CALENDAR GIRL REDUX: I'M ALSO POSTER GIRL

(c) 2010 Trillium Gift of Life Network

I wrote recently about the fact that I'd been asked to be photographed for the 2011 Trillium Gift of Life Network calendar. (I'm "Miss March".)  Well, here's some shameless self-promotion: they also put me on one of their posters.  The green card I'm holding contains their new slogan, which exhorts health care professionals to speak with families about end-of-life patients being screened as possible organ and tissue donors and to call TGLN to make the connection between possible organ and tissue donors and patients in urgent need of a transplant.  I've been volunteering with TGLN for six years now and I'm really passionate about organ and tissue donation.  It's the only way after our own lives are over that we can continue to make a positive physical difference here on earth.  Most of us never have the chance in our lifetimes to save a life, to be a hero.  Unless we're a firefighter, a paramedic or other health care professional, a lifeguard or a volunteer on a suicide prevention hotline, for whom heroism is daily life, our opportunity to make this kind of difference in an unknown person's life is very limited.

Ivaan was a donor.  He'd made this decision of his own accord and I admire him tremendously for it.  He always said he wasn't a courageous sort of person, but he's my hero.  He knew it would make a huge positive difference to some unknown other families.  He was right.  It did.

If you're thinking you want to make this kind of difference, there are three things you need to do:

(1) Talk to your family about it, and tell them expressly what your wishes are.  You may not be conscious at the end of your life, so they need to know.  They don't have to agree with your decision, but they need to know.

(2)  Register your consent.  You can download the form from the Trillium Gift of Life website, - www.giftoflife.org - fill it out, sign it and send it in.  You can't apply online, but you can get the blank forms online.

(3) It's nice to carry a wallet card, but it's even better to go to the Health Card renewal place (ServiceOntario), tell them you want to register your consent to be a donor, and they will arrange to have your consent entered in the Ministry of Health database AND indicated on your Health Card.

And now, Poster Girl had better swivel herself around on the piano bench and get some practising done.  I'll bet my piano teacher wants to know why I appear to have turned my back on music.

If you're in a health care facility in 2011 and you see me smiling down at you from a poster, smile back.  And consider registering your consent to be a donor.  Please.  Thank you from Ivaan and from me.

CONNIE AND HER DAUGHTERS

Connie's Ring
(c) Estate of Ivaan Kotulsky

Today is the second anniversary of Ivaan's having left the planet, so I thought I'd use this occasion to write about someone else who left the planet and her enduring legacy.

Connie was a colleague of mine at Old City Hall, which is a courthouse in downtown Toronto, where I worked from 1988 until 1997.  She had a lot of style, and I often thought she could have had a successful theatrical career.  She had a handsome face, a strong voice, perfect elocution, a large vocabulary and considerable dramatic flair.  She was also what used to be called "well bred", a fact which probably mitigated against her taking up a career on the stage.  Connie had two young adult daughters, of whom she was justifiably proud.  They shared her strong good looks and had clearly inherited her sharp intellect and quick wit.

Connie loved Ivaan's jewellery, and one of the things on her to-do list was to get bracelets by Ivaan for her daughters, Vanessa and Tanya.  One of the very funny stories she used to tell was of the time when she decided to go to Ivaan's Queen Street West studio and look at bracelets.  Not realizing that Ivaan kept very erratic hours, she showed up one day and found the studio door locked.  Thinking he'd be back momentarily, Connie went into the local Greek restaurant to have a cup of tea and read the newspaper while she awaited his return.  She was busy doing both when she noticed the previously noisy restaurant had become silent.  Looking up, she quickly realized that she was the only female in the restaurant, that all the male customers and staff were watching her intently...and she began to suspect  that the coffee cups in front of them may have contained something stronger than coffee.  Clearly, it was a case of mistaken identity on two counts:  they thought Connie was an undercover cop, and she would cheerfully have joined them in something stronger than coffee if she'd known it was being served!

