they may have been for McCarthy.

In the film Heart of a Painter (1986), while discussing the inspiration for the title of her first auto/biography, A Fool in Paradise (1990), we see a young McCarthy building her own home, which her mother labeled as her "Fool's Paradise." Stating, "I was my own contractor," McCarthy represents herself in the image of a strong, independent, and passionate woman able to control her own destiny. It is hard to know which preceded the other, her love for nature feeding into her desire to paint or the practice of capturing the landscape in her painting leading her to explore the land she inhabited. As I read

McCarthy's auto/biographies, it occurred to me that she may have been unaware of the discursive spaces she was creating through telling her story. In sharing her life narratives, McCarthy invites others to interpret not only the events as she describes them but also her interpretation of them. Having watched the films discussed in chapter 3 before reading the texts, I had begun to build an awareness of the time and place from which she was writing. In both films, her discussion surrounding her experiences as an artist, as a teacher, and as a woman are provocative, implying the multitude of struggles

McCarthy faced in her life. She is a self-proclaimed optimist, and through her participation in The Other Side of the Picture and Doris McCarthy: Heart of a Painter

McCarthy began the process of carefully crafting the identity she appears to have wanted to leave behind and which she continues to define as she proceeded to reflect upon her experiences through her auto/biographies. However, to critically deconstruct these texts is to unpack the alternately competing and harmonious identities that McCarthy embodies as an artist/teacher/woman.

"A Fool in Paradise" and "The Good Wine" - McCarthy's First Auto/biographical Accounts

Written in 1990 and 1991 respectively, A Fool in Paradise: An Artist's Early Life and

The Good Wine: An Artist Comes of Age, represent McCarthy's life chronologically, illustrating that "the autobiographical is a performative site of self-referentiality where the psychic formations of subjectivity and culturally coded identities intersect and 'interface' one another" (Smith & Watson, 2003, p. 11). A Fool in Paradise covers

the first 40 years of her life and McCarthy (1990) opens it with the statement "This is the

story of my becoming" (p. i). In this thought-provoking text, McCarthy explores her

childhood and school years followed by her subsequent evolution into her roles as both

an artist and teacher. In The Good Wine (1991), McCarthy delves into the subsequent 40

years of her life, centrally discussing her teaching and life beyond the classroom. It is

through these texts, in combination with the visual texts discussed in chapter 3, that a

carefully constructed image of McCarthy begins to take shape, as does the obvious

importance for her to have a lasting, and perhaps controllable, impact on how she is

remembered.

In A Fool in Paradise, McCarthy details her childhood. Born in 1910 in Calgary,

Alberta, Doris McCarthy is the daughter of George Arnold McCarthy, a civil engineer,

and Mary Jane Colson Moffat. "Blessed in being the girl after two boys" (McCarthy,

1990, p. 2), McCarthy's engagement with the natural world around her began at an early

age. In discussing her family home, McCarthy shows the complexity of remembering

events and the subjective nature of memory, giving a bodily and sensual description of

looking back. She notes: "[Our] family lived in MacLean for the first three years of the

war, long enough to confuse my sequence of memories. To know right hand from left I

must stand again facing the kitchen window. My right is the one on the same side as the backyard. North is the house where the Arnolds lived" (p. 8). In reading A Fool in

Paradise, I found that McCarthy's respective relationships with her father and mother are

constructed in very particular ways. She writes about her mother's musical talent: 77 She had won a scholarship to study opera in England but her parents wouldn't

or couldn't let her use it. A pity. Her voice was glorious, clear, true, and strong .

. .. Besides the voice she had the temperament. She made a stage wherever she

was. I think she looked back wistfully all her life at the opportunity she had

missed, and I am sure that is one of the reasons she supported me in every effort

to become an artist. (McCarthy, 1990, P. 16)

In most instances throughout the text, I found McCarthy's tone towards her mother to be

critical with most of her childhood stories favouring her time with her father. While

McCarthy does not dwell on her relationship with her mother, she lovingly writes about

her father, noting: "Dad had conditioned me to feel that nature and the out-of-doors were

an important part of my heritage" (McCarthy. 1990, p. 49). It is this acknowledgement of

the limitations a woman's life, in this case those that affected her mother, that creates a

defining framework through which she introduces us to her childhood experiences. I was

left pondering what it was like for a young Doris McCarthy to imagine life as an artist, believing that her own mother was not able to pursue her passion for the arts. I also

found myself wondering while women often come into the world "thinking back through

our mothers" why it is that it is through the experiences of our fathers that we are taught to live in and imagine the world?

