OPEN INVITATION - The Great Lakes Garden Project

Hello all - I'm looking for the best gardens on - or overlooking - the Great Lakes. 

If you have one, or you know of one, please consider this 

OPEN INVITATION

Thanks. mlh

Hamilton's Historic Beacon: A Lighthouse Well Worth Saving

Lighthouse site on the Burlington Canal, circa 1840

Joni Mitchell, Canadian songstress, has written some seminal works in her time, not the least of which is Big Yellow Taxi. "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got, 'til it's gone." A salient and poignant reminder that too often we do not see what is of enduring value right in front of our noses. 

Much of late has been made of the heritage 'issues' facing Hamilton: what to protect, what to relinquish and what to really hunker down and fight for. 

Ultimately, all 'heritage' fights are about preserving a tangible asset that has proportionately defined the evolution of our commonly held civic character and uniquely local cultural identity.  These 'things' profoundly represent what and where we've come from. 

It goes without saying that some items are more important then others. In the face of natural growth and development, we do have to discriminate. We must choose the most significant that best reflect our changing history. 

One outstanding architecturally-defining structure that needs a fight, right now, is the Beach Canal Lighthouse. In the simplest of terms, this decaying building and adjacent lighthouse keeper's cottage, scrunched up beside the Lift Bridge operations tower and Eastport Drive on the Hamilton Beach Strip, are on the verge of collapse. 

The lighthouse & cottage are scrunched up between the Skyway & Lift Bridge on the Hamilton side of the Burlington Canal.

Holes in the mortar, caked-on rust, plywood cover-ups, rickety wiring and a high security fence currently define the Lighthouse today, once the bright beacon of entry to the harbour. 

Rudimentary efforts to protect both these items from the elements with plywood sheeting and fences are clearly failing. It also looks as though raccoons have gotten into the back-end of the lighthouse keeper's cottage ... though the beer can debris suggests another kind of intruder ...  

The run-down Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage - roof rotting, paint peeling, overgrown ivy, and current beer can repository. 

Some cynics would suggest that perhaps this decaying state personifies the Canadian Federal and Ontario Provincial governments' hope that these buildings will just quietly fall down, thus saving 'demolition' and 'dismantling' costs. A soiled, cracked and fading 'information' signpost near the lighthouse amplifies this perception. That any level of our Government would allow this site to just 'disappear' is clearly a tragic and mammoth historical loss for us all. It needs to be stated again and again: this important landmark, the lighthouse, has shaped this end of Lake Ontario's development for well over two hundred years. That is no small 'thing' in historical terms. 

As it is now, this sorry dilapidated fenced-in site is the first 'identity marker' of Hamilton that travelers and trade merchants see when entering the City by water. These abandoned buildings stand in the foreground, the car cacophony of the bridges rages in surround sound overhead, and the steel mills bellow smoke and fire in the background.  Talk about an 'image problem' .... But it doesn't need to be this way. 

Consider this. The Province of Upper Canada was created under the Constitutional Act of 1791. The British Crown appointed a young military officer, John Graves Simcoe, as lieutenant governor of this nascent nation state. He was a successful military man, abolitionist, husband, father and eventual founder of York (aka Toronto). 

  

Initially, John Graves Simcoe set up the colonial 'capital' at Newark, or, what is now known as Niagara-on-the-Lake, on the south side of Lake Ontario. Over the next decade, his regiment, the Queen's Rangers, constructed the two primary arterial roadways through the dense bush that would define the province for centuries to come: Yonge Street (from Lake Ontario up to Lake Simcoe - yes, named, in tribute, after his father) and Dundas Street (from Toronto to London, Ontario).  

During his early years in this burgeoning colonial settlement, he, his young family and military entourage would travel the existing overland 'native' trail along the Lake Ontario beach strip. They went back and forth from 'enemy exposed' Newark near the American border to the safer military fort around the lake at York.   

It was on one such occasion, while he and his wife, Elizabeth, were admiring the waterfront landscape, that he decided to establish the Kings' Head Inn on what was then known by the local aboriginal people's as "daonasedao" or "where-the-sand-forms-a-bar". Not only was this a convenient and enchanting stop-off point for the long and bumpy four hour carriage ride from York to Newark, the Inn served, at various stages, as a military trading post and 'Government House' for the growing British colony in the years ahead.  Elizabeth eventually wrote glowingly of how the Kings' Head Inn was "beautifully situated" on the beach strip.

