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Creation
New life and opportunities arise from the wreckage of a North American city—urban renewal at what cost?
A new mother takes us on a tour of Hamilton, a Rust Belt city born of the Industrial Revolution and dying a slow death due to globalization. This mother represents the city’s next wave of inhabitants—the artists and young parents who swarm a run-down area for its affordability, inevitably reshaping the neighborhoods they take over. Creation looks at gentrification from the inside out—an artist mother making a home and neighborhood for her family, struggling to find her place amid the existing and emerging communities.
While pushing her child’s stroller around Hamilton, Sylvia Nickerson shows us the warehouse filled with open barrels of toxic sludge, the parking lot where the city’s homeless population sleeps, and the refurbished Victorian house (complete with elegant chandeliers) that is now a state-of-the-art yoga studio. Creation presents the city as a living thing—a place where many small lives intersect and where death, motherhood, pollution, poverty, and violence are all interconnected.
Drawn in evocative watercolor, Creation is unafraid to leave questions open-ended as Nickerson wanders the city and ponders just where the personal and political intersect, and where they ought to intersect.
A new mother takes us on a tour of Hamilton, a Rust Belt city born of the Industrial Revolution and dying a slow death due to globalization. This mother represents the city’s next wave of inhabitants—the artists and young parents who swarm a run-down area for its affordability, inevitably reshaping the neighborhoods they take over. Creation looks at gentrification from the inside out—an artist mother making a home and neighborhood for her family, struggling to find her place amid the existing and emerging communities.
While pushing her child’s stroller around Hamilton, Sylvia Nickerson shows us the warehouse filled with open barrels of toxic sludge, the parking lot where the city’s homeless population sleeps, and the refurbished Victorian house (complete with elegant chandeliers) that is now a state-of-the-art yoga studio. Creation presents the city as a living thing—a place where many small lives intersect and where death, motherhood, pollution, poverty, and violence are all interconnected.
Drawn in evocative watercolor, Creation is unafraid to leave questions open-ended as Nickerson wanders the city and ponders just where the personal and political intersect, and where they ought to intersect.
192 pages, Paperback
First published September 17, 2019
6 people are currently reading
223 people want to read
About the author
Sylvia Nickerson
2 books8 followersSylvia Nickerson is a comics artist, writer, and illustrator who lives in Hamilton, Canada. Her focus is storytelling in community arts and writing comics examining parenthood, gender identity, social class and religion. Her illustrations have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post and her comics have been nominated for a Doug Wright Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
February 6, 2020
I have mixed feelings about this one. I just go to the library and kinda randomly take out a stack of graphic novels and this one looks interestingly alt/art comix, and it is blurbed by cartoonists I really respect, Seth, Eleanor Davis and Joe Ollmann. It is five starred here with a review by cartoonist Robert Kirby. It's a memoir about gentrification as it occurs in post-industrial Hamilton, Ontario, in decline and hurting. Nickerson moves into a neighborhood art studio where buyers are gut-rehabbing buildings where squatters and low-renters had been living.
The opening page has a sign: GO BACK TO TORONTO: developers, speculators, landlords, yuppies, fuck you. My first impression was this was her opening salvo, but it's more complicated than that. She's a lefty artists, but she's also one of the gentrifiers. She wants to do art; she's sympathetic with the disruption and class anguish regarding gentrification in which she is now implicated. She also has a new baby, not easy for her, and she's aware that both art and motherhood have been criticized in these times by some as "selfish," but she wants to make a case for art and motherhood as positive moments in her own (personal, urban) renewal, without actually resolving what she thinks about gentrification. I mean, she's not moving. And I'm not saying I would, either, or that I am also not implicated in these issues myself.
The artwork is interestingly open, free form, featuring faceless blobby creatures that include her and her baby. Includes many images of decaying and gentrifying urban architecture and lots of people hovering on the streets. She includes "side stories" along the way: A homeless woman dies in the area, who as she says was once somebody's baby. Much is unresolved, as she has an eye open to the drugs and poverty surrounding her as she, a yuppie artist single parent moves forward in hope. Images of tulips amidst the grime are meant to symbolize renewal. I guess if I had to sum it up I''d say it's about exploring issues impacting this and most tough urban environments, more a reflection that acknowledges the complications rather than preaching about these issues.