Engaging in her own hermeneutic exploration of her life story, "reading the beginning through the end and the end through the beginning" (Grumet, 1988, p. 99), McCarthy begins with what Grumet refers to as the practice of "thinking back through our mothers" which "invites us to recollect, to re-collect the process of our own formation" (p. 191). 78 As a woman in 2007,1 can speak to the differences between my life and the

opportunities I have been presented, which were not available to my mother during her

youth in the 1940's and 1950's. My knowledge of such lost opportunities, comes through

listening to my mother's stories, which are framed within her own experience, enforcing

the idea that "the world comes to us already as stories and that we cannot get out of these

stories (narratives) to check if they correspond to the real world/past, because these

'always already' narratives constitute 'reality'" (Jenkins, 2003, p. 11). McCarthy, born

in 1910, and her mother, born in the late 19th century, would have been subject to even more diverse challenges, as women. I suspect their opportunities were even more limited than that of my mother. Even today, the pressures on women to get married and have children are immense. Most women I know, including myself, struggle with the intricacy

of conceiving how one may live a full-life.

The close relationship with her father, described in A Fool in Paradise (1990), echoes in later accounts involving male influences in McCarthy's life. It seems there were a number of strong and successful men throughout her life, whom she identifies in her auto/biographies as having had an effect on her, starting with Arthur Lismer. It is interesting to observe the evolution of McCarthy's relationship with Arthur Lismer. By exploring the complexities of his influence on her, questions arose for me with regard to the evolution and creation of the notion of a woman's history. Through my work in interpretive studies, I have come to realize that "everywhere where power exists, it is being exercised. No one, strictly speaking, has an official right to power; and yet it is always exerted in a particular direction, with some people on one side and some on the other" (Foucault, 1977, p. 213). In 1926, McCarthy began taking Saturday morning art classes at the Ontario College of Art where she discovered what was to become her own passion for painting:

The main thing I learned [was] that Canadian art was changing, and that there

were painters pioneering a new style of landscape painting .... I became so

convinced of the importance of this new direction in Canadian art that I entered

the Malvern senior oratorical contest, planning to tell the school about it.

(McCarthy, 1990, p. 68)

It is here that she also first encountered Arthur Lismer and her early impressions of him were not all that flattering:

Arthur Lismer was the tall, untidy, tweedy figure in charge of the course. His thin

front hair escaped from the balding spot it was supposed to cover and stuck strait

[sic] up when he became excited. He gave us a short talk at the beginning of

every class, setting a project for the day, teasing us with ironic jokes and irritating

me very much. I wanted him to be serious and teach something. (McCarthy,

1990, p. 69)

However, in both her textual auto/biographies, and in Doris McCarthy: Heart of a

Painter, McCarthy spoke with great respect and admiration for Lismer, describing theirs as a relationship that grew over time, ultimately, offering a different dimension to their teacher/student interaction. Quoting journal excerpts from her days as a student she states:

October 8, 1926: We are actually started. I seem to be getting along famously so

far. I love my teachers. Mr. Lismer is just the same—perhaps a little less odious in his jokes, but he hasn't lost his baffling attitude of being amused at the whole

world and at us in particular .... I don't seem to see any prospects of a kindred

spirit.

October 23: I sat beside Mr. Lismer and suffered horribly from nerves at having

him help me to butter and potatoes. But it was quite thrilling watching him draw

Mr. [Emanuel] Hahn, who was right opposite me, on the tablecloth. It was so

jolly and informal. Mr. Lismer had us in fits with his jokes (e.g. celery-sellery).

He has a remarkable brain for seizing puns and can never resist them. But he

fascinates me. I love to watch and listen to him talk. His little eyes are so beady

and when he makes a joke they peer this way and that and twinkle to see if we're

laughing. (McCarthy, 1990, p. 70 - 71)

From here the student/teacher relationship with Lismer blooms. Along side this

recognition of the influence Lismer had on McCarthy as an artist, is the relationship she

had with her father. Seemingly, while McCarthy lived with all of the societal restrictions

of being a woman, her art, her traditions and the way she lived her life in many ways can be more likened to that of the men by whom she was influenced. This leads me to revisit the notion that the search for a woman's history has often been mired along the way, as we seek to "draw our life worlds out of obscurity so we may bring our experience to the patriarchal descriptions that constitute our sense of what it means to know, to nurture, to think, to succeed" (Grumet, 1988, p. 61). How then does this impact one's identity as a woman? For McCarthy, it seems, the implication was one of living very much in- between the lives of her male contemporaries and the societal expectations placed on women within a complex time in Canada's history. 81

In A Fool in Paradise (1990) McCarthy crafts an image of herself as a serious artist; however, her life as teacher is also of great importance to this study. On my own path to become an educator I have been challenged to question why I want to teach and what it means to be a teacher. For McCarthy, a woman much like the female artists in the

Beaver Hall Hill Group who had to live within specific limitations of time and place, it was an obvious and necessary choice. Teaching was a vocation offered her a great deal, as it allowed her the financial security and freedom to pursue her art. At the age of 21,

McCarthy, whose main concern was to start earning a living, was working as a free-lance artist and teaching Saturday morning art classes when she was presented with the opening of a teaching position at Central Technical School in Toronto. Here she met Peter

Haworth, director of the art department, who also became an influential man in her life.