Looking north-west from Kings' Head Inn location on the beach strip,  with the Niagara escarpment in the background, circa 1796. 

Fast-forward 200 years. All that remains of this beguiling moment in Canada's young history is a provincial plaque somewhere on a northern trail at the back-end of the eponymous hot-dog & hamburger joint, Hutch's, on the lake. That's it. The original two storey, two winged, wooden building that constituted the Kings' Head Inn was destroyed in a fire by American troops in 1813. Over time, the land and property were eventually absorbed into the overall development of the area. And so goes local history.

All that remains of the King's Head Inn is a wooden pub sign, and, at that, it is a reproduction. The original pub sign has disappeared. The handsome oak replica is now 'in storage' in the attic at the somewhat forlorn historical museum, the Joseph Brant Museum in Burlington. It is not visible to the public. (Worth noting, this Burlington community museum is a reconstruction of the original homestead of Mohawk chief and British captain Joseph Brant ‘Thayendanegea’ (1742-1807). Brant was awarded 3,450 acres of land at the ‘head-of-the-lake' in 1798 by John Graves Simcoe, acting as the representative of King George III, for his services to the British Crown during the Seven Years War and the American Revolution. The land grant was awarded to Joseph Brant just five years after the King's Head Inn was ordered built by John Graves Simcoe. ) 


On my request, the museum curator kindly supplied me with this backside image of the Kings' Head Inn pub sign. It's a beautiful re-created portrait of King George III.

John Graves Simcoe was in service to his King, George III.

Notably, there are lots of other Kings' Head Inns pub signs on-line via Google Image Search. Alas, there is no image on-line for the for the very first Kings' Head Inn pub sign of Upper Canada, and the young nation state of Canada. Sadly, the Joseph Brant Museum hasn't even included it in its listings with CHIN, the Canadian Heritage Information Network.  All in all, the sign - and the Kings' Head Inn - are 'out of sight' and thus, 'out of mind'. Gone. 

This local structure of historical note has been lost - and all but forgotten - except by the oldest historical association in the Golden Horseshoe area, the Head-of-the-Lake Historical Society, founded in 1899. This society still uses the fine painted portrait of King George III from the backside of the King's Head Inn pub sign - in miniature - for their society's crest.

Tra la.

The Beach Canal Lighthouse is on route to a similar fate.

Originally built in wood at a height of 40 feet in 1838, (a mere forty-four years after the Kings' Head Inn), the whale-oil lit lighthouse was a beacon for the frigate and steamships passing in and out of the Hamilton Harbour and Burlington Bay via the newly dug Burlington Canal, (officially opened in 1832.)

On July 18, 1856, the steamship Ranger, chugged into the canal. Hot sparks blew from its engine chimney onto the shore. The resultant ember fire eventually destroyed the wooden lighthouse, the canal ferry, and two houses before the fire was subdued.  A temporary lighthouse was quickly assembled to assured continued safe passage into the harbour, and then, in 1858, John Brown, a seasoned stonemason, was hired to construct a permanent white dolomite limestone structure on the south side of the canal.

The Canal lighthouse is identical to another that Brown designed and built on Christian Island on Georgian Bay.   
 

Christian Island Lighthouse and Beach Canal Lighthouse, both built by John Brown in the early 1800s.

Standing five stories high, the walls of the Beach Canal Lighthouse are, at the base, five feet thick. Overall, the stonework is 'stable', but it still needs a lot of work to bring it, and the lighthouse keeper's cottage, back to any semblance of their former functional selves.

A fading black & white photograph documents the Lighthouse and the former Royal Hamilton Yacht Club on the south side of the canal, (left side of the photograph). 

During its operation for over 100 years, coal, instead of whale-oil, was used to light the 'beacon'. The light was visible from miles out on the lake. It was a welcoming and familiar signpost into one of Lake Ontario's best natural harbours. The Beach Canal lighthouse was officially closed in 1968. A mere 45 years ago.

It has been in slow decline ever since.

