A native of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Shirley Douglas worked with directors including Stanley Kubrick ("Lolita") and David Cronenberg ("Dead Ringers"), and she won a Gemini Award for her performance in the 1999 TV film “Shadow Lake.”

She tirelessly supported a variety of causes throughout her life, including the civil rights movement, the Black Panthers and the fight to save Canada's public health care, pioneered by her politician father.

In 1965, Douglas married Canadian actor Donald Sutherland, with whom she had two children before they divorced — twins Rachel, a production manager, and Kiefer, who became a film and TV star in his own right. Douglas had another son, Thomas, from a previous marriage.

Born on April 2, 1934, Douglas showed an early interest in the arts as well as politics as she journeyed on the campaign trail with her father, who became premier of Saskatchewan, a national leader in the New Democratic Party and a socialist icon.

She attended the Banff School of Fine Arts and went on to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in England, where she acted in theater and TV and participated in anti-nuclear marches.

In the ’60s and ’70s, while living in California, Douglas campaigned against the Vietnam War and protested for various causes. She helped to establish a fundraising group called Friends of the Black Panthers. Her support for the group brought controversy — she was refused a U.S. work permit and charged in 1969 with conspiracy to possess unregistered explosives. The courts eventually dismissed the case and exonerated her. She also was a co-founder of the first chapter in Canada of the Performing Artists for Nuclear Disarmament.
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Douglas, though, was foremost a champion for Canada's medicare system. She would speak of the importance of a universal health care system at virtually any opportunity and lobbied government officials.

- The Associated Press

Katherine Dawn Lang grew up in Consort, Alberta, a Canadian prairie town, the youngest of four. Her mother was a teacher and her father ran the local drugstore. When she was 12, her father left for another woman and, apart from a chance encounter when she was an adult, lang never saw him again (he died last year and neither lang, nor her siblings, went to his funeral). She bristles when I mention her father, but she appears to have made peace with him.
After winning a singing competition as a child, lang knew this was where her future lay and all but gave up on school. She spent the 80s singing country, although by the time lang came out in 1992 (not only as gay but also as vegetarian, fronting an animal rights campaign), the affair with Nashville was over. She switched to torch songs, moved to LA to be near a married woman she had fallen for and channelled that unrequited love into Ingenue. There and then, lang exploded.
Lang had been touring Ingenue for a long 18 months and was getting tired and disillusioned. "I was starting to wake up to the 'nothing is free' perspective," she says. "I felt like there were all these expectations on me - from my manager, from the gay community, from myself." Her next album, All You Can Eat, was she says, "like the food at a buffet - total carbohydrates and no nutritional value. It sold, like, 38 copies and it was perfect because it did what I wanted it to do, which was snap me out of it."
She took herself off, started learning about Buddhism, met her partner, Jamie, a fellow student and settled down in her modest wood cabin in LA with their dogs. 

​- Emine Saner, The Guardian

​Award-winning Kainaiwa (Blood) artist Joane Cardinal-Schubert was also a successful and influential curator, lecturer, poet and director of video and Indigenous theatre. Her artworks and writing often addressed contemporary political issues such as Indigenous sovereignty, cultural appropriation and environmental concerns. She supported other Indigenous artists as a curator and activist, while also questioning methods of displaying historical and contemporary Indigenous artworks.

In the last year of her life, Cardinal-Schubert travelled across Alberta on behalf of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts to meet with other First Nations artists and identify artworks from various phases in their careers that were not represented in the Foundation’s collection. Her support of Indigenous artists was a common thread that ran throughout her career. For several years, she was a lobbyist for the Society of Canadian Artists of Native Ancestry (SCANA). (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

I'm often asked what I use in my Iwata airbrush, and I have to say that after trying a number of different products, Liquitex Acrylic Ink is my preference. It's a nice consistency with a large selection of colours, plus I can mix them myself. And it's easy to clean out of my airbrush, too, which is extremely important as it isn't an inexpensive piece of equipment and I'd like to take care of it so I can use the for the rest of my life. I recently ordered a couple of opaque inks which I really like...they do need a lot of shaking as they do tend to settle between uses but they are so nice. They are permanent and non-fading. My favourites, though, tend to be the muted tones, especially muted violet and muted turquoise because I like the tones against my vibrantly coloured backgrounds. The inks are also fabulous to use to create drips and dots on the backgrounds.

Jann Arden is opening up about her sexuality. The celebrated Canadian singer-songwriter sat down with ET Canada’s Carlos Bustamante to discuss her new sitcom, “JANN”, and revealed why it was important for her to represent the LGBTQ community on screen.

“That, for sure, mirrors my own life,” Arden says of her character’s bisexuality. “I, as a teenager, grew up with boyfriends and girlfriends. I remember crying once over a girlfriend that had broken up [with me], and I was crying to my mom on the phone, and my dad was at the other end of the phone — this is a concrete construction guy — and he said, ‘Honey, we would love you if you were pink with purple spots.’

