art of the Peace | Issue #14

art peace of the

SPRING 2010  ISSUE 14

A PUBLICATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTIST

Larissa Doll JUST UNDER THE SURFACE

ARCTIC WINTER GAMES

THREE PORTRAIT ARTISTS

COMING HOME

TREX

The Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition Program

For the 2009/2010 Travelling Season the Prairie Art Gallery presents four new Exhibitions:

HIGH ART: PASSPORT TO THE PEAKS Robert Guest from Grande Cache, 2009 Twin Peaks of Mt. Deveber

WITHOUT END: EXPLORING THE LINES THAT KEEP US APART Six Calgary Artists/Architects, 2009 Dialogue

The Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA) has supported a provincial travelling exhibition program since 1981.

The mandate of the AFA Travelling Exhibition Program is to provide every Albertan with the opportunity to enjoy visual art exhibitions in their community.

Three regional galleries and one arts organization coordinate the program for the AFA: THE PRAIRIE ART GALLERY ART GALLERY OF ALBERTA THE ALBERTA SOCIETY OF ARTISTS

DREAMS DO NOT COME WITH TITLES Ken HouseGo from Grande Prairie, 2007

ESPLANADE ARTS & HERITAGE CENTRE

Anchor

For a complete list of exhibitions visit

PRAIRIEGALLERY.COM WHAT LIES BENEATH Les Pinter from Calgary, 1993

Generously Supported By

Tea Leaf Series #6, from the AFA Collection

Located in the Montrose Cultural Centre 9839 103 Avenue, Grande Prairie, AB T8V 6M7 P: (780) 532-8111 | F: (780) 539-9522 E: info@prairiegallery.com

in this issue: 4.

artist’s statement

4.

contributors

5.

Art out there

8.

arctic winter games

10.

three portrait artists Every Picture Tells a Story

12. artcetera

Beyond the traditional Portrait

14.

larissa doll

20.

caily oldershaw

Editor: Eileen Coristine Design, Layout & Advertising: imageDESIGN Publisher: Art of the Peace Visual Arts Association, Box 25227, Wapiti Road P.O. Grande Prairie, AB T8W 0G2 Phone: (780) 530-0000 (Jim Stokes) E-mail: art@artofthepeace.ca Printing: Parsons Printing

Just under the surface

A Definitive Journey By Way of Ambiguity

22. sitebytes

the reel shorts film festival

Cover: Larissa Doll and her painting Mama et Bebe.

23. art books in review Art of the Peace Visual Arts Association acknowledges the financial assistance of: The Alberta Foundation for the Arts

24.

coming home

three peace river artists

26. gallery of artists City of Grande Prairie Arts Development Fund

28. exhibitions & opportunities 30. ada lovmo ŠAll rights reserved Art of the Peace 2010 Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited.

Art of the Peace makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information it publishes, but cannot be held responsible for any consequences arising from errors or omissions.

Observing the tiny details of light and shade in the eyes will bring the subject to life. Helen South, How To Draw Eyes.

There are two sets of eyes in every portrait, the eyes of the subject and the eyes of the artist.

The subject’s eyes we could call “the window to the soul”. Through the expressiveness of the eyes most human communication takes place. The eyes speak silently, but convey a myriad of nuance.

Doll describes feeling with her eyes and Ada Lovmo tells us she looks at the face and sculpts it with her chalks. To Janet Enfield, it comes down to having the subject’s eyes look back at her from the portrait. Then she knows she’s not only accurate; she hasn’t just captured the person. They have captured her. The eyes in a series of Darcy Jackson’s portraits not only looked back at her, they looked into her, revealing a map of her journey as a painter and as a person.

Artist’s Statement

Mediate/Meditate by Ed Bader is the exception here that proves the rule.

Really though, the eyes are sensory We rarely see his subjects’ eyes. An organs, they deliver information withabsence of expression highlights these

By Eileen Coristine out opinion. It is the flesh around the people’s detachment from those around eyes that moves and so creates and them and their extremely tight focus on conveys expression. The startled lift, abstract messages from afar. The curthe narrowed gaze and the smiling corners are the curtains tains are open only just enough to let in the information they of the soul. The moving curtains, in time, become a person’s desire. look. Those crinkles we don’t like to see in the mirror are pure gold to the artist.

Meticulous observation by the artist is required to translate light and shade into an eye, a window to a soul, a person we The artist’s eyes deliver information; the artist’s hands must can recognize. The observed play their part as they live and render it as accurately as possible. Where are the areas of breathe, as they open or close their curtains. There must light and shade? Where are the hidden muscles that create be a third pair of eyes to complete any picture; the viewer the gaze? What is it that defines this person’s look? Larissa looks, believes and in a blink the portrait comes to life.

The eyes have it

Contributors Eileen Coristine

is a writer and artist living near Fairview. In 2009, she collaborated with Wendy Stefansson and Grant Berg in their show Rock Paper Paints and with the members of the Taoist Tai Chi Society to create a 15th Anniversary mural at Fairview Fine Arts Centre. The accompanying portrait, by Ada Lovmo, is a detail of that mural.

Wendy Stefansson has earned degrees in English Lit and Education, as well as a diploma in Visual Arts. She is by turns (or all at the same time) an artist, a writer, a teacher and a mom. She was editor of Art of the Peace magazine from ‘06 to ‘08.

