On November 28th, Anne Koval talked about her biography of Mary Pratt, A Love Affair With Vision, at the Heliconian Club. Her lecture is now available online.
Mary Pratt ’s art has captivated millions of Canadians. Her luminescent paintings capture reality in a way that few artists have been able to achieve.
Anne Koval wrote the book in close collaboration with Mary Pratt. It describes in vibrant detail how Pratt ’s art intersected with her daily life. The paintings transform the everyday into the iconic; jars of jelly on the windowsill, a chip in a glass bowl, a red sweater draped over a chair.
In her lecture, Anne traces the development of Mary Pratt’s art over five decades. What emerges is a subtle self-portraiture of this remarkable artist.
The lecture will be available for viewing until August 31, 2024.
Bursting with Colour is our summer art exhibit, on display from July 4 to September 4, 2024.
Summer in the City is a time for inspiration and experiences. This group show focuses on the joy that colour gives during the warm summer days. It is a mix of approaches, media and subjects, to capture a feeling and the energy that colour conveys.
Like so many great artists, Heliconian Club artists are also inspired by colour.
Colour is the power which directly influences the soul.- Wassily Kandinsky
I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way; things I had no words for. - Georgia O’Keeffe
Participating Artists:
Linda Briskin Indrani De Silva Vivian East Florence Guttman Dougal M.Haggart Kye Marshall Catherine Maunsell Nola McConnan Barbara Muir Susan Power Rosemary Tannock
Come experience the artwork:
Public Reception: Saturday, July 6, from 2:00PM to 5:00 PM
Or through the summer, weekdays by appointment, call 416 922 3618 or email: rentals@heliconianclub.org
View Catalogue
"Painted Out of the Picture: The Wives of the Group of Seven", presented by Angie Littlefield, August 20, 2024, 2 to 4 pm.
While the husbands received acclaim for their contributions to Canadian art, the wives of the Group of Seven were largely overlooked. This fascinating audio-visual presentation, led by author/curator Angie Littlefield sheds light on the significant roles these women played in shaping their husbands' careers while also emphasizing their agency in carving out meaning in their own lives.
Author/Curator Angie Littlefield has authored three books about Tom Thomson. Her most recent work, Tom Thomson's Fine Kettle of Friends, was shortlisted for the Whistler Independent Book Award in 2021. A long-time member of the Heliconian Club, Angie has also published articles and curated exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, and the Lonsdale Gallery in Toronto.
Refreshments will be served; Tickets are $15, in advance online and at the door.
Described as a cross between a traditional book club and a university course without exams, this popular program is back in-person for the 2024-25 season!
This registration option is for the Tuesday and Thursday in-person subscription option. Subscription to the Tuesday and Thursday in-person Series will include access to the online lectures of same series when it is launched a week later, so if you miss a week in-person and want to catch the lecture or if you want to watch it again, you can. The links to all the online lectures will be accessible one week after the filming date until August 31, 2025.
If you purchase one in-person subscription, you can add on the Wednesday online series for $70 .
Other subscription options are available here: https://www.heliconianclub.org/lls2425.html
The Tuesday and Thursday Series includes:
September 10 – Erum Shazia Hasan: We Meant Well
The novel grapples with timely questions about what it means to be charitable, who deserves what, and who gets the power to decide. Maya, an aid worker, must decide who to believe when her coworker, Marc, at the orphanage in Likanni, is accused of assaulting her former protégé, Lele.
September 19 – Nina Dunic: The Clarion
Peter plays the trumpet and works in a kitchen; Stasi tries to climb the corporate ladder and lands in therapy. These sensitive siblings struggle to find their place in the world, seeking intimacy and belonging—or trying to escape it. The novel captures the vague if hopeful melancholy of any generation that believes it was never “called” to something great.
October 8 – Michelle Porter: A Grandmother Begins the Story
The novel follows five generations of Métis women through this life and the next as they navigate the challenges facing them. Their story is told alongside the bison who used to roam freely and the land itself.
October 17– Marina Endicott: The Observer
The novel pulls heavily from Marina’s personal experience working in a small-town Alberta newspaper, when her husband, an RCMP officer, was posted to a small community north of Edmonton. In the novel, the couple’s new life together is an adventure, but as in all the best stories, time darkens and deepens it.
November 5 - Alissa York: Far Cry
The novel takes place in 1922 on a river inlet on the northwest coast of British Columbia. Shelagh Rogers describes the setting as a "beautiful, harsh world where people hold their secrets close as they cling to the edge of the continent.”
November 21 – Suanne Kelman interviews Anne Michaels about Held
It is a haunting meditation on our need to find meaning, to rediscover hope after deep loss, to rationalize the past and shape the future. Against a backdrop of the development of photography, Marie Curie’s discoveries, the struggle for women’s suffrage, Darwin’s radical ideas, different characters play out their individual lives from the early 1900’s to the present.