Today, a automated electrical beacon on the end of the south side pier on the canal guides the lake traffic in and out of the harbour.  Meanwhile, that stalwart old stone lighthouse continues to slowly fade, like the Kings' Head Inn, from public memory ...

But, not all is lost, just yet. Ten years ago, in 2003,  two forward-thinking individuals from the Hamilton Beach Community organized a meeting to attempt to save the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper's cottage from oblivion. Thirty-two people turned up.

It's been a slow uphill battle ever since. Over the past decade, only 200 interested citizens from all around the Golden Horseshoe region have joined the Beach Canal Lighthouse Group, donating their time, money and professional expertise. This group is certainly moving in the right direction, but it is evidently not enough, especially when time is increasingly of the essence for these poor buildings.

In 2004 the owner of the site, the Canadian Department of Public Works and Government Services, basically fobbed off the 'surplus' property to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. In 2006, the DFO removed the accumulated bird guano and the remaining lighthouse 'lens' from the tower. They boarded up the doors and windows of the cottage with plywood. Three years later, the Department of Public Works and Government Services rescinded their offer to the DFO and refused to hand over 'title' to them or the non-profit Beach Canal Lighthouse Group.  In other words, this property continues to swill around in limbo on federal/provincial/municipal backwaters as a lamely identified place of historic importance under the  'Ontario Heritage Act'.  In 2007, the Beach Canal Lighthouse Group received a plaque indicating this status from the City of Hamilton.

Tra la.

The fact remains, the City of Hamilton has not taken full ownership of this property, as it should. The lighthouse deserves the same attention, investment and 'tourism' rehab as Dundurn Castle. Really it does.

There remains hope. A re-energized committee at the Beach Canal Lighthouse Group is trying, again, to re-engage both the public and civic elders to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for the lighthouse. It, and the lighthouse keeper's cottage, do not have to got the way of the Kings' Head Inn. There is still some time to save this sturdy pillar (albeit in need of serious 'restoration') that represents the waterfront origins of the City of Hamilton and our regional history.

Hamiltonians, Burlingtonians and all Canadian citizens around the Golden Horseshoe region must band together to reiterate that they do know what they've got before it is all gone. A full-on restoration of 'The Canal Lighthouse' would be BEST, regardless of the current inhospitable location.  

Perhaps a 'lend-lease' could be established with the City of Burlington? If they absorbed some of the restoration costs, maybe the Province and Hamilton would permit a re-location of the lighthouse and cottage into their ambitious design for the City of Burlington Beachfront Park. Perhaps it could be re-located to a position of prominence in Bayfront Park. Or, integrated into the Haida dock site under the auspices of the Hamilton Harbour Commission. Or, moved to a mountain location at Chedoke so that the illuminated lighthouse could preside over the City.  Or, maybe an enterprising forward-thinking entrepreneur/developer would integrate the lighthouse and cottage into a funky recreation of the Kings' Head Inn?

Needless to say, more must be done now to save this unique waterfront structure before it falls down.

Ergo, Hear ye! Hear ye! - Get involved, donate, learn more about this unsung piece of local history, bookmark the following link to the Beach Canal Lighthouse Group, and please, open your wallets, give generously: http://www.bclg.ca 

'The Lighthouse' really does need our energy, attention and money.  Now.

Remember Joni's wise words  '...we really won't know what we've got, 'til it is all gone' ... 

----

Published on Raise the Hammer, (with lively 'comments') on 
August 26th, 2013 - here

UPDATE: - It seems 'someone' was listening .... 

UPDATE: As of September 9th, 2013, roof repairs are happening on the lighthouse keeper's cottage. WHO is actually doing this is still somewhat of a mystery, as (title) ownership of the Lighthouse still rests with the Dept of Fisheries & Oceans. BUT, at this point, whoever it is should be applauded for taking IMMEDIATE action to save this structure.

Credit notice: All black & white photographs are from the 'PreView' Archives of the Hamilton Public Library. Colour imagery is by Margaret Lindsay Holton, except for the Christian island lighthouse image, courtesy of Google Images. The Kings Head Inn pub sign image was supplied by the Joseph Brant Museum and is used with their permission.

  

Smith's Funeral Homes Celebrates 75 Years of Business in Burlington, Ontario

To celebrate this occasion, Smith's has created a three-way competition - best essay, and photograph that reflects the past, and a multi-media category that forecasts the future. Entires have been coming in since May, 2013.  More general information here.

