“Envy! We spent decades of life figuring out the difference between jealousy and envy, finally settling on the notion that envy is rooted in one’s have-not status: you have a Tiffany diamond, and we do not. We envy you that diamond, we are envious of you for owning the diamond.
Jealousy, on the other hand, almost always involves a love triangle. For that, we’d have to bring in the person who should have taken you to Tiffany’s but brought a strumpet there instead, then led a wonderful and happy life with the tart, post-Tiffany’s, a life well-led, better than yours or ours, and probably undeserved. The diamond becomes ten diamonds, celebratory diamonds, a trip to Japan and Paris, dinners of tenderloin and designer clothes, all the things you dare not think of lest God frown upon thee and smite as is His will. Bear in mind that we’re not poking fun of the Almighty, we’re just laying out a gameplan of the awful things that envy can bring. Here’s a big thank-you to Franz for bringing this notion to us. We can’t escape.
Envy! We recall issuing a thin trail of drool when we first saw the artists’ dwelling. The Group of Seven, or at least a number within the seven, were an independently wealthy lot. Old money. Two of the seven – Lawren Harris, we think, and, say, John E. MacDonald, because we can’t think of the guy’s real name, decided to design and construct a special building to house the groups’ meetings and goings-on; they’d paint there, create an enclave, live their ideal artists' lives there. Now it’s bothering us that we can’t think of the guy’s real name – we’re sure it wasn’t MacDonald. Was it A. J. Casson? Were we even right thinking the other one was Lawren Harris?
And – grand pause here – they did it. They built the place of their artists’ dreams. Why did they do it?”
“That reminds me of the wonderfully tasteless joke that was rejected by the New Yorker,” says Stig. “There’s a dog wearing an Elizabethan collar, the cone of shame, and he approaches another dog who’s lounging in his doghouse and says, ‘I have an extremely important favour to ask you.’”
“I don’t… I don’t get it, Stig.”
“It’s coarse dog humour, and I promise that I’ll explain it to you by the by. But the tacit punchline is the answer to your question. They built it because they could.”
“We don’t envy the Group of Seven. That is – we do admire them, and who wouldn’t envy the achievement of becoming the archetype of Canadian art? They’re not exactly our peers in the art realm; that would certainly be elevating ourselves. They’re history: towering, majestic, historic figures in the world of art and in Canadiana. They were already quite old or dead when we were barely out of childhood, let alone young and potential artists. A good way to put it in context is to remember that our friend Leonardo used to shovel snow off A. Y. Jackson’s driveway in the winter. We will further drive our point into the ground by mention of our introduction to the Group of Seven in grade six.”
“Let me guess,” says Stig. “You had one of those paint-by-numbers kits.”
“No, it would have been too early in popular culture for that. Paint-by-numbers has always been low of brow and kitsch-oriented. We may be wrong about it now – the whole enterprise has become popular again. For our eighth? ninth? birthday, every kid who came to our party brought a paint-by-numbers kit as a present. It was fine with us; we were the school artist and the plethora of painting kits proved that. We can still smell those tiny pots of oil paint. Even Ruth and Auld Owny had a kit – we remember watching them working together on two of those paintings at the dinette table. The paintings were of black horses running across a landscape, with, we think, a waterfall in the background of one of them. They were very pleased with their work. They put the finished paintings in wooden frames and hung them in the dining room. We know, we know – don’t give me stink eye - these kits were the latest thing. It’s a fond memory, Stig. The smell of the oil paint, watching what we thought were two artists collaborating at their magnum opus – it’s all part of a rare, golden, cornfed moment. We still have the pieces of those horse paintings somewhere. Eventually, they broke apart, but we saved the pieces. Is that ridiculous? What value is the elusive sweet memory from childhood? What would Proust say?”
“You’re giving me the Proustian version of an answer. What was your introduction to the Group of Seven?”
“Our grade six class went on a field trip to the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg, which is home to the nation’s biggest collection of Group of Seven paintings. It was important that we, as eleven-year-olds, see the paintings that represented our culture, which in turn was represented by the country’s vast and unique landscape. We were not bowled over. We didn’t think much about the collection, but instead were taken by an installation that we watched being unboxed during our visit. We saw the paintings of a new Canadian talent, the nature painter and realist Glen Loates. Realism was something that impressed us more than creative expression. We ran straight home after the trip and began painstakingly detailed pencil sketches of our pet bunnies. Realism became an obsession.
Later, we understood the significance of the Jack Pine as a symbol of everything culturally relevant north of Superior. That sums it up. We figured out what we were supposed to find important, and we did it.”
“Did you get anything out of the experience other than doggedness?”
“Oh, sure – otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Eventually we realised that it was a pretty big thing to choose to paint snow in every colour except white.”
“Because they can, though.”
“It’s less burdensome to prove one’s creative mettle when one doesn’t fret about fuel bills and a new roof. The creative juices run freely, and all that, like a well-seared tenderloin on the frypan. We think you’ll like the simile.”
Anything with a tenderloin in it captures Stig’s attention! In the freezer we have a small one waiting for him, which we plan to thaw and pan-sear, shouting “Just for you!” at the moment of its perfection. The truth is we cannot bear to be parted from him, and that realisation alone is enough to make us want to ply him with treats and gifts of affection – though the tenderloins are usually shared. There is nothing that brings us more happiness than sharing a tidbit with him. He will get the lion’s share of the tenderloin.
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