Susan Thompson has worked as a freelance journalist since 2001 and has written for numerous newspapers and magazines in Canada. When not writing articles, she devotes her time to working on a fantasy novel titled “The Back Door to Hell.” Susan lives south of Peace River with her artist-blacksmith husband and two children. art of the peace

4

Kim Fjordbotten

is an artist and the president of The Paint Spot, an art materials store where in-house artists love to share their product knowledge and experience to create an environment full of inspiration, technical advice and unique materials.

Rob Swanston

works at The Prairie Art Gallery in publications. He studied film, video and audiovisual techniques at Grant MacEwan College and the Vancouver Film School. He is drawn to the variety of human experience that artists interpret and express through a diversity of disciplines.

Margaret Price

wrote her first book at the age of five. While certainly not destined for Pulitzer status, Margaret’s Book of Butterflies laid the groundwork for a career in journalism. With degrees in Anthropology and Art History from Vanderbilt University, she has been published in several American and Canadian publications. Margaret hopes to become an established writer one day, sans crayons and construction paper.

Working Sketch of Irene Pearcy by Darcy Jackson

art out there...

Muses North Music, art and fine dining--what a winning combination. To find out just where this was possible, a group of regional artists and musicians combined their talents in a travelling show they called Muses North.

Pop rock band Threza and the Travelling Dolls, folk rock band the Stray Crows, roots rock band The Revolution Sonics and poet Catherine McLaughlin joined artists Gertrude Plaizier, Marian Jacoba Shilka, Wendi Nordell, Yarrow, and Leslie Bjur.

Stopping off at Java Domainn in Peace River, Grassroots Bistro in Fairview and Tito’s Bistro and Café in Grande Prairie, the gypsy musicians and artists offered three evenings of original music and poems combined with shows of paintings, sculpture and fabric art. Along with the performances, the artists also added to the shows by speaking about their muses or describing their process.

The theme adopted for Muses North was “the arts build community”.

Washington weaver, Nadine Sanders visited the Peace Country Spinners and Weavers Fall conference in Fairview last September to teach participants not only fibre art techniques but also the music of Scotland.

Portraits for Parkinson’s

Nadine Sanders believes in engaging all of the senses in her weaving. “On the Saturday evening, participants and the interested public enjoyed a beautiful pictorial, musical and vocally narrated journey,” explains participant Loretta Skaley. “Events culminated with the waulking of the cloth.”

Waulking is a step in woolen cloth making which involves pounding the wet cloth with feet, hands or clubs to cleanse and thicken it.

What is probably the largest portrait project ever in our region will culminate with a Grand Unveiling on April 17, at the Centre for Creative Arts in Grande Prairie.

Gordon Mackey, member of Artists North and author of the Portraits for Parkinson’s project, brought together 18 artists and 18 “notable locals” in an effort to raise funds for Parkinson’s.

“Celtic tunes filled the room while teams sang and worked together in rhythm and laughter,” Skaley recalls, “The woven pieces fulled and bloomed in our hands, right before our eyes.”

Mackey’s project was inspired by friend and fellow Artists North member, Irene Pearcy, who has Parkinson’s. “Because of Irene’s popularity it was a lot easier to obtain [the agreement of] some of the models,” he says. “When they realized this was because of Irene, they immediately agreed to participate.”

During the two-day conference, Sanders focused on connecting the weavers with the techniques of American weaver Theo Moorman, author of Weaving As An Art Form: A Personal Statement.

Photo by Fairview Post

Gertrude Plazier at Grassroots Bistro, Fairview

Weaving that Sings

Artists from the Grande Prairie area, Fort St. John, Peace River, Bluesky, Tumbler Ridge and Debolt got together with their subjects in February for a one time opportunity to take photos or make sketches and then returned home to work on the portraits.

The Grand Unveiling is slated to include a live auction of the portraits. art of the peace

5

Olympic Bronze Long before the Olympic Games began in February, Demmitt artist Peter von Tiesenhausen was claiming his share of the medals. Well, not medals actually. Metals.

In January 2008, Tiesenhausen was commissioned by Two Rivers Gallery in Prince George, BC to create a 20-foot-tall bronze and iron sculpture which would be called Balance. The funding for this commission came from Arts Partners in Creative Development, an arts-funding group created to develop the Cultural Olympiad.

Of the $6.5 million the coalition has injected into arts organizations over the past three years, $201,850 was allocated to the Prince George Regional Art Gallery Association to fund Tiesenhausen’s project.

Balance brings together an iron figure reminiscent of one of Tiesenhausen’s Watchers, with a pine tree cast in bronze. In the wake of the destruction of vast pine forests by the pine beetle -- and perhaps “wake” is the right word -- Tiesenhausen offers the work as a meditation on “the need to balance human requirements with those of the environment.”

Federation of canadian Artists

If Dawson Creek artists Mary Parslow and Mary Mottishaw have their way, printmaking will soon become a popular art form with Peace Country artists. Since last spring, the teaching team, known as the Two Marys has been offering workshops in printmaking with the aid of Mary Parslow’s portable press.

The newest and most remote chapter of the Federation of Canadian Artists is poised to open in our area. The internationally recognized FCA promotes visual artists and provides its members with exhibition and education opportunities.

Twenty-nine regional artists have been juried in as Active members.