She wrote:

Peter Haworth was a young, good-looking, curly-headed autocrat, who was

gradually transforming a mediocre secondary school art department into a

dynamic powerhouse. He was given unusual freedom in hiring his staff, and

instead of hiring teachers who had taken summer courses in art, he hired artists

and hoped they could teach. He encouraged them to go on being artists and

fought a stand-up battle at the Board of Education on the issue. Someone down at

College Street (where the central authority for the Toronto Board of Education

was located) attempted to forbid him to practise as a stained-glass designer while

he was holding down a full-time teaching job... But he won, not just for himself

but for all of the artists and craftsmen in the system. He convinced the authorities 82 that an effective teacher must also be a practicing artist. (McCarthy, 1990, p.

121-122)

McCarthy's struggle to strike a balance between her teaching and her art begins to take

shape as she was given a class not of art students but of vocational students. She

remembered these students as, "toughies, ready to walk all over an inexperienced teacher

... it was also true that nobody in the art department cared about them, and I was free to

do anything that would keep them out of trouble .... This was how I discovered the

magic of cut paper as a medium, easier than drawing, faster than painting, spectacular

and fun" (McCarthy, 1990, p. 123-124). In the years to follow, McCarthy negotiated

between her teaching life and her life as an artist, taking school holidays as time to escape

to the wilderness she so loved to capture on the canvas and working as a teacher to pay

her own way in the world.

McCarthy's second autobiography, The Good Wine: An Artist Comes of Age (1991),

begins in 1950 when she is 40 and opens with the observation:

Since 1932, when I first began teaching, I had been struggling up a long dark

tunnel crowded with obstacles that took all my strength and ingenuity to get by...

Ahead of me I could see a release: a sabbatical leave, a full year when I would be

free of teaching, free to stop hurrying, free to paint, to breathe deeply, and to look

about, (p. 1-2)

Having spent 18 years struggling for respect as a teacher and recognition as an artist,

McCarthy was planning to take her sabbatical year to travel to Europe with a colleague

and friend, Virginia Luz, whom McCarthy referred to as Ginny. It seems this was not an 83 easy adventure for McCarthy to pursue, as she was leaving behind the responsibility of

caring for her mother, as well as her home at Fool's Paradise. Oddly enough, in the midst

of writing about the going-away celebrations for her and Luz, McCarthy recalls the

following:

A few days before the end of term Peter Haworth, head of the art department, who

had been so co-operative about letting us go at the same time, put Ginny and me

side by side against the wall of the stairwell leading up to the life-drawing room

and solemnly traced an outline around each of us. "Just make sure you fit into that

when you come back." (McCarthy, 1991, p. 7)

Such a well-meaning gesture of support still raises the question of the female body and

how it continues to be objectified. McCarthy deemed it significant enough to write about

the incident, but she does not give any indication regarding how it affected her.

Over their year abroad McCarthy and Luz traveled through England, Italy and Greece,

and other countries, and both had great moments of painting as well as experiencing the joy of travel. However, this journey came to an end and it was back to teaching and what

McCarthy refers to as the year she "was more active than ever as an exhibiting artist"

(McCarthy, 1991, p. 39). In the pages of The Good Wine, the reader is introduced to a

vibrant, happy, and very busy McCarthy, managing to structure her teaching life in a

manner which allowed for more year long trips to follow, feeding both her artistic and

pedagogical lives. Presenting herself as a true pioneer, she ventured beyond the borders

of Canada on a solo trip that took her to Tokyo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt, and back to Greece and Italy. Of this journey McCarthy (1991) noted: One aspect of the year that surprised and pleased me was eye contact with

people I met on the street, in buses, anywhere. Was it because I looked at them

first? At home I feel invisible unless the passer-by turns out to be an

acquaintance who knows something about me. Then I am automatically thought

of in my setting, my family, my work, my home and neighbourhood, but seldom

known for myself. Abroad, especially in the Middle East, which I had most

feared, I was seen by every passer-by, observed, and observed with interest and

approval. With no context to define me, people saw me, and judged me by what

they saw. I felt alive in myself, and not just in relation to society. I felt real. (p.

103)

In this realization, McCarthy experiences a new moment of becoming, identifying herself outside of the confines of a life that would limit her opportunities, her artistic talents, and her female voice. She moves beyond the influences of those who shaped her younger years, and begins to take on her own biographical image where she cannot be identified simply as a teacher, artist, or a woman. Rather, her story is a complex telling of adventures fraught with challenges, joy, and one that is ultimately about a life well- lived.

Near the end of The Good Wine, McCarthy speaks of the experience of participating in the making what she terms as the "McCarthy Film" (Doris McCarthy: Heart of a

Painter.) Here it is revealed that Wendy Wacko, the producer of the film, was a former student of McCarthy's (just like Joyce Wieland), offering an example of how a teacher can inform the life of a student and vice versa. McCarthy (1991) remembers: 85 Would I let her make a film of my life and work? By this time she was

convinced that I was a great artist, under-recognized. I couldn't help agree to the

under-recognized, and it was pleasant to hear that I was a great artist, and besides,

I love to act. So yes, of course." (p. 203)

The notion of being under-recognized resonated for McCarthy (and ultimately for me) throughout the various autobiographical texts and the film. McCarthy's apparent need for recognition says something about her need to know that when she is gone her effect in the world will remain.