January 7 – Reema Patel: Such Big Dreams
A savvy former street child working at a law office in Mumbai fights for redemption and a chance to live life on her own terms in this fresh, propulsive debut novel about fortune and survival.
January 16– Sarah Henstra: The Lost Tarot
Theresa Bateman, a junior art historian in Toronto, receives a single tarot card in the mail. The image is unmistakably the work of celebrated avant-garde artist, Lark Ringold, of the 1930’s. Its discovery would mean a breakthrough in Theresa's career. But the legendary Ringold paintings were lost in a fire that claimed Lark's life in the final, horrific implosion of a notorious cult called the Shown.
February 11 – Lesley Krueger: Far Creek Road
It’s 1961, and Mary Alice (Tink) Parker is nine years old and lives with her family in a suburb of Vancouver. The story is told by Tink, an eccentric child, who is funny, observant, and impossibly nosy, with a tendency to blurt whatever’s on her mind. Bucolic at first, the story darkens as McCarthy-era paranoia infects the adults and spills over into the lives of the children.
February 20 - Don Gillmor: Breaking and Entering
At 49, Beatrice Billings is rudderless. Her marriage is stale, her relationship with her son Thomas is limited to text messages and she is the primary caregiver for her mother, who is in the early stages of dementia. When she finds that she has both a talent and a passion for picking locks, the sense of anticipation that had been missing from her life returns.
March 11 –Mariam Pirbhai: Isolated Incident
When a rock, a threatening letter, and a burning Quran are thrown into a mosque on the outskirts of Toronto, religious leaders and the police shrug it off as an isolated incident. Nevertheless, the Islamic Cultural Centre is attacked on the festive Eid night, and friendships, family, and faith are tested.
March 20 - Suanne Kelman lectures on Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
The novel follows actress Sonia as she returns to Palestine and takes a role in a West Bank production of Hamlet. As opening night draws closer it becomes clear just how many obstacles stand before a troupe of Palestinian actors. A stunning rendering of present-day Palestine.
April 8 – Sandra Martin interviews Jane Urquhart about In Winter I Get Up At Night
In 1935, at the age of 11, the narrator, Emir, is terribly injured in a powerful prairie storm—the “great wind” that changes the trajectory of her life. Separated from her family, she recuperates in a children’s ward. Her fellow patients are a child performer, the daughter of a Dukhobor and the son of a Jewish socialist living on a collective farm.
April 17 - Helen Humphreys: Followed by the Lark
Inspired by the journals and writing of Henry David Thoreau, this moving novel inhabits the life and mind of this renowned nineteenth-century naturalist, poet and abolitionist, and reveals the deep connections between his time and our own.
May 6 – Suanne Kelman will lecture on James McBride's The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.
May 15 – Merilyn Simonds: Woman, Watching: Louise de Kiriline Lawrence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay
A remarkable biography of an extraordinary woman -- a Swedish aristocrat who survived the Russian Revolution to become an internationally renowned naturalist, one of the first to track the mid-century decline of songbirds. A Canadian Rachel Carson, Louise de Kiriline Lawrence lived and worked in an isolated log cabin near North Bay.
Described as a cross between a traditional book club and a university course without exams, this popular program is back in-person for the 2024-25 season! This registration option is for the Tuesday in-person subscription option.
Subscription to the Tuesday or Thursday in-person Series will include access to the online lectures of same series when it is launched a week later, so if you miss a week in-person and want to catch the lecture or if you want to watch it again, you can. The links to all the online lectures will be accessible one week after the filming date until August 31, 2025.
If you purchase one in-person subscription, you can add on one online series of a different day for $70 or both for $140.
The Tuesday Series includes:
October 8 – Michelle Porter:
A Grandmother Begins The Story
March 11 – Mariam Pirbhai: Isolated Incident
April 8 – Sandra Martin interviews Jane Urquhart about In Winter I Get Up at Night
In 1935, at the age of 11, the narrator, Emir, is terribly injured in a powerful prairie storm—the “great wind” that changes the trajectory of her life. Separated from her family, she recuperates in a children’s ward. Her fellow patients are a child performer, the daughter of a Dukhobor and the son of a Jewish socialist living on a collective far.
Described as a cross between a traditional book club and a university course without exams, this popular program is in-person and online for the 2024-25 season! This registration option is for the Wednesday ONLINE subscription option only.
A link will be sent to subscribers between 7:00 and 7:30 pm on the day of the lecture. The links to the lectures will be accessible from their launch date until August 31, 2025.
The Virtual Series Includes:
September 11 -Amanda Peters:
Waiting For the Long Night Moon: Stories
The stories describe the dignity of the traditional way of life, the humiliations of systemic racism and the resilient power to endure. A young man returns from residential school only to realize he can no longer communicate with his own parents. A young woman finds purpose and healing on the front lines as a water protector.
