Surviving While Being Creative
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The Vancouver Historical Society Newsletter Preserving and promoting the history of Vancouver since 1936 HS Vol. 56 No. 5 | February 2017 | ISSN 0823-0161 “LOOKING AWAY” BLOCK PRINT BY GARY SIM, 2005 Surviving while being Creative fter his divorce in 1995, artist and some artists couldn’t cope with the mag- February Speaker: Aresearcher Gary Sim started cast- nitude of the scenery. The mountains ing about for new things to do. He found Gary Sim were featured in thousands of paintings.” himself attending a monthly estate auc- write a brief biography, I’d collected ma- These early artists and the struggles tion at the Westin Bayshore and became terial on hundreds of other artists. When that they faced are the subject of Sim’s such a regular that he was hired by the I started losing track of what I found, I talk on February 23. “The difficulties auctioneer. He handled pottery from Ja- created a digital index. Today that index were almost insurmountable,” he says. pan, masks from Africa, and jewelry from has over 2,500 pages and provides infor- Artists fought off hungry insects, wolves Russia. Once he hauled in a dugout canoe mation on almost 18,000 artists.” and other creatures sometimes in +40 de- and a 10-foot totem pole, another time, a Early artists typically painted land- gree weather. Emily Carr purchased an Mexican throne. Sim started buying art scapes--views from railway lines or ships, old caravan trailer for painting trips that for fun. One of those paintings was by new towns, First Nations villages, and res- she called the “Elephant.” Sim says she Maud Sherman, a student of Group of idents that they met along the way. “The also built a mobile protective device that Seven artist Fred Varley. “I was curious to earliest BC artists were really explorers, made her look like the “Tin Man” when learn more about Sherman and identify and most of their work is considered doc- she painted in Northern BC. the location in her painting. By the time umentary art, rather than fine art,” says I’d accumulated enough information to Sim. “It was a new world for them, and CONTINUED INSIDE NEXT MEETING: 7:30 P.M., Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 at the Museum of Vancouver President’s Notes read and hear that a place I called Canada is having a sesquicentennial. Canada – yes, those four British colonies thousands of kilometres east of here that confederated in 1867. We had a sesquicen- tennial here, last year, of the union of the colonies of Brit- ish Columbia and Vancouver Island, which went largely un- remarked amidst our real-estate and fentanyl follies. New Westminster was briefly the capital of the united colony; Speaker Ivan Sayers at the 2016 Luncheon. PHOTO BY KELLAN HIGGINS debate soon began on whether British Columbia should join the new Dominion, and proceeded slowly while the Annual Incorporation Day Luncheon Canadian government negotiated with the Hudson’s Bay e are thrilled to announce that Mike Harcourt, former Company to purchase and annex the prairies. BC joined WMayor and BC Premier, is this year’s Incorporation Day Canada in 1871 – what’s the chance there will be federal Speaker. As always, the event celebrates the incorporation of celebration funding in four years? the City of Vancouver on April 6, 1886. This year’s luncheon As for Vancouver, in the summer of 1867 Gassy Jack kicks off at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday April 2 at 12:30 at the Uni- Deighton built his saloon near the Hastings Mill, estab- versity Golf Club, 5185 University Boulevard. lished just two years earlier. That’s our 150th anniversary, The cost is $40 for members, $45 for non-members and I suppose – the beginnings of Gastown, officially Granville includes a buffet and prize draws. We will also present the Townsite as of 1870. Award of Merit to this year’s deserving recipient. Tickets are All this is a roundabout way of noting that the VHS available at the February and March meetings and soon online doesn’t have any lecture or event planned this year to rec- at www.vancouver-historical-society.ca. ognize Canada’s 150th. Jean Barman’s talk two years ago on the interrelationships of geopolitics, Québecois fur Vancouver Historical Society Executive Board: traders and indigenous women is about as close as we’ve 2016 - 2017 come to a “nation-making” topic. (ELECTED MAY 26, 2016) Recall our rekindled interest recently (recorded in the October, 2016 newsletter) in the Hastings Mill monu- PRESIDENT Michael Kluckner VICE PRESIDENT ment at the foot of Dunlevy commissioned by the VHS Eve Lazarus TREASURER Grace Bu 52 years ago for the sawmill’s centenary. We-the-current- RECORDING SECRETARY Kellan Higgins directors scrambled to our archives to find out about Ger- DIRECTOR Robert McDonald hard Class’s sculpture, and have worked since with Port DIRECTOR Brenda Peterson of Vancouver