CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – CRAYOLA

Crayola
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION is a series of images inspired by childhood memories of colour. For anyone growing up in the 1950s, what could possibly say colour more than Crayola?

“Purple had the starring role in my very first memory of a colour. It was 1953. Toward the end of the school year, our kindergarten teacher often spoke to us about Queen Elizabeth’s upcoming coronation. One day Miss Balson gave each of us an illustration of a crown; it looked like a page out of a colouring book. She then showed us a coloured photo of the crown. We were each given a box of six crayons and instructed to colour our crown. I diligently studied the coloured photograph. I liked the purple velvet fabric in the centre and determined that I would start with that. I dutifully dumped my crayons onto the tabletop but, to my dismay, there was no purple crayon. I was outraged that I had been given a task but not the necessary tools to complete the job. In the end, I coloured the purple cap with the red crayon. A week or so later, we were given a fresh copy of the same crown and told to colour it. I remember being annoyed that we were being asked to do the same thing over again. As before, the boxes of crayons had only six colours: green, yellow, brown, red, blue and black. No purple. I attacked the purple velvet cap first, this time with the blue crayon. (It would be a long while before I realized that I could have used the red and blue crayons to make purple.) Only in Grade One did I receive a box of eight crayons, the additions being orange and purple. This box of eight was the inspiration for Crayola.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
30 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca 18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – HOMOGENIZED

Homogenized
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

“Is white a colour? For small children learning the names of colours in their surroundings, the answer is yes. One of my first memories involving colour is of a bottle of milk sitting on the kitchen table one hot summer evening. The small room is brightly light by the sun streaming in the kitchen door that is open to the back yard. Although my memory of the scene is vivid, I only recall the colour white, as the brilliant sunlight bounced off my father’s shirt sleeves and wrapped itself around the milk bottle. Each morning when the milkman made his deliveries, we could hear the glass bottles rattling in his metal carrier. These quart bottles were a beautiful shape that tapered to the top; a circular cardboard cap sealed the bottles and announced the name of the dairy. (In the winter, if the milk was left in the milk box too long, it would freeze and a solid column of milk would protrude from the top of the bottle, topped by the displaced cardboard cap.) In the 1950s, we drank homogenized milk; memories of its rich creamy colour inspired this image.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
36 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca 18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – LIVING ROOM

Living Room
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

“I remember my parents painting the colourless walls of our rented bungalow. It was common in the 1950s for each bedroom to be a different pastel colour – mint green, baby blue, soft yellow. One of my core recollections involves endlessly pouring over house paint colour charts – very potent objects of memory. From them I learned about the link between colour and language. I was astonished to discover that the bright colour of the accent wall in our dark green living room was Chartreuse. Recently I found a vintage Kem Tone house paint advertisement featuring a picture of a living room painted Parklane Green with a Chartreuse accent wall. Clearly this had been the inspiration for my parents’ colour scheme decades ago; it was also the inspiration for my new work entitled Living Room.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
36 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca 18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – FLANNEL SUITS

Flannel Suits
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

“Not all of my memories of the 1950s are bursting with colour. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson was a popular novel in 1955 and was made into a film starring Gregory Peck a year later. I was not aware of the book or the movie at the time, but I do recall my father’s grey flannel suits. Interestingly, my mother, my grandmother and I had grey flannel suits too. A photo taken in 1954 shows the four of us dressed accordingly. My father’s suit jacket is visible; it is the two-button style that Gregory Peck would later make famous. My mother and my grandmother are each wearing a lady’s version of the suit. Grandma’s is a slightly darker shade of grey, but both women’s suits have straight skirts beneath fitted jackets that feature notched lapels and padded shoulders. I do not recall having a grey flannel suit when I was a little girl, but there I am in the picture wearing one. The jacket has patch pockets and is buttoned right up to my neck; the full skirt with inverted box pleats stops a couple of inches above my knees. Flannel Suits was inspired by these early childhood memories.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
36 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca 18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – FATHER’S FEDORAS