October 9 – Genevieve Scott: The Damages
The novel takes place at a fictional version of Queen’s University in the winter of 1998 during the devastating ice storm. Classes are cancelled and the students party. In the midst of it all, the narrator, Ros, is blamed for the disappearance of her roommate. Years later, her former husband is accused of sexually assaulting the missing girl the night she disappeared.
November 6 – Anuja Varghese: Chrysalis
The stories delve fearlessly into the complex intersections of family, community, sexuality, and cultural expectations. Anuja takes aim at the ways in which racialized women are robbed of power and describes the strange and dangerous journeys they undertake to reclaim it.
January 8 – Trevor Herriot: The Economy of Sparrows
Nell Rowan has inherited her family’s prairie farmstead and returns there to live after many decades working in Ottawa as a custodian at the Museum of Natural History. She is obsessed with a 19th-century bird collector who accidentally killed her great grandfather and is haunted by memories of the disappearance of her mother when she was eleven.
February 12– Thomas Trofimuk:
The Elephant on Karlův Bridge
Set in Prague and narrated by the 600-year-old Charles Bridge, this novel begins when an elephant named Sál escapes the Prague Zoo. As Sál moves through the city, the lives of the men and women she meets are altered by the encounter. Each is at a crossroads, and wrestles with questions of how to live, love and heal.
March 12 - Kai Thomas: In the Upper Bridge
The fates of two unforgettable women—one just beginning a journey of reckoning and self-discovery and the other completing her life's last vital act—intertwine in this sweeping, deeply researched debut set in the Black communities of Ontario that were the last stop on the Underground Railroad.
April 9 – Scott Alexander Howard: The Other Valley
A novel about an isolated town. To the east and to the west exists the same town. To the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time; to the west, it is twenty years behind.
The narrator, sixteen-year-old Odile, is vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decide who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders.
May 7 - Darcie Friesen Hossack: Stillwater
Sixteen-year-old Lizzy is trapped and caught between her passion for science and the teachings of her Seventh-day Adventist father, Daniel, and her Mennonite mother, Marie. Her father, in a bid to regain his social standing and self-esteem, moves the family to an Adventist commune in BC’s Okanagan Valley.
Described as a cross between a traditional book club and a university course without exams, this popular program is in-person and online for the 2024-25 season! This registration option is for the Tuesday and Wednesday ONLINE subscription option.
September 11 -Amanda Peters: Waiting for the Long Night Moon: Stories
September 17 – Erum Shazia Hasan: We Meant Well
October 15 – Michelle Porter: A Grandmother Begins the Story
November 12 - Alissa York: Far Cry
January 14 – Reema Patel: Such Big Dreams
February 12 – Thomas Trofimuk: The Elephant on Karlův Bridge
February 18 – Lesley Krueger: Far Creek Road
March 12 - Kai Thomas: In the Upper Country
March 18 –Mariam Pirbhai: Isolated Incident
April 15 – Sandra Martin interviews Jane Urquhart about In Winter I Get Up at Night
May 13 – Suanne Kelan will lecture on James McBride's The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store
Described as a cross between a traditional book club and a university course without exams, this popular program is in-person and online for the 2024-25 season! This registration option is for the Wednesday and Thursday ONLINE subscription option.
September 11 - Amanda Peters: Waiting for the Long Night Moon: Stories
September 26 – Nina Dunic: The Clarion
October 24– Marina Endicott: The Observer
November 28 – Suanne Kelman interviews Anne Michaels about Held
January 23– Sarah Henstra: The Lost Tarot
February 27 - Don Gillmor: Breaking and Entering
March 27 - Suanne Kelman lectures on Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
April 24 - Helen Humphreys: Followed by the Lark
MAY 22 – Merilyn Simonds:
Woman, Watching: Louise de Kiriline Lawrence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay
Described as a cross between a traditional book club and a university course without exams, this popular program is in-person and online for the 2024-25 season! This registration option is for the full 24 lecture ONLINE subscriptions option.
February 12 - Thomas Trofimuk:
May 13 – Suanne Kelman will lecture on James McBride's The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store
Described as a cross between a traditional book club and a university course without exams, this popular program is in-person and online for the 2024-25 season! This registration option is for the Tuesday ONLINE subscription option only.
October 15 – Michelle Porter: A Grandmother Begins The Story
In 1935, at the age of 11, the narrator, Emir, is terribly injured in a powerful prairie storm—the “great wind” that changes the trajectory of her life. Separated from her family, she recuperates in a children’s ward. Her fellow patients are a child performer, the daughter of a Dukhobor and the son of a Jewish socialist on a collective farm.
Described as a cross between a traditional book club and a university course without exams, this popular program is in-person and online for the 2024-25 season! This registration option is for the Tuesday and Thursday ONLINE subscription option.