Most members live in northern BC, but there are also many from the Alberta Peace.

“Our aim is to promote and teach the art of printmaking in the Peace,” says Mary Parslow. Although they meet informally, a group of seven Dawson Creek printmakers are working toward forming a printing co-op.

Workshops by the Two Marys have also garnered a lot of interest among Beaverlodge and Fort St. John artists. The genre seems to especially appeal to mixed-media artists.

The FCA, based in Vancouver holds 10 shows per year there and many other shows across Canada. The new chapter of the FCA will also hold two shows per year in this region. For information on the FCA Peace Region chapter contact Donna Ony at 250 788 3060 or dony@telus.net.

Both Marys had been printmaking students at university and renewed their interest by taking courses at Northern Lights College after retiring. They are now members of the Ground Zero Printmakers Society of Victoria and spend as much time as possible taking classes and working there.

The Works After 25 years of making art everybody’s business, The Works Art and Design Festival is ready to celebrate!

Begun in 1986, the downtown festival has meant 13 days of creativity that brings art into the public realm.

Fortunately for their local cohorts, they like to share what they’ve learned when they get back home. “I think we may be on the cusp of a renaissance of printmaking in the Peace,” says Mary Parslow.

While Churchill Square hosts an annual array of art, music, performance and workshops, 30 other sites offer exhibits held in banks, malls, restaurants and hotels. These venues all reflect the current exciting changes and arising issues in art and design.

Wild Peace by Mary Parslow

Metals by Peter von Tiesenhausen

Printmaking partners

The theme for the 25th Anniversary festival is Earth. Sustainability and Environmentalism have been the overarching topics for The Works since 2008. Sustainability extends from ecological issues to societal issues—sustainable design through to designing a sustainable future.

The Works runs June 25 to July 7.

For details visit www.theworks.ab.ca.

art of the peace

6

U P C O M I N G

Mt. Russell in September 18 x 24�Oil Knife Painting, 2009

S H O W S

SIBLING REVELRY Grant Berg Warren Berg Cheryl McCartney March 25 - April 17

Robert Guest Picture Perfect Gallery GRANDE PRAIRIE

Douglas Udell Galleries EDMONTON

ONCE UPON A STILL LIFE Dan Arberry May 6 - 24

From Palette to Gallery, RECENT WORKS SHOW AND SALE Vicki Hotte June 3 - 26

LOCAL ART | PHOTOGRAPHY | POTTERY

we have beautiful art materials to inspire

your creativity

10032 - 81st Avenue Edmonton, Alberta Toll Free 1 800 363 0546 www.paintspot.ca

& CUSTOM FRAMING

Tel: (780) 538-2771 | Fax: (780) 538-2790 9929 - 100 Avenue, Grande Prairie, AB www.UniqueGallery.ca art of the peace

7

Arctic Winter Games Opportunities to make art and view art flourished during the 2010 Arctic Winter Games held in Grande Prairie from March 6 to 13. From displays of cultural aspects of the nine competing contingents to on the spot drawings by casual observers, there was no end of artistic expression.

The Teresa Sargent Hall at the Montrose Cultural Centre was dominated by a massive community mural. Grande Prairie muralist, Tim Heimdal created the legacy entitled Spirit of the Arctic Games. The mural subject is a polar bear who breathes out the aurora borlealis and juggles gold, silver and bronze ulus. In the background a globe shows a circumpolar perspective of the earth. This perspective is shared by the competitors from Alaska, Northern Alberta, Greenland, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Nunavik (Northern Quebec), Yukon, Yamal (Russia) and Sapmi (Northern Scandinavia).

Anyone who comes to see the mural is invited to paint a tile for what will become a community mosaic border for it,” said Rhonda Wiebe, chairperson for the Visual Arts Committee. Following the games the mural and border will be mounted permanently in one of the sporting venues.

art of the peace

8

by Eileen Coristine

ticipation was granted based on an application and in some cases a portfolio.

Also on display at the Montrose Cultural Centre were a themed Alberta Foundation for the Arts display on sports, an exhibition of the British Council in Canada’s Cape Farewell Youth Expedition called Youth and Climate Change and a nightly display of imagery from past games.

Another massive piece of art was on display at the Bowes Gardens Crystal Centre. Tim Van Horn’s Canadian Flag Photo Mosiac is a huge piece consisting of 2010 photos Van Horn took of Canadians’ faces over the past three years. The purpose of the work is to “dazzle and intrigue viewers with Canada’s amazing woven tapestry of people of varying nationalities and diverse cultural backgrounds”.

The 2010 Arctic Winter Games Art Competition and Exhibition was displayed at the Centre for Creative Arts. Residents of the City and County of Grande Prairie were invited

As the border around the mural grew, so did the display of photographs taken by four Grande Prairie high school students. Using state of the art photo, photo-editing and printing equipment supplied by the Arctic Winter Games, Alex Gregson, Bayla Shomody, Stephen Artibise and Kaitlyn Rinne documented the games while learning techniques from professional photographer mentors. The students attended the ceremonies and the sporting venues with one of four pros, took their pictures and then chose their edited favourites to be added each evening to a huge wall of framed images. Mentors in the program were Rob Ganzeveld, Paul Pivert, Randy Van Der Veen and Tanya Sedore.