In the process of Heart of a Painter, the filmmakers joined McCarthy as she travelled through the Badlands of Western Canada, as well as to England, where she speaks of being able to revisit her past. Of this latter trip she declares:

Wendy and I each had a very personal thrill. For me it was to be back in the

Central School of Arts and Crafts, where Nory and George and I had studies over

forty-five years earlier, actually in the very painting studio where I had drawn

from the nude model and agonized over the criticisms of the teacher. For Wendy

the high spot was our filming morning at Stonehenge. She had been excited by

what she had learned about it in my history of art class when she had been a

student at CTS, and had made up her mind to see it for herself. But since those

days Stonehenge had become an endangered species, and she was assured that it

would take at least six months to get through the red tape that protected it.

Wendy just smiled gently, and in a day had managed to secure written permission

(McCarthy, 1991, p. 208). 86 The making of Heart of a Painter was not an easy process, as is common with independent productions. They ran into financial problems, causing a delay in production. Shut down due to budgetary concerns and time constraints, Heart of a

Painter lost its original director, Richard Leiterman, who was replaced by Peter

Shatalow. Usually this would be a very upsetting process for a film project, as it is akin to changing the author part way through the writing of a novel, but McCarthy confesses that she was quite satisfied to have the original director replaced stating:

I had begun to be very uneasy about the person emerging in Richard's film. Was

I really contemplative? Did I drift dreamily, brooding about the nature of art?

Peter Shatalow, the new, young director, listened to my misgivings, and I thank

him for his skilful editing that used Richard's (the first director) rushes to build a

more plausible me. (McCarthy, 2006, p. 225)

This statement creates a critical awareness. From the opening pages of her first auto/biography—her "becoming"—through to the final page of her last publication, which shows a picture of her roller-blading at an elderly age, McCarthy was concerned with controlling how she would be remembered, as an artist, adventurer, an educator, and interestingly enough, quite often an actor.

While speaking about the making of Heart of a Painter, McCarthy does a fine job of depicting the complex and often difficult nature of film production while also discussing the camaraderie and joy that can accompany the feeling of being a part of such a collaborative process. McCarthy describes the film as a: Marvelous support... like most works of art, it is not perfect. I see a few

flaws that I would love to correct, but it has a good pace, never loses it's

audience, says most of the things I would like to tell a group, and says them well.

(McCarthy, 1991, p. 213)

Through all of her teaching, art, writing, and life, McCarthy embraces the idea that "in the imagination anything goes that can be imagined, and the limits of the imagination is a totally human world" (Frye, 1964, p. 13). In the films and in her auto/biographies, she presents herself as a woman who was never afraid to imagine a life beyond the social confines of the day.

In yet another auto/biography, Doris McCarthy: Ninety Years Wise (2005), this construct of an independent woman, in love with her art and land, unflinching and unapologetic regarding the choices she made through out her life, is once again introduced. In it we meet an elderly McCarthy who states:

I cannot say no to the old students who want to see me or to those who know me

only through my books and want to meet me." This book documents a private

journey to "focus on sorting out my life and making the paintings that are the best

way I have to share my delight for the world with my friends and everyone else.

(p. 12)

At the age of 90, still an artist and an educator, she still seems to possess the independent streak that allowed her to forge through life, creating her own path along the way. This memoir is really much more of a journal detailing a summer spent at her summer home at

Georgian Bay. It is about friends, as well as a rumination on solitude. Ironically, she 88 gives rise to the opposed earlier conceptualization of herself, by the first director of

Heart of a Painter, that she had opposed, as a woman in contemplation.

One Last Story: The Latest Auto/biography

In 2006, McCarthy published My Life, her fourth auto/biography, co-authored with

Charis Wahl. In it McCarthy wrote:

Autobiography drove me back to the diaries that have sat idle on my shelves for

years and made me relive the passions, the heartbreaks, and the raptures. It gave

me back my girlhood and the years when I was discovering my artist's eye and

the heady joy of creation, (p. 2)

This most recent publication is an amalgamation of her earlier auto/biographies, more focused and concise, perhaps thanks to the presence of her co-author. From its opening pages, McCarthy is once again quick to define herself as an independent woman stating,

"I was brought up on the nursery rhyme about Monday's child and Tuesday's child; as I was Thursday's child, I took it for received truth that I would have 'far to go' and do a lot of traveling" (p. 7). Although she travelled far and wide, McCarthy always returned home to southern Ontario, ultimately to the place that has become well known as her "Fool's

Paradise."

Throughout my graduate studies the notion of dwelling—within language, place, and curriculum—has been recurring. So too, it seems, it has been in the life of McCarthy— 89 dwelling both in the physical sense of place as well as dwelling in the imaginative and

contemplative in-between spaces required for painting, teaching, and writing, allowing

her to find a sense of home outside of southern Ontario and Fool's Paradise. This notion

of dwelling returns us to the discussion of the third space, which Sorensen (2003) refers

to as "the bridge between dichotomies^] with equally clear views on both sides. The aim

is not to get to get to either side but to grow and develop while moving in between" (p.