Father’s Fedoras
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

“The first picture I have of me with my father is a small black and white snapshot; on the back is written “8 months old.” In this outdoor photo, my father is wearing a fedora. Obviously, I do not remember that day, but I do have many early memories of my father’s hats. I was 50 years old when my father died and throughout that the half century, he wore fedoras. In the 1950s, they were typically made of fur-felt and came in various shades of grey, brown and black. The soft brim was worn up in the back and down in the front, while the depth of the brim, the height of the indented pinched-front crown, and the width of the grosgrain ribbon varied over time. Movie stars such as Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra made fedoras the icon they remain to this day, but it was my father’s hats that inspired this image.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
30 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca 18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – PONTIAC

Pontiac
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION is a series of images inspired by colour memories and informed by current research.

“In the early 1950s my parents bought their first brand new car, a Pontiac. I vividly remember the soft green colour of the shiny paint and the flashing highlights of the polished chrome trim. I particularly recall the front grill, which I now know was called the waterfall grill. It likely caught my attention as it was at eye level and was surmounted with a striking chrome hood ornament. Researching vintage Pontiac paint colour charts, I found that the green I so clearly remember was called Placid Green. To my very young eyes, that colour was soothing, sumptuous and sophisticated. Like other colours I encountered in my formative years, it remains a part of me all these decades later.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
30 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca 18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – NEAPOLITAN

Neapolitan
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

“When I was a small child, cake & ice cream was reserved for special occasions. Birthday celebrations always meant Neapolitan ice cream. It was particularly memorable because it came in three flavours (chocolate, vanilla and strawberry) and because it was sliced, not scooped. In the 1950s, the small freezer compartment in our refrigerator did not keep anything frozen for long. Just before dinner, my father would be dispatched to the dairy to buy a pint of Neapolitan ice cream. It came in a small brick-shaped carton, not unlike a pound of butter. An hour later my mother would take the ice cream out of the freezer to serve dessert. We were each given a plate with a piece of cake already moistened by a slice of rapidly melting Neapolitan ice cream. Like all images in this collection, Neapolitan is composed of blocks of colour designed to convey the feel and tone of my early surroundings. Can colour alone serve as a conduit of memory?”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
30 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca 18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – MOTHER’S DRESSES

“Mother’s Dresses was inspired by early memories of my mother. I clearly recall her sleeveless navy blue linen two-piece dress with a small white bow at the neck. I also remember her royal blue wool cowl-neck dress worn on special occasions such as Christmas; there was always a rhinestone broach pinned to the collar.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
36 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca 18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – DISHES

“Many of my early colour memories revolve around food and related items. In the 1950s, we had a set of dishes that I absolutely loved. Habitant Studio Ware was a hand-painted pattern manufactured in England by J&G Meakin. I clearly recall the cereal bowls and the bread and butter plates. To me, they looked like plaid dishes. In a set of eight, two plates had intersecting red stripes, two had green stripes, two had yellow stripes and two had grey stripes. These dishes seemed to have been designed by a rambunctious child rather than by a rule-bound grownup. When the table was set, it looked comical and playful and very colourful. This image, Dishes, combines the four Habitant colours into one recollection.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
30 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca 18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – KITCHEN

“Our small rented mid century bungalow did not have a dining room; perhaps that’s why the kitchen features in several of my early colour memories. I vividly recall a set of striped glasses; the smaller ones were used for juice and the larger ones for milk. I loved them even though the stripes were earthy shades of yellow, orange, green and red, not the clear saturated colours often associated with early childhood. In the 1950s, many gas stations gave away dishes and glasses to attract and retain customers. Once the attendant had filled up the car (there was no self-service) and the bill had been paid in cash (there were no credit cards), a “free” plate or glass was handed to the motorist. I do not know if the glasses that inspired this image were from a gas station or not. However, I do remember my mother telling my father to get another glass or plate the next time he took the car to be filled up.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
30 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca 18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack