Norval Morrisseau is one of Canada's most acclaimed aboriginal artists. He came to fame in the 1960s as a protege of Toronto artist-gallery owner Jack Pollock, and later received the prestigious Order of Canada medal.

Morrisseau was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, showed at exhibits all over Canada and in France, and earned hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was a deeply involved in Shaman Medicine painting long before it became popular or trendy.

The ravages of ill health (partly due to childhood tuberculosis, more to off-and-on active alcoholism) made the headlines in the early 1990s. Blessedly, he recovered, and Morrisseau's work is now featured this summer in Reclaiming History, a show at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

According to the N.S. gallery: "Reclaiming History is a look at the art of contemporary First Nations artists and how they borrow from their own art history to create works of art that range in themes from political to mystical."

Other artists in the show include Roger Simon, Lawrence Paul Yuxwelupton, Margaret Johnson, Dozay Christmas, Luke Simon, Allen Angeconeb, and Charles Doucette.

Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
Re-claiming History
to Sept. 17

Norval Morrisseau Official website

The Mill on the Floss
To my mind, one of the finest novels from the Victorian period is George Eliot's Mill on the Floss. This was one of Eliot's earlier works, a piece where she was clearly honing her wry, observational skills of the English social hierarchy, for her magnum opus Middlemarch.

Middlemarch is certainly more famous, but the story of the feisty Maggie Tulliver, battling against rigid Victorian morals is an ably wrought early feminist tale. Maggie has to face the challenge of being smarter than most of the men, bear the burden of an ailing father who forces the middle class family into bankruptcy and subservience to petty relatives, as well as following her heart into a sexually compromising situation.

Add to this already spicy narrative stew, large dollops of 19th century England as well as an incredible flood and you've got what's sure to be a night of great theatre. Oh, did I forget to mention that Mill on the Floss has been adapted for the stage? Soulpepper Theatre mounted this production for the duMaurier Theatre Festival. To July 22, at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre.

Soulpepper Theatre

Harbourfront Centre Theatre

Fine Tuning
What do you want to bet, Margaret Atwood isn't one of the contributors to this show? Canadian authors bravely confess their most embarrassing public experiences in an amusing segment called "My Worst Moment as a Writer," on The Arts Today (CBC Radio, 10:05 p.m.)

Drop me a line.

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