Illuminating the Alberta Order of Excellence.
Description
Contains Photos
$100.00
ISBN 978-0-88864-485-5
DDC 929.8'17123
Publisher
Year
Contributor
Frits Pannekoek is an associate professor of heritage studies, director
of information resources at the University of Calgary, and the author of
A Snug Little Flock: The Social Origins of the Riel Resistance of
1869–70.
Review
This is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the University of Alberta, and as part of its celebration the school has produced this wonderfully illustrated compendium of all of the members of the Alberta Order of Excellence. The one-page biographies, one for each inductee, faced by the handcrafted commemorative scroll by Cora Healy-Tobin, are generally summaries of the citations.
I suspect that the book will likely be of greatest interest to those who have been nominated and their families, however it does give some sense to what Alberta’s elite has valued since the creation of the order in 1981. There are the usual politicians, but few Aboriginal leaders, artists, musicians, or writers of fiction. It was great to see John Snow, the great print maker, Tommy Banks, the musician-politician, and Dave Leonard, the provincial historian, included. However, these exceptions aside, what Alberta does appear to value is philanthropy, academics, medical research, and entrepreneurship. And I suppose to that end the volume may be considered by some to be an accurate reflection of Alberta’s reality. Alberta has had the good fortune to have an aggressive group of entrepreneurs who have, in the end, given back considerably to the province, including, for example Ron Mannix, Francis Winspear, Ted Reynolds, and Harry Hole.
The book is as much about the art of Cora Healy-Tobin, Alberta’s calligrapher, who has designed and illuminated the scrolls for the Alberta Order of Excellence since 1981. The essay by Allison Sivak on Cora’s work is appropriately laudatory. If the various biographies seem after a while repetitive, the individual scrolls that have been so carefully designed to reflect the personality of the recipient emerge as real pieces of art in their own right.