Month: February 2021

With the courtesy of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), our old friend, artist and art educator Doris Purchase will come to the East and West Learning Club as a guest speaker again, and facilitate AGO Artworks Show & Talk events!

 

We’ll start with an art engagement workshop in March.  Doris will use a video she created for the AGO, introducing two important Canadian artists, and facilitate a very engaging art talk based on their artworks.  One way that you can prepare and engage in this workshop will be to think about two words and how they relate to your personal experience: “tough” and “love”.  You are also invited to have something citrus and have a smell or taste of cinnamon, ginger or vanilla when you join the zoom.

 

Guest Speaker: Doris Purchase

Artist and art educator at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Public programming and Learning

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Doris has lived in Toronto since attending OCA in 1987.  She is a conceptual artist focusing on the painting.  Doris works part time for the AGO as a tour guide, and enjoys connecting people with art and engaging them in a creative process.

In 2018, Doris came to the East and West Learning Connections (then ‘the East and West Learning Club’) for the first time, and was one of the guest speakers for our East&West Dialogue event.  We were all inspired by the originality of her artworks, as well as the life experience she genuinely shared with us.  We are so happy that she will come again and try something innovative, to introduce the highlights of the AGO’s collections, and facilitate talks to connect our life experiences with the art!

Continue reading “AGO Artworks Show & Talk @East and West Learning Connections”

Thanks to the League of Canadian Poets for funding, our old friend, Mississauga’s inaugural poet laureate Anna Yin, will facilitate two poetry workshops again at the East and West Learning Connections, co-hosted by SureWay Press.

Continue reading “Poetry Workshops by Poet Laureate Anna Yin @EAWLC”

* We are constantly recruiting native English-speaking facilitator volunteers for the English Conversation program!  Please see the invitation message at the end of this announcement.

Have you ever wondered what to talk about in a social conversation?  Or as an immigrant do you sometimes feel it is difficult to join your local co-workers’ conversation because you don’t know the people or things they are talking about,  or you have some everyday questions that you would like to know how local people would think or deal with?  Or do you just want to find a safe, relaxing and friendly environment to talk to some native English speakers, and enjoy a pleasant conversation?

Judith Lawrence and her native English-speaking volunteer team are kindly offering this free English Conversation program to address those questions for you at the East and West Learning Connections!

Continue reading “The English Conversation @EAWLC”

Culture is the beliefs and practices of a people, and literature is one of the richest repositories of these beliefs. In this reading group we will read canonical texts that greatly influenced English literature, and as we read, we will encounter dominant cultural values that still hold sway today.  The importance of free will, the individual in society, the role of gods and fate, the nature of virtue, and the conventions of love and gender are just some of the ideas we will explore. We will read works ranging from Ovid in the 1st century BCE to Chaucer in the 14th century CE–literature that greatly influenced English writers, and literature that was considered the earliest kind of English literature. Before 1500, works that influenced English literature were written in Latin, Italian, or French; moreover, early “English” literature is written in a version of English that native speakers now no longer understand! Therefore, the readings are all in modern English translations. Web links, PDFs, and library links will be provided to enable members to gain affordable and easy access to these texts.

Continue reading “Reading for Culture with Emma: Monthly Reading Group @East and West Learning Connections”