alisonboston.com

The Garden, artist: Alison Boston

I was sitting here today, speaking with my English student* about my virtual gallery, and telling him a little about my past and where I got the idea that I could be an artist.

I lived in Ottawa, from 1978-1989. When I first moved there, I worked for Fine’s Flowers, and after about six months with the company, I was made manager of their Beechwood Avenue store. One of my regular customers was a kindly gentleman by the name of Jack Firestone.

I’ll never forget the first time he came into the store. He was decked out in his cross country ski clothes, and I - being a lover of cross country skiing - immediately took to him. But it was his question: “What is a girl like you doing working in a place like this?” that perhaps went deeper than his knickers, knee-high woolen socks, and cross-country ski shoes. That suggestion that I could be MORE than the place I was working in.

The conversation that ensued had me saying I enjoyed working with color and form, and living things, and that I wanted to be an artist, but I couldn’t draw and the flowers and shop display were a way for me to express that artistry. I told him I had grown up in Northern New Brunswick, where there were no art galleries, and that I’d never forget the first time I went to an art gallery. It was the Lord Beaverbrook Gallery in Fredericton where I was awestruck by Dali’s huge Santiago El Grande.

Jack became a regular customer after that, and we always chatted about art. During one visit I told him about drawing a tree, at age 11, for school. I had painstakingly drawn every leaf and was so humiliated when the teacher held it up in front of the class and said it wasn’t realistic, that I decided there and then that I couldn’t draw, and chose instead to be a poet and describe my pictures in words!

Shortly after that, Jack invited me to his home where he held his extensive collection of Canada’s Group of Seven painters. I was a socially insecure young woman, and nervous about being unaccompanied in the home of such a wealthy older gentleman - but I tamped down my fear, and accepted his invitation. He took me on a tour of the art - which I didn’t fully appreciate at the time, but now understand he was showing me that it was okay not to draw perfect trees! After looking at the paintings we sat and chatted over pie and ice cream served by his housekeeper. He spoke to me about the art, and his family.

But most important, Jack planted the seed in my mind and heart that perhaps I could be an artist.

La Sanctuaire, Montreal. Artist:Alison Boston

A year later, I was at the University of Ottawa working on completing my studies in theater. Shortly after finishing my degree, I found myself back in the flower shop - fiddling with flowers and arranging the shop. Jack turned up again:

“What are you doing working here again?” he asked.
“Paying the rent,” said I.

I didn’t stay long in the flower shop that time, and soon left to pursue a career in broadcasting and writing, but Jack had firmly planted the idea in my soul that I could be an artist, and so it happened - nurtured and encouraged by various other people (Susan Annis, founder of Arts Court, and poet Juan O’Neil, among them) and Ottawa’s Fall Festival of the Arts, that I started to do performance poetry and became a regular fixture in that scene in Ottawa, and an active member of Gallery 101, where Dennis Tourbin was the artistic director.

I was awed by Dennis’s performances: slide shows accompanied by readings from his writings - presented with the unshakeable confidence and surety that he had a right to be there and do what he was doing. And I’ve always remembered the words he spoke to me after my first performance at Gallery 101 - a reading of my work called ‘Nurse Mary Meets the Sassy Squash’ - accompanied by slides of some surrealist drawings I had done. He said -in that very direct and matter-of-fact way he had of speaking - that made even me pay attention:

“Alison, you’re an artist and don’t let anybody ever tell you any different.”

Well, many years have passed since then and both Jack and Dennis have passed on, but I’m still alive, and thanks to Jack and Dennis, I really am an artist. I still have to do other things to pay the rent, but I’m still writing poetry and I’m making art. It’s not painting, or drawing - but it’s art, and when people look at it and tell me I should paint, I say: “I was given a sewing machine and fabric and taught to make my own clothes when I was 12, not a set of paints to paint pictures, so I sew my art on a sewing machine.”**

Thank you Jack Firestone for planting the idea that I could be an artist so deep inside me that it actually survived, and thank you Dennis Tourbin for showing me how to do it, and telling me not to ever let anyone take that from me.

I dedicate my Virtual Gallery to both of you. May your souls rest in peace.

Please visit the Virtual Gallery

*My English student’s name is Gabor Sidlovics - or Sidi for short (pronounced SHIDDEE - yup!) He plays guitar and writes music and lyrics. He is a real Hungarian rock star - check out his band - (http://www.zanzibar.hu). He’s the one with the waist-length dreadlocks!

**That’s not to say I won’t take up painting some day.