As the semester quickly comes to an end during the busiest time of the year, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the piles of coffee stained study notes and to do lists. Between exams, holiday shopping and all the other things on your plate, it’s important to carve out some time to enjoy yourself. As Hamilton transforms into a winter wonderland, now is the perfect time to check out all the fun events happening across the city.
The Phoenix Bar and Grill will be hosting the first ever Holiday Market on campus. The patio will be decked out in twinkling lights and local vendors. Complete your holiday shopping while sipping on hot drinks and snacking on festive treats, or get creative at the crafts stations to make your own festive arts. No holiday market is complete without a photo with McMaster’s very own Santa. Entry to the market is free but make sure to bring cash for shopping at the vendors!
Looking for a lovely homemade gift that you don’t have to make yourself? Check out the Craftadian Christmas Market on Dec. 1 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at McMaster Innovation Park. Over 80 local makers will be there selling unique and beautiful gift ideas, from a toy for your baby cousin to a scarf for your Secret Santa pick.
Head down to Westdale on Dec. 7 from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. for some wintry fun. There will be live music and entertainment, a vendor market at the Westdale Public Library, horse and carriage rides and late night shopping.
Record store Into the Abyss is putting on two of its intimate in-shop shows during December. Head down to the store on Dec. 1 at 7 p.m. to see Toronto singer-songwriter Adrian Underhill, Montreal pop duo, Best Fern and Hamilton singer-songwriter, Gareth Inkster. On Dec. 13 at 7 p.m., the set list includes Toronto songwriter and poet Steven Lambke and duo Construction and Destruction will perform in celebration of their joint EP. Hamilton’s own Wish Coin will also be performing.
Looking for some feminist fun that supports a good cause? On Dec. 3 at 7 p.m., take a night off studying and attend Broad Conversations’ Feminist Trivia Night hosted at Toast Wine Bar. Admission is PWYC with 100 per cent of the proceeds being donated to Sexual Assault Centre (Hamilton Area). Open to everyone, this is a great chance to unwind with your friends and win some cool team prizes!
The Christmas Ferris wheel in Gore Park will be up through the entirety of exam season, from Dec. 7 to Dec. 23. Taking a free ride on the Ferris wheel makes the perfect downtown study break, providing both a layback outing and a spectacular view of downtown Hamilton. Stop by Redchurch Café and Gallery for a warm drink and stroll through their latest exhibit.
Head down to Gore Park between Dec. 7 and Dec. 9 for the annual Christmas market. On the opening Friday, the market will kick off with the Christmas tree lighting at 5 p.m. and there will also be free live music from the Troy Harmer band. Throughout the rest of the weekend, check out local vendors such as Red Church Café, Toast Wine Bar, Collective Arts, Hamont Doodles and Hamilton Hobos. In addition, there will be a fully licensed mulled wine and hot cider bar, DJs playing throughout the weekend, a mistletoe kissing station and much more. The best part is that entrance to the market is free.
On Dec. 8 at 2 p.m., check out this workshop for a chance to create your own semi-precious stone or crystal bracelet to aide in mindfulness and personal growth. The history of this process, how to care for your bracelet and the stone options will be explained in a booklet given at the workshop. In addition to making the bracelets, the workshop will begin with a guided mediation. The workshop cost $15 for the bracelet and a hand sewn bag to store it in. If you want to make more than one bracelet, additional bracelets cost $8. If you’re thinking this would make a perfect gift for someone, you can get your bracelet gift wrapped for $4.
On Dec. 15 from 9 p.m to 2:30 a.m. Polyester will be hosting a drag show and dance party at This Ain’t Hollywood as part of their monthly events in Hamilton. The show will feature drag performances by Beautiful Baby Bel Bel. A mix of pop, house, remixes and beloved Christmas jams will be included in DJ sets by Rosé and Mia. Polyester hosts positive and safe party environments that are open to everyone. Cover is $10.
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A pomegranate, some books, plants and a kiln. On their own, these images may not speak to the inspiring legacy of women’s stories. However, in the hands of the youth leaders from the YWCA Hamilton and Workers’ Arts and Heritage Centre Youth Councils, items such as these have been transformed into powerful symbols within beautiful collages.
This artwork currently hangs at WAHC’s community gallery in an exhibition entitled Portraits of Gratitude: Women+’s History; Women+’s Future. All the pieces came out of a two-hour collage workshop led by Hamilton artist Stylo Starr for the youth council members, all of whom are between 16 and 29 years old.
[spacer height="20px"]The individuals behind these pieces are not necessarily artists by trade, but were passionate about telling stories of woman-identified individuals’ power and leadership. The idea came out of a conversation held during the YWCA Youth Council’s summer book club wherein they were reading Elizabeth Renzetti’s Shrewed.
“[T]here's a chapter in the book that discusses the relationship between Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft and we were remarking on how interesting it was that both of these women eventually got such recognition for their work and about how women's stories and history are often absorbed by their husbands,” explained Daniela Giulietti, the coordinator for the YWCA Youth Advisory Council.
Giulietti approached WAHC with the idea of creating an exhibition to combat this erasure and bring women’s stories to the forefront. This brought the WAHC Youth Council on board and the group decided to hold the exhibit at the WAHC, a massive two storey historic house on 51 Stuart Street.
October is Women’s History Month in Canada and this year’s theme has been designated with the #MakeAnImpact hashtag. The government has set up Women of Impact in Canada, an online gallery celebrating the achievements of remarkable women.
In the same vein, the collage workshop that produced the exhibition’s pieces began with the participants reflecting on women who inspire them. Some of these women were activists, authors and pop culture figures. Notable figures such as Toni Morrison and Beyoncé were highlighted in the pieces.
[spacer height="20px"]However, many were women that would not be found in national collections: mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts and friends. Hitoko Okada, a textile artist and Interim Programs Coordinator for the WAHC Youth Council, shared how her grandmother inspires her at this time in her life.
“[W]hen I'm weaving and sewing, I really feel like she is coming through and…even teaching my small movements of the hand…I just feel like that she's really with me and guiding me and encouraging me to connect to my ancestry through craft,” explained Okada.
“I feel like that's a knowledge that was transmitted to me through this…indirect way but it's a hand movement and a practice that…most of the women in our family have shared.”
The influence of family comes through in many of the collages. Several invoke domestic imagery and contain allusions to women relatives. One piece has clippings of a farm that reminded the artist of her grandmother’s farm where she grew up. Another seems to spell out Mom.
It is special that this exhibition provides a place for the stories of women that figure most prominently in our personal histories. In this time where the experiences of women are continuously being cast aside, it is empowering to have a space wherein the narratives of women are valued.
“[T]he timing ended up being really important because this was…when a lot of anti-survivor narratives were present in the media around the Brent Kavanaugh confirmation…[I]t felt for me like the space created was almost a really nice relief. You can see that in some of the pieces where there's survivors and I believe survivors, we believe survivors,” said Jordyn Perreault-Laird, a member of the YWCA Youth Council and Outreach and Partnerships Coordinator at WAHC.
The exhibition will culminate with a closing reception on Oct. 26, during which there will be a screening of the film, Bread and Roses. The film is inspired by the Justice for Janitors movement and tells the story of the janitorial strike in Los Angeles by undocumented immigrants and led by women.
The film sheds light on history that is often obscured by louder male narratives. It also demonstrates the power of young women and marginalized people to change their world. Creating space for the lesser known stories of women was one of the main goals of the exhibition as a whole. Reflecting on the success of the exhibit, Okada summed up the gravity of this impact.
“It really makes me think about the power of an image and the image of a woman in leadership. It speaks volumes. It's really so powerful…[it] gives me chills.”
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The standard definition of the term “broad” means to cover a wide scope of area or subjects. The informal definition? A woman.
Broad Conversations, an idea surrounding communal discussion, held its first gathering on March 21 at 541 Eatery and Exchange, gathering over 50 like-minded woman-identified, non-binary and gender fluid folk to discuss issues that matter.
The idea behind Broad Conversations emerged out of a desire for collective learning and informed conversation. Through gatherings and newsletters, Broad Conversations ultimately aims to promote community and host informal, discussion-based workshops. The first gathering, which coordinator Erin O’Neil stressed as an experiment, served as a space for individuals to discuss their feelings, questions, and ideas about the world in a communal setting.
