Emily van Lidth de Jeude

"Did you shuffle off the pavements just to let your betters pass?" Oil and graphite on canvas. Artist Emily van Lidth de Jeude. Thijs’ face remained open and calm as he described his childhood memory of his Jewish neighbours being removed to whatever fate they met: “I remember the SS or Germans going upstairs, kicking them down the stairs, so they rolled right on our sidewalk, in front of our door.” I was interviewing him for an installation about the concept and feeling of ‘home’, and this was part of his response. I think that I, too, looked unphased by this story. We both have lived so long in a society that treats such traumatic experiences as passing news, and turns to chemicals, distraction, or denial to keep from dwelling on the horror.  But it IS horror. It’s horror every time a starving Palestinian child tries to get food and is blown to pieces, but still alive, briefly, to witness the cries of his mother. It’s horror every time a child holds the dead face of hi...

This has become one of my favourite things to do. Every year I go out and label the weeds and trees in the place with the highest foot-traffic on our island.    I hope people see these and begin to notice a bit of the world around them in ways they may not have, before. I hope people also go home and find the same weeds, there. Sure, it's the simplest kind of art.    I'm just chalking rocks, walls, and sidewalks with plant names! But I really feel it might be one of the most impactful works I've done.    And yes, if you're wondering, I do have municipal permission to do this! So the credit for this also goes to open-minded officials and other citizens who can appreciate the benefits of art and education in our communities. :-)

As artists, we have the power, ability, and honour of building our future civilization. Some of us may be doing so intentionally; many not. But whether we're aware of it or not, we are responsible. Sci-fi is often touted as predicting the future. But does it? Writers and other artists imagine plausible eventualities based on current directions and capabilities... and then they often happen. Maybe the artists are soothsayers, or more likely we're just creative... and humans have evolved by being resourceful. If we're given a wild idea, we take great pleasure in making the seemingly impossible happen. So maybe artists are visionaries. That's not a pat on the back. Most of us want to be seen as visionaries, I suspect, but it's a huge responsibility. What are we putting out into the world? Books, movies, and other art that may very well have been intended to warn us away from a dystopian future might instead be creating it; putting the ideas for such dystopia into our ...

  In 2023 the CDC released this report , which pertains to data that has since been removed from the CDC’s website, because it referred to what the Trump administration calls “harmful” “gender ideologies.” But here’s the meat of the report. The first statistics are referring to teen girls:   Nearly 1 in 3 (30%) seriously considered attempting suicide—up nearly 60% from a decade ago. 1 in 5 (18%) experienced sexual violence in the past year—up 20% since 2017, when CDC started monitoring this measure. More than 1 in 10 (14%) had ever been forced to have sex—up 27% since 2019 and the first increase since CDC began monitoring this measure. The report also found more than half (52%) of LGBQ+ students had recently experienced poor mental health and, concerningly, that more than 1 in 5 (22%) attempted suicide in the past year. Trend data are not available for students who identify as LGBQ+ due to changes in survey methods. Findings by race and ethnicity al...

At long last, here are the two installations I've been working on. Both debuted this weekend at the Bowen Island Arts Tour, in the Nankins' beautiful garden (and pool!) With enormous thanks to my partner, Markus, without whose substantial help these large works would not exist.

I'm just finishing up two new installations that will premiere at the Here's Bowen Arts Tour, this weekend. One is this driftwood poetry sculpture, which I'll be performing on Saturday, in the early afternoon. The other... is in the pool!!! And if you're wanting to add to your art collection, I'll have lots of with me, as well as smaller paintings, books and photos. Come find me and other fabulous artists on Bowen Island:  Hub 21 (310 Forest Ridge Rd) May 24 & 25,    11am-4pm What a blast this weekend is going to be! See more here: https://bowenartstour.com/  

