#canadian studyblr

[yinlotus]

the smoke from the wildfires in canada are crossing the atlantic and is now bringing a haze to the nordic countries

it's said that the soot from the smoke will deposit onto the snow and ice of the arctic which will in turn increase local warming (i.e worst wildfires, ice sheets melting, oceans warming and rising, stronger tropical cyclones, etc. etc.)

From the NY Times (and other sources):

Ways to Help

The Canadian Red Cross: Every $1 donated to the Canadian Red Cross will become $3 to support those affected by wildfires. The funds will be directed to people living in Nova Scotia and other Atlantic provinces, some of the hardest hit areas, for immediate and ongoing relief and recovery efforts as well as community preparedness initiatives.

United Way: The Canadian federal government joined the government of the Northwest Territories in a similar matching program to support disaster relief and recovery efforts. The funds will be used to support nonprofit community groups who are helping local residents.

Donate a Mask: This volunteer-run charity ships free N95-equivalent masks to anyone in Canada who requests them, with priority to Canadians who cannot afford or do not have access to high-quality masks.

Firefighters Without Borders: This Ontario-based nonprofit donates equipment and training to communities across Canada and in other countries.

Odawa Native Friendship Centre: The Odawa NFC is a nonprofit organization serving the Indigenous community in the Ottawa-Carleton region and is currently collecting donations for First Nation evacuees (with “wildfire evacuees” as the donation type). On Facebook, the NFC noted that it can no longer accept clothing donations.

Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC): Live map of the fires. Updated daily.

APTN National News: Newspaper on the Indigenous Peoples of Canada. Can be used to understand how the climate is affecting the Inuit, Métis, and First Nations.

[girleatspaperforfun]

uoft <3 finally arrived

[fairywriting18]

𝑯𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒏 𝑴𝒄𝑵𝒊𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒍

Helen McNicoll, Sunny September, 1913.

At the start of the twentieth century in Canada, art became a way for women artists to express themselves and to advocate for social change. With the rise of Impressionism in Canada, they used the movement to represent femininity in a new light, pushing forward the “New Woman,” who asserted her place in society through her everyday activities.  

In this post, I'll be diving into the life, legacy and work of Helen McNicoll, a Canadian Impressionist artist I adore. Through her luminous work, she not only represented women in a new light but also helped popularize Impressionism in Canada. Though her life was cut short at only 35 years old due to complications from diabetes, she had a very prolific and successful career. In both her art and her life, she defied expectations.

What will be discussed here: 

♡ Who Helen McNicoll was

♡ Her artistic training and her influences

♡ Her artistic style

♡ How she represented women in her work 

♡ Her legacy, why she was forgotten, and why she needs to be remembered

Note: English is not my first language, so there might be some mistakes.

Please feel free to share if you liked the post! A lot of love, time and care went into crafting this one, so it would mean the world to me if you did.

Enjoy!

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐧 𝐌𝐜𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥?

Born in Toronto in 1879 and raised in Montréal, Helen McNicoll became one of the most accomplished Canadian artists of her time. (1) In her 35 years of life, she built a prolific career and was well-known for her work. At a time when being a professional artist in Canada was arduous and rather uncommon — especially for women — McNicoll was an exception. 

            As a member of Montréal’s anglophone elite, her family’s wealth allowed her to pursue her dream without financial worries. Critics recognized her talent, and she was deemed as a real professional — which was rare for women, who were often regarded as amateurs. (2)

            At only two years old, she became deaf due to scarlet fever. This later had an impact on her career, her work, and her way of perceiving things. As mentioned by Samantha Burton in Helen McNicoll: Un voyage impressionniste, the artist had a keen eye and could capture the subtleties of the environment she was depicting, incorporating them into her work with great sensibility. (3)

𝐄𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 

Helen McNicoll was homeschooled from a young age and began her artistic training through private tutoring lessons. In 1899, she received a scholarship to study at the Art Association of Montreal, where she was under the teaching of William Brymner (1855-1925). Brymner had a significant impact on her artistic style, introducing her to Impressionism and plein air painting (painting outdoors). He also encouraged his students to travel, advice McNicoll followed 

            In 1902, she pursued her studies in England, where she attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London. In 1905, she studied at the Cornish School of Landscape and Sea Painting in Cornwall, where she refined her treatment of light and often painted en plein air.

