Georgina Montgomery

When Victoria artist Manon Elder set out in 2000 to paint portraits of prominent Canadian women, she knew she faced three big challenges.

No. 1 was getting to first base. How do you catch the ear of people like Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson, CBC Chair Carole Taylor and ballerina Karen Kain? Do you just phone up and ask if they’re available for a sitting?

No. 2 was convincing her subjects to be part of a portrait series in which they would be shown only from the neck down. Would anyone go for the idea of letting the artist use setting and symbols — no face — to depict character and achievement?

And No. 3, if challenges 1 and 2 were overcome, was figuring out how to fund such a project. When you live on the West Coast and most of the people you want to paint are scattered from Inuvik in the Western Arctic to Newfoundland, down to Boston and at a half dozen points in between, you know you’re looking at some serious travel costs.

In the end, it’s taken almost four years and a lot of nerve, drive and creative financing to see the project through. But, with the paint now dry on the final canvas (Magna International’s President and CEO, Belinda Stronach, ranked in 2002 by Fortune magazine as the world’s second most powerful businesswoman), Elder is beginning to realize she’s actually pulled the series off.
High Tea — so called because each subject uses a teacup or mug as a prop — is complete.
Standing amidst the 22 “mystery guest” canvases is at once informing and intriguing. This is clearly an eclectic group — an unconventional brew unified loosely by gestures associated with the making and partaking of tea. Each piece, painted in oil and measuring 18 by 36 inches, combines figurative, landscape and still life elements. Study what each woman is wearing, what she’s doing with her hands and where she seems to be situated and gradually you feel either a dawning of recognition or the urge to lean in closer and learn more. Over here is a woman slipping her horse a handful of sugar cubes (Spruce Meadow’s Margaret Southern). Over there, a parka-clad woman kneels by a brush fire on the frozen Mackenzie Delta, stainless steel mug in hand (Nellie Cournoyea, former Premier of the Northwest Territories and now Chair and CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation). Next to her, another woman daintily empties her teacup into an open clutch purse (actor and comedian Mary Walsh).

And so it goes: each portrait as varied as the nature and achievements of the women themselves.
“Chief among my goals was to honour the accomplishments of my subjects, but from an original perspective,” says Elder, who holds a BFA from the University of Victoria and has worked primarily as a portrait artist over the past 20 years. “At the same time, I wanted to prod the viewer to look for clues as to who these women are and what they’ve done. I didn’t want someone to say instantly, ‘Oh, that’s so-and-so’ and move on.”

Getting her invitations to the series accepted required a kettle-full of persistence and patience. “I had a system,” Elder recounts. “For starters, I worked on developing a phone relationship with executive assistants and secretaries, explaining to them what I wanted to do. They were usually very encouraging. Then I sent out letters and mini-portfolios of my work.” (One of Elder’s recent previous projects is Honour the Women, a 10-portrait series that includes P.K. Page, Ann Mortifee and the late Dorothy Lam — all with heads — which is now in the University of Victoria’s permanent collection.)

The approach worked.
“I always made it clear that I would travel to each woman and accommodate her schedule,” adds Elder. “All I asked for was an hour of her time so that I could set up a photo session and get the shots I needed.”

Fortunately, as more and more women came aboard, it made the artist’s selling job a little easier. Having the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada (Beverley McLachlin) and the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson join the party early on didn’t hurt either.
And, somewhat to Elder’s surprise and relief, none of the women backed off when they heard the concept. On the contrary, many of them told her that the appeal of the project was the shift of focus away from the face and on to what was important to them — their work and achievements. In almost all cases, the hour of contact Elder requested with her subjects turned into more time and even involved a shared meal. This, she recalls appreciatively, was an unexpected bonus: getting time alone with some terrifically interesting women.

“My subjects were typically very hospitable when they realized I’d been willing to travel a long way to reach them,” she notes. (Driving five hours from Regina to Sharon Butala’s home in the Cypress Hills is just one example. Elder also made three separate trips to the East Coast, one each to meet with Mary Pratt, Mary Walsh and Alexa McDonough.)
Elder was also impressed by the trust her subjects had in what she was doing. “One by one, each woman was agreeing not only to be part of my series, but to go along with how I proposed to portray her. Not one ever said to me, ‘This is silly; I’ve changed my mind.’”
Picture, for example, Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour sitting cross-legged on an outdoor bench. Despite the light rain that starts to fall, she follows Elder’s instructions to pour sand slowly from a teacup onto a scale balance. In the background is a mound of earth — in actuality, the beginnings of a garden, but reminiscent, Arbour says, of the mass burial sites she visited in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia when she was chief prosecutor for the International War Crimes Tribunal.

“If she felt awkward or uncomfortable doing what I was asking her to,” recalls Elder, “she didn’t say so. She was simply intent on helping me get the gesture and symbols right.”
This was particularly gratifying, because Arbour was Elder’s first official subject in High Tea.
To cover her costs for the project, Elder used earnings from her regular commissions and from selling several of the finished portraits. Whether or not she’s broken even yet, she won’t say, emphasizing instead the importance to her of seeing the project through. “Lack of money so often keeps artists from pursuing new ideas. This time I just said to myself, ‘I’m a painter: my skill is in capturing people on canvas and telling their story. Yes, it’s a risk taking this project on, but how can I not do it?’”

Having now moved on to new projects, Elder is hoping that High Tea will go forth and prosper. A gallery tour and book of the portraits are now in the works.
Is Elder sorry the party’s over? Yes and no.

“It took a huge amount of work,” she reflects, “and not just to brew those endless thermoses of tea. On the other hand, it was such a privilege to be with those women. Not only did they inspire the project in the first place, they let me do it. They were up for the adventure — kind of the way they live their lives. I’d have tea with any one of them again.”

[SIDEBAR]
The High Tea Guest List
Louise Arbour (Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada)
Rosemary Brown (former New Democratic Party MP)
Sharon Butala (writer: Fever, The Perfection of the Morning, The Garden of Eden)
Kim Campbell (former Justice Minister and Prime Minister of Canada)
Rose Charlie (B.C. Grand Chief)
Adrienne Clarkson (Governor-General of Canada)
Nellie Cournoyea (former Premier of the Northwest Territories, now Chair and CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation)
Denise Donlon (President, Sony Music Canada)
Karen Kain (former principal dancer with the National Ballet)
Silken Laumann (Olympic gold-medallist rower)
Dr. Julia Levy (past President and CEO of QLT Inc.)
Alexa McDonough (former leader of the federal New Democrats)
Beverley McLachlin (Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada)
Antonine Maillet (writer: La sagouine, Pélagie, Don l’Original, Les Confessions de Jeanne de Valois)
Jean Paré (cookbook author and President of Company’s Coming)
Julie Payette (head astronaut, Canadian Space Agency)
Mary Pratt (artist)
Margaret Southern (founder, Spruce Meadows)
Belinda Stronach (President and CEO of Magna International)
Carole Taylor (Chair of CBC)
Mary Walsh (actor and comedian)
Barbara Woodley (photographer, Portraits of Canadian Women)
[END SIDEBAR]