On September 27, 2018, I was part of a panel discussion during the 2018 Low-Beer Memorial Lecture that followed a screening of the documentary film "I Am Still Your Child." The film and panel discussion were presented by AMI Quebec (Action on Mental Illness) and was held at Concordia University's Oscar Peterson Concert Hall in Montreal. It was a pretty amazing evening!
The panel discussion was moderated by the always awesome Loreen Pindera from CBC Montreal and featured Megan Durnford (the film's writer and director), Rebecca Heinisch, Marie Leavens, and myself. AMI Quebec's Dr. Ella Amir added closing comments. It took a little while, but I'm very pleased to announce that the audio recording of the panel
discussion from the panel discussion is now available!
Yeah!
I Am Still Your Child, the documentary on parental mental illness, will have its national broadcast premiere on Saturday, March 31st on CBC television! It's at 1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time. I'm really excited it to see it broadcast this way!
The following statement was sent to the City of Ottawa's Councillors in regards to the proposed Salvation Army's new shelter to be built here in the Vanier community.
To whom it may concern,
My mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was a pre-teen. She
was a single mom and we often found ourselves in pretty tough
situations. We were also on welfare, facing both financial
difficulties as well as my mom’s struggle with mental illness.
I was born in Arnprior but my mom and I relocated to Ottawa when I
was 8 years old. I’ve grown up in this city and I’ve been
a resident of the downtown core most of my life. I should add that my
wife and I bought a home in Vanier in 2010. So I’m not just a
resident of Ottawa and I’m not just a taxpayer; I’m also
a home owner not that far away from where the Salvation Army proposes
to build their new shelter on Montreal Road.
Relevant to this email is the fact that I’m also in a
documentary film that focuses on the children of mentally ill
parents. Titled “I Am Still Your Child,” the film just
started streaming on CBC and will air nationally across CBC
Television in January. If you’d like, you can watch the film at
the following link:
http://watch.cbc.ca/absolutely-canadian/-/i-am-still-your-child/38e815a-00cec9fd824.
In conjunction with the film, a number of video shorts were recently
released. One of them deals with the financial impact of mental
illness. It’s on the film’s Youtube page at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwaYwp3MbqQ.
When I reflect on my childhood, the reality of my mom’s health
and financial situation, and the proposed Salvation Army shelter, I’m
struck by the fact that my mom, being a woman, would have found no
help there. And she, being a mom, would not have been able to get
help for her family, either. Yes, I’m well aware that there are
other shelters in the city that can and do help. At the end of the
day, however, a new shelter will be constructed that will
discriminate based on gender. That is unconscionable in 2017. And it
is a sad, sad statement that if I was a child today, living in the
same circumstances that I grew up in, my mom would not be able to
turn to a brand new state of the art facility for help when she would
have needed it most.
I should add that my mom did not win her struggles with either
schizophrenia or poverty. She died in 1994, at the age of 48.
I would strongly urge you to pause and reflect on what a new shelter
could and should be. A shelter featuring gender equality and one free
of religious dogma. If it was both of those things, even if the
location and the size were the same, I would support it. Because my
mom might have needed it. And we know that other girls and women of
all-ages and sexual orientations will need it. Desperately.
The proposed shelter by the Salvation Army is not the solution. It’s
no solution at all. I urge you to vote against it.
Addendum
What I didn't add, though I was tempted, was the lyrics to Joe Hill's 1911 song The Preacher and the Slave:
Well, this is pretty neat! Reporter Blair Crawford along with photographer Julie Oliver from the Ottawa Citizen did a feature story on yours truly. The story explores my childhood, my mom's struggle with mental illness (specifically schizophrenia), my graphic novel the road to god knows..., and the documentary film I'm involved in titled I AM STILL YOUR CHILD.
I should add that the online article also contains a short two minute video interview with me. Plus the great and mysterious Corbin makes a surprise guest appearance! I've embedded the video below:
Scans from the Ottawa Citizen are below:
And the interior page (the scan is a bit hard to read, but the full article can be found online here):
Update!
As it turns out, the Citizen's sister paper the Ottawa Sun also ran a story. This is pretty much the same thing, though there are a few minor differences. I'm not crazy about the headline, but pretty neat all the same.
As I noted previously, the filmmakers behind the documentary I AM STILL YOUR CHILD have released a number of short supporting videos, including the one embedded below. The entire series can be viewed on their Youtube site and add up to over 30 minutes of bonus content. While the documentary is only available for streaming inside Canada right now, the short videos should be watchable anywhere in the world.