The opening page has a sign: GO BACK TO TORONTO: developers, speculators, landlords, yuppies, fuck you. My first impression was this was her opening salvo, but it's more complicated than that. She's a lefty artists, but she's also one of the gentrifiers. She wants to do art; she's sympathetic with the disruption and class anguish regarding gentrification in which she is now implicated. She also has a new baby, not easy for her, and she's aware that both art and motherhood have been criticized in these times by some as "selfish," but she wants to make a case for art and motherhood as positive moments in her own (personal, urban) renewal, without actually resolving what she thinks about gentrification. I mean, she's not moving. And I'm not saying I would, either, or that I am also not implicated in these issues myself.
The artwork is interestingly open, free form, featuring faceless blobby creatures that include her and her baby. Includes many images of decaying and gentrifying urban architecture and lots of people hovering on the streets. She includes "side stories" along the way: A homeless woman dies in the area, who as she says was once somebody's baby. Much is unresolved, as she has an eye open to the drugs and poverty surrounding her as she, a yuppie artist single parent moves forward in hope. Images of tulips amidst the grime are meant to symbolize renewal. I guess if I had to sum it up I''d say it's about exploring issues impacting this and most tough urban environments, more a reflection that acknowledges the complications rather than preaching about these issues.
January 30, 2020
Artsy-fartsy dithering about gentrification in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The artist's own studio was part of the renovation of an impoverished neighborhood. Also, she was pregnant and gave birth to a kid, a woman who begged money from her once was murdered, and most of the characters look like penises with arms and legs.
Ambivalence. Concern. Motherhood. Art. Dull.
Ambivalence. Concern. Motherhood. Art. Dull.
September 27, 2019
I used to feel like life would go on, forever. The world was just one big place for me to explore. I would wait for time to pass. I wanted certain moments to end.
I used to feel like life would go on, forever. Now I know it won't.
Who knew amorphous ink wash blobs could make me feel so much? The lack of features and colors in the illustrations somehow fit well with the specifics of the author's morose reflections on early motherhood, run-down industrial cities, gentrification, and generational cancer. The result is a partial memoir that feels slow and sad, like gazing out a foggy window on a rainy day. It's a glimpse into something bigger from a particularly dreary and thoughtful vantage point.
That vantage point, for the author, is the year or two after her son was born. She's moved back to the rustbelt city where she grew up. As a kid, she and her parents visited sites of industry around the area - all of which turned out to be toxic to the residents. ("Summer vacations at nuclear stations," as she so poetically puts it.) Now both her parents have cancer, and she anticipates developing it young, too, and wonders when her son will get it. She spends time with her parents at chemotherapy, the drip of drugs and bad news all around them. Again, she phrases it beautifully: "I hold my mother's hands / while filling up space / with anything else but this."
The city where she lives has the ironic slogan, "The best place to raise a child," despite the decline in industry and uptick in crime, poverty, drug use, and illness. There's a battle between the gentrifying art class and the people who have lived in the neighborhood forever. Rising rents are cleaning up the buildings, but they're also chasing away the people who live there. The author seems torn between these groups, seeing herself reflected in both. She returns frequently to the (already somewhat classist) concept of chasing one's "dreams."
When I moved here, I was following a dream. I was getting married. I was working as an illustrator. I had a studio that crowds of people visited each month.
I wonder now, was there a moment when that all changed? How could I ignore that this same place was where so many dreams had come to die?
Surrounded by "Heartbreak. Heartbreak that never, ever goes away," the author eventually concludes,
"Dreams are expensive. Dreams are a luxury. Dreams are a lie."
And yet she sees redemptive power in the act of creation.
Making art, creating children, some see as narcissistic, self-important acts. But true love and devotion mean knowing your life, your single precious life, is insignificant. We're born, then, we die.
In the middle, it seems mostly to be about who has power over whom. In loving, we give our power away. It's the greatest thing. It's the scariest thing.
Being an artist and being a parent are both monotonous, painstaking, sometimes boring, sometimes alienating things. And they are both ways people use to plant a flag in time and place - to say I was here, I contributed something, I will not (immediately) be forgotten. These roles make the author feel estranged from others and at war with herself. Yet ultimately, she seems to decide that they are both worthy of dedicating her tiny time on earth to.