Connie never got to see any bracelets that day, but she told this story with great glee for months afterwards.

Six years ago, Connie felt that her life was becoming an increasingly uphill struggle, and she made the decision to end it.  Fiercely independent, she planned her exit so as to leave the planet with grace, dignity and a sense of purpose.  A few days later, Ivaan and I heard the news from another of my colleagues.  Ivaan, already quite ill himself, was very moved by her death and asked me to try to contact her daughters.  He wanted to offer each of them a piece of his jewellery, as a gift from their mother, to "close the loop" on the bracelet story. The problem was, both daughters were married and I couldn't recall their surnames and didn't know how to reach them.

When Ivaan died in December, 2008, contacting  Connie's daughters was still an item on his to-do list.  One day, out of the blue, the surname of her younger daughter, Tanya, suddenly came to mind and I was able to reach her through Facebook.  Tanya came to see All That Matters, the 40-year retrospective of Ivaan's work at the Ukrainian Museum of Canada, loved his work, and chose a ring which would be her mother's gift to her.   She asked her sister, Vanessa, to look at Ivaan's website and choose something for herself. Tanya and Vanessa are very different people.  Though they share many of Connie's attributes, they are complete individuals.  Yet, incredibly, they both chose exactly the same ring.

I hope that Ivaan and Connie are enjoying something a bit stronger than coffee in The World To Come and I'm sure they are probably still laughing over the bracelet story.  Both Tanya and Vanessa feel strongly connected to their rings and to their mother's legacy.  They are both fabulous, devoted mothers themselves.  They - and I - remember Connie with affection, pride and admiration.  Like Ivaan, she was larger than life.

FLAT BROKE: JUST HITCHED FROM VANCOUVER

(c) ESTATE OF IVAAN KOTULSKY

Do you know this girl?  

In 1992, Ivaan took this photo of a young lady sitting on the sidewalk playing the flute.  I've always just assumed it was Queen and Bathurst, but I could be wrong.  The sign on her flute case read:  "JUST HITCHED FROM VANCOUVER.  FLAT BROKE".    It's a large photo; this is just  a section  of it, and it's partly the scale of the whole photograph that makes it so appealing.  Ivaan made two very big enlargements of this photo, one for himself and the other he hoped to give to her.   But even though he was always out and about in the Queen West neighbourhood, he never saw her.

Flash forward to the beginning of December, 2002.  This same young woman, now married and with children, ran into Ivaan on the street and instantly recognized him as the man who had taken her photo more than a decade earlier.  He was thrilled, told her he had a print waiting  for her and gave her a business card with the address of his studio on it.

Three days later, Ivaan suffered a massive stroke and was hospitalized for months.  The building that contained his store was sold, and we had to move  all the contents of his store to a new studio location.   Ivaan's partner Tamas was in the store packing up one day in preparation for the move, when this young woman came by, hoping to pick up her copy of the photo.  Unfortunately, Tamas didn't know the story, wouldn't have known where to look for the photo in any case, and the young woman went away, very disappointed, without leaving her contact information.

The following year, Ivaan was in a wheelchair but anxious to do something artistic.  We decided to mount a show of his photographs, which he entitled World Class City.  It was part of the Contact 2003 festival, and it was exhibited at the Artword Gallery.  Ivaan included this photo in the exhibition.  He named it:  "FLAT BROKE.  JUST HITCHED FROM VANCOUVER"  hoping the young lady would hear about it and drop in.  She didn't.  But Ivaan always remembered her, and frequently asked me to try and locate her so she could have a copy of the photo.  

It's now 18 years since he took this photo, but someone out there knows who this girl is, and I'd love to give her the enlargement we've been saving for her.

I am offering a reward to anyone who can tell me who this is and get her to contact me.  A $100  bill or a piece of jewellery.  Your choice.