“The students were thrilled with the behind the scenes access they had at the venues,” said Ganzeveld. Student par-

Dream Achieve Inspire

RIGHT

Nunavut Stained Glass Drum Michel Labine

to submit works and an artist’s statement. Adult winners were First: Wendy Olson-Lepchuk Dream Achieve Inspire, Second: Toni Schuler High Five and tied for Third: Mirian Jordi The Pursuit of Happiness and Heather Smith Dream Achieve Inspire.

In the age 13 to 17 category with winners were First: Rachael Rode Eagle-Raven, Second: Alina Khan Diffference Is What Makes Us Unique and Third: Cassie Lattery Family Connecting With The Beauty of Nature. Winners in the age 12 and under category were First: Kelso Jordi Most Dreams Come True, Second: Hannah Seaward Game On, and Third: Mercy Reyes Gymnastics.

Also on display at the Centre for Creative Arts was Art of the Spectator. Game spectators were invited to participate in this exhibit by taking part in live drawing exercises at the competitive events.

Volunteer artists armed with drawing materials were at each site encouraging audience members to do gesture drawings of the athletes. With a little mentoring from the volunteers, new artist’s emerged hourly and each day’s drawing were added to the display.

The History, Pin and Cultural Display at the Centre 2000 Heritage Discovery Centre offered a diverse show of art, costume and games memorabilia from throughout the nine circumpolar contingents.

Central to the display was a series called Handcrafted Drums and Stained Glass Drums of the Circumpolar Region.

Canadian glass artist Michel Labine explained his project in a detailed pamphet, “I researched the various drums used by the peoples of the Circumpolar Region and replicated them. I learned and recorded the traditional drum making methods and produced a series of culturally correct drums.

I then created a second set of drums with glass panels as a new art form.” Each glass drum depicted the culture of the region it originated in.

Thanks to the participation of athletes, cultural participants, volunteers and spectators the 2010 Arctic Winter Games transformed Grande Prairie into a living, growing work of art.

above

Spirit of the Arctic Games - Tim Heimdal and tiles

left

Alex Gregson AWG Student Photo

BOTTOM left

1st place Wendy Olson Lepchuk

CENTRE left 2nd Place Toni Schuler

centre RIGHT 3rd Place Tie Heather Smith

RIGHT

3rd Place Tie Miriam Jordi

art of the peace

9

Three Portrait Artists every picture tells a story

janet enfield

by Eileen Coristine

There is a lot more to a Janet Enfield portrait than a face represented in two dimensions. Through her series, Wisdom of the Ages, Enfield is painting to express a legacy.

No one under age 80 is included in the series, which will show at the Prairie Gallery in April. The Wembley artist started with portraits of her grandmother and grandmother’s sisters and since has expanded it to include a total of thirty portraits.

In order to create a context for the paintings, which include the person and some images and colours that relate to their life story, Enfield visited her subjects, photographed them and asked them to fill out a questionnaire.

“I wanted to find out their favourite colour, favourite fruit, favourite animal,” she says. “Even a saying they always say.” She also asked them what they miss about the past and what they like about now and tried to put those feelings into her 24”x36” portraits.

Enfield admits that painting some portraits felt like a fight. “But when I’d be painting along and get lost, sometimes I’d look up and I could feel the person looking back at me,” she says, “that’s what really hooked me.” art of the peace

10

LEFT

Fran Janet Enfield From Wisdom of the Ages

CENTRE

Chad Ed Bader From Mediate/ Meditate

RIGHT

Copperlily and her Daughter Darcy Jackson

darcy jackson edward bader “I finally found a way to integrate drawing and love of colour,” says Grande Prairie artist Ed Bader of his recent series Mediate/Meditate.

Based mainly on subjects Bader sketched on the bus or in public spaces, Mediate/Meditate shows us people going about their daily business while using cell phones, ipods or games.

Usually, Darcy Jackson has a lot of information about the subjects of her portraits, but her Copperlily series, which she has returned to again and again over the last 15 years, is based solely on visual impressions of a person she’s never met.

“For a commission I talk to the person and find out their loves and passions,” she explains, “I want to know their philosophy of life and then show them their story illustrated.”

“I looked at their whole body language,” Bader explains.

“They are communicating but oblivious to their surroundings.”

Jackson, who now lives in Tumbler Ridge and is self-taught, began by painting portraits of young children. “At that time I lived on the West coast among families from different nationalities and I began to enhance the portraits with animals and imaginative images,” she says.

Bader’s goal was to use a flat ground with patches of high key colour and add the linear elements last. “This is very much the reverse of most painting, “ he says. “As the consequence of thirty years of ink on paper, it was do or die by the drawing.”

The chance gift of a photo collection depicting Yukon natives connected Jackson to one subject in a very unexpected way. Over the years of painting Copperlily, Jackson began to notice that she was filling in the woman’s story without intending to.

The greatest challenge of painting the series, which Bader spent a year or so creating, was to be accurate in terms of proportion and gesture. The ultimate reward was his sense that the colour and harmony worked.

“I noticed that in my first painting the eyes have such pain.

Seven years later there’s wisdom and acceptance,” Jackson says. “The third has such a sense of peace. Surely this is just a reflection of my own journey.”

