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Canadian Art, winter 1989 cover, featuring Michael Snow |
One last note about my time at Canadian Art. I was lucky enough to know and even luckier to be able to hire Christina Hartling, first as a maternity-leave replacement for managing editor Betty Ann Jordan, then as a fact-checker and finally, in 1990, as full-time head of research, a position she still holds.
According to Christina, when she was asked to come on board as managing editor she said she didn’t know how to use a computer. Sarah, who happened to be around at the time, and I apparently rolled our eyes and said, “Puh-lease. You’re smart, you can do it.”
And of course she did. She quickly became the office’s anchor. I would natter on about what we had to do and she would write beautifully penned notes on lined yellow pads of paper and make it so. She gathered information for Fast Forward by calling galleries—in those pre-Columbian times, we didn’t have a fax, and the Internet was a complicated dream in computer geeks’ minds. (Though it should be noted that, the arrival of the Internet notwithstanding, the best way to find out what passes for the truth is to talk to real people in real time—a credo Christina has always adhered to and one that, in these days of accepting online sources as accurate, is increasingly important.)
Christina, Sarah and I, along with whoever was around, would gather round a table in a local resto and, over a long and happy lunch, study and discuss the contents of the huge binder she had filled with information. It was as if someone had presented us with an incredibly rich fruitcake and then asked which particular pieces we wanted.
Her intelligence, kindness and care—for colleagues, writers, artists—plus her scrupulous belief in going to the source for information have made her legendary. She is the longest-serving member of Canadian Art and still its presiding genius.
Meanwhile, Jim Ireland and I came up with the idea of doing a black-and-white issue that we promoted as “special.” It wasn’t false advertising—it was indeed special—but we did it primarily to lower printing costs. We were aware that finances were faltering and we all loved the magazine and desperately wanted it to live and grow.
But love is blind. Us editorial types had refused to accept the larger truth: the magazine had been hemorrhaging money since its inception. The provincial and federal grants mentioned in the 1984 Key Publishers board minutes never materialized. Maclean Hunter and Key Publishers—specifically Lloyd Hodgkinson and Michael de Pencier—had been beyond patient in their mutual desire to produce a quality Canadian visual-arts magazine that connected with a broadly based readership. Michael remembers talking to Lloyd a few years ago and Lloyd saying, “We weren’t only about making money, you know.” But patience, like money, is a well that eventually runs dry.
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Canadian Art, spring 1998 cover, featuring Alan Jarvis |
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