staff to relocate it away from a shore-power DIRECTOR (PROGRAMS) Bruce M. Watson project that will take over its site. DIRECTOR (COMMUNICATIONS) Madeleine de Trenqualye An update: we met with a city representative to try DIRECTOR (COMMUNICATIONS) Stevie Wilson to find a location near the mill site on city land; howev- Appointed Positions er, the monument is too big to relocate onto the meagre, contested bits of public space in that part of town. It will ARCHIVIST Alexandra Allen be resettled in front of the Mission to Seafarers building, INFO LINE Jeannie Hounslow but its accessibility to the casual visitor will soon be chal- MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY Mary Wallace Poole lenged, as the Port is going to put a security gate below the NEWSLETTER MAILING Mary Gavan TOUR COORDINATOR Jo Pleshakov overpass at the foot of Main Street in 2019. Present ID and you will still be able to see it, but you’ll really have to CONTACT want to. Vancouver Historical Society Info Line: 604-827-3622 Mailing Address: P.O. Box 3071 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X6 Michael Kluckner Website: www.vancouver-historical-society.ca [email protected] Newsletter Editor: Eve Lazarus | [email protected] Newsletter Design and Production: Kellan Higgins CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE While travel was difficult, gal- Upcoming Speakers leries were almost non-existent. Few The VHS invites everyone to attend our miners or loggers lined their walls monthly talks. Admission for non-members with original art and the number of is by donation. Talks are held at the Mu- potential clients was limited. Most of seum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut Street (in Vanier Park) at 7:30 p.m. on the fourth these early artists survived by teach- Thursday of every month except June, July, ing or doing advertising illustrations. August and December. Some, he says, painted signs, windows and carriages, decorated ceremonial arches or buildings, while others were supported by a patron, and a few were independently wealthy. “Some amateur or Sunday paint- ers also exhibited. Many artists were itinerant, moving from town to town to paint local scenes, showing their work in store windows or hotels,” says “HIGHER RISES” BLOCK PRINT BY GARY SIM, 2005 Sim. “If a painting turned out well, it yons beside the BC Rail mainline. In might be painted a few more times for 2013, Sim published a memoir called sale. They had to hustle their work.” Railway Rock Gang, based on those Sim has also had his own strug- experiences. Thursday, March 23, 2017 gles and share of interesting jobs. He’s As work took him around the The Ferries of Indian Arm worked at everything from fruit pick- province, Sim filled his spare time Speaker: Ralph Drew, Mayor of ing to fighting forest fires. From 1978 painting and drawing his surround- Belcarra to 1987 he worked for BC Rail rock ings. Over the past decade, he has ex- gangs drilling, blasting and chain saw- hibited his work more than 40 times. Ralph Drew has been Mayor of ing his way along the cliffs and can- — Madeleine de Trenqualye Belcarra for over three decades. He wrote his first award-winning book: Forest & Fjord: The History of Bel- carra in 2013, and followed that with Ferries & Fjord: The History of Indian Arm in 2015. Join Mayor Drew for a talk about the floating grocery stores and travelling post offices of Indian Arm. Thursday, April 27, 2017 Historic Clan and Association Buildings of Vancouver’s China- town Speaker: John Atkin and City Planning staff involved in Chinatown Chinatown’s historic clan and as- sociations buildings are a unique heritage resource in the city of Van- couver. As Chinatown evolves these This postcard was mailed in 1904 and comes from the estate of Charles Haynes in England. structures provide the continuous dreamy tranquil postcard view from Hornby and Hastings on the street end – thread of history in the community. A the Hotel Vancouver at Georgia the site is now a small plaza. The building Built in an era when mutual support and Granville, sometime after 1891. The survived into the 1920s as a war veterans’ was a necessary and needed part road on the left is Howe, the prominent club after the current Vancouver Club of life for the city’s Chinese immi- building in the left distance is the first was erected next door to it. grants, the buildings reflected the Vancouver Club, established in 1891 at — Michael Kluckner. architecture of southern China. Who was Maxine MacGilvray? John Atkin can be a bit of a killjoy, always squashing rumours about secret tunnels in Chinatown, ghosts in the Dominion Building, and well, blood in Blood Alley. John squashes another rumour in his story about a tunnel that supposedly connected a sugar baron to a brothel, but in doing so he uncovered some fas- cinating information about Maxine MacGil- vray, a successful businesswoman who moved to Vancouver in 1914.