Mediate/Meditate, which was on display during November and December, 2009 in the Courtyard Gallery at QE II Hospital, Grande Prairie, consists of 4x5 foot acrylic canvasses and some small works, including watercolours built into multi-subject collages. art of the peace

11

artcetera

tips for artists

by kim fjordbotten

Beyond the traditional portrait Can a portrait go beyond a painted version of a photograph?

Some portraits, like an image of a corporate president, need to be representational. Others can be more expressive and allow for the style of the artist to shine through. Artists are pushing the boundaries and creating artwork beyond the obvious. Are the patrons ready?

Even photographic realism has room for variations. Attributes of a light source can change the mood of the painting. Rather than the direct eye-to-eye portraiture used in school photos, the artist can opt for an unusual angle or unique composition. Pet portraits are tricky. Most owners like a straight-on frontal image. The problem is the viewer is left to look directly up the nostrils – not very attractive.

Unusual compositions work best with an interesting background. These can be real or abstract. Intuitive and expressive processes allow for more painterly application and more creative or symbolic use of colour. A decorative portrait may have the face painted realistically and the background layered with collage materials and abstract forms.

Sketches are the most affordable of the portrait styles.

Usually these quick drawings or paintings are done working directly from the model. The brush or pencil strokes are loose and lots of the paper or canvas surface is visible in the finished work. Some artists will do a wash of colour to pretint the surface and then work quickly and loosely over the coloured ground.

Art for Happiness Tumbler Ridge

Art-Studio Manufacture & Wholesale • Silk Scarves • Art Supplies • Art and Photography Greeting Cards + Workshops – Retreats – Events

Flag of Peaceful World contest - Silk Festival – Artful Retreat

www.artforhappiness.com Seeking retail partners and distributors art of the peace

12

Jean Pederson’s book Expressive Portraits and Frank Haddock’s DVD Portraits Using Graphite are excellent references.

Capturing the essence of person is not easy. Focusing on correct features and proportions can result in an overworked painting. The best way to avoid this is practice, practice and practice. Models are everywhere. A friend of mine draws people at a local coffee shop. He draws constantly and limits the drawing time. It is impossible to capture the whole person so he is selective, focusing on one feature at a time, the hairstyle, posture, nose or hands. I think every page in his sketchbook is worthy of framing but to him the drawing doesn’t matter. He is only trying to train his eye and hand to get the important details quickly.

Portraiture is an expression of the individual, just as much about the person creating it as the one depicted. Portraits done over the course of a subject’s life by many artists working in their unique styles would make for a beautiful collection.

Local Art Pottery Souvenirs Custom Picture Framing Original Oils By Rudy Neubert

Frameworks

Custom Framing & Gallery

Ph:780-624 -1984 9903 - 100 Ave, Peace River, AB the green building on the corner

Peace Country themes and wilderness vistas

gage

mercantile

Phone: 780.835.8043 780.835.4554

Located on Hwy 64, between Fairview and Hines Creek

Antique Furniture | Collectables Original Art and Prints | Polish Pottery Hand Dyed Yarns | Bosch Kitchen Machines

Picture Perfect Grande Prairie

Unique Gallery Grande Prairie

Cultural Centre Beaverlodge

780-354-2165 For other information and images see www.beaverlodgegallery.com

Featuring work by: • Erin Stelmaschuk • Charity Dakin • Paul Martel • Eileen Coristine • Bernadette McCormack

May 1st to Christmas Thurs. - Sun. 1 - 6 pm January 1st to May 1st by chance or appointment

eas

expose ten years of great id

Judi Roberts

Fine Art Reproductions & Art Cards for Artists who want Quality & Quantity.

> Canvas, Fine Art & Photo Paper > Giclee Quality Prints

Active Member of The Federation of Canadian Artists

Printing from $7/sq.ft.

Northern Arts Studio & Gallery - Fort St. John, BC secret@telus.net | (250) 262-1445 | www.judiroberts.artspan.com

780.532.6353

www.imagedesignpros.com art of the peace

13

art of the peace

14

Larissa Doll just under the surface

by Wendy Stefansson

Canadian poet Margaret Atwood has a poem called This is a Photograph of Me. In it, she describes a photo of an apparently serene landscape featuring a lake.

Then jarringly, the poet/persona continues: (The photograph was taken the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where precisely, or to say how large or small I am: the effect of water on light is a distortion but if you look long enough, eventually you will be able to see me.)

It’s this kind of jarring incongruity that exists between the exquisite surfaces and the stories that lie (metaphorically) just beneath them in the Congo paintings of Peace River artist Larissa Doll.

Take the painting Cloud, for instance. The sun sparkling off the mirror-like surface of the water creates a sense of tranquility, the dark cloud above it promising life-giving rains. The view is of Lake Kivu, a large body of water shared by two troubled east African countries: Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lake Kivu is the source of drinking water and a place for washing and swimming for many Congolese. It is also a place where poisonous gases released by lava flows from a volcanic eruption seep out of the lake along the shorelines. And it is also a place where, in 1998, the bodies of Africans killed in the country’s ongoing wars were left floating. It is a mass grave.

LEFT Mama et Enfant

Doll lived in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo for two years between 2004 and 2006. She was there to paint on the strength of one Alberta Foundation for art of the peace

15

the Arts grant, and two more from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. The Congo is a country that is still at war after more than a decade of ethnic atrocities, though much of the world has forgotten about it. Doll says with both candidness and understatement, “the Congo is definitely ... hard.” This is the simple truth that contains the deeper, more difficult truths.