277). Her travels and "wanderings" figure prominently in McCarthy's life. On this she

notes:

I believe its roots lie in Haliburton during my earliest days as an artist, when those

working holidays with Ethel Curry gave me inspiration, release from the

constraints of living with Mother, and the congenial companionship with a fellow

painter. For painting demands a concentration and sensibility that grows into an

intimacy with the subject. When you are successful, you come to know the land,

not just see it. (When you fail to understand it, you cannot tell the story of what

you see, and your paintings fail). (McCarthy, 2006, p. 237)

Travelling not only offered her new landscapes to paint but also the opportunity to build

relationships with fellow artists. While McCarthy never married, there are a few vital

relationships that are repeatedly mentioned as significant in her life. These include her

childhood friendship with her neighbourhood friend Marjorie and her adult friendship

with Virginia Luz, with whom she taught and spent her summers painting at Georgian

Bay. These relationships were obviously vital to McCarthy, navigating her way through

the world as an unmarried woman at a time when such a lifestyle broke social

convention. Of her love life, she says little with the exception of a brief mention of an affair with an unnamed married man. She describes this man as "a comfortable,

understanding person, intelligent, with a notable sense of humour and enough foibles that

one laughed at him as well as with him" (McCarthy, 2006, p. 109). Their affair lasted for

a year and half before ending the first time, but then resumed for an undisclosed period.

McCarthy writes honestly about the difficulty of having this relationship and her own

longing for marriage and children with this man. When it became clear this was not possible, she ended the affair:

I made the rules: we would be in private as we were in public, with no more

lovemaking, no more intimate talk .... I have no regrets, and believe now, as I

did then, that a love that cares for the other person more than for oneself is not a

sin in the eyes of God. I also know that it takes real toughness to defy a social

taboo, a toughness that I had but that he could not summon. (McCarthy, 2006, p.

112)

The final words of this quote are paramount to the identity McCarthy has constructed of herself through her life writing—tough, resolute, and independent; dwelling very much in the spaces between the societal expectations of her day and all that she dreamed possible for herself.

Doris McCarthy: Artist/Educator/Woman

Obviously, Doris McCarthy has felt a great need near the end of her life to "author-ize" herself in the world. The image she paints through her auto/biographies is that of a woman who is passionate about her life and the way she will be remembered. After all, 91

at the age of 92 she once again put pen to paper and published My Life. From her early

days with her father when she helped with the chores at the summer cabin, to her days as

a self-sufficient woman, portrayed as having basically built her home from the foundation

up by herself—the woman depicted in these texts is independent and uncompromising.

Through her relationships with her former students Joyce Wieland and Wendy Wacko, as

described in her auto/biographies and in the films, her role as inspiring teacher evolved into that of a mentor and friend. Sarah Milroy, former editor of Canadian Art magazine, contributes a brief summation at the end of Ninety Years Wise:

One of the fascinating things about a few hours with McCarthy is the chance to

witness a woman utterly at ease with who she is and the life she has led. As well,

one can gaze directly into the pool of ideas that sustained the Group and

underpinned Canadian art at a crucial moment in its becoming: their love of their

country, their essentially unintellectual relationship to their art, their loyalty to

nature and their relative indifference to the history of art as a source to draw from.

Making a painting was something to be worked out between you and the trees and

rocks in front of you. The work of other artists had no place in the equation.

(McCarthy, 2005, p. 109-110)

Through reading and examining her ongoing need to ensure that she is remembered in very particular ways, I question how at ease she has been with who she is and the life she has led. Indeed, as I look at the cover of The Good Wine (1991), 1 see the smiling face of a woman looking directly at the camera, as if ready to take on the world. Described by reviewers on the back cover as offering a "gentle account" by a "frank and unique voice," in a book "so direct and simple it seems to reinvent its form," perhaps this simple memoir 92 offers hope to McCarthy that she will continue to be heard, and that her art will not vanish into obscurity once she is gone. What seems evident through both the films and the life writing of Doris McCarthy is that she does not want to be remembered as a woman who sought sympathy nor expected an easy time due to her sex. She pursued her life as an artist without compromise. However, what remains unclear is whether she was interested in forging new spaces for female artists in the world of Canadian art.

Regardless, McCarthy's need or impulse to write about her life has opened up new spaces of possibility for women today seeking to look "back through our mothers."

Recently in my yoga class, the instructor made the following comment: "Life is not about struggling to find peace, it is about finding peace amidst the struggle." While she was speaking to the challenge of letting go of ego in the midst of trying to find balance in tree pose, this resonated with me. Conjuring memories of many discussions I have engaged in during the course of my studies in education, I was left reflecting on the human instinct, when confronted with the messiness of life, to place things in some recognizable order. Merleau-Ponty (1967) suggests: "The world is not what I think, but what I live through. I am open to the world, I have no doubt that I am in communication with it, but

I do not possess it; it is inexhaustible" (p. xvi-xvii). In being open to the world, we in many ways contradict that which we are raised to believe, that life is designed to follow concrete patterns, beginning with childhood through to the challenges of adulthood. In exploring the power of writing as an imaginative act Greene (2000) notes:

Something very important [happens] in mediating great events through a single

consciousness, viewing the personal in relation to the public, the public from a private point of view. I was beginning to recognize the importance of a

vantage point when it came to the dialogue that is history. As time went on and I

came closer to discovering my own 'voice,' meaning my woman's voice, through

the writing I was doing, I learned much more about vantage point and about

history, (p. 107)

McCarthy utilized both film and auto/biography as methods for discovering a voice that extends even further than the reach of her painting, subsequently opening herself to the world and inviting her audience to engage in an ongoing dialogue with her experience.