I'm so happy that the (dis)robe: Hospital Gown piece I made last year will be on display this autumn in Vancouver, but meanwhile... I get to wear it to an art event in my hometown, tonight!! This is will be the first time I've shown it locally, and I'm REALLY nervous. This piece is all about my disability, and to say people roll their eyes when I talk disability is an understatement. But this piece features other people from our community, too, so it's time to REPRESENT!!! Here I go!  Off to the Bowen Island Community Centre. :-) Will update this post with a photo, later, if someone takes one.  UPDATE: It was a pretty quiet event, but nice to meet some other artists and visit with friends. I think only one person scanned the QR but that's OK! Here are some photos from before I actually put the gown back on and went inside... Thanks to my partner Markus, not only for these photos, but for always supporting me both in life and in art. If you're wondering where tha...

It happened like this. Just after we discussed the stage floor I was painting, the director cycled back to my house and knocked on the door again. "Emily?" He called into my house. "Emily, I forgot to ask. Could you make us a rooster prop? It's to look like it's been killed by a fox. Although that may or may not have actually happened." I was astounded! And thrilled!! "Of COURSE I can!!" I knew the play was pretty serious -- Dancing at Lughnasadh. So this prop was a serious prop. Well... as serious as a pretend killed rooster can be, I guess. I was deeply honoured that the director thought I'd be up for the task. There is no way I can easily make a fabric rooster puppet that looks real, and dead. So the first thing to do was to find a rooster that was headed for a pot, anyway. I was given this guy. He was sadly doomed, after his owners had searched for a home, to no avail. So on the appointed day, I picked him up, thanked him for his donation...

Once I lost my son in the forest. We were heading home through ferns taller than his three-year-old self, he carrying a harvest of licorice ferns and I carrying his baby sister and some oyster mushrooms. He followed along behind me, and when I turned around, he was gone. I called repeatedly. I retraced my steps. I gripped by baby girl to my chest and started running, panicking, and-- there he was, nestled into a sword fern, chewing on a piece of licorice fern root. He looked up blandly at my stricken face and said "I'm just havin' some licorice root." His trance-like state may have been induced by the well-known calming medicine of licorice fern, or it may have been just his joyful state of mind after a couple of hours spent wandering the forest with his mother and sister.   My kids and I spent part of most days of their childhood out in the forest, exploring. That's what I did as a mother because it's what I knew to do from my own childhood, spent here in thi...

Acrylic portrait of my mother, Lyn van Lidth de Jeude, with her guitar. My hands held on strong to the red plastic hand-grips of my BMX. No handlebar tassels for me, but I could get to where I was going when I needed to, and today I was rolling home, dragging the toes of my runners along the sharp shale of our driveway. I could hear Mum’s voice and guitar getting slowly louder as I went. The door of our green and white metal-clad trailer stood open to the wind and the May bird-song, and the familiar sounds of my mother drifted out onto the afternoon. As I dumped my bike against the dog-house and stepped up the porch to the sounds I knew so well, her words filled my mind: Everybody thinks my head's full of nothin’ Wants to put his special stuff in Fill the space with candy wrappers Keep out sex and revolution But there's no hole in my head Too bad* I was mildly alarmed. Not so much because Mum was obviously singing about a gunshot to the head—horrific bloody murder was typical o...

Uncle Ralph holding baby Taliesin It was a cloudy day in a November of my childhood when Uncle Ralph gave me my first carving tools. Of course, he wasn’t called ‘uncle’ yet, at the time, but never mind. I was probably about ten, and it was a rough time in my childhood, for a lot of reasons. If I’m remembering the correct occasion, he arrived without Auntie Lidia, alone on his motorcycle, round leather riding goggles pinching in the top of his hair while the rest of it flew out behind him. Even his beard flew along beside him as he rode down our driveway. He’d come by for my birthday, and I remember his wonderfully long brown eyebrows and much longer braided beard leaning down to me with a most beautiful leather bag held out in his dark hands that always looked more weathered than you might expect for a man his age. "Here. Got you this.” He said, and opened the bag to show me all the different types of tools he’d packed into it. I remember thinking how annoying it was that he said ...