            In Cornwall, McNicoll met Dorothea Sharp (1874-1955), a British artist whom she became practically inseparable from. These two travelled, lived, and painted together, which granted them more independence than what unmarried women usually had at the time. 

Left : Helen McNicoll, Girl with Parasol, 1913. Right : Dorothea Sharp, Cornfield in Summertime, undated.

Left : Helen McNicoll, Picking Berries, 1910. Right : Dorothea Sharp, Picking Daffodils, 1913.

Interesting fact: When McNicoll and Sharp painted together, they often depicted the same subject, as shown above and below.  In 1913, Sharp did a version of McNicoll's Picking Berries, made in 1910, called Picking Daffodils. (4)

𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐬𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐞

McNicoll was known for her original style, often described as “bright and airy.” (5) Through tone, her use of colour could convey the subtleties of the atmosphere and light. Most of her work had a luminous quality and had a rather light colour palette, delicate and soft on the gaze, with little to no pure white or black. The way she depicted shadows was also gentle, blending seamlessly into the scene without disrupting the overall harmony. Natural light, which she captured in her paintings at different times of the day, was also key to her work. 

Helen McNicoll, The Little Worker, 1907. 

 Another aspect of her style was the lack of black contour around forms, allowing them to integrate into the environment naturally. This, paired with her treatment of light, gave her paintings an atmospheric effect. 

            McNicoll often began her paintings outdoors before completing them in her studio. She sometimes worked with models who would pose for her, contrasting with the Impressionist aim of capturing fleeting moments. Nonetheless, she could make those moments feel like they were captured spontaneously, giving them a sense of instantaneity. Her rapid, dynamic, but light brushstrokes also contributed to the sense of movement and instantaneity that emanated from her work.

𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤

In her work, Helen McNicoll rarely depicted men. During her professional career, she mostly depicted women and children, alongside landscapes and rural scenes. (6)

            No matter the painting, McNicoll never idealized, romanticized, or sexualized the women she portrayed. They were always shown as fleshed-out individuals who weren’t there to please the gaze but to live their lives as active figures. 

            She depicted working women in natural and outdoor settings in a realistic way. Their hard work and labour were visible physically. 

            In The Apple Gatherer (1911), the woman has flushed cheeks and is standing in a way that reflects the physicality of her task. (7) Her nearly full basket and the tree almost stripped of its apples are also signs of her hard labour. (8) In The Gleaner (1908), the subject is shown with reddened cheeks, slightly dishevelled hair and a stance that suggests physical effort.  

 Left : Helen McNicoll, The Apple Gatherer, 1911. Right : Helen McNicoll, The Gleaner, 1908.   

The artist also frequently (not always) depicted her subjects in a way that indicates they might be in their own little world. This is an aspect I love about her work because it gives it a distinct and dreamy quality to it.  The subject’s gaze is often on the task at hand, while oblivious and detached from outsiders' gaze. (9) If there’s more than one figure, they are rarely shown interacting together. (10)

 In The Apple Gatherer, where the woman is absorbed by her task, her back facing us. In Under the Shadow of the Tent (1914), the two women shown are focused on their work. We can’t really see their face clearly, and one even has her hat covering her entire face. 

Helen McNicoll, Under the Shadow of the Tent, 1914.

Helen McNicoll also did interior and domestic scenes like The Chintz Sofa (1913), The Open Door (1913) and The Victorian Dress (1914). In them, the women represented are active in a quiet way. They are never portrayed as being decorative.

In The Chintz Sofa, for instance, a woman is shown mending a piece of fabric. On a surface level way, it’s a stereotypical feminine task usually associated with domestic life, especially at the time. However, McNicoll doesn’t portray that as a sign of oppression or weakness. The women shown are active and doing these tasks for themselves. 

Helen McNicoll, The Chintz Sofa, 1913.

In my opinion, this is a way to reclaim the feminine sphere as a form of agency. This is further reinforced by McNicoll’s and Sharp’s active participation in the Society of Women Artists. (11)

Interesting fact: In The Chintz Sofa it's confirmed Dorothea Sharp is the woman depicted in the painting. It is also most likely the case in Under the Shadow of the Tent, but this is not certain.

𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐜𝐲, 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝

Even though she was recognized by peers and critics alike throughout her career, Helen McNicoll was unfortunately forgotten for most of the 20th century. This might have been due to her time spent abroad, along with her education acquired mainly in England, making her not “Canadian enough” for the history of the nation’s art, which prioritized artists who stayed in the country. (12) This was amplified by the rise of the Group of Seven, which was seen as truly nationalist. She also settled in England and would come back on certain occasions in Montréal, where she had a studio. 

We can say she lived out of social expectation. She never married or had children, and lived with her longtime friend Dorothea Sharp (nothing more between them was ever confirmed...) Her status gave her access to opportunities most women couldn’t access at the time, and she was recognized as a true professional artist. This was rare since women artists often struggled to escape the amateur label. (13)

As Samantha Burton mentioned in Life & Work, McNicoll gave a new light on femineity through her art :

“Kristina Huneault argues that traditional understandings of femininity and the private sphere fall apart in places in McNicoll’s paintings—for example, In the Shadow of the Tree, c. 1914, with the lack of touch between the woman and the child; in Interior, c. 1910, with the absence of the presumed woman in the domestic space; and in both versions of The Victorian Dress, c. 1914, with the unfashionable gown. “There is something faint but perceptible about these initial examples,” she writes, “that lends credence to the idea that femininity does not reside straightforwardly in the world that McNicoll envisions.” (14)

Today, Helen McNicoll’s impact and heritage are being brought back to the public attention. She had a big impact on the Canadian artistic scene and played a big role in spreading as well as popularizing Impressionism in Canada when the movement had little support. She gained international recognition and was one of the first Canadian painters to succeed professionally in the impressionist style. 

⊹₊⟡⋆Thank you so much for reading the entire thing! Feel free to like, reblog and subscribe if you enjoyed it. ⊹₊⟡⋆

Note

This semester, I did an academic essay on the representation of women through the aesthetic choices of two Canadian artists who lived at the same time. Helen McNicoll was one of them. That's why I decided to write this post: to share what I learned while writing that essay (which is in French). I used parts of the research I did for it and did some more since this post is entirely dedicated to this artist.

I've included all my citations and sources in another post because I didn't want to make this one messy. It's a bit messy and far from perfect (and not how I usually do my cite sources in my academic papers haha) You'll see, the Art Canadian Institute was a big source of knowledge to complete my research.

Click here to see citations and sources

Click here for my masterlist

Helen McNicoll, Moonlight, 1905.

[fraisefille33]

If my sister says “you’re not gonna leave Canada anyway, why learn other languages” or “you already speak English, what’s the point of learning anything else” even one more time-

[lina-langs]

ello, i'm lina :) i'm 19, she/her, and this is my langblr blog! also the main blog for @lina-does-anthro . . . follow me there for studying <3

français canadien — b1/b2. grew up in french immersion and have Many Thoughts about how I learned it lol. anyway i'm taking intermediate french this year at uni so let's get this bread.

deutsch — a1. i learned enough to go to euroshops and bubble tea places on my own, and talk with my friend's grandma. currently on a break now that i'm home!

español — a2/b1. not actively learning but will occasionally reblog stuff.

other languages i would like to learn:

biblical and modern hebrew

latin

turkish or azerbaijani

korean pronunciation

icelandic

greek

vietnamese

[livebyanothernamesosweet]

You can really tell who was paying attention in social studies/science class in 4th grade bc SOME OF US believe in climate change and others vote for the Conservative Party and drive pick up trucks

[academics-dark-corner]

Pls fill my dash with tips/tricks/warnings about law school! I’m a Canadian uni student in pre-law at #dalhousie, wanting to go to law school after a gap year when I’m done my undergrad.

