JoEllen Brydon’s work is on display at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery in Grimsby, Ont., in an exhibit that shares a name with her mother’s newspaper advice column.JoEllen Brydon/Supplied
As a child, artist JoEllen Brydon was sworn to secrecy: She knew that her mother, Margaret Jean Armstrong Brydon Brien, had an alter-ego as an advice columnist, but promised not to tell.
Brien was a reporter who began writing an advice column, Elizabeth Thompson Advises, for The Globe and Mail in 1966. In the column, Brien wielded wit and prose to spark conversations about progressive social issues such as women’s rights and support for gay and lesbian people.
Margaret Jean Armstrong Brydon Brien, who wrote Elizabeth Thompson Advises for The Globe and Mail.JoEllen Brydon/Supplied
After she died in 2019, Brydon began sorting through the “bulging boxes” of her mother’s letters and newspaper clippings that she had previously given to her daughter.
In the archive of Brien’s work, Brydon was surprised to find that some of the clippings depicted her relationship with her mother, though Brien used the pseudonym, Jenny, in the published pieces.
A few months later, Brydon began working on a series of paintings that depict scenes from letters written to Elizabeth Thompson, and some that Brien had written herself.
Each piece, painted in her signature style with vibrant colours and wavy, flowing lines, offers the viewer a window into someone’s story.
Brydon’s paintings are accompanied by clippings of Brien’s column and audio recordings.JoEllen Brydon/Supplied
These works, accompanied by clippings and audio recordings of an actor reading Thompson’s responses, are now on display at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery in Grimsby, Ont., in an exhibit that shares a name with the column.
Brydon spoke with The Globe from her home in Cavan, Ont., about her complicated relationship with her mother’s work, and about her latest exhibition.
How did you choose which letters you wanted to depict?
She kept everything so it was really hard to choose, because so many of them were interesting. There are many interesting columns that I couldn’t use because they wouldn’t work visually. I had an A list, I had a B list. I had a huge box of B lists, and it just got nuts. Finally, I had to just say, do it. But then I came across a letter about me, that I had supposedly written, and that set me on a different track.
What was it like to find that letter? How did you incorporate that into this exhibition?
It was really hard. I was conflicted, because the first letter I found was very pertinent to a difficult time in our relationship. I’d always wondered: did this really happen this way? Am I remembering this correctly? And this letter verified that I was. It was interesting, because she got a lot of backlash for her answer to this.
She was always really a very good writer, very progressive, a pioneer because she was willing to bring social issues in. But her answers to me were a little – they were very good answers – but then she didn’t take her advice. And so I had to stop for a while. I had to take breaks, and it was very emotionally exhausting, fascinating. I decided that eventually I have to include this somehow. I’ve tried to do it with respect to her, because I also think she was amazing and our difficulties ironed out eventually, for the most part. She was a wonderful influence on me and my daughters.
A Globe and Mail newspaper clipping of a column written by her mother about Brydon, which inspired some of the artist’s paintings.The Globe and Mail
A Brydon painting inspired by ‘Report card disillusions little girl who dreams of being a horse,’ one of her mother’s advice columns – about Brydon herself.JoEllen Brydon/Supplied
Another Brydon painting inspired by the same advice column.JoEllen Brydon/Supplied
What do you think motivated her to include you in some of her work?
I know that part of her craft was to introduce topics so she’d write letters that weren’t from anyone. Many, many, many of her letters were from people, but the odd time – if they were about me or our family, I could tell, because her details were specific. I don’t know – was she struggling to advise herself?
I’m not sure why she included us, but I guess the problems in our family – maybe she saw them in other places. I can only speculate.
You come from storytellers, your father, Arthur Brydon also wrote for The Globe. Do you see your work as a continuation of their legacy?
My dad, he was an investigative reporter and followed the Hal Banks [story]. He was a gangster in the shipping industry, so it was a dangerous thing. He was very absorbed in it, and we had police protection. There was one time that my mom had to take us to her parents’ farm for a while. I feel like I’ve got his drive in finding, searching out the story.
A painting by Brydon inspired by a clipping of an advice column by Brien, called ‘Parents feel they failed daughter who has decided on a lesbian life.’JoEllen Brydon/Supplied
Elizabeth Thompson Advises runs until Nov. 4. A second exhibition of this work is scheduled to open at the Art Gallery of Peterborough in April, 2026.
This interview has been edited and condensed.