While she was in Africa, Doll says, she had to focus on what was positive in order to survive. Her paintings from this time show not only the beauty of Lake Kivu, but also the beauty of women and children engaged in unexceptional activities. Doll is primarily a figurative painter and her paintings, like many figurative paintings, tell stories. What may be different about her works is the stories they do not tell; the context behind the canvases.

Doll’s Mama et Bebe, for instance, depicts a beautiful baby happily nursing at his or her young mother’s breast. As universal as this daily miracle is, in the story of this mother and this baby, Doll says, “it was truly miraculous.” The mother is a woman who was raped by a soldier in an everyday though nonetheless horrific - use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. The baby is the result of that act. The woman was disowned by her husband and, as in many cases like this, might have disowned the baby in turn. But she didn’t. She chose to keep the baby, and is shown in a moment of bonding; choosing family over hatred. art of the peace

16

Mama et Parapluie shows a Bantu woman in a candid moment at the market, shading herself from the equatorial sun.

Doll comments simply: “You can see by the expression on her face that she’s been through a lot.”

In Girls, two girls from the Inuka orphanage where Doll volunteered are caught in a candid and intimate moment, feeding each other and just being kids. However briefly, they were able to put the violence they’d witnessed, the illness and the death and the abandonment they’d known, aside.

Given the context, the normal becomes transcendent.

Doll describes Mama Laughing as “an image of beauty.”

Among the Congolese, fullness in a woman is considered to be highly desirable. More importantly, the painting captures the paradox of life flourishing in the midst of danger and violence. Perhaps out of necessity, the Congolese “really live in

FAR LEFT Mama et Parapluie LEFT Girls RIGHT Mama et Bebe FAR RIGHT Mama Laughing

the moment,” says Doll. If they are crying, they are not discreetly sniffling; they are wailing. But if they are happy, their laughter comes straight from the belly, full and round and uninhibited. They live life in extremes. In extremis.

It is in the painting Mama et Enfant, however, that Doll really creates an image of hope. This work depicts a 13-monthold girl who had been the victim of rape a few months prior.

Her mother, having turned away for a moment to look after her other children, lost the baby to an armed militant. At the time of the incident, the mother left her bigger children to look after each other and walked many kilometres to the nearest hospital to get medical care for her baby. According to Doll, “when they arrived at the hospital the girl was only able to hold her bladder for a minute. Following surgery she was able to hold her bladder for three minutes. The doctors called it a miracle.”

In the painting adult and child are shown in a quiet moment, the mother doing up her little one’s shoe. As Doll describes it: “The infant leaned into her mother’s neck and clasped tightly to her shirt. A simple gesture loaded with truth, strength and

optimism. It is a closed relationship where the two figures are intertwined....” Neither one’s face is visible; both have their backs to us.

Together they form a closed circle.

Doll felt that in depicting them this way, she was protecting them; giving them back to each other, refusing to re-victimize them.

Many of us grew up seeing images of African children alone and dirty, nearly naked, bellies distended, flies at their eyes.

Designed to elicit the compassion of the more developed world, they nonetheless portrayed Africans as victims. Doll’s Mama et Enfant, on the other hand, shows Africans taking care of themselves; taking control in small ways in the face of horrendous circumstances. It gives at least these two Africans (and they are actual individuals known to the painter) back their dignity. It diminishes those of us in the western world to the status of fellow human beings, rather than setting us up for the inevitable fall in the role of saviours; or worse yet, casting us as voyeurs of other people’s misery.

“In the Congo series,” Doll writes, “it was important for me to empower each character.... My goal was to depict these figures as survivors, triumphing over tragedy and despair. I wanted to portray these women and children as symbols of strength and resilience. They should be celebrated for their strengths rather than pitied for their hardships.”

Doll’s paintings from her time in the Congo celebrate huart of the peace

17

manity in the midst of the most wretched inhumanity; but this, of course, is only part of the truth of her experience there. These paintings are exquisitely beautiful and humane.

In contrast with the context that generated them, they seem almost like a denial of the larger truth.

One could also say, though, that they are like the planks of a life raft Doll fashioned for herself in order to survive the desperation of life in the Congo. Now that she is home in Canada, she is processing the more difficult aspects of her experience. Three years after returning, she says: “Now I feel like I’m ready. I can go back and paint the rest of the story.”

Larissa Doll Seeing to the Extent of Feeling

by Wendy Stefansson

The new work will be “heavier,” she says. There will be more of the difficult things she saw and lived; the darkness as well as the light of her experience in Africa. There will be more of herself in it, she says.

But then in a way the artist is always in her paintings, like the drowned poet floating just under the surface. If you look long enough, eventually you’ll be able to see her.

Ask Peace River artist Larissa Doll what she likes to paint and there is not a millisecond of hesitation. It’s people. Especially when she is able to paint them from life.

When Doll first left Peace River to attend the Alberta College of Art and Design, she was drawn to the technical challenges of painting portraits and figures. She felt that if she could master the challenge of rendering light as it rounds a cheekbone, or a shadow as it fills the concavity beneath; if she could emulate the subtle colours and transparency of skin; if she could learn to accurately and expressively represent the proportions of a human form; then she would have developed the fundamental skills needed to paint anything.

But there’s more to it than that. To paint another person is to really see him or her. This is absolutely pivotal to Doll’s understanding of herself as an artist. She writes: “I explore the act of seeing. Seeing on all levels. Seeing to the extent of feeling.” And this seeing, this level of feeling, is at its greatest intensity when the subject is another human being.

Eva

As Doll describes it: “I’m a person who is exploring this other person. It’s really raw in a way.”

At the same time, Doll strives to “give the power of the gaze to the sitter.” She portrays her models, primarily women, as people who are in control. The sitter is aware of the audience -- both the painter and subsequent viewers of the painting. We are viewers but not voyeurs.

When you paint a person, Doll says, you are “looking at another human being, but processing that being through yourself.” The artist inevitably becomes a part of the painting.

The model is portrayed, but the artist is present in the work through the choices she makes - colour, composition, brush stroke - and in the mood she creates. The artist is there in what she sees.

The artist gives us the gift of her eyes. art of the peace

18

Following Betty’s Trail

THE CENTRE FOR Spring & Summer Workshops BEGINNERS DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY Angie Patterson / Wendy Nurcombe Wed. May 5th 6 -9 pm Sat. May 8th full day

ART JOURNALING Barbara Daley

Sat. June 5th One day Workshop

INTERMEDIATE & ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY

PASTELS, PENS & PAINTS

Sat. June 12th or 19th One day Workshops

June 25th, 26th or 27th One day Workshops

Don Pettit

Susan Woolgar

For information and to register call 780-933-6030 or 780-354-3712 or email svhotte@telusplanet.net Limited space, pre-registration required on all workshops

See our website www.mcnaughthomestead.org-a.googlepages.com

The Centre has moved to its permanent location after extensive renovations.

Check out our bright, heathy and fully wheelchair accessible building!

Classes for all ages and levels: -Children’s Classes -Glass -Fibre -Literary Arts -Photography -Pottery -Workshops -Visual Arts Monthly Gallery Exhibitions Gift Shop featuring local artists Birthday Parties School and Group bookings Drop In Studio Use gives you full access to our equipment and tools in our studios, including Mac computers, sewing machines and pottery equipment.

www.creativecentre.ca

CREATIVE ARTS

Check us out on-line for more information

4 miles southwest of Beaverlodge on Hwy.722

Come visit us at our newly renovated location:

9904-101 Avenue, Grande Prairie info@creativecentre.ca 780-814-6080

art of the peace

19

Caily Oldershaw

A Definitive Journey By Way of Ambiguity

by MARGARET PRICE

Caily Oldershaw is roughly 20 pieces into her first solo exhibition. So far, she’s tucked away a mélange of works ranging from richly-hued, kaleidoscopic acrylic landscapes to decidedly narrative oil works to densely-shaded charcoal portraits. As a relatively inexperienced painter, her style is now beginning to crystallize, her mode of expression flirting naively with elements of maturity and consistency, but this much is certain: she’s not one to adhere to a rigid approach to art, instead grabbing onto the muse and following unequivocally. “I don’t really have a defined sense of where things go,” she explains. “I paint and see what happens, and if I like it I keep going in that direction.”

By now, taking into account the pace at which she is able to create, a pace characterized by spurts of ingenuity haphazardly divided into chunks of time governed by the ambiguous variables of “just a bit at naptime or until I’m too tired to stay awake,” Oldershaw should be several steps closer to completing 40-60 pieces for her inaugural show, slated for May 2011 at the Dawson Creek Art Gallery.

art of the peace

20

Undoubtedly, this artist has a lot on her palette. A single parent, mother to three year old twin girls, she spends spare time teaching the basics of her craft to aspiring artists at a small frame shop in downtown Dawson Creek. Art, it seems, has become a raison d’être, and her enthusiasm is evident.

“If I’m not creating something I’m not living,” she muses.

“I was always creative before I was painting, and now it’s translated into Play-Doh and fort building.”

While her present might be solidly defined, Oldershaw’s artistic past is more tenuous. Born in Dawson Creek and raised in Doe River, she spent years at the foot of her mother’s potter’s wheel, learning and surrounding herself with a close-knit bubble of artists and musicians. After spending time in Nelson soaking up the scene post-high school, Oldershaw relocated to Saltspring Island. Amidst the watery landscapes and expansive meadows on this island known for its energetic artistic community, her passion for painting materialized. Returning just three short years ago, she felt instantly welcomed into the “perfect little nest” of the Dawson Creek community as she took her first baby steps in the art world.

And what a journey it’s been so far. Oldershaw’s art trepidly navigates the hazy territory between substance and imagination. Often working from a photograph, she begins with a tangible record of reality: a snapshot of a picturesque landscape, a close-up of a friend, a moment once delineated by the corporeal. Yet her brushstroke effortlessly sweeps straightforward subject matter into the realm of dream and reverie. Take, for instance, Be There, a striking oil composition that earned her the Distinguished Award in addition to the People’s Choice Award at the 2009 Peace Liard Regional Juried Art Exhibit. When pressed for context, she tip-toes around the subject, nebulously explaining that the painting is based on a photograph of her sister in Vancouver, on the phone on a beautiful sunny day. A simple take at first glance, but closer inspection reveals an underlying ambiguity. A shadowy figure lurks in the background, elements of urgency and concern settle over the scene, a large expanse of white space arrests an unbalanced composition, and a sense of obscurity moves the piece in a vague yet comfortable direction. Be There’s uncertainty is not unsettling.