The book begins with a frustrated, honest new mom mood: "When my son was three months old my mom asked me if I could imagine what my life would be like if he hadn't been born. I said, yeah, I'd be getting a lot more sleep, among other things I'd rather be doing, like having an art show in New York, or getting a latte, getting laid, or surfing the internet." Yet by the end she's more at peace with these tedious moments, recognizing, as her mom does, their fleeting sweetness.
This is a great moment in life. Respect it for what it is. All things change in time. Be patient if you feel anger, fear, grief, or frustration. All things change.
There's a sense of peace that permeates the close of the book, even if nothing has actually been resolved. I was moved by these reminders, however banal. There were pages while reading that I wanted to be done with, or was tempted to rush through. But like life, these segments won't last forever. They're only seconds. All things change.
I used to feel like life would go on, forever. Now I know it won't.
Who knew amorphous ink wash blobs could make me feel so much? The lack of features and colors in the illustrations somehow fit well with the specifics of the author's morose reflections on early motherhood, run-down industrial cities, gentrification, and generational cancer. The result is a partial memoir that feels slow and sad, like gazing out a foggy window on a rainy day. It's a glimpse into something bigger from a particularly dreary and thoughtful vantage point.
That vantage point, for the author, is the year or two after her son was born. She's moved back to the rustbelt city where she grew up. As a kid, she and her parents visited sites of industry around the area - all of which turned out to be toxic to the residents. ("Summer vacations at nuclear stations," as she so poetically puts it.) Now both her parents have cancer, and she anticipates developing it young, too, and wonders when her son will get it. She spends time with her parents at chemotherapy, the drip of drugs and bad news all around them. Again, she phrases it beautifully: "I hold my mother's hands / while filling up space / with anything else but this."
The city where she lives has the ironic slogan, "The best place to raise a child," despite the decline in industry and uptick in crime, poverty, drug use, and illness. There's a battle between the gentrifying art class and the people who have lived in the neighborhood forever. Rising rents are cleaning up the buildings, but they're also chasing away the people who live there. The author seems torn between these groups, seeing herself reflected in both. She returns frequently to the (already somewhat classist) concept of chasing one's "dreams."
When I moved here, I was following a dream. I was getting married. I was working as an illustrator. I had a studio that crowds of people visited each month.
I wonder now, was there a moment when that all changed? How could I ignore that this same place was where so many dreams had come to die?
Surrounded by "Heartbreak. Heartbreak that never, ever goes away," the author eventually concludes,
"Dreams are expensive. Dreams are a luxury. Dreams are a lie."
And yet she sees redemptive power in the act of creation.
Making art, creating children, some see as narcissistic, self-important acts. But true love and devotion mean knowing your life, your single precious life, is insignificant. We're born, then, we die.
In the middle, it seems mostly to be about who has power over whom. In loving, we give our power away. It's the greatest thing. It's the scariest thing.
Being an artist and being a parent are both monotonous, painstaking, sometimes boring, sometimes alienating things. And they are both ways people use to plant a flag in time and place - to say I was here, I contributed something, I will not (immediately) be forgotten. These roles make the author feel estranged from others and at war with herself. Yet ultimately, she seems to decide that they are both worthy of dedicating her tiny time on earth to.
The book begins with a frustrated, honest new mom mood: "When my son was three months old my mom asked me if I could imagine what my life would be like if he hadn't been born. I said, yeah, I'd be getting a lot more sleep, among other things I'd rather be doing, like having an art show in New York, or getting a latte, getting laid, or surfing the internet." Yet by the end she's more at peace with these tedious moments, recognizing, as her mom does, their fleeting sweetness.
This is a great moment in life. Respect it for what it is. All things change in time. Be patient if you feel anger, fear, grief, or frustration. All things change.
There's a sense of peace that permeates the close of the book, even if nothing has actually been resolved. I was moved by these reminders, however banal. There were pages while reading that I wanted to be done with, or was tempted to rush through. But like life, these segments won't last forever. They're only seconds. All things change.
