M HKA Ensembles

Artist Novel, 19.7 x 14.6 cm, 219 p., language : English, publisher : Figure 1 Publishing Inc., Vancouver, ISBN : 978-1-77327-012-8.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2030/415).

Literary synopsis

Apples etc. is Gathie Falk's memoir, a lively, personal, and yet unsentimental reflection on nearly ninety years of art and life. Falk tells of growing up in small Mennonite communities in the 1930s and 40s. These were hard years, as her Russian immigrant father died just ten months after she was born. While the family struggled financially, Falk recalls cabbage rolls made by hand, a backyard skating rink, and music lessons paid for by an anonymous donor. Her apprenticeship, she says, was a long one. After working a series of menial jobs, she trained as a public school teacher, which led her back to the art classes she'd given up as a child. It has now been fifty years since Falk's art career was launched, and her veneration of the ordinary has sustained her through the deaths of beloved friends and relatives, a short-lived marriage, broken bones, and debilitating pain. Interweaving stories about her community, her family, and her daily rituals with anecdotes about her major artworks, Falk paints a portrait of a life well lived.

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