Margaret Lindsay Holton Biography

Margaret Lindsay Holton, (born 1955) is a Canadian-born artist, author and filmmaker from Burlington, Ontario, Canada.

Lindsay was born in Hamilton, Ontario, where she attended primary school at Hillfield Strathallan College; she went to high school at M. M. Robinson High School in Burlington, Ontario, with a final high-school year at the Canadian Junior College in Lausanne Switzerland, in 1973-1974. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 1978 with an Honors BA that included an Independent Study Year at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Lindsay was awarded The President's Scholarship in the post-graduate Creative Writing Program at Humber College. While there, she understudied with 2x Giller Prize Winner, M. G. Vassanji.

She registered her artist business entity, MLH Productions, in 1978. And registered her artist's press, 'Acorn Press Canada', in Ontario, in 1997.

1980 - Designer of 'Lindsay'(TM) typeface, hand-drawn pencil templates supplied to Letraset England in a license for the dry transfer 'letter' market. One of the first typeface designs to be digitized using Peter Karow's innovative IKARUS system. The 'Lindsay' typeface was used in collaboration by both Letraset & URW of Hamburg, Germany as a 'demo font' to demonstrate IKARUS's capabilities in the early 1980s.(1) 'Lindsay' was also used as the defining font for the popular board game, Carcassone. Copyright to this typeface design resides with the artist, Margaret Lindsay Holton.

1984-86 Co-producer/director of experimental documentary with Jane Walker Manchee - 'In the Eye of the Hunter' 54 min, 16mm. Colour. Broadcast Rogers Cable 10, Toronto.

In 2015, film & photographic works were shown in The Worlds's Shortest Film Fest, as part of the Niagara Film Festival, and at the Oakville Film Festival. A 14-minute documentary, 'Harold Dickert: Burlington Luthier', was shown at the Hamilton Music & Film Festival in September 2015. And a 4-minute documentary, 'David Lambert: Fastest Knot-Tyer in Canada' shown at the 10th Annual Hamilton Film Festival in November.(8) Releasing first narrative short, The Frozen Goose, at Art Gallery of Burlington, September 11, 2016.(9)

1986-2000 Award-winning designer of Canadian Fine Furniture, works in national public & international private collections, including the Royal Ontario Museum, (curio box & display cabinets), the Canadian Film Centre, (library reception), Stanley Ho (bedroom & diningroom suite), David C.W. MacDonald ('Temagami' pedestals, 'Wolf Settee Courting Bench' & 'Thee Mirror' - the 1989 Canadian National Exhibition Winner with Karl Luber, Senior Class, Marquetry & Design), Rosamond Ivey (bedroom suite), Elizabeth Hanson (children beds). All three beds were first published in 'Furniture: Architects & Designers Originals' by Carol Soucek King, MFA, PhD in 1994.(3) Architect Frank Gehry and Margaret Lindsay Holton were the only Canadians included in this internationally distributed repeatedly re-printed publication.

The 'Four Canadian Fireside Chairs' - the subject of her second novel,'The Gilded Beaver by Anonymous', (and subsequent winner of the Hamilton Arts Council Best Fiction Award of 1999) - now reside in a private collection in Toronto. Apprenticed with her father, cabinetmaker, Luther Janna Holton (1922-2002), sole-proprietor of Hamilton Fine Furniture of Hamilton Ontario Canada, before going into business on her own, under 'MLH Productions'.

Author of ten book works, one musical CD and writer/director of Canadian film short, The Frozen Goose:
1. Economic Sex under pen name 'Ali Janna Whyte', published with Coach House Press, 1984 ISBN 0-88910-279-1
2. Spirit of Toronto:1834-1984, published by Image Publishing, Hamilton, 1985 ISBN 978-0-9691362-0-0
3. The Gilded Beaver by Anonymous, published by Acorn Press Canada, Ontario, 1999 ISBN 978-0-9691362-2-4
4. On Top of Mount Nemo, published by Acorn Press Canada, Ontario, 2002 ISBN 978-0-9691362-3-1
5. Bush Chord, published by Acorn Press Canada, Ontario, 2006 ISBN 978-0-9691362-4-8
- - (2012 E-Edition, available via Amazon.ca - ISBN 978-0-9691362-8-6
6. Cloud Nine, published by Acorn Press Canada, Ontario, 2010 ISBN 978-0-9691362-5-5
7. Memory's Shadow, published by Acorn Press Canada, 2010 ISBN 978-0-9691362-6-2
8. Canadada: A Painter's Nature, published by Acorn Press Canada, 2011 ISBN 978-0-9691362-7-9
9. WHITE OUT: Photo Erasures, published by Acorn Press Canada, 2013 ISBN 978-0-9691362-9-3
10. Josephine's Garden, published by Acorn Press Canada, 2013 ISBN 978-0-9921272-0-6
11. Summer Haze, Musical CD, published by Acorn Press Canada, 2014 ISBN 978-0-9921272-1-3
12. The Frozen Goose, DVD, distributed by MLH Productions/Acorn Press Canada, written & directed by MLH - 2016 ISBN 978-0-9921272-3-7 With Canadian Premiere at the Art Gallery of Burlington, Sept 11th, 2016.

Visuals of early 'mlh' Canadian fine furniture, as well as samples of her 'naive-surreal-folk-abstract' oil paintings, with commentary about her philosophy about the making of Canadian material culture - including illustrations of her CD, DVD and book cover jackets, can be reviewed on her artist's blog - '

Over the past decade, Lindsay, now a mid-career Canadian artist, has achieved additional recognition for her pinhole photography, photo-collage photography and documentary shorts. The Homer Watson Public Art Gallery of Kitchener, Waterloo, Ontario and Art Gallery of Burlington, Ontario, have both exhibited her works. 'Memory's Shadow: Pinhole & Photo-Collage Photography', the exhibition & the companion hard-cover book with a foreword by Canadian documentary filmmaker Peter Wintonick O.C, were reviewed by Jeff Mahoney, Art Critic, Hamilton Spectator, in August 2010. (2) The Burlington Art Centre also published an companion monograph to the exhibition with an essay by well-known Canadian author, David Macfarlane. (4) She continues to exhibit regularly throughout The Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario, Canada.