Perhaps this evolved out of her many years as a teacher, or perhaps it evolved out of a raised awareness of the silenced voices of many of the female artists who preceded her.

Regardless, McCarthy's words, images, and voice will continue to resonate in the world, leaving her mark on Canadian history as an artist-educator and as a woman. Conclusion: Acknowledging the Gray - The Stories In-Between

In 2006, the Canadian film Away From Her was released to international critical acclaim.

The feature film directorial debut of actress Sarah Polley, the film is based on the short

story The Bear Comes Over the Mountain by Canadian author Alice Munro and tells the

story of an aging couple dealing with the devastating effects of Alzheimer's disease on

their relationship. Shot in Ontario in winter and possessing a quintessential imagery

associated with Canadian cinema, producer Jennifer Wiess describes Away From Her as

capturing "rural Canada in a cinematic style. These locations, especially the exteriors, are crucial to understanding these people and the life they have set up for themselves.

They've made the choice to make life simpler. But life isn't always simple and there is

always history" (Capri Releasing, 2006). In Away From Her, Polley repeats the image of

Fiona, played by Julie Christie, the character suffering from Alzheimer's, cross-country

skiing across the vast fields of snow. This image could be interpreted in a number of

ways. It might represent a different time in Fiona's life, before Alzheimer's, at her home in the country with her husband, or perhaps the endless fields of snow are symbolic of the place that Fiona retreats to amidst the chaos of her fading memories. As she forges a new life in a rest home, her husband is forced to confront what their relationship used to be, while coming to terms with what the future holds given Fiona's condition. Gadamer suggests that:

Memory, possessed as 'one's own,' is something that is formed over time and

each of us carries - more strongly put, each of us is - the unique residues of such

formation over the course of our individual lives. Who I bear myself to be is 95 constituted by what I bear forward of my life experiences. (Jardine & Rinehart,

2003, p. 78)

As I near the end of writing my thesis, Away From Her seemed a fitting film with which to engage. Directed by a Canadian woman, Sarah Polley, and based on a short story by a female Canadian author, it marries together the complexity of personal memory and identity while also reflecting the fondness for landscape explored in the work of the

Canadian artists already discussed. What does this mean though? Given the presence of women in creative positions of power, in charge of the narrative lens of this film, have we then reached some tangible, quantifiable level of equality in the world? Even upon typing the question I am reminded of my classmate who raised her hand to protest the term feminism, or of the numerous times I have been subjected to harassment on a film set. In recent years I have participated twice at the Women in The Director's Chair workshop, organized by Creative Women Workshops in Vancouver, held at the Banff

Centre. The objective of the workshop is to surround new female directors with the equipment and professional crew required to film a scene that they have written. During both sessions I have attended (as a script supervisor), the women I have met have represented the cultural and geographical diversity of Canada, and the nurturing and supportive atmosphere has helped create a dynamic learning opportunity for all involved.

Despite the success of this workshop, and similar programs at the NFB created to encourage more opportunities for women and other marginalized groups, I am still left with the realization that in my ten years experience in the mainstream film industry in

Canada, I have worked with a female director only once. Leading me to revisit my initial questions regarding how and who influences and informs the ways women make meaning of their experience in the world.

In her song What it Feels Like for a Girl (2000), pop artist and icon Madonna sings:

Strong inside but you don't know it Good little girls they never show it When you open up your mouth to speak Could you be a little weak

Chorus: Hurt that's not supposed to show And tears that fall when no one knows When you're trying hard to be your best Could you be a little less

This is an example of the myriad ways in which women's voices have found an artistic voice through which to address issues of representation. Reflecting upon the last hundred years, women have made great strides in areas of writing, music, and the visual arts.

However, as I engage in conversations with women, (some who often make the conscious choice to not practice the multiple rights that women are now afforded, such as the right to vote), I am increasingly concerned that contemporary understandings of past female experience have been lost, overlooked, and in many cases, diminished within society.

There has been a recent explosion in the Western media and cult of celebrity that has shifted towards a disconcerting portrayal of young woman in popular culture (such as

Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan), suggesting the need to critically unpack how irresponsible, reckless, and unintelligent behaviour may effect how young woman make meaning and sense out of their own lives. Perhaps resulting in an immediacy for reclaiming and locating the stories of women who have struggled and fought for representation and voice. Documentary film and auto/biography, on the

surface, may seem to exist as separate modes of communication. The former is a more

collaborative and technical medium, requiring one to venture out into the world and

engage with others, necessitating complex equipment and knowledge of how to shoot a

movie; the latter seemingly a more solitary endeavour, requiring little more than a

computer or pen and paper and the time and solitude with which to write. However, for

all of their differences they have both emerged as significant and a meaningful means of

expression, ultimately requiring the author/filmmaker to possess an openness to sharing

their work with the world.

