Portraying the drunken Ukrainian man as art is challenging. Those who have gotten themselves into administrative positions within the Ukrainian community are not prepared to air our dirty laundry to the mainstream. There is still much shame perhaps. I don't know. I applaud you for your honouring of this character, and for the redemption in the story.

Bev Dobrinsky, Ukrainian Musicologist, musician and leader of Zeellia, July 2006

The accent and attitude struck a chord, what a fabulous actor Nawrocki is! Lorette, Manitoba, where I grew up, wasn't entirely homogenous French Canadian Catholic but had Ukrainians and other eastern Europeans. The whole 'artiste' thing was dropped on me too so the piece really moved me.

Suzanne Gauthier, Artist and Prof. Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, June 2006

I think the monologue form is very effective and it suits your idea of creating a portrait. Especially a portrait of someone from a different generation. We think of our grandparents, or older people, sitting at the kitchen table talking. The whole oral history thing that our generation doesn't really do. I think you've given Eddie lots of depth and believability. I like the range of topics that he covers. Also, he's an individual, not an amalgamation. Your actor is quite good and he pulls it off very well.

Rhonda Abrams, Artist and Prof. Ryerson University, May 2006

I have been showing the Uncle Eddie's Guide to Art Appreciation to family and friends and they ALL loved it. Especially scenes 1 and 3.

You might not realized how very excellent it is and what an impact it has! Uncle Eddie is great because his life was the result of social and politicial injustices - a truth that most can relate to and many would like to deny.

Winnie Pitz, 2nd generation Romanian Canadian Immigrant living in Russell Manitoba, May 2006

I think the Uncle Eddie work is very interesting in relation to capitalist uses of what's left of multiculturalism. Some similar issues attend working-class representation in general. There's of course the personal dimension, which I thought was especially touching when presented through the dark humour.

I loved the floating PaRaDoX and wanted to share it with others. Asking my students to watch films and videos seems to be my only way of communicating with the outside world these days and so I'm grateful for having something new and good to show.

Marc Leger, Artist and Prof. University of Lethbridge, February 2006

Ton monologue est génial, très bien fait. Le scénario relève vraiment du théâtre. Tu as des talents que je ne soupçonnais pas!

J'aime particulièrement que c'est l'art, en fin de compte, qui assure la mémoire de ton oncle Eddie, lui qui gueulait contre l'art qu'il voyait dans les musées. Je trouve ça très beau comme revirement de situation.

Au fond, Uncle Eddie était quelqu'un de très doux. Malgré les injustices et les malheurs que la vie lui avait imposés, il est toujours resté sensible et, contre toute attente, c'est par l'art (ton monologue) qu'il se rappelle à nous, avec ses forces et ses faiblesses, avec sa sensibilité... Et ce n'est pas juste lui qui revit, mais tout son monde, sa famille, ses amis, son village.

L'art peut donc servir à quelque chose. Art wins! J'adore ça!

Bernard Mulaire, Critique et historien d'art, November 2005

– Email correspondence between Doug Sigurdson and Don Goodes, November 2005

1.

I tried to get to your presentation of Uncle Eddie's Guide to Art Appreciation, but a terrible black storm came up and I had to take shelter in a café. As luck would have it there was an entertainment offered, so all was not lost. It was called "The Bohunk Who Wouldn't Shut Up."

I hadn't come across one of those guys since the early years of the Queen West streetcar, and I'm dying to tell you all about it some time. I will be wanting to talk about the impulse to impose what may be termed "impurities" into the contemporary art discourse, so you may want to bring along some E-Z-wipes, or even a gun, I guess.

–DS

2.

I thought of your work on the highway going west. I was pretty haunted by that performance. I suppose you've seen (years ago) Bertolucci's "1900". I couldn't tell whether it not you were "referencing " it. Is it the haystack that is banished from contemporary art, or is it the ode to joy?

The movie is 4 hours long - so I'm not sure if I would suggest that anyone watch it. Its ending, however, is over the top. Agrarian socialism is posited as the solution to all that ails us. The last 10 minutes shows farmers singing as they load up the big old hay-wagon, and I think there's a new tractor in there somewhere. Watching the movie, I never knew if my great enjoyment of this astonishing commie scene resulted from the exhaustion that the 4 previous hours of watching had instilled, or if it was wonderful in its own right.

–DS

3.

I assure you that Marxism does not fall within my immediate interests for this project, especially as a world model. In fact this notion of "Pluralism" is my point of departure for all this and the lefties detested that whole idea as you recall.

Nonetheless, I do notice that the people who do the best in the art world, especially I guess in Montreal, belong to a certain class and it is not working or peasant. The post-peasant, post-working class consciousness is very different and is characterized by doubt. This interests me.

–DG

4.

Well, it was the wheat field shot without irony and the folksong sung without irony that I was getting at - what something might look like or sound like prior to its ironization in art. It's hard to look at the images of socialist realism, for example, without the gloss of condescension that has accumulated on it, making it palatable to the cool cat.

I for sure didn't think of your use of this imagery as Marxist or idealist in any sense. But I did think that you were introducing images and (especially) sentiments that feel foreign to contemporary art. It's this unabashed sentiment that I think constitutes the "return of the banished" or "introduction of the excluded" in the Uncle Eddie work. (As opposed to banished or excluded people, or "classes", let's say - although I suppose there may be a link to be pursued there.)

I'm interested in the "doubt" that you refer to. Who was it (Baudrillard? Foucault?) that said there is a vast power that lies simply in the masses' potential to strike. Doesn't mean the mass has to actually say "no" - just has to have the potential to say so. Does doubt serve as similar purpose, and pose a similar threat?

–DS

If you have seen the multimedia dramatic reading of Uncle Eddie's Guide to Art Appreciation throught the videos or elsewhere, please send me your feedback, so I can add it here.