Dear Mr. Burt, etc (drawing for #2)

Ann Newdigate wrote to A.L. Burt regarding his book, Romance of Canada, a 1940s textbook for Grade 4 students. In her letter to the author some sixty years after its publication, Newdigate criticizes the author for his patriarchal and colonizing language and his poor representation of Canadian settler history. She crafted her response to the book using syllabic Pitman’s shorthand, with one page of the painted letter for each chapter of the book. Newdigate used the obscure shorthand as “a secret language for addressing the official history and rules of authority in a way that allowed me to confront my own self-censorship.” In her artist statement about the work, Newdigate expressed her outrage about the school textbook: “those attitudes were perpetuated through school kids, in the guise of institutional truths.” Using the painted letters as templates, Newdigate then transferred the words into medieval-style woven tapestry, which were finally sewn onto existing paintings after they were painted over (Fur Trade; A White Familiar Figure; 3 Visages; Landscape Blot; Interior Blot; and Sad Mythical Familiar).