March 3, 2021
It had some interesting bits and a few nice drawings, but was generally vague and wandering, as well as repetitive in its imagery. In a way, the book itself does seem to reflect the gray, messy, conflicting, interwoven, muddled nature of the topics it is trying to touch on (gentrification, homelessness, corruption, life, death, grief, motherhood, crime), but overall it was a book that left me feeling a bit "blah". I think this author has a lot of potential, but I think something a bit more focused might be a good next step.
August 12, 2020
This was an interesting and compelling discussion on gentrification, pain, loss, hope, renewal, and liminality all combined together. The gentrification of Hamilton seems to be a metaphor for almost the pain/loss of the author. She says a lot in what she doesn't say of her own personal life. While gentrification is the central, most obvious theme in the novel, the wider focus appears to be on personal disappointment. This disappointment seems to be an interwoven spiral of cancer in parents, loss (break up?) of a partner, loss of her studio, and the introduction of her son, Toby.
The freedom and carelessness she once viewed with life is gone. However, with Toby she is given new purpose and new understandings of life. Toby acts as an interesting space to discuss reconfiguring her life's purpose.
Nickerson also paints the city as a space of liminality. Which was the most interesting part of the book for me. Cities have pain, suffering, loneliness, but also beauty, people, and renewal. With loss, comes new constantly.
The book is overall very abstract. This is my interpretation of what I read, but I'm sure anyone can decipher anything ou of it. The illustrations are in grey-scale watercolors and are seamlessly both polluted, sad, and cluttered, as well as refreshing, clean, and homey. It's a really interesting read that made me reflect and think of how I view life, my future, and these liminal spaces we seem to constantly be occupying.
The freedom and carelessness she once viewed with life is gone. However, with Toby she is given new purpose and new understandings of life. Toby acts as an interesting space to discuss reconfiguring her life's purpose.
Nickerson also paints the city as a space of liminality. Which was the most interesting part of the book for me. Cities have pain, suffering, loneliness, but also beauty, people, and renewal. With loss, comes new constantly.
The book is overall very abstract. This is my interpretation of what I read, but I'm sure anyone can decipher anything ou of it. The illustrations are in grey-scale watercolors and are seamlessly both polluted, sad, and cluttered, as well as refreshing, clean, and homey. It's a really interesting read that made me reflect and think of how I view life, my future, and these liminal spaces we seem to constantly be occupying.
March 26, 2023
one of the best graphic novels/nonfictions on architecture & urbanity
February 3, 2020
A strange, disjointed tale about gentrification, motherhood, and the fragility of life.
February 29, 2024
Gorgeous representations of Hamilton. Captures well the author’s overwhelm in the face of new motherhood, as she bears witness to poverty, gentrification, cancer, and drug addiction.
November 26, 2019
This graphic novel tackles the intersection of gentrification, art creation, and procreation. It does so with surreal, cartoon vignettes of the author's life. The style is dreamy and reflective, with a teaspoon of humor and a teaspoon of dread. It effectively pulled me into all the questions that the author was asking through it. But I closed the book feeling unsatisfied and empty. The author brought up all of these complex issues, all these situations that didn't sit well with her, but she didn't follow-up any of it with clear action. It felt like the author was floating from slice to slice of life, and the readers were drifting with her in an impenetrable haze. It makes me tired.
October 29, 2019
My long form review of this beautiful book is now up on tcj.com:
http://www.tcj.com/reviews/creation/
http://www.tcj.com/reviews/creation/
February 12, 2021
This graphic memoir shares of a new mother’s observations and reflections living in a gentrifying city. The illustrations are beautiful and abstract and detailed and evocative. I especially liked those of cityscapes and more simple images.
The author uses abstracted figures to tell stories of herself, her son, her neighbors, her thoughts. It is a mostly sad book depicting solitude, fear, sadness, violence, pain, and loss.
By the end of the book though a new recurring cloud pattern appears, bringing with it a sense of hope and renewal, not for the speaker necessarily but in general. I appreciated the visual shorthand she created and especially her choice to revisit some scenes over and over.
I was interested in this book as it was advertised to be about gentrification. I was initially disappointed to see very little commentary or systems analysis of the issue. I was also expecting more plot, and came to appreciate the book more once i gave up on that expectation.