Circling back, in this study I attempt to explore, through the films and autobiographical

texts of Doris McCarthy, a way to envision and understand the ways in which women's

voices might be included in our cultural memory. Ultimately, this study has been

concerned with that which all hermeneutic studies are, creating a historical consciousness

surrounding the search for truth, regarding the lives of women and the social conditions

that influence/influenced our opportunity and experience in the world. Prior to viewing

these and movies and reading McCarthy's life writing, my knowledge regarding the lives

and artistic works of the various women named in this text (from Prudence Heward to

Judy Chicago, the artist who conceived of The Dinner Party) was minimal. While in many ways it was my love for film and story that brought me to this path, it has become the search to understand what can be learned with regard to representation and identity through life writings that has kept me on it. Along the way I have discovered a rich history of female artists who struggled to live, often at personal expense, so that they might pursue their passion. In addition to meeting these women, the search for pedagogical possibilities in film and life writing has maintained an underlying presence along the way. The films and autobiographical texts I have examined have emerged as mediums of expression that embrace imagination and the act of remembering, offering rich possibilities for exploring the past and understanding the lives lived by female

Canadian artists. In A Room of One's Own (1929/2001), Virginia Woolf charged her readers to take on the task of challenging the current social conditions stating:

How can I further encourage you to go about the business of life? Young women,

I would say, and please attend, for the perforation is beginning, you are, in my

opinion, disgracefully ignorant. You have never made a discovery of any sort of

importance. You have never shaken an empire or led an army into battle. The

plays of Shakespeare are not by you, and you have never introduced a barbarous

race to the blessings of civilization. What is your excuse? (p. 48)

One cannot argue that things have changed in the last hundred years; an evolution has taken place as a result of the great strides, sacrifices, and efforts of women like Doris

McCarthy. However, their exists the potential for complacency in today's world, amidst the illusion that there is nothing left to push against or fight for and the assumption women are afforded all of the same opportunities that are offered men. As Gilmore

(1994) notes:

The subject of feminism and the subject positions of women have been narrowed

and unified in the name of political representation and social change. The result,

however, has been registered as an increasing alienation of women from the name

and feminism and the single identity of women as a social group or class, (p. xi) As I look around at the women I have studied with, worked with, and whose works I have read, I am reminded of Grumet's (1988) invitation to "think back through our mother's" (p. 183) so that we may continue to mediate the in-between spaces, pushing against the "ambivalent place[s] of our own histories" (Grumet, 1988, p. 192).

My intention for this thesis is that it will serve to create new opportunities for dialogue and learning. Perhaps the greatest misplaced assumption is that when one speaks of being the Other, whether that be a person of colour, a person of a different gender, or religion, that the desire is to assign blame, for past wrongs perpetrated upon each other.

The greatest challenge seems to be the creation of a dialogue surrounding issues of cultural politics that allow for the creation of new understandings. This was part of the motivation for turning to hermeneutics for my thesis, that and for its dedication to the potential for discovering truth through aesthetic experience. As Grondin (2003) illuminates:

Knowledge of art is that of recognition, in the sense of anamnesis: it allows us to

rediscover our world for what it is, in revealing to us it's 'essence' to talks in

Heidegger's terms. What stands out in a work of art is the truth of the world such

as its metamorphosis into a work, which is for us an experience of recognition in

both its meanings: that of knowledge and that of thanks. Art opens our eyes. (p.

44)

My thesis has the capacity to stimulate new discussions surrounding the history of women's experience in our world and as a result effect change in the world. As I confront my own future, as a teacher, filmmaker, and as a women, I recognize that what 100 has evolved for me over the last four years is a much richer and deeper understanding of the influences on what it means to be Canadian, the importance of voices from different backgrounds to be heard, and the validation that my experiences are critical to my knowledge of the world and what I can offer in return.

Doris McCarthy's autobiographies allowed me to delve even deeper into the life story of the woman I was introduced to in the movies. Through her participation in both of these mediums she is able to "author" her own life, creating inter-textual spaces for exploration and understanding, ensuring that the generations to follow will know of her experience through her own voice. As previously stated, she maybe the only Canadian female artist who was producing works at the same time as the Group of Seven who was able to speak for herself in these films, the rest - Prudence Heward, Sarah Robertson, Anne Savage - were not able to do so as they passed away before a movement had taken a strong enough hold for the National Film Board of Canada to deem their stories worthy of filmic representations. As such, the Canadian cultural imagination regarding who were important artists was only able to consider their male contemporaries. In sharing the richness of her life, her passion for her art and her teaching, and in acknowledging the restrictions that were placed on her by her sex, McCarthy takes a pro-active stance that invites people of all backgrounds to learn not only of her success as an artist but also of her success as a teacher. Through her own words the languages of film, life writing, and art are combined for a rich and meaningful study, creating a third space for understanding women's stories. It is this third space, the creation of it, the learning of how to dwell within it, to find the "peace in the struggle," that can lead the acknowledgement of it's discursive nature as "a site of the to and fro flow of language and discourse" (Aoki,

2003, p. 1), that will inform the ways in which I continue to learn and grow.