That was the end of it. They said, ‘We’re always here to talk to you,’ and my mom said to me at the dinner table — I remember her grabbing my wrists — and she said, ‘You are a completely normal person.’ I had that. So for me…that’s the way I’ve lived my life.” (ET Canada)

Over a year ago I submitted an idea to Stampington Publications for an article then several months ago I was invited to write something which was supposed to be in the upcoming Winter edition of What Women Create. Last week I was sent the final edits and found out that it would be published in the upcoming Spring edition next month (May) which will be available across North America (Chapters, Indigo, Micheals, etc.) and online. I am so thrilled! Last week I was asked to submit a couple of more photos and have now found out that one of the photographs that was taken of me putting on my painting apron with the backdrop of the current 'Extraordinary Women' paintings is being considered for the cover...fingers crossed! Every single time I have written for these magazines it has been an absolute privilege. The women involved in each publication are incredibly kind and supportive. I am honoured. NOTE: Photos above were taken by Libertee Muzyka for Hero Images

I always prefer to work on several portraits at once as moving between them allows for drying time in order to keep the colours vibrant. At the same time, this process allows for a bit of 'breathing' room so that I can contemplate my next steps and make adjustments as I go along. I find that there are definite ebbs and flows in the process...at times I feel I have a likeness and then, a single brush stroke can alter that, so giving myself space to work on another portrait helps me to focus on the shapes and tones rather than the face. I find that helps me to re-evaluate the work as it progresses and keeps me from feeling as though the work is too precious and intimidating myself so badly that I'm afraid to keep moving forward. I find painting to be a real play between attention to detail and creative freedom. Plus, working in this way makes me feel as though I'm actually accomplishing something and happy to be surrounded by the faces of women I admire.

"Rose Marie “Tantoo” Cardinal, CM, actor (born 20 Jul 1950 in Fort McMurray, AB). Tantoo Cardinal has performed more than 100 film, television and theatre roles in Canada and the United States. She broke barriers for onscreen representation of Indigenous peoples and has challenged negative stereotypes of Indigenous communities throughout her career...

Tantoo Cardinal was born the youngest of four children to Julia Cardinal, a woman of Cree and Métis descent, and a Caucasian father who left when Cardinal was six weeks old. Her grandmother became the children’s caregiver when Cardinal was six months old. Cardinal’s mother lived in poverty until she died at a young age. Cardinal experienced further family tragedies when her sister was taken during the Sixties Scoop and her brother was murdered at the age of 24.

Cardinal was raised in the hamlet of Anzac, Alberta. The lack of electricity inspired her to use her imagination while playing in the bush. Her grandmother nicknamed her “Tantoo” after the insect repellent they used while picking blueberries together. She taught Cardinal the Cree language, the traditional ways of their culture and the difficulties she would face growing up Métis in Canada. Cardinal has said that it was walking behind her grandmother where she first learned to act.

Tantoo Cardinal gave her first performance in Grade 7 with the title role in Anzac’s Christmas concert play The Wise Old Man. She left Anzac at age 15 and attended Bonnie Doon High School in Edmonton on a bursary. Upon moving to Edmonton, Cardinal frequently encountered racist taunts and discovered the negative stereotypes of Indigenous people that contrasted sharply with the people and communities she knew. This experience inspired her to pursue acting and create positive representations of Indigenous communities. She joined a Native Youth Group to help create support networks for Indigenous families.

​Cardinal’s legacy is a combination of acting and advocacy. Her career broke down barriers for Indigenous actors, and she has used the power of positive representation to challenge negative images and stereotypes. Cardinal has used her craft to honour the history of Indigenous people in Canada. “I always felt that as an actor we have to have the courage to go into the territory of hard experiences and tell the truth of what’s happened to us as human beings,” Cardinal said in 2010. “That’s where you find understanding. You don’t come through generations and generations of genocide and holocaust to be wimps, to be portrayed as monotoned and one-sided characters.” Cardinal is also an outspoken environmentalist. She drew upon her experience seeing the changes to Fort McMurray to advocate against the Alberta oil sands and the contamination of water for resource extraction. In 2011, she was arrested with fellow actor and activist Margot Kidder while protesting the Keystone XL pipeline outside the White House."
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~ The Canadian Encyclopedia

I grew up in northern Manitoba near the Churchill River. We spent many hours and days travelling up river to fish and set up camp for weeks in the summer. As a young girl, it was on one of these trips that I was first introduced to petroglyphs and pictographs that were found high up on rocky cliffs. Since then I have learned much more about these symbols, and now know that there are about 32 symbols that have been found around the world - I love the fact that they are universal as it feels like they connect us all. Some of them are recognizable and certain nations have been able to translate them, while others are guessed at...lines often suggest members of the clan or tribe, including those members who have recently passed, while circles often included markings to identify a group.