{"id":203732,"date":"2025-10-10T22:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T22:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/203732\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T22:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T22:34:08","slug":"ontario-artist-captures-her-mothers-globe-and-mail-advice-columns-in-paintings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/203732\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario artist captures her mother\u2019s Globe and Mail advice columns in paintings"},"content":{"rendered":"

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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<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s rights and support for gay and lesbian people. <\/p>\n

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Margaret Jean Armstrong Brydon Brien, who wrote Elizabeth Thompson Advises for The Globe and Mail.JoEllen Brydon\/Supplied<\/p>\n

After she died in 2019, Brydon began sorting through the \u201cbulging boxes\u201d of her mother\u2019s letters and newspaper clippings that she had previously given to her daughter. <\/p>\n

In the archive of Brien\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

Fall culture preview 2025: All the film, television, exhibits, music and more to look forward to this season<\/a><\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Each piece, painted in her signature style with vibrant colours and wavy, flowing lines, offers the viewer a window into someone\u2019s story. <\/p>\n

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Brydon’s paintings are accompanied by clippings of Brien’s column and audio recordings.JoEllen Brydon\/Supplied<\/p>\n

These works, accompanied by clippings and audio recordings of an actor reading Thompson\u2019s responses, are now on display at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery in Grimsby, Ont., in an exhibit that shares a name with the column. <\/p>\n

Brydon spoke with The Globe from her home in Cavan, Ont., about her complicated relationship with her mother\u2019s work, and about her latest exhibition. <\/p>\n

How did you choose which letters you wanted to depict? <\/p>\n

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\u2019t use because they wouldn\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n

What was it like to find that letter? How did you incorporate that into this exhibition? <\/p>\n

It was really hard. I was conflicted, because the first letter I found was very pertinent to a difficult time in our relationship. I\u2019d 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. <\/p>\n

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 \u2013 they were very good answers \u2013 but then she didn\u2019t 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\u2019ve 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. <\/p>\n

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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<\/p>\n

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A Brydon painting inspired by ‘Report card disillusions little girl who dreams of being a horse,’ one of her mother’s advice columns \u2013 about Brydon herself.JoEllen Brydon\/Supplied<\/p>\n

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Another Brydon painting inspired by the same advice column.JoEllen Brydon\/Supplied<\/p>\n

What do you think motivated her to include you in some of her work? <\/p>\n

I know that part of her craft was to introduce topics so she\u2019d write letters that weren\u2019t from anyone. Many, many, many of her letters were from people, but the odd time \u2013 if they were about me or our family, I could tell, because her details were specific. I don\u2019t know \u2013 was she struggling to advise herself? <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure why she included us, but I guess the problems in our family \u2013 maybe she saw them in other places. I can only speculate. <\/p>\n

You come from storytellers, your father, Arthur Brydon also wrote for The Globe. Do you see your work as a continuation of their legacy?<\/p>\n

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\u2019 farm for a while. I feel like I\u2019ve got his drive in finding, searching out the story. <\/p>\n

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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<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Thompson Advises<\/a> runs until Nov. 4. A second exhibition of this work is scheduled to open at the Art Gallery of Peterborough in April, 2026. <\/p>\n

This interview has been edited and condensed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: JoEllen Brydon’s work is on display at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[901,76,354,888,355,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,356,46,549,75,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-203732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-alberta","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-arts-news","tag-artsanddesign","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-design","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-entertainment","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}