Ultimately this book is a series of scenes and pieces of information that the speaker imagines or bears witness to. The only judgement or decisive commentary is about herself and the meaning (or lack thereof) in her own life. Other than that it is simply observation, poetic, floating.
I am relatively new to graphic nonfiction and am glad to have read this book, which to me greatly expands my idea of what you can do with a graphically told story.
The author uses abstracted figures to tell stories of herself, her son, her neighbors, her thoughts. It is a mostly sad book depicting solitude, fear, sadness, violence, pain, and loss.
By the end of the book though a new recurring cloud pattern appears, bringing with it a sense of hope and renewal, not for the speaker necessarily but in general. I appreciated the visual shorthand she created and especially her choice to revisit some scenes over and over.
I was interested in this book as it was advertised to be about gentrification. I was initially disappointed to see very little commentary or systems analysis of the issue. I was also expecting more plot, and came to appreciate the book more once i gave up on that expectation.
Ultimately this book is a series of scenes and pieces of information that the speaker imagines or bears witness to. The only judgement or decisive commentary is about herself and the meaning (or lack thereof) in her own life. Other than that it is simply observation, poetic, floating.
I am relatively new to graphic nonfiction and am glad to have read this book, which to me greatly expands my idea of what you can do with a graphically told story.
April 23, 2021
A bleak portrayal of Hamilton. As a Hamiltonian, I am interested in any book about Hamilton, and my book club will be reading this book and discussing it soon. As a graphic novel, the words are few, and the pictures set the mood, all in black/white/grey and people portrayed as blobs ("stark, soft drawings and faceless figures"), and themes of homelessness, crime, poverty, decay. The author is a new mother and an artist, and writes about opening her studio for Art Crawl on James North. She writes: "For a fact, many spaces that previously offered substandard housing are now art studios. Our presence has displaced people". The book meanders through different themes(everything from the cancer treatment of her parents to the birth of her baby; to giving a sandwich to a homeless woman to learning of her death) and I am not sure what the intent of the author is in terms of messaging - is there hope for the future or is it a complete denigration of north end Hamilton? I am looking forward to the book club discussion.
September 29, 2019
Wow...this is probably one of the best graphic novels I’ve ever read. It challenged so many of the assumptions I had about what a graphic novel ought to look like and address. It’s a nuanced portrayal of gentrification all in the context of “creation” — artistic creation, procreation, the creation and recreation of entire neighborhoods in the place you call home. I’m amazed by how few words there were in the entire novel and how much emotion and depth the images (the people are just blobs!) convey. The careful repetition of images act as motifs throughout. I love the juxtaposition of the heaven/dream/memory world with the material world of the city. I think it would feel real to anyone who has ever felt like a city was a part of who they are.
September 7, 2020
Grim grays. People as mere ovals. Despair. The rust town of Hamilton changing perhaps, but leaving the homeless and the heroin addicts behind. Amidst such a tableau, how do you raise a child? All necessary questions, told to varying effect in this collection. Ultimately the city here seems to matter more than the figures. Which is part of the graphic novel's point. But my frustration here was why life and real creation was not seen or ventured in the pages. For all of the exciting collective chiaroscuro panoramas above the character's heads, for all of the exciting squares of scant life here and there, why does Nickerson stray from the more essential question of existence? Not taking a stab. Not opening the knowing door. All that. It's worth the ride, but the ride could have been deeper.
December 31, 2019
I live near the 'rust belt' and Hamilton does have 3 very beautiful waterfalls along the Niagara escarpment as well as being a manufacturing city, which is a strange mix that is true! She tackles some intense topics like the impact on the community after big industry leaves the city, had me raging inside to the point of activism!! While she explores the drudgery of living in an expanding/ shrinking city, she relates it to the shattering of her own relationships and the birth of her baby, and pulling us into some dark places all while keeping her drawing simple and clear. A good blend of realism and idealism. Would like to see more by this author.
February 7, 2021
I keep coming back to this again and again. It is subtle, but so profound. It is a book where not a lot happens plot-wise, but you feel it so deeply. It is an atmosphere she takes you to - it is a meditation. It asks important questions - not directly and sharply, but softly and deeply. Questions that have no answers. There are a few poignant scenes I can't get out of my mind. I love how she drifts between time, showing its interconnectedness - life, death, and every beautiful and tragic stage in between. Reading this feels like you're in a dream. Thank you for this work of art
January 20, 2022
Creation is a series of comic vignettes about life in Ontario Canada. It would not be a stretch to consider this a book of poems with comics attached to them. This is probably why I just didn't care for this book. Poetry is mostly miss vs hit with me; I would not be the target audience for this kind of book I guess.