These films and autobiographies serve as examples of the ways of attaining a search for truth, creating a new space for exploring the lives of individuals and groups who have lived outside of the realm of the dominant patriarchal discourses, and that have long held a firm grip on how we understand the world we live in and those with whom we share it.

We live in a complex world where issues of nation and nationality can be as blurred as the imaginary borders that have led to their creation. Over the length of my graduate studies I have explored film as an educational medium, delving into issues of cultural politics, representation of the Other, and as a medium through which new discourses can evolve and allow for previously unheard voices to manifest themselves in the world.

Acknowledging these films as visual texts to be read also realizes that "textual interpretation as conversation is a mutual and non-hierarchical exchange in which meanings of both the critic and text are expanded by their interaction, an interaction grounded in openness and listening" (Staskowski, 2004, p. 77). I have tried to listen intently to the words spoken, the visuals constructed, and the stories put to paper as I have written this thesis, adding my own interpretation of them and the understandings of the people and issues of culture and gender that they represent. This is something I hope to carry forward in my life, as an educator/storyteller/filmmaker/woman, constantly striving to be aware of the in-between spaces that can be created through discourse and language. In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf (1929/2001) looked to the future in her discussion surrounding women and fiction, noting, "in a hundred years, I thought, reaching my own doorstep, women will have ceased to be the protected sex. Logically they will take part in all activities and exertions that were once denied them. The nursemaid will heave coal. The shopwoman will drive an engine" (p. 49). Indeed, she was correct, a great deal has changed for women in since she wrote A Room of One's

Own. However, it has not been a seamless process and women still stand on the outside of many institutions, societies, and communities in the position of the 'Other.' In fact, it can be argued that even within the walls of these institutions women are still positioned in a negative way, as they struggle to find the best way to live in a world that demands so much of them. It is in the midst of these struggles that the need for an awareness of the deeply embedded, often overlooked notions of what it means to be a woman/an artist/a teacher are so in need of examination:

Man [woman] learns about himself [herself] only through his [her] acts, through

the exteriorisation of his [her] life and through the effects it produces on others.

He [She] comes to know himself [herself] only by the detour of understanding,

which is, as always, an interpretation. (Ricoeur, 1981, p. 52)

It is through Doris McCarthy's auto/biographies, in both film and in written text, that she is able to seek to understand her life within the framework of her time and lived experience while also sharing her insights with women like myself, who unknown to her, struggle with similar questions of how best to live in the world. At the end of Ninety

Years Wise Doris McCarthy (2005) writes the following: 103 On those rare nights at the cottage when sleep just doesn't come I play a game

that is almost better than sleep. I lie quietly with my eyes closed and remember

with gratitude the dear people, many how long since dead, who have given me

such a rich and happy life. High school teachers, CGIT leaders, inspiring artists

from my art college days, painting companions, neighbours, family. I say thank

you to each of them, hoping that the love I feel can reach them wherever they are.

Long before I have exhausted I am asleep, (p. 95)

Although I have never met Doris McCarthy, I feel as though I have come to know her through reading her life writing and watching her in the two films of which she was apart.

She and the other women discussed in this text are responsible for laying the groundwork for generations of women to follow leading, hopefully, to the creation of a strong female voice in Canadian art.

In my introduction, I spoke of the events of September 11th, 2001, and how the images and conversations that emerged in the weeks to follow set the world on a new path. On a much more personal level, it impacted the way in which I was to take up my pursuit of being a teacher, challenging me to take up the complex nature of hegemony, cultural politics, and the importance of critical thinking. The following summer I was working on an American produced television movie when I was drawn into a conversation with the assistant to one of the stars about the complex social, political, and economic factors that contributed to what has been deemed as an attack on America. When I spoke my thoughts regarding how the Bush administration had treated the event in a very black and white manner - coining the phrase "you are either with us or against us" - and effectively 104 ignored the in-between gray spaces that would allow for any critical discussion surrounding that day, this man was immediately offended. By trying to locate that incident within a broader global and historical context he accused me of siding with the terrorists, and echoed the sentiment of George Bush by continually asking, "So are you saying that [the attacks] were justified?" Although this man openly identified himself as a conservative Republican, this was a difficult time in which to express contrary ideas about the events of 9/11. Regardless, it was moments like that contributed to my own personal journey to critically question what is presented as fact - in this case where were all the women artists? I began this journey with a quote by Thomas King (2003), who tells us "the truth about stories is that's all we are" (p. 153). I hope in pointing my finger at the stories of Doris McCarthy, Anne Savage, Prudence Heward, and Sarah Robertson I have contributed to the creation of a new, discursive space in which the value of their stories will be recognized. 105 References

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