(Also textbook PDFs to read for fun, book recommendations and all the gay content that may apply ✌🏻

[holyarchistud]

20|sep|2024

reading my last post, I noticed how much has changed! firstly, I recovered from the surgery, everything is great now. secondly, we decided to have a cat. even though I am a dog lover, I agreed on one breed - the Canadian sphinx - and I have to admit that she is a dog in cat's clothing. We have already managed to teach her to sit, give a paw and walk on a leash. she makes friends with everything that moves and even sleeps with my parents' dog. thirdly - I started the company of my dreams and now I professionally deal with 3d models - virtual and physical, as well as dioramas and miniatures. it couldn't be better! and fourthly! I am going on a long-awaited vacation soon. now I am catching up on work so that I can rest for the trip. and fifthly - this year I will also travel to my beloved Norway! I am so happy about everything that I have managed to create and achieve so far. despite the surgery and pain at the beginning of the year, this is still one of the best times of my life! keep it up!

i feel like going back to tumblr, to regular posts like a journal and aesthetic photos. i really like this studyblr community, it's always motivated me a lot.

Welcome back, studyblr!

[yinlotus]

as far as i'm aware from reading US news (ny times) most of the smoke on the US east coast is from the canadian fires. also, the fires in canada are a lot lot lot worse than looks on the image you can see - hundreds of fires burning all across canada.

as a californian myself, i've also been kind of annoyed seeing all the news about like 'unprecedented smoke in nyc' like seriously? this isn't unprecedented, just for them specifically. I understand that seeing the orange skies was crazy but like...it's not new...I literally saw that myself during the fires of 2020 in Calif. i've had friends and family had to evacuate from nearby fires, i had to wear an n95 during the summer before covid because being outside in that air quality made me feel sick. my brother had school and sports cancelled because it was too dangerous to be outside breathing the air.

calif, oregon, washington, british columbia and all of the western US and canada (maybe mexico too, I don't know about impact of smoke/fires in central or latin america) have been dealing with this for years. australia and nz have been dealing with this too for years.

I'm sorry...I kind of just wanted to complain a bit...it was a bit jarring seeing all those headlines about it being new when it's really not, it's just only new for the US east coast which has the biggest & loudest mouthpiece coming from america.

i'd also love to see some resources about the fires in canada if anyone has sent you any. i know for california, Cal Fire (fire.ca . gov) has info on calif. since there was a lot of rain this year (i've never seen so much rain in my life) i'm hoping fire season won't be too bad but we never know...

hi anon!

it's okay to vent about it. i understand that for those who have dealt with or are currently dealing with large wildfires would be annoyed by those who are not experiencing it as they are. still, i don't think it's right to blame those people without educating them a bit on it first.

honestly even when it comes to the east coast smoke most news talk specifically about nyc than the other places dealing with the same thing. picky news coverage can be frustrating to say the least.

and you're certainly right about it being new to us but not everyone else. the east coast is generally pretty wet with hurricanes in summer (which hurricane season officially started around a week ago, which i'm curious if it'll be affected at all since the smoke is also going east into the atlantic and wildfire smoke throws off marine ecosystems and cyclones are worse when the water is warmer) and snow storms during winter. i think no matter where you are, people will react extremely if something out of the ordinary happens. personally i can't even imagine it since even when i lived on the west coast, it was near seattle and mostly wet.

thank you for providing some info on california! nobody else has sent anything yet, but i'll definitely post if they do! :)

my screenshot was from fire.airnow.gov and from zooming in more i get a slightly better picture of where the fires are but the low accuracy is likely because the site's focus is only the us. nasa is usually quite good in capturing this things in the states, so i checked the canadian space agency to see if they had better images of the fires. while i didn’t find any recent satellite images (best i found was a video from a month ago), i was directed to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) which has an updated interactive map on the homepage. This site alao has links to individual centers in each province.

[copernicanconsole]

Last login: Tue Jan 21 14:57:32 2024 hal@copernicanconsole:~$ cat README welcome to my studyblr!

a short introduction: i'm hal, i live in the united states and i'm majoring in computer science and minoring in astronomy. ultimately i would like to work on programs for NASA or the canadian space agency (depending on where i end up living). i am in PST.

as you can probably tell by the header i am not as serious or aesthetic as other studyblr users. i feel that would be inauthentic to my actual experience as a college student. i have messy handwriting and a messy desk and messy code, and i'm okay with all of that except the code.

i post about my studies, hopefully the books i read, and i reblog space posts.

github

[tismcosmology]

hello tumblr welcome to my humble studyblr

im lyra, and after many years of lurking i am actually blogging on the blog website. insane

while I'm on study terms, I post weekly summaries of my upcoming assignments to help me organize and keep track of my thoughts. I also use this as a dumping ground for my academic adjacent special interests, pretty space pictures, and any of my notes app essays.

