The brush and the pen are the weapons to fight aging

Last night (May 4th) I attended the lecture “Writing Wild: My Wilderness Palette” by Professor David Lank. This was the premier in a series of six inspiring events organized by the Personal and Cultural Enrichment (PACE); a new program from the McGill Centre for Continuing Education Enrichment. These interesting lectures will showcase art, writing, religion, and film.

I was lucky to have been part of a touching and thought-provoking lecture. Professor Lank is a great storyteller. He shared anecdotes from his childhood when he discovered his gift of drawing and painting to his adulthood career in writing. He talked about how the shape of letters fascinated him as a child. This led him to understand that the marriage of pictures and words have more significance. There has to be some triangulation in order to express the bigger components. Furthermore, he said that in the layout of a picture book you integrate the pictures into the text, you don’t segregate them. To prove this, he showed us a picture from his book Surely the Gods Live Here from his trip to the Himalayas. He was right! The images make more sense on the page according to their position.

I was deeply moved when he told us the story about seaman Poole, an illiterate sailor he met in one of his many trips, and reminded us that the power of words on a page can change a man’s life. I won’t write this story down because of its length. However, if you want to know more about David Lank, Director Emeritus of McGill’s Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies, former Chair of the McCord Museum, guest conductor of the McGill Chamber Orchestra, you’ll have to wait until next week. He gave me the opportunity to interview him. Professor Lank is as colourful and fascinating as his drawings. I'll leave you with a powerful quote of his, "When did you become too busy to find stones that needed kicking, or dogs that needed fellowship? When did you become less attuned to the cosmic symphony of wind, ripples and rain?...these moments might lead you to make discoveries about yourself of Copernican importance."