I am thrilled and delighted to announce that my pinhole photo entry, 'Granny's Lounger',  has been selected as a finalist. The awards ceremony will take place at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre on September 12th from 5-7pm. See you there! 

 

 Recent press in Burlington Post ... 

  Update: WOOHOO! - Got '3rd Prize' for my pinhole image.  And a VERY NICE cheque.    Judges' Remarks:  "The photographer describes the pinhole photograph as 'slow photography' and I would also add 'timeless photography'. The capture is a wonderful work of art. Its imagery is what makes it an award winner; I believe that it embodies the spirit of what Burlington life is all about."

Purchase Memo

THANK YOU! 

:)  

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Fine Art America - LINK to Purchase MLH Photo Prints

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'Silk & Satin' in EXHIBIT 12 at McMaster Innovation Park, Hamilton. Opens August 1st, 2013

'Silk & Satin' - Photography by m.l.holton

In the spring of this year I launched a new series of photographic 

prints that I'd been working on since the fall.  

'WHITE OUT, Photo Erasures' - by yours truly-

is now available for purchase in book form. 
$40 per copy. (plus S&H)
Contact the artist if interested a copy.

Samples from this series is also available for sale 
via my Fine Art America on-line storefront. 

This above framed print, 'Silk & Satin', is part of the Grand EXHIBIT 12 

at McMaster Innovation Place in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. 

Over 300 items by 100 local artists will be on display for 3 months.  

OPENS: August 1st, 7-9pm.  

IN THE MIP ATRIUM

... Cocktails & Horsey Do'Overs ...

MAP LINK HERE.

Support local living artists. :) 

See you there.

Tall Ships Enter Hamilton Harbour - Black & White Photography

 Waiting on the Tall Ships - mid-afternoon Friday, June 28th, 2013 - 
images taken from Hamilton side of the Burlington Canal

 HERE THEY COME!!!

 Passing thru Modern Day artifacts .... 

Majestic champions of the Great Lakes ... 
even if they are of a bygone era ... 
(Published too as single photos in Raise the Hammer)

More on the Tall Ships Extravaganza 
in Hamilton over Canada Day Weekend - HERE
And their course within the Harbour - PDF

The War of 1812: Stud

Horses used in warfare has occurred for well over 7000 years. Recently, a play and film based on the novel, War Horse, brought the public's attention again to the plight of this domesticated animal caught within war zones. 

Today, near obsolete for this purpose, (except in  Afghanistan ), horses have been replaced by a cadre of  'defense contractors' who work in the 'arms industry'.  It's a trillion dollar business ...
 
While reading about the War of 1812, I was somewhat surprised to discover that the role of the horse during the two year long land skirmishes receive scant to no mention. And yet, transportation of men, supplies and artillery wholeheartedly depended on these truly extra-ordinary beasts of burden. 

To rectify this historical oversight, I present this painting - 'War of 1812: Stud'

'War of 1812: Stud' by Margaret Lindsay Holton 

acrylic on loose canvas - 6'W x 4'H

For price, contact the artist.

(Colours are a bit distorted in this photo reproduction, but you get the idea ... ) 

New Painting - 'eye-cloud'

'eye-cloud' by m.l.holton

(acrylic on canvas - unframed )

The IDEA here is to investigate the notion of how we are increasingly
 placing our 'memories' into corporate controlled "iClouds".
From a distance, the orchid above is seemingly 'hidden' in the 'cloud' ... 
yet, on closer examination, using our own eyes, the hidden flower
becomes distinct, and we thus naturally 'emboss' the image into our own memory.
Ergo, an 'eye-cloud'. No corporation involved. 
The mini ethereal gold spirals represent thoughts ...  

 

Detail of orchid bloom in 'eye-Cloud' by m.l.holton

For size & price, please contact the artist.

Note: the 'colour' on the larger image is more accurate then the 'detail'.

The black circles in the upper left of that image 

are actually small gold ink spirals, (better seen in the close-up.)

Spring Birch - New Paintings by mlh

Something about birch trees ... have been a focus for over a month now ...

'Birch Bark', acrylic on canvas, 4 feet square.

'Spring Birch' acrylic on board, by mlh - If interested in purchase, please contact the artist.