Academics:

in my second year of physics and astronomy (BSc) with a minor in biophysics

end goal of obtaining my PhD in cosmology! possible thesis topics include black holes, galaxy evolution, dark matter/energy, or cosmological models (timescape model my beloved..,)

dont ask me what im doing after that, I have no idea. whatever pays enough money to live off of

considering a masters in biophys / quantum biology

I have a college diploma in pre-med !

About me:

nonbinary (he/they) and somewhere on the aro/ace spec

french canadian 🇨🇦

I have a pet rabbit!

I have. so many special interests in the sciences. far too many to list here. so go look at the post I made that has all of them :)

[jamsandsuch]

📚 and 📉 for the studyblr ask game (if it’s not too late)!

of course~~!

Link to qs

📚 favorite course you’ve taken?

definitely my course on asian canadian diaspora health - it was a small class (~20 would show up regularly) and it was really such a safe space for us to share our experiences as asian diaspora + discuss issues and readings that have affected a lot of us personally! i always recommend it as an elective for new students haha ❤️

📉 your least favorite course/a course you did poorly in?

this was back in high school but DEFINITELY ib math sl. oh my god. im *convinced* if i had to take finals (mine got cancelled cus of covid) i would’ve failed out of ib. was getting Fs and Ds left and right while the rest of my grades were literally A- and above.

[hopeful-espoir]

hope, she/they, 17, canadian

learning french and ojibwe actively, want to pick up spanish and arabic again

currently trying to lock in as hard as i can for grade 12 so im posting as much studyblr stuff as a i can as a way to motivate myself lmao

[goons-greasy-study-tips]

Studyblr Intro Post

Name: Goon (she/they)

Age: 25

Degree: Community College for Programming and Computer Science

Purpose: Put my nose down and get to work, share tips that work for me as I navigate going back to school in my mid-20s with late-diagnosed ADHD and BPD, have ugly fucking notes

Hi I'm Goon! I'm dyslexic, I've got ADHD and I've gone back to post secondary after dropping out when I was 19. Since I've gone and gotten diagnosed with ADHD last year, I figured I'd try my hand at community college. I'm Canadian, so I'm doing a 2 year programming diploma that counts as two years of a computer science degree at university. My goal for right now is to pass college, although my end goal is to be a sales engineer as I've been working in sales my entire adult life. I'm hoping this blog will show people that a) it's okay if you're not an aesthetic studyblr girly and b) that there are techniques for ADHD and dyslexic folks that will keep us in the game!

I had a studyblr when I was in high school and university and it made me feel an immense amount of anxiety about making my notes and study sessions aesthetic or having a perfect planner/bullet journal. In my old age of 25, I reject that way of life and I'm just here to try and pass college to hopefully get a job in the tech field. I'm a big fan of learning from others and an even bigger fan of sharing what works for me!

[bookbahaa]

Test Bank & Solution Manual for Understanding Canadian Business 11th Edition To get more information about this please send us E-mail to bookba49@gmail.com #Books #TestBank #study #studyin #studygram #studyblr #studyabroad #studyhard #studyspo #Test #bank #Solutions #manual #Edit

[studyingsunny]

studyblr intro !!!

hi !!! im soleil (or sunny) and i'm entering my first year of social justice & peace studies with a minor in english (class of '28) !!! i am (hopefully) using this to then become a highschool teacher (english and social science) with a specialty in urban education.

i live in canada, so all of my knowledge is in relation to the canadian university system. i am disabled, both physically (hEDS + co) and mentally/developmentally (autism, adhd, and mental health disabilities). i'm a bigender lesbian as well !!!

outside of my studies i am a poet (hoping to work toward publication someday), a musician (10 instruments + vocals), and work full time at a nonprofit in the summer, while volunteering during the year.

i do not start my school year until september '24 (currently finishing my final highschool exams) but with all the prep for university happening now, i wanted to make this account 😊 happy learning!