Discovering their name – The Keepers

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I was looking for a title for my sculpture project. My mind pushed at the limits of both French and English in the hope that its name would come effortlessly but it wasn’t happening.  Even after hours and hours in the studio, getting to know the work and listening to what it had to say, it wasn’t yet answering my question. “Who are you?  Tell me your name?”

Each day, through those many quiet hours in the KOAC studio, I realized this silence when it came to the title of the work had to do with the fact that the project is more to me than a series of sculptures. It is a wish.

Working through the endless lonely months of lockdown and isolation, listening to news broadcasting the bizarre state of American politics, and the struggle to control a deadly virus running rampant throughout the world was a lot to process.  So, I kept my focus on this sculpture project.  It became my refuge. In the serenity of the sunny studio, with no internet, no visitors, and nowhere else to go because of all the Covid restrictions, I had a very quiet winter – a peaceful winter I will always cherish.

And it’s not because I don’t care. I do care. I care very much. It’s not because I didn’t feel the anxiety of the world as it seemed to became more and more divided, angry and scared. Of course, I felt it. But that is the part of me that worries. The other part, the half of me that insists on standing beside those fears, wants to feel the love we humans are capable of. I want to look at my fellow humans and see care, compassion, calm, joy and patience. Each day throughout the winter I constructed that world in the quiet peace of that studio. I made a community of gentle creatures.

Those gentle tree creatures I was constructing slowly came to life, with personalities of their own, as I moulded layer upon layer of cardboard.  I got to know each one of them. My mind is filled with little moments of cardboard and glue and cutting blades and saws, mingled with sunlight, wind, dust, and quiet lunches with my lovely dog in the studio.  In all those moments, I could quiet my thoughts and breathe deeply. I knew I had something important to do.  

In the end, when I saw them standing together in the studio, when I could walk amongst them and feel their strong yet gentle presence, the sculptures finally whispered their names to me. They are The Keepers.  They are a community of tree-like beings that hold secrets we have yet to uncover about our world. Secrets we might never be fully equipped to understand but that we should respect and cherish. Like our earthly forests, it feels like my sculptures are keepers of ancient knowledge and infinite potential for life. It feels like they know things we don’t.  They are The Keepers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I “sit with elders of a gentle race…”

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Years ago, when my husband played me the Led Zepplin song Kashmir, he pointed out this line and, forever after, it has called to my soul.

Each time I’ve heard it since, I’ve longed to “…. sit with elders of a gentle race,” and it dawned on me last week that indeed I was having the wonderful opportunity to do just that. I was going to have lunch with Katie Ohe and Harry Kiyooka at their house – the house west of Calgary they’re converting to an art centre named KOAC.

Silkscreen print 2019, Flot (french word)

In fact, I was having lunch with them for the second day in a row. Every year Katie generously invites me to use her printing studio to create my annual silkscreen print, and I so look forward to those times shared with them. They truly are elders of a gentle race, artistic geniuses, trailblazers of Alberta’s art world and genuinely caring people. Together they combine more than 130 years of artistic experience, so you might assume this would make them unapproachable. In fact, the opposite is true. They became artists because their urge to create is visceral. They have spent their lives devoted to that passion and to sharing it with the people who cross their paths.

As Jeff Bray, a brilliant multi-disciplinary artist from Calgary, says “When Katie holds both your hands in hers and talks to you, you feel like you are the only person in the world.” In truth, Katie makes each one of us feel that way. Her boundless passion for the process of creating art is only matched by her passion for sharing with others. Her warmth, her experience, her skill, her ideas, her process, and her curiosity is always in trade for yours.

 

 

The Esker Foundation in Calgary is presenting a retrospective exhibition of Katie’s formidable life’s work from January 25 to May 3rd 2020. In their words, “For over 60 years, Katie Ohe has been a catalysing force in Calgary’s art community as an artist, mentor, teacher, supporter, and builder. As one of Alberta’s most important artistic figures, she has made a significant contribution to the development of contemporary art in the province and her innovative approaches to material, form, movement, and participation have been a meaningful influence for generations. This eponymous exhibition—her largest and most comprehensive solo exhibition to date—traces the development of work through six decades of Ohe’s remarkable sculptural practice.” I can’t wait to see this fabulous collection in the Esker’s beautiful exhibition space!

Simultaneously, you can see a selection of hers and of her husband Harry’s early work at the Herringer Kiss Gallery in Calgary.

Katie has shared so much of her wisdom with so many of us over the years, and I am truly grateful. Every day, as I push through the challenges of being an artist, her precious words come to me and reassure me that all is as it should be.

Are you a painter, a sculptor or both?

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Summer is finally here, and with it comes the very precious daydreaming time I need to let my work flow freely. Paintings to create, sculptures to finish and mould, and an installation project to put together; those are my summer work plans. And as I reflect on them, looking at the steps each requires, I realize how very different but, at the same time, how very similar they are. To me, they’re different in the creative process but very similar in their spirit.

The Rocker, limited edition of 25, hydrostone gypsum cement, 6″ x 6 1/2″ x 5″

Many artists consider themselves either painters or sculptors, but rarely both. I play with all of it because each way of working provides its own reward and allows a fresh perspective from which to visit an idea. Painting offers me a place of further freedom simply because a blank canvas offers an opportunity to create a new world. Sculpture, on the other hand, tends to present more ‘material’ limitations. In fact, the level of ‘limitation’ varies for each material. Glass, for example, is a very bossy material that comes with precise rules one must abide by. But if you can put up with its neediness, it’s one of the richest, most dignified materials to cast. Clay is more forgiving, but it’s still not as free flowing as painting.

Larry Cornett, in his blog titled When it comes to creativity, are you a sculptor or a painter? approaches the subject this way: “Painters visualize and place their dream on the canvas. It can be anything they want. A purple cat? No problem. Clocks that melt and drape over tree branches? But of course! If they can imagine it, it can be. Sculptors have to be much more realistic about what can be brought forth from the stone. A granite block cannot reveal a fluttering red feather boa. There are limitations imposed by the material and the tools.”

The lovers, limited edition of 25, hydrostone gypsum cement 5 1/2″ x 5″ x 2 1/2″

And what about installation work? It can be anything you want, but it focuses on occupying a space. In that sense, the choice of material is guided by what is relevant for the space. Wikipedia defines it as “An artistic genre of three-dimensional works that often are site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space.” The installation I’m focusing on this summer is the final step of a community engagement project I’ve been working on since September. I will elaborate on it in a future blog sometime soon when I’ve seen the final product as well as the interaction of the community group with it. What I want to say for now is that creating an installation is an opportunity to focus on a concept, and share an idea by using materials that will best convey that concept. In other words: the idea comes first. The choice of material, second.

Communion, limited edition pf 25,hydrostone gypsum cement, 8″ x 8″ x 6″

 

After 20 years as an artist, I know I’m comfortable with, and even excited about, working with a variety of materials and techniques, but I realize that some might fear that this risks creating confusion. In my case it’s coherent with what I’m trying to express. All my current work has a common underlying spirit that is true to the way I want to exist in this wonderful world. Each piece flows with life and speaks of entanglement with each other and with our environment, no matter what the material!