Bill Cunningham: Veteran 'Street Photog'

Last night, watching TVO, I was entranced by this wonderful Richard Press documentary about the indomitable Bill Cunningham, the 'fashion' photographer for the New York Times. The film successfully captures Mr. Cunningham's affable charm, gentle grace, professionalism and irrepressible impish-ness. It also does a marvelous job of sharing the streets of New York City.

Now well into his 80's, Mr.Cunningham continues to provide a seasoned perspective about the fluctuations of fashion of New York, and beyond. With a delicate balance of candid reflection, he 'snaps' and curates the nuances of the state of ourselves. He clearly has 'serious fun', an attitude that many 'junior photographers' could do well to emulate.

A veteran cultural anthropologist (long before the term was ever invented),  his visual observations of all things 'fashion' both beguile and inform. His near-intuitive fusion of past and present trends has humbled many 'wannabe' fashionistas. While he remains ever-modest and self-effacing, his 'roving eye' is impeccably sharp.

That we should all do so well, and be so happy, in our 80's ...
'Bill Cunningham New York' is a wonderful tribute to an inspired - and inspiring - 'reporter'.
See it.

Note: A re-run of this enchanting film runs on TVO on Monday, May 27th at 12am, midnight. If you can't watch it at that time, FOR SURE, copy/rent or buy it. There are gold nuggets of wisdom and wit throughout. And, for what it's worth, Roger Ebert gave it one of his rare scores of 4 stars, or 100%.

Here are some additional notable links of several New York Times slide-show videos that Bill recently 'curated':   Adieu Anna,   Stormville  ,  Florescent , Sketching in Pastels. 

All above photos by Bill Cunniingham - attributed to the New York Times - his employer.
The header shot has been taken from the available downloads supplied by the filmmakers.  

Lush Lilacs - Spring, 2013

At the farm, awoke to the smell of lilacs ... 

their intoxicating smell permeated the entire house ... 

  ...  lush and wet with dew, I TRIED with camera to 'get it' ...

 when I wasn't just gob-smacked by the floral abundance ...

 Lilacs are in full bloom all over the property.

Magical and magnificent.

To INHALE is simply - BLISS.

SPRING 2013 NEWSLETTER: From the Studio of MLH

Just putting the finishing touches now to my spring newsletter for 2013. 

It's always a bit of a daunting task to get it 'picture' and 'tone' perfect.

This year will be my largest mailing ever. 

Not quite 5000, but very close.

I hope you all will enjoy my latest work. 

Happy Spring.

  

Click on - SPRING 2013 NEWSLETTER 

UPDATE: Always interesting to discover that other artists are exploring similar concepts and techniques ... Huffington Post recently did a profile of French artist, Thomas Lamadieu's  'sky art'.  Hard to know who got there first, him or me, but either way, we're both at it.  Notch one up to 'serendipity'... 

 ===

2013 Spring Publication:   

WHITE OUT: Photo Erasures

by Margaret Lindsay Holton 

Published by Acorn Press Canada.

Order YOUR copy today from
The Collector's First Edition
via my secure merchant account

on PAYPAL :

 HERE 

Found 'Lost' Art: Photo Transfers

I thought I'd lost these during last year's move. Turns out I'd carefully packed them away in a box that has been in art storage for awhile now. Phew. The process? Scans of living autumn leaves were transferred onto hand-made paper sheets (made over a period of three months.) A time-consuming & fun 'project'. Phew.

Step 1. Scan  fragile autumn leaves to make photo transfer images

Step 2. Photo transfer onto hand-made paper sheets

Tried more conventional photo imagery too (see above), then framed all in between acrylic sheeting. They look great.

Image on lower left shows sample of leaves artfully piled up before they were scanned to create a 'flat image' to transfer onto the paper sheets ... Lotsa serious fun!  All hand-made sheets are signed & dated, 2009. All leaves were collected at various locations around Burlington, Ontario, Canada.

Stephanie Vegh: Beating a Dead Horse? Or, Emerging from an Academic Chrysalis?

'Scratchings: Talon, Sting and Claw’     
Now showing at the Nathaniel Hughson Gallery.

Stephanie Vegh, the artist, was born in Hamilton, studied Art and Comparative Literature at McMaster University before leaving for the Glasgow School of Art to complete a Master in Fine Art.

