Virus postpones Westminster Kennel Club’s annual dog show

Prairie sculptor Joe Fafard pays tribute to revered Dutch master

Vincent van Gogh has been inspiring artists for close to 150 years. For sculptor Joe Fafard, the Dutch master’s life and art have been objects of fascination for many of his 75 years.

So much so that Fafard’s latest Winnipeg exhibition, The Essential Joe Fafard — Van Gogh and Other Inspirations, which opened Friday at Mayberry Fine Art, includes several sculptures of van Gogh, who began painting in 1881 but lived a short, turbulent life, fraught with mental illness, before committing suicide in 1890 at the age of 37.

“Starting about 1983, I started doing portraits of van Gogh,” Fafard says in a phone conversation from his home near Regina.

“Essentially, people used his life, his career and his anguish as sort of a stereotype of an artist’s blueprint for artistic endeavour. I became quite fascinated to see that he was the Christ and other artists were the apostles.”

Who has been invited to the table?

Last Friday, I spoke at Booth University College’s inaugural Honour and Hope Harvest Dinner in support of Shelter U. I had been asked to speak about the power of art in the community, a subject I have spent much of my professional life thinking about — as a museum director, writer and teacher, and now through my consulting work with Civic Muse.

What continues to interest me is not simply what museums, universities and other public institutions do, but whether their work actually matters — whether they make a difference in the lives of the people and communities around them.

Preparing for the evening brought me back to an even more fundamental question: Who has been invited in?

One of my museum mentors used to remind me that institutions often begin the conversation about public engagement too late. Before engagement comes the welcome, and before the welcome comes the invitation. We can create extraordinary buildings, exhibitions and programs and say that everyone is welcome. But unless people believe that these places are also meant for them, many will never cross the threshold.

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Virus postpones Westminster Kennel Club's annual dog show

NEW YORK (AP) — The Westminster Kennel Club's annual dog show has become the latest event to be postponed or canceled in New York as the number of coronavirus cases surges.

The club's board of governors announced Wednesday it was postponing its 2022 event, scheduled for late January, to later in the year. A new date wasn't given.

“The health and safety of all participants in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show are paramount,” the group said in a statement. “We appreciate the community’s continued interest and support as we delay the show to a time when we can safely convene.”

First held in 1877, the dog show attracts thousands of competitors from around the U.S. and is normally held in February, with semifinal and final rounds at Madison Square Garden. Last year, it was moved to June and held outdoors at the Lyndhurst estate in suburban Tarrytown, north of New York City. Spectators weren’t allowed, and human participants had to be vaccinated or newly tested.