Malcolm Rains's Samothrace (1991)

Malcolm Rains and I were born in the same year,but I do not think that is the reason why I have always felt close to this work, a work that for some years was hanging in the second-floor north entrance of the Robarts Library, the major research facility at the University of Toronto. I suspect the real reason for my sense of affinity with this work lies in the fact that the Robarts Library has always been the place where I write, and this oil painting of a piece of crumpled white paper has poignantly evoked my creative output on a bad day. I am willing to concede, however, that my pleasure in it could be a less masochistic one, for the paper's colour and shape also remind me of my family's lively little West Highland terrier.