This background is essential to understanding the ink drawings, watercolour sketches, cut outs and literary tidbits that she inserts into arcane 'history' and 'science' books. As she writes, "My labour-intensive articulation of diminutive subjects at an excessive scale in relation to their illustrated environments subverts the logic of these books, forcing a fusion between their history and my own."

Still with me? Take a breath, it's not as tough as it sounds. Meaning: she looks and reads, she thinks about what she's looking at and reading, and she integrates that studying into her evolving persona. All quite normal self-development when you strip away the sophistry.

As for contemporary relevancy, as a country gal born and bred, I couldn't help but think that, cumulatively, these works were 'much ado about nothing'.  Rather then stating the obvious, like the now well-documented global collapse of bees or the on-going eruption of mutating amphibians, we are teased into believing Vegh's quixotic renderings of the historically side-swiped minutiae of Nature is a  'NEW DISCOVERY' of some kind. - Well, it isn't.  

Note: All children, all over the globe, still marvel at the intricate antenna twitching of ants and the buzzing of bees. Bugs, at eye level, remain fascinating.

Perhaps Ms. Vegh's point is that all that child-like awe and wonder is lost as the head, through excessive years of myopically confined book learning, hardens the ever-curious heart. This is commonly known as the ‘ivory tower’ syndrome.

As a visual 'critique' of how, we, as a species, relate to the rest of the species of the world, Vegh seems, to me, to overstate the obvious. Drawing on once revered academic tomes dating from the 1700’s to 1850’s, Vegh has, somewhat mockingly, illuminated their deficiencies. Ok, we get it, those tomes are old hat.  

But one still wonders. Why would anyone study book works that are clearly not relevant today, except, perhaps, as a prologue to understand where we are now? In that regard, Vegh's meanderings in these dusty illustrated tomes appear as 'superior' musings on the atrophied thoughts and illustrations of dead people.   

To give them some credit, if these authors and accomplished artists were alive today they could well be at the forefront of their respective disciplines.  Imagine, for example, Charlotte Bronte writing as a contemporary of Margaret Atwood, or Carl Linneaus  working on The Genome Project ...  

It is very easy to be critical of the dead.

Aside from the overwrought obscure intent of this exhibition, the execution of Vegh's drawings and the pairing of words do have some resonance.  Thoughts ricochet and muddy emotions swirl into the murky eddies of Time Past. Individually, we journey inward - and backward - to cultural backwaters that are now very far removed from the opened floodgates of the internet. 

We all KNOW these dusty tomes are ancient and anachronistic. We can SEE Vegh's tender (not abusive) engagement with them. And, consequently, we can't help but come away wondering if, perhaps, Vegh's miffed chastisement of their inherent failings today doesn't better reflect her greater disgruntlement of her own years of isolated and isolating 'higher learning'.

An essay she wrote seems to give credence to this observation: 'Dwelling in the Windowpane: The Futural Transition of the University'   (PDF link) Therein, metaphorically speaking, she's banging on the doors, flinging open those windows and overall reasonably attempting to up-end the logic of traditional 'reasoned' learning.  

In that sense, these re-fashioned book works, on exhibit at the Nathaniel Hughson Gallery, could be construed as a rebellious 'breakthrough' for Vegh. Yes, she has now graduated into Life. She is, after all, the Executive Director of the Hamilton Arts Council and a member of Hamilton's Supercrawl Curatorial Committee.  

Hopefully, she will soon give herself lasting permission to ‘put away the books’.  

It would be grand, for example, if she funneled her talents into the little appreciation earth-rooted physicality of the web. Andrew Blum's excellent and enlightening book, 'TUBES: A Journey to the Centre of the Internet'  might be a good place to start. She would have to be quick and precise though. His practical ‘field’ research and pertinent cross-fertilized understanding of 'the way things are' will be just as obsolete as our pioneering forefathers insight, knowledge and know-how - given another year or two. 

'Scratchings: Talon, Sting and Claw’ at the Nathaniel Hughson Gallery closes April 6th, 2013.    
Hours & Directions to Gallery: here. 

(Photos of Ms. Vegh's imagery were shot by MLH during the opening on Thursday March 14th. )