Alison Garwood Jones

Her Last Photo

Originally published in September 2022 in Blog

A personal remembrance inspired by Queen Elizabeth’s last photo.

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Say no to racism

Originally published in July 2018 in Blog

I grew up in a multi-racial family. From left to right: Catherine, Alison, Richard, Trevor, Peter, and our 1972 orange Volvo wagon. My brothers and I were born at time when Martin Luther King Jr. was doing his most important work, standing up to segregationists in Georgia and organizing non-violent protests in Alabama. Meanwhile, a […]

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Missing them

Originally published in March 2018 in Blog, Illustration, Toronto Illustrators

  Catherine and Trevor Garwood-Jones Catherine, Trevor, Peter and Richard.

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Andy Warhol’s Wig

Originally published in December 2017 in Blog

What started out as a patch for male pattern baldness turned into a fashion accessory before culminating in a full-on exploration of drag. My dad and I visited the Warhol Museum in Pittsburg in the fall of 2008. We took in the displays in our Obama T-shirts. Good times.

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Wrecking ball

Originally published in May 2017 in Blog

I let my dad down. Trevor was an architect, and earlier this week one of his modernist designs, the Fawcett House (1966), was torn down to make room for something new and improved. Thomas Allen wrote an eloquent and heartfelt lament about it in The Inlet, saying, “the tranquil courtyard, barrel-vaulted roof with celestial windows, […]

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We work for society

Originally published in October 2016 in Blog

“We work for society.” This is how my dad, Trevor Garwood-Jones (1928-2011), described an architect’s responsibilities to the communities they build in. Buildings house our existing emotions, but also create new ones — some drab, some inspired depending on the quality of the design. Beauty was key, in Trevor’s mind, to building empathy and a sense […]

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Rabbit remembered

Originally published in March 2014 in Blog

The bodies are buried. The house is sold. And the dust has settled. But not for you. You keep turning the soil.   You’re digging for worms, not coins, And sinking further into the soil yourself. But you’re a writer, you said, Can’t you see this is material?   At your insistence, I took ownership of […]

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Home

Originally published in December 2013 in Blog

After you lose your parents, You start to wonder if your family ever existed. That feeling of being part of a team alters, Then disintegrates over time. New alliances form. Continents and decades are crossed in a valiant search for that next Home. Siblings become more like old classmates, People you used to know because […]

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What’s your name?

Originally published in December 2013 in Blog

Having an unusual name is like hitting the jackpot from a search engine standpoint. There are plenty of Alison Joneses in the world, and even more when you throw in the alternate spellings of Allison/Allyson/Alyson/Alisson. But Google suggests that I am the only Alison Garwood-Jones. I went to high school with an Alison Jones, a […]

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Remains of the day

Originally published in May 2013 in Blog

I got a lot of moving feedback the first time I wrote about my mother, Catherine, in The Long Goodbye, published three years ago on this blog. After she died last Christmas, I expanded on the story of our relationship and turned it into a magazine piece for Glow Magazine. It’s in the May issue, on newsstands […]

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