A FAREWELL TO THE FAB FOUR...AND TO MICK AND JIMI

THE BEATLES AT THE HOT STOVE LOUNGE, MAPLE LEAF GARDENS, TORONTO, AUGUST 17, 1966

formerly (c) Estate of Ivaan Kotulsky.  Now (c) Ryerson University!

I guess this is the last time I'll ever write "(c) Estate of Ivaan Kotulsky" underneath this photograph, or any other photos taken  by Ivaan of The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or Jimi Hendrix, because Ryerson University, Ivaan's alma mater, has asked to acquire all of his photos and the copyright to the images.  On the one hand, the prospect of them leaving my possession is bittersweet.  On the other hand, Ivaan would have been thrilled that Ryerson is their new home.

Ryerson University recently bought Maple Leaf Gardens, where this photo and all Ivaan's photos of Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger were taken, so it's a great fit, because the photos will be in the public domain, instead of in a closet.  I'm really grateful to our longtime friend, Stephen Bulger, whose photographic gallery on Queen Street West, the Stephen Bulger Gallery, has actually been housing the collection for me since Ivaan's death, and who kindly handled the transaction with Ryerson on behalf of Ivaan and me.  If you haven't been to his gallery, please don't miss the opportunity.  You'll get to see some beautiful photography.

So that is why I have been organizing Ivaan's photos over the past few weeks.   There are tens of thousands of them already sorted, and I have a long way to go yet.  I'm going to post a few photos, in the hopes that someone out there knows the mystery person in the photo.  Actually, that will be the subject of my next post.

Anyway, to The Beatles, Mick and Jimi:  it's been nice sharing cupboard space with you.  Enjoy your new home.  I know Ivaan will be winking down at you from the great darkroom in the sky.

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG: Update on The Exquisite Object

The Exquisite Object (c) Estate of Ivaan Kotulsky

In my September 30th post, I wrote about The Exquisite Object, an unsigned, undated piece of Ivaan's work that I had found among his archives. At the end of that post, I expressed a hope that one day I would know more about it.

That was three weeks ago.  A lot has happened since then.  One of the most important (and still secret) things that has occurred requires me to organize Ivaan's photographs.  This is no small undertaking.  By 2006, Ivaan had amassed a collection of over 700 film cameras.    They were mostly classic cameras from the 1940s onwards, but a few dozen were the old "folders" that dated back to the beginning of the 20th century. We  kept them in a warehouse building two doors away from our house on Portland Street, along with the additional lenses, flashes, tripods, bins of film in odd sizes, camera cases and assorted paraphernalia that goes along with a camera collection of this size.

Ivaan didn't just collect cameras; he used them.  For many years, he shot a roll of film a day.  His photography fell into three different categories:  he photographed his metal art and jewellery, he documented the street life
around him, and he chronicled people's lives - not necessarily people he knew, but people who caught his imagination somehow.  Ivaan's filing system was quirky in the extreme.  He had his film processed, but didn't necessarily make prints.  Instead of identifying the sheet of negatives with a useful description, it was more often "Mamiya 3, f5.6 at 30, Tri-X Pan, clouds".  It worked for him, because he was more likely to remember what camera he was wearing than the date he took the photo or the name of the person in the photos.

All that to say, it's been a long week sorting photographs.  My reward, however, has been the discovery of a photograph of the original wax carving of The Exquisite Object.   Ivaan has photographed it against a background of open rubber jewellery moulds, which enables me to date The Exquisite Object with some precision.  It's either 1979 or 1980, because the rubber moulds are part of his original Tutankhamun collection for the  Art Gallery of Ontario.  This is a real revelation, because I'd always assumed The Exquisite Object was made much later.  He used different colours of wax, so the detail really stands out in the photograph.