I couldn't get attached to any of the people described in this book. Nickerson often reused images; I think to add emphasis to certain emotions she was feeling about the topic at hand. For me, it just lessened the impact it could have had.
I couldn't get attached to any of the people described in this book. Nickerson often reused images; I think to add emphasis to certain emotions she was feeling about the topic at hand. For me, it just lessened the impact it could have had.
July 3, 2020
There is a lot of detail in the illustrations in this book. I found it a bit busy at times, to be honest; however, Nickerson's drawings perfectly convey the sometimes overwhelming experience called Life.
Parts of the book depressed me. I was shocked and appalled by Nancy's story, and the narrator's views on life, death and the in-between were also painful and bleak.
I suppose ultimately this book illustrates the good, the bad and the ugly. Stark realism.
Parts of the book depressed me. I was shocked and appalled by Nancy's story, and the narrator's views on life, death and the in-between were also painful and bleak.
I suppose ultimately this book illustrates the good, the bad and the ugly. Stark realism.
February 23, 2025
i found this book in my school's library while i was trying to kill time & read it in one sitting
it hit close to home, especially as i read it in a library that belongs to a school frequently protested against for gentrification and displacing underprivileged people for student housing
but the book felt unfocused and drab. i can't tell if it's because of the subject matter, just how the book Was, or my current life experiences but i walked away feeling worse than i did when i opened it
it hit close to home, especially as i read it in a library that belongs to a school frequently protested against for gentrification and displacing underprivileged people for student housing
but the book felt unfocused and drab. i can't tell if it's because of the subject matter, just how the book Was, or my current life experiences but i walked away feeling worse than i did when i opened it
February 28, 2020
A really interesting study of place and an intimate look at the authors connection to it. I liked the soft inky illustrations. The combination of landscapes, specific vignettes, and then the repeditive floating ideas, memories, and dreams were used in a cool way to help build this idea of existing in this place with all of these memories and events happening all at once.
August 1, 2020
Creation is a graphic novel about gentrification and childbirth that feels self-critical, but I wish it chose its barbs a bit more specifically. I also didn't love the art style, with the intentionally blank, blobby human characters (outside of a few choice instances) amidst the overcrowded urban landscapes. Not bad, just not for me!
March 6, 2022
I like how blobby and indistinct everyone is, it focuses the attention not on the individual characters, but the experience of being a squishy human being in a bustling city. And then the moments of specific portraits break through that vagueness like sun through the clouds. Less a narrative, more a snapshot of a moment in a place.
April 8, 2022
Nickerson’s haunting yet beautiful depiction of life in Hamilton left me with two very distinct reactions — half of me wants to run as far away from Hamilton as I possibly can, but the other half wants to stay because I know deep down I’ll never truly leave. This was a really great thinking piece, loved it a lot.
April 13, 2025
Very well crafted and so different from other graphic novels. Poetic and thought provoking. An interesting glimpse into post-industrial living, class and gentrification, the stages of our lives, and motherhood.
I assume those reviewing this book as boring or meaningless are all privileged white dudes who thought it was something else when they picked it up.
I assume those reviewing this book as boring or meaningless are all privileged white dudes who thought it was something else when they picked it up.
September 3, 2022
Do you have existential anxiety/depression? Do you want MORE existential anxiety/depression? This graphic novel is effective at expressing the dire circumstances of today's world, but really misses the mark in its attempts to make the message hopeful.
September 15, 2019
Beautifully written and illustrated, highly recommend picking up a copy.
Read
October 27, 2019When I heard about this book, it seemed perfect for me. It didn't quite meet my high expectations. The artwork was pretty unique. I'm interested to see what the author does next.
December 17, 2019
lovely, tender, honest.
Read
January 25, 2020A lot of reflection on development, gentrification, and an artist's relationship to that. But style is very much not my taste. Very Canadian/Ontario.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews