Thousands of tiny stitches later, it’s the 30th anniversary of the Ottawa Smockers Guild

By Louise Rachlis

Smocking, a sewing technique to create decorative embroidery over pleats, dates back to the 15^th century.

The technique is still popular today, and the Ottawa Smockers Guild has attracted several hundred enthusiastic members over its 30-year history.

Knowing how to smock is not a prerequisite to join the Ottawa Smockers Guild.  “The Guild welcomes anyone with an interest in needlework, and smocking can be easily learned with the assistance of current members,” said Guild president Jean Bye.

The Ottawa Smockers Guild was founded in 1985 by Marg Slade, an avid self-taught smocker. Two founding members, Val Rochester and Jackie Comerton, continue to be active participants.

 To celebrate the Guild’s 30^th anniversary, the symbols of which are pearls and the colour green, members have been asked to submit a smocked project which incorporates both.  The projects will be entered into a draw for the Marg Slade award, a yearly prize in memory of the Smockers Guild founder.

In the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries smocking was used on traditional loose-fitting blouses called smocks which were worn mainly by agricultural workers.  Today, smocking remains a popular form of embroidery on garments and many types of accessories - from wedding garters and coat hangers to slippers and Christmas ornaments.

Monthly meetings include an education component on smocking or related techniques, and the Guild has an extensive lending library of patterns, books and a pleater. Members with no interest in smocking a garment can put their creative skills to work in helping with service projects. 

The Guild’s primary service project is providing smocked gowns for use in the neo-natal bereavement programs at Ottawa hospitals.  Guild members participate in a yearly one-day workshop to prepare the gowns for smocking by members throughout the year, and since the program began 20 years ago, over 3,000 gowns have been distributed.

“The hospitals have told us that families are very appreciative that someone has taken the time to make a beautiful little gown to acknowledge their child,” said Jean Bye. “Guild members find great satisfaction in making them, knowing they are helping families at a very difficult time.”

The Guild also collects toiletries throughout the year, and makes smocked-top slippers that are given each Christmas to Chrysalis House, an emergency shelter for women and children.

Other projects throughout the years have included donating smocked bibs and bonnets for sale in a hospital gift shop; providing ready-to-smock fabric and bonnets to Mireille Roy of Ottawa to assist her in teaching needlework to women in Haiti to help them learn a trade, and in 1989, decorating an 18-foot Christmas tree for the Museum of Nature with 275 smocked ornaments.

 The following year the decorations were donated to 12 charities to be used or sold according to their needs.

Monthly meetings of the Smockers Guild are held at McNabb Community Centre, 180 Percy Street at 7:30 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month from September to June.

 The Guild extends a special welcome to former members to join them at the regular meeting on June 4^th to celebrate the group’s 30^th anniversary.

For more information, please view www.ottawasmockers.org.

Grandkids are great - whether they call you Grammie, Granddad, Popoo or Nanoo

By Louise Rachlis

Many of us who have grandchildren groaned in January to read in this paper of the 50-year-old record-setting balloonist “grandmother”.

As if her children’s fertility had anything to do with her accomplishment. Is it any wonder that whether we’re 50 or 80, calling ourselves “grandma” or “grandpa” affects others’ perceptions of us.

Are you ready to call yourself “Grandpa” or “Grandma”? I wasn’t, and decided to call myself BabaLou, a nice play I thought on the Yiddish word for grandma, and my own name. I get a thrill every time my granddaughter calls me BabaLou. My husband decided he would be called Zaida. The other grandparents opted for Grandma and Grandpa.

Great-grandmother Mary Dooher said that in her youth “grandma epitomized the stay-at-home older lady who baked cookies and gave out sage advice.”

“I did not want to be one of those grandmothers,” said Dooher, 82. “I wanted to bring more than cookies and a warm house to visit.  I wanted to introduce them to the world of theatre and literature.  It could have been done under the label of grandmother, but not for me... Our grandkids are not allowed to call us Grandma and Grandpa. We are simply Mare and Frank. However, the great-grandchild calls us Mare-Mare and Frankie.”

Dooher, who became a grandparent in her late 40s, said “for some reason or other I did not want to become labelled ‘grandma’. I had a mother-in-law who was called Granny Dooher, and my mother who was called Granny Miz (short for Misericordia).  Both grandmothers were exemplary women and they worked very hard at being the best grandmothers ever.  Both grandfathers had passed before the grandkids were born.”

Her six children started calling their parents by their first names when they became teen agers and “we did not object in the least.”  “Mom and Dad slip out from time to time, but mostly it is just Mare and Frank. Our oldest grandson is now 34 and the youngest is 15.  Our great grandson is five and is about to be joined by a baby brother soon.”

“I loved being a grandmother, and love even more being a great grandmother,” said Mary Dooher, but that doesn’t mean being called one. “Do I sound a bit odd?  I hope not.  I think this is a great age when people over 80 are not considered old at all. While we have dropped the traditional titles, we have not given up on bringing lots of discipline, love and comfort to our little darlings.”

Loreen O’Blenis’ grandsons called her “Grammie” because that’s how her husband Dave’s family addressed their grandmother, she said. “Now that the boys are teenagers - ages 15 and 13 - they call me ‘Gram,’ which seems to fit.”

She said “the little ones aged two and four call me ‘Grammie’. They call their other grandparents who are French-speaking ‘Papa’ and “Mimi’.  Dave is ‘Grand-dad’ to all four. When I was growing up we used ‘Grandma’ and ‘Grampa’-  perhaps a different generation.”

George Brimmell’s grandson and granddaughter call him “Granddad.” His great-grandson calls him “Granddad George.”

“When my first grandchild, Jesse, was born I was asked how I wanted them to be called,” he said. “I chose Grandad, and it’s been Grandad, from my grandson Jesse and granddaughter Blair, and Great Grandad George from my Great-Grandson, Blair’s son Adrian, now six. It’s become a tradition.   My son Clifford is Grandad to Adrian, his grandson.”

Anna Quarrington’s Ottawa grandsons call her “Grandma” or “Granmaman.” “The ones down in Hamilton call me ‘Big Mummy’.”

Ingrid and Paul Tuomy’s children called their grandma “Nana” and so for the next generation, “we asked ours to call us Nana, but it turned into “Nanoo”, said Ingrid, “which was great because they call their grandfather ‘Popoo’ which is Greek. So we’re Popoo and Nanoo.”

When I searched the web thesaurus for grandma synonyms for this article, I found the usual baba, gran, granny, nan, nanna etcetera, but was shocked to find as well, “crone, dame, dowager, frump, and worse - “old battle-ax”, war-horse, witch and hag!

Yikes! If we don’t define ourselves in a positive way, others are unfortunately standing by.

Many happily learning artistic skills they never had time for before

By Louise Rachlis

Across the city, in all kinds of art venues, there are swelling ranks of older artists perfecting their painting.

 “They are all are doing what they have always wanted to do - and that is paint,” says artist Kevin Dodds, who has a gallery at 1101 Bank Street. “They have the time and they are enjoying themselves now in the later years by working on their artistic skills.”

His students tell him that they are inspired by the beautiful artwork on the walls of the gallery, and the soothing music, when they come to paint.

“I have a great following of older female and male students taking my Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon classes,” says artist Dodds, who describes them as “mostly retired ‘zoomer boomers’, aged approximately 62 to 91.”

“I consider myself very fortunate to have the mature students,” says Marcia Lea, owner of Davis Art School in the Byward Market. “I find all art students to be interesting and diverse people, but these students in particular bring so much life experience and education to the classes.  My daytime mid week classes often have many older students.  These are some of my favourite classes... The conversations in class are amazing with everyone’s rich background.”

 “One day I even taped the conversation, with permission,” she said, “because one of my students was a former RCAF pilot from WWII and another had been a small boy in London during the Blitz.  They were discussing all the planes and the bombings and how they had experienced them.  We learn about more than just art in class, we learn about life and how we can share our experiences with each other.  Art is such a doorway to experience.”

Many of the students who come to Davis Art School are people who have always packed many pursuits into their life, including education, she said. “A large portion of my students are professors and teachers, even art teachers, who want to learn more about art and how they can best express themselves.  They show a life-long commitment not just to teaching but to learning as well....It is wonderful to see people taking full advantage of the opportunity to pursue all of the things that they have always wanted to do, but never had time to before.”

Don Westwood, a retired architect and professor emeritus from Carleton University, is taking art classes at Davis Art School where much of his inspiration comes from unique architectural elements in Siberian wood structures. “When I was an architecture student myself back in the 50s, we used watercolours to help give texture, shadow and three-dimensionality to our design drawings. It was a means to an end; I never had the chance to explore the medium for its own sake. Now I can,” says Westwood, who also a singer, actor and television performer. “One of the main reasons why I am singing in a couple of choirs, indulging in acting workshops and taking art classes is because, as a one-time dedicated teacher myself, I never want to stop learning.”

Westwood feels that taking art classes - “or indulging in any pursuit for that matter - not only gives you the opportunity to continually learn but also offers you the luxury of devoting a few hours solely to one endeavour; to avoid the feeling of guilt one might otherwise sometimes feel when there is often so much else that needs doing around the house!”

He adds that “one essential aspect of all painting is to capture light, in all its complexities. It also happens to be a key quality of successful architecture. That is what attracted me to the paintings of Marcia Lea, and is why I am taking classes from her.” 

He is delighted to be in art class. “Clichés arise because they happen to be based on fact. Such is the case when one hears from some retired folks that they have never been so busy until they retired! It is indeed wonderful to be able to engage in various activities and be relatively free of the petty politics found in most workplaces.”

“Ever since high school, I have always enjoyed using my creativity to paint and use the right side of my brain; creativity,” says another Davis Art School student, Sami Mohanna, a professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa and a family doctor.  “It has been very obvious that my visual way of learning has influenced me to go in medicine. The importance of the drawings that described anatomy and pathology as well as the many pictures that helped us to develop our skills has increased my interest towards the arts.” 

He is about to retire and is following his passion for art. “I now have more time to be creative and free to explore new ways to express myself that are completely different from being rigorous and aimed at helping others to return to a healthy state,” said Dr. Mohanna, who gets some of his inspiration from his youth in Egypt. “I can pursue different ways to be myself with different media and enjoy the freedom given to my feelings without being bound to rules, standards or requiring the approval of my peers.  In art, there is no right or wrong, one can act with his intuition. I have this sense of peace with no restriction for the time taken to complete a painting or a drawing.  I am in a constant search to improve my skills. I can do what I feel like, there is no judgment, and I am my own limit.”

  

“It’s good to do activities that use the left and right part of your brain,” says Nola Juraitis, a Glebe artist who has studied with Bhat Boy, Kevin Dodds and Chris James. “After many years spent working on a computer, colour has become an essential part of my life.”

She observed that there are different approaches to art but all are enjoyable: some only paint in the class as a form of relaxation. Others paint both in the class and at home and then some of these go on to sell their paintings. “Regardless of the approach a major side benefit is that you make new friends and some of us have gone on to paint together when the classes end."

“The medium you pick is very important,” says Juraitis. “If you don’t have a car, acrylics and watercolor dry more quickly and are more portable.”

However, oil paints also have advantages on the technique front because they are slower drying and the colours are so luminous. She uses cheap baby oil to clean her oil paint brushes and then just a touch of odorless solvent and dishwashing liquid. “No more cans of smelly turpentine which is a consideration as during winter most of us paint at home. There are ways of working with oils in a non-toxic way.”

She makes a distinction between drawing as an art form and drawing for painting, and emphasizes that new artists shouldn’t be intimidated by drawing. “You can just have fun. It’s a wonderful feeling to dip a brush in paint and put it on a canvas. You link to yourself.”

Neighbors look forward to the lovely ladies of Cobden Road

By Louise Rachlis

If they’re not out for each change of season, people come to Janet Plebon’s door and ask where “the girls” are.

For nearly 20 years, Mrs. Plebon, 69, has been decorating her six “circle of friends” on her front lawn at 1138 Cobden Road in the west end.  “The costumes usually last about three years, but the Christmas ones get changed more often, because the weather is cold, and the squirrels chew on them. They take the fabric to make nests.”

She even made a Santa Claus suit to protect what used to be a little tree, which has now grown much bigger. Then she made the tree into an ice cream cone, with a burlap bottom.

A sem-retired professional seamstress, she buys all her material at Fabricland and sews the costumes herself.

Her first creations were the ghosts of Halloween, dancing around a witch. Then came Christmas, with “the girls” sporting little red cloaks and white fur scarves, around a lit up Christmas tree in the middle.

Easter’s next, in costumes of different hues of pink and purple and yellow, with little Easter baskets.

Summer she puts the group in a plastic wading pool with the bottom cut out, wearing sunglasses, and little towels as ponchos. “A lot of the stuff like the little towels I get at the dollar store.”

One year a man with an old-fashioned flotilla boat asked if he could borrow “the girls” and take them down the Canal.

They rode on the bow, and granddaughters Sieara and Montana rode on each side in their own costumes.

Lots of spectators come by all year round, and they are usually appreciative and don’t give her any problem.

Just once, the “girls” were taken away by pranksters. Some boys had removed them, but a neighbor found them on Iris Street and put them back on the porch.

As for the role of Janet’s husband Basil, she laughs that he stands on the front porch and takes all the compliments.

One Christmas, Janet created a Tim Hortons Christmas tree on the front porch. During the previous year, she saved all the different styles of Tim’s cups and glued them together into a Christmas tree for the winter. Unfortunately, a bad storm ripped it all apart, but it was enjoyed for a little while.

In March “the girls” wear green for St. Patrick’s Day, and then change to their spring clothes, dancing around an Easter bunny.