March 27 - Suanne Kelman lectures on ENTER GHOST by Isabella Hammad
May 13 – Suanne Kelman will lecture on James McBrides's The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store
Mat 22 – Merilyn Simonds: Woman, Wwatching: Louise de Kiriline Lwarence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay
This registration option is for the Thursday in-person subscription option. Subscription to the Tuesday or Thursday in-person Series will include access to the online lectures of same series when it is launched a week later, so if you miss a week in-person and want to catch the lecture or if you want to watch it again, you can. The links to all the online lectures will be accessible one week after the filming date until August 31, 2025.
The Thursday Series includes:
October 17– MARINA ENDICOTT: THE OBSERVER
Described as a cross between a traditional book club and a university course without exams, this popular program is in-person and online for the 2024-25 season! This registration option is for the Thursday ONLINE subscription option only.
October 24– MARINA ENDICOTT: THE OBSERVER
May 22 – Merilyn Simonds: Woman, Watching: Louise de Kiriline Lawrence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay
Pat began her professional dance career as a member of Dancemakers, Toronto’s second oldest dance company, then in 1980 she took on the co-directorship of the company with Carol Anderson. She was Artistic Director of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre from 1993 to 2021, leading the School with a combination of long-range vision, integrity, and compassion. Recently she was awarded the Order of Canada for her lasting contributions to Canadian contemporary dance. She will talk about her experiences at the School and her teaching philosophy. Join us on Tuesday Oct 1. Doors open at 6:30 pm; presentation begins at 7:00 pm. Tickets are $20 members; $25 non members.
Join us for the 2024-2025 Heliconian Club Concert Series presented by members of the Heliconian Club Music Section. All concerts take place in Heliconian Hall.
Doors 2:00 PM Show 2:30 PM | Includes Intermission
The concerts include:
Hel's Belles: October 19, 2024
Once again, our Heliconian composers generously spill their riches in a varied program including the world premiere of the song cycle Songs for a Cold Land for baritone and piano by Jana Skarecky, Variations on a Canadian Theme for Four Hands performed by Louise Morley and Lyse Ward, and works by Maria Soulis and Taivi Lobu.
Wondrous Journeys: November 16, 2024
Join us for a glass of wine and a program of chamber works that will indeed carry us away on wondrous journeys. Excursions will include the Schumann Piano Quartet in Eb+, Opus 47 played by Catherine Sulem, Velma Ko, Kye Marshall and Lyse Ward; Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock with soprano Kathryn Rose Johnson and clarinet Rita Greer; Laurent Schmitt’s Feuillets de voyages with Lyse Ward and Louise Morley providing the required four hands; Pinery for Violin and Piano by Kye Marshall, featuring Joyce Lai.
"...and the world smiles with you": March 22, 2025
Some smiles, a few chuckles and maybe even some down-right laughing out loud as Heliconian musicians bring you a program of selections to lighten the mood and tickle your funny bone. Program to include pianist Ruth Kazdan in Satie’s Sports et Divertissements with guest Christine Forsyth speaking the French text; Bohemian Rhapsody with Caitlin Holland, Kathryn Rose Johnson and Velma Ko; the hit song Vanilla Ice Cream from the Broadway musical She Loves Me performed by Kathryn Rose Johnson.
Music for Planet Earth: April 26, 2025
The Heliconian Music Section annually pays tribute to our Planet Earth, with a varied program dedicated heart and soul to turning the tide on the health of our environment. Highlighting the program: Songs from the Aviary by Canadian composer E. K. R. Hammell, sung by Kathryn Rose Johnson; Kye Marshall’s solo cello improvisation to visuals of painter Vivian East’s Mystic Land; John Cage’s In a Landscape played by Ruth Kazdan; Jana Skarecky’s Sonata for Viola and Piano, 1st movement, played by Velma Ko and Louise Morley with dance interpretation by Meiko Ando.
Free Concert: Mary Rezza Student Recital: May 10, 2025
Mary Rezza (1927-2000) was a long-standing member of the Toronto Heliconian Club, a noted collaborative pianist, teacher and vocal coach who organized the first Heliconian student recital in 1991. Heliconian teacher/members continue to bring their students together for an annual program in memory of this esteemed member. Come and share the excitement of students of all ages and levels performing in this congenial environment.
Children under 12 are free when accompanied by an adult.
Image: Rosemary Tannock
Image: Vivian East
Image: Catherine Maunsell
Image: Linda Briskin
Doors 2:00 PM Show 2:30 PM
This event is free. To support this and other Club initiatives, please consider donating to the Heliconian Club by clicking here: https://torontoheliconianclub.wildapricot.org/DONATE-NOW/
416-922-3618 info / 416-922-2431 building ~ info@heliconianclub.org / rentals@heliconianclub.org
PUBLIC SITE: www.heliconianclub.org