“I realized that part of what I found so sad about what was happening in the [United] States and what I felt so much about the change in politics was that there’s a lot of apathy and a lot of hatred in the world. It wasn’t so much about one person getting into office, but it was the fact that people allowed that to happen,” said O’Neil.
“I realized that the antidote to that is getting people together… Broad Conversations is an opportunity for feminist broads to get together and converse about the world in a safe place,” she said.
The first gathering was themed around “Conversation”, and began with a panel of speakers with backgrounds in practice, activism and academia. The panel acted as conversational starters before guided conversations and open mingling.
The speakers, including Gachi Issa of McMaster Womanists, Broad Conversations coordinator Erin O’Neil and Elizabeth Maracle an Indigenous feminist, social worker and counsellor at the Sexual Assault Centre (Hamilton Area), discussed themes of conversation from their own experiences and the importance of conversation as a whole before guests were invited to discuss these topics amongst themselves.
#BroadConvos 1 was a thrill. Thank you to all the thoughtful, kind, inquisitive women who came. Newsletter signup: https://t.co/ZTAQmO6tBR pic.twitter.com/8a9UYWXgsp
— Broad Conversations (@broadconvos) March 22, 2017
“We need one another,” said Maracle. “Connection, respect and talking with one another can restore circles of support and trust. Oppression and violence disconnects and isolates people. Anything we can do to change that has great value. Conversations can give spaces to rage, grieve, question and challenge oppression. Conversations have the power to repair, heal, and restore social connection.”
Each gathering hosted by Broad Conversations is free. Instead of charging admission, attendees are asked to donate to a Broad Conversations giving group in order for a collective financial impact to be directed at a local feminist cause.
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“These events give a chance for feminists, change makers, seed planters to be with one another. They provide opportunities to connect, heal, strengthen, plan and mobilize. Living in colonialism is hard; I lose circles of connection all the time. I know it’s normal to disengage for safety’s sake but need connection and support in my life, especially since one of my life goals is to eradicate oppression and violence. When we acknowledge and listen to one another’s voices about our lives, we can expand our knowledge and momentum to impact social change. When we gather and discuss we resist oppression, we heal and strengthen our movements,” said Maracle.
O’Neil hopes to host gathering three to four times per year and has been approached with ideas of collaboration events from other like-minded groups, which she says could happen whenever there is an opportunity.
As more value is placed on programming skills in the workplace, young professionals are taking notice of the gap between those who can and can't code—and the social factors preventing the gap from closing.
A Hamilton chapter of the Ladies Learning Code non-profit organization has partnered with The Staircase Cafe on Dundurn St. North to host workshops for women of all backgrounds and ages looking to upgrade their coding skills.
The Hamilton chapter is led by Erin O’Neil, who graduated in 2008 and works in the University’s Alumni Office. O’Neil was inspired to organize workshops in Hamilton after attending six in Toronto and envisioning that there would be demand for the sessions in her own city. Crucial to the program’s success, O’Neil said, is that it guarantees a four-to-one learner to mentor ratio.
“If you have no idea what’s going on there’s an instructor at the front of the room but there’s also an expert for every four people. So you can put up your hand and say, ‘I really don’t get this’,” she said.
Each workshop hones in on a particular area of programming, from HTML and CSS to WordPress, costs $50 and includes a catered lunch. The goal is to provide instruction to women in a variety of fields and backgrounds on beginner-level programming with a relatively low barrier to entry.
“We got a lot of teachers at the first two workshops, which I thought was interesting. And we get a lot of people who work in proximity to people who do a lot of the high-skill programming kind of work. So people who know this kind of work exists and have seen someone else do it. They see this workshop and say, let’s give it a try,” O’Neil said.
O’Neil has also been overwhelmed by the number of people who want to fill the mentor role—a testament to the close-knit community of self-employed, young creatives in Hamilton.
“A lot of the mentors are between 20 and 30 and they work for mostly small-sized companies in Hamilton. Often the developers and programmers are self-employed and do contract work."
“With coding, you’re working on the code in the back-end of the website and when you refresh the browser, you can see the change immediately. It’s fun to teach people because they get the reward that they’re learning it properly, instantly.”
The next LLC Hamilton session will be Introduction to Web Design and will take place at The Staircase Cafe on April 12.