In this short, the three subjects of the film (Sarah, Jessy, and myself) all talk about the repercussions of living with a parent who has a mental illness.
In conjunction with the documentary I AM STILL YOUR CHILD, the filmmakers have released a number of short supporting videos. The entire series can be viewed on their Youtube site and add up to over 30 minutes of bonus content. While the documentary is only available for streaming inside Canada right now, the short videos should be watchable anywhere in the world.
I embedded one of these shorts below. Titled "Maintaining a Relationship with the Ill Parent," it showcases all three subjects of the film. For my part, I talk about my mom and her sensitivity and compassion. And, as a special bonus, Corbin makes an appearance!
Continuing the series of background "process" art for the poster series for the documentary film "I AM STILL YOUR CHILD." Today's poster features a young girl handling her father's medication. I knew clarity would be a problem, so I decided to go with a low "eye level" or horizon line. In this case, right at the ground plane. Why? It allowed me to put the medicine bottle strongly in the foreground and hopefully clarify what's actually happening. It also allowed me to make the young girl slightly bigger (closer to the viewer) than a more normal eye level would allow.
In discussing it with Stéphanie Couillard, my contact at Catbird, we decided that it still might not be clear enough so we added dialogue for the father just to be safe. There are no "right" answers with this; sometimes you want to be subtle and suggestive and other times you want to be crystal clear. In this case, clarity was one of the most important criteria.
Again, here is the Final Press Version with logo designed by Sara Morley of Design Postimage:
Initial Rough Layout sketch (approximately 2 inches in height). You can also see that I was initially thinking of making it daughter and mother:
Slightly tighter but still very loose figures. And again, illustrated pretty small:
A tighter rough, though still very small. The father was giving me some drawing problems at this stage, though it works itself out soon enough:
Tighter pencils:
Tighter pencils along with perspective grid and background:
As noted yesterday, I was commissioned to create a series of posters for the documentary film "I AM STILL YOUR CHILD." Today I'm looking at the development of another poster for the film and the support website. This one is a good example of how the process develops from rough concept to final version.
My initial thinking was that I wanted contrast between a very upset girl in the foreground and an adult, possibly in trouble, who isn't even paying attention. Initially I thought she'd be starring at the girl, but not really seeing her. Later, I changed my mind and had the adult sitting with her back turned. As the process continued and I received feedback from Stéphanie Couillard, my main contact for the poster series for Catbird Productions, the poster evolved. You can see that in the following sketches and I think the piece is much stronger based on Stéphanie's comment.
Again, here is the Final Press Version with that great logo designed by Sara Morley of Design Postimage:
Initial Rough Layout sketch (as always, this is done very small, approximately 2 inches in height):
Slightly tighter but still very loose figures. And again, illustrated pretty small. You can also see that the foreground character is slightly off-balance here. It happens, but it's the kind of thing I correct as I go:
Tighter pencils:
Tighter pencils with that original concept of a "neutral" adult in the background:
This is where a number of things changed. A very different adult figure appears. She was roughed out and tightened separately and then digitally added into the piece. And the background finally shows up, too. Little bit of cheating here, but you can't tell. I hope!
I've been fortunate enough to be involved in a documentary project focusing on the children of parents with mental illness (COPMI). It's a pretty amazing project and I've been thrilled to be involved. Megan Durnford, the writer and director, Katarina Soukup, the producer from Catbird Productions, Stéphanie Couillard, Alex Margineanu (cinematographer), Stéphane Barsalou (sound recorder), and the rest of the crew have brought an empathy to the film that is quite remarkable. There are still a lot of societal taboos regarding mental illness and I think this film might help challenge that.
So why did they get in touch with me? Well, my mom was diagnosed schizophrenic when I was quite young. I actually wrote and drew a graphic novel titled the road to god knows... that is an account (albeit fictionalized) of my experiences with my mom's mental illness and my growing awareness that she was not "okay." I didn't go the full autobiographical route for a number of reasons, but one of the main one's is that my mom died before I even started the comic and I wanted some emotional distance from the work and my own life.
The documentary uses quite a bit of my art through it, but I should note that I actually re-drew a number of pages specifically for the film (I'm going to do a follow-up post specifically on this subject in the near future).
The film will be airing on CBC Montreal through the documentary series Absolutely Quebec on Saturday, September 16th. It will have a wider release shortly after that. I'll update the website as I know more.
In the meantime, the trailer linked above really captures the tone of it very well. I think it's beautiful. For more on the film, keep an eye on the Facebook page and the official website.