Pierre Maraval, as part of June 2008′s Luminato/L’Oréal arts festival, took my portrait this morning. He calls his latest project Toronto’s Mille Femmes and describes it as a cultural landscape of women who “enrich” Toronto.
And, luckily for Mr. Maraval, in our culture we all are expected to wear make-up, so L’Oréal flips the bill in this murky synergism of capitalism and ‘capital A’ Art.
Each woman is asked to provide a word that will accompany their portrait. Each portrait and word will appear in both a gallery show and companion book. I looked at what words other women had chosen: libre, honest, étincelante, fabulous, cosmopolitan, flexible and even jedi. The other women with me deliberated thoughtfully before committing their word to paper.
I, on the other hand, didn’t miss a beat. I handed my paper to Maraval’s assistant.
“What is this?” she asked in her thick Quebécois accent, “I do not know of this word? What could it mean?”
Everything, I answered. Just everything.
My word? Can’t you guess? All praise Twitter. Testify!
“Tweet.”
Newton wanted to reshape his retina, I want to Tweet.
Mr. Maraval spent little time with us women of the cultural landscape. I guess he’s like the monument to our backdrop? He did ask me about Twitter in a dulcet, reserved tone. And then he told me to tilt my chin higher.
I did spend almost an hour in tech talk with the brilliant make-up artists behind the scenes about Fring for the iPhone and the future of mobile web part of the landscape of L’Oréal; this pleased me far more than the free “Star” lip gloss I got.
Grania: This federal govenment is dismantling the democratic fabric of Canada day by day and I shudder to think of what will be destroyed before we can get rid of them!
jess: This article is credible when Chante performed Burton Cummings “I’m Scared”
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Seenloitering: The “gender analysis” in this article is upside down. Marie Calloway is a threat to the status quo because she threatens the myth that women are morally superior, above...
Legong: I know I am replying to this pathetic, racist statement a little late and the whole ignorant rant probably doesn’t even deserve a reply. Wanhenglo, if we were all to generalise about...
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Sky Goodden: This is startling, refreshing, overdue, and damn good. Thank you, Shary.
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