What 'Public Work' Means When We Profile a Canadian Artist

The phrase we keep using

When readers write to us about a profile, one question comes up more than any other: where did you get this? Our answer is always the same two words, public work. It is the working rule behind every piece in the Canadian Personalities department, and I would like to explain it plainly, because it shapes what you will and will not find in our pages.

Public work means something a person has chosen to put in front of an audience. A recorded album, a published novel, a film performance, a gallery show, a stage appearance, a craft sold at a market. These are things offered to strangers, and strangers are entitled to talk about them, praise them and ask what lies behind them.

It is a narrower idea than fame. A potter who sells at a Saturday market has public work. So does a retired session guitarist whose playing is on records many of us own.

What counts as public work

The list is longer than people expect. Published books and articles count, as do released recordings, credited screen and stage roles, exhibited pieces, and talks given in open venues. Interviews the person agreed to give, in print or on air, count too, since they chose to speak into a microphone knowing it would be heard.

We also include the traceable record around that work: a programme note, a catalogue essay, a festival listing, the liner notes on a record. These give us dates, titles and credits we can check against one another, which matters more than a vivid anecdote.

When two sources disagree about a date or a title, we say so or leave the detail out. A smaller, correct profile is better than a rich one with a shaky foundation.

• Books, records, films and credited performances
• Exhibited or sold craft and visual work
• Public talks, readings and festival appearances
• Interviews the person knowingly gave
• Printed credits, programme notes and catalogues

What it leaves out

Public work does not include a person's family, health, home address, money, relationships or old disagreements. A musician may mention a marriage in a song, but that does not turn their household into material for us. The distinction is simple to state and sometimes hard to hold, because curiosity pulls the other way.

It also leaves out rumour, however widely repeated. If a claim about someone cannot be tied to something they did in public or something they said on the record, it stays out of the piece, no matter how entertaining it would be.

We do not write about a person's private troubles even when they are widely known. Readers come to us for a good, warm read about someone's craft, and we would rather lose a dramatic paragraph than earn a reader's distrust.

Why we hold to it

There are practical reasons and plainer ones. Practically, a profile built from public work can be checked. A reader can find the album, borrow the book, or look up the screening and judge whether we described it fairly. That is a kind of honesty a gossip column cannot offer.

The plainer reason is respect. The people we write about are mostly working artists with modest audiences, not celebrities who expect scrutiny. They have shared their work with us all. It seems a fair bargain to meet that generosity by writing about the work, and writing about it carefully.

This is an independent magazine, not an official page for any performer, and we have no connection to anyone we profile. We say what we saw, heard or read, and where it came from.

How it works at the desk

In practice, a profile begins with a list. Our writers gather the person's public output in order, then read, listen or watch before writing a word. Daniel Tremblay, our culture editor, likes to add a plain timeline of credits so that the story never drifts from what can be shown.

Next comes a second reader. Another editor checks each title, spelling and date against the sources listed in the draft, and marks anything that rests on a single mention. A single mention is not enough for a firm statement.

Last, we read the piece once more for tone. A profile should sound like someone who admires the work and is curious about it, not someone who has read a file. If a sentence reaches for something the sources do not give us, it comes out.

• Gather the public output in order
• Read, listen or watch before drafting
• Second editor checks titles, dates and spellings
• Single-source details are softened or dropped

What you can ask of us

If you think a profile has a date wrong, a title misspelled or a credit missing, write to the editors through the contact page. We would like to hear it, and we correct the piece when the evidence supports the change. Corrections are part of the rule, not an embarrassment to it.

If you are an artist and would like us to know about a public project, you are welcome to tell us about it. We cannot promise coverage, and we do not trade coverage for anything, but a published book or a listed performance is exactly the kind of thing our writers look for.

And if you simply want to understand why a favourite performer's profile skips the juicy part, now you know. It was never in the public work.

Public work is a modest phrase for a firm habit: we write about what people have chosen to show, and we show our sources the same courtesy. The result is slower than gossip and a good deal kinder. If a profile in these pages makes you want to read the book, hear the record or visit the gallery, it has done what we hoped.