The Exquisite Object, circa 1979.   (c) Estate of Ivaan Kotulsky

My next wish is to understand the context for the creation of this object:  was it a commission?  Was it inspired by something he'd seen somewhere?  Is there more than one version?  The finished version above is not identical to the wax original.  Note how the protrusions at seven and nine o'clock on the finished product appear on the wax (at eleven and one o'clock in the photo directly above) as dark lines.  It's as though the piece evolved over time.

In future posts, I'll feature some pictures of the cast of characters Ivaan photographed over the years.
I'll also explain why I'm organizing all his photographs - once it's no longer a secret.  Stay tuned.

CALENDAR GIRL

In late 2008, Ivaan was very eager to undergo the ELANA By-Pass, a pioneering neurosurgical procedure that would reroute the blood flow through his brain while the surgeons grafted on a by-pass blood vessel to circumvent the damaged artery that was causing his strokes.  He was excited about being the first person in Canada to undergo this procedure.   In spite of the enormous risk of his not surviving the surgery, he felt that volunteering for this procedure would greatly advance medical knowledge and pave the way for better outcomes for future patients.  While we both hoped that a successful outcome would mean an improvement in his own dire condition, we knew the chances were slim.  "Plan B" for Ivaan was that he was determined to become an organ and tissue donor should he not survive the surgery, and dying in hospital provided the best chance of achieving that goal.

Ivaan underwent the surgery on December 2nd, 2008, and although the surgery itself was a complete succsss, Ivaan suffered a massive stroke on the operating table, never regained consciousness and died a few days later.

Shortly after his death, I received a letter from the Eye Bank of Canada, telling me about two successful surgeries that had taken place.  Ivaan's eyes had been harvested after his death, and both of his corneas were transplanted, one each into the eyes of two people who had previously been blind.  Those surgeries were successful, and both recipients were able to see as a result. Ivaan would have been thrilled.

I've been a volunteer with Trillium Gift of Life Network, the organ and tissue donation people, for many years.  Recently, they wrote to me to ask if I would agree to be photographed for their 2011 calendar.  This calendar honours the medical professionals who make the connection between the families of potential donors and TGLN, thereby facilitating organ and tissue harvesting and transplantation.

So here I am, about to become a Calendar Girl!  This must be the midlife crisis I've been waiting for.  My only regret is that apparently I'm expected to be fully clothed for the photo shoot.  (I guess Photoshop can only do so much!) Ivaan's niece, Anna, has suggested I greet the camera crew draped only in a sheet, with a rose between my teeth.   It's very tempting.  It would give new meaning to the term, Hot Flash.

Ivaan, I'm sure, will be extremely gratified by this tribute to his Gift of Life.  If you see a 2011 TGLN calendar anywhere, please pick it up and have a peek. I'm hoping to be Miss October.

EAT YOUR HEART OUT: Anita's Tiny Perfect Bracelets

Anita worked in the art department of an advertising agency in the mid-1980s when she was first introduced to Ivaan by mutual friends who thought she'd be interested in seeing his work.  She later said that finding his work was like finding a piece of herself, so powerful was her connection to his art.

Now and again, Ivaan would drop by the ad agency with his latest creations all jumbled up in a plastic shopping bag, and just tip the contents of the bag onto her desk.

Anita was particularly in love with bracelets; she commissioned three magnificent specimens, each a "one-off", meaning no mould would be made of them.  Anita has incredibly slender wrists, so these bracelets are tiny.

Much has changed in Anita's life since the 1980s:  after her daughter was born, she moved out of the highly stressful world of advertising and started a home-based business, Anita's Kitchen, where she makes cookies.  What hasn't changed is her love of Ivaan's work.  She drops round every so often to look at the treasures I've discovered among Ivaan's vintage moulds.  I think she secretly misses the days when Ivaan would drop by her office unannounced and empty a plastic bag full of gorgeous stuff on her desk.

Anyway,  here are Anita's bracelets.   Later on I'll post a photo of Anita's new ring.  (Later on, meaning, when I finish it.)  It's a beauty.