Employing the same plaintive reticence to describe her aesthetic impetus behind the creation of Be There, she speaks to her most recent piece. “It was a beautiful scene, and I was very much in love that day,” she wistfully says. Her voice trails off, and it becomes clear that she’s followed some meditative path to the past. But just as easily as this crossover occurs, it’s back to business. “I’m doing my first series, working on two more like it. Right now I’m obsessed with trees.” The definitive artist emerges yet again.

The work in question is entitled Lucid, yet this vibrant oil creation is far from being exactly that: tepid rays of sunshine beam through dense, misty forest on Saltspring Island. A warm nostalgia is palpable, yet that same sense of yearning, an understated despondency, hangs in the air. A candid landscape becomes an investigation of her unseen emotional undercurrents, and we are along for the ride.

Despite her fledgling status, Oldershaw manages to strike a polished balance between melancholy and jubilant fascination. “I didn’t know where I was going with this,” she says of her decision to start painting. But ultimately, that’s okay. In Oldershaw’s work, we may not know where we are going, but we trust her to take us there.

LEFT Lucid TOP RIGHT Untitled BOTTOM RIGHT Be There art of the peace

21

The audience-choice Best of the Fest film package on April 25 will lead off with the films created by students during the 2 ½ day Youth Filmmaking Challenge workshops led by Vancouver filmmaker Scott Belyea who grew up in Grande Prairie, Scooter Corkle from Vancouver, and Michael Bourree from Grande Prairie.

siteBYTES

The Reel Shorts Film Festival

Robert McCallum

Grande Prairie Live Theatre’s Reel Shorts Film Festival April 2125 celebrates short films and the filmmakers who make them by screening gems of storytelling brilliance from around the world.

With five Peace Region films and five others from Canada, the program includes 10 Oscar-nominated short films and almost two dozen Canadian or Alberta premieres. Countries represented include Australia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and UK as well as Canada and the US.

Elder’s Corner Gallery Trading Post A fundraising project for Elder’s Caring Shelter

Grande Prairie 780-402-3260 Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday: 12 - 6 pm Friday: 9 am - 9 pm

101 - 816 Alaska Ave, Dawson Creek, BC V1G 4T6

Tel: (250) 782-2601 www.dcartgallery.ca

by rob swanston Artists Run Centre | 13 Exhibits Per Year | Art Rental Education Programs | By Donation | Year Round | Gift Shop

• Hats • Glass • Pottery • Jewellery • Handpainted Silk • Artfully Blended Teas •

An integral part of the festival is the school program. Over 300 Grade 2-12 students attended screenings in 2009 and more are expected at this year’s screenings. Along with providing enhancement to the curriculum, the films broaden their world view and also entertain.

www.ForbesandFriends.com 9918A 100 Avenue • P: 780.513.1933 • F: 780.513.1949

Peace Region filmmakers attending include Stuart Barr (Aurora Borealis) from Peace River; Rio Fitch (Daydream, A Day of Hunting and Gathering) from Rolla, BC; Don Pettit (Where Are They Now) and composer/musician Bert Goulet from Dawson Creek; and Karl Mattson (Keeping the Peace) and producer Inge-Jean Mattson from Rolla, BC.

Phone: (780) 532-3701 Fax: (780) 532-7301

Take in the full spirit of the festival by binging on great short films over five full days!

#104, 10814 - 100 St, Grande Prairie, AB T8V 2M8

Tickets are available at the Grande Prairie Live Theatre Box Office by phoning 780-538-1616. art of the peace

22

OUTDOOR IMAGES CANADA (2008) Ltd.

Custo

m pic

ture f

ramin

www.OutdoorImagesCanada.com

g

art books in review by wendy stefansson

Medicine Paint:The Art of Dale Auger Foreword by Mary-Beth Laviolette Face paint is a kind of mask that allows an individual to escape his/her identity, or to express an identity that is truer than his/her naked features. It transforms a person in a way that transcends his or her personal boundaries, joining him/ her to the larger human consciousness and allowing an approach to the lurid or the sacred.

This is what we see in the powerful paintings of Dale Auger, late member of the Bigstone Cree Nation in northern Alberta. In Medicine Paint, we are given an overview of his life’s work: paintings of faces, which are themselves painted faces. The eyes are often cavernous - red like a loon in one painting, yellow like an eagle in another; in some a blue that is like no creature on earth. The lips are often distended,

30 years and still going strong

expressive of something not quite spoken, not quite speakable.

The final painting in this beautiful book, painted in the year of Auger’s death, shows a man whose single sky-blue streak of face paint weeps down his left cheek. On his right side, he is in the process of transforming into an eagle; approaching the sacred.

Your Neighbourhood Coffee House

Custom Picture Framing and Fine Art Gallery 9934-100 Ave, Grande Prairie, AB 780-539-4091

Gift Shop

780-835-2697

watercolours, local pottery, knitwear, Calvin Cornish prints, dichroic glass, jewellery, quilted and hand woven items

www.fairviewfinearts.com

Monthly Gallery Exhibits

Spring & Fall Courses • oil painting • stained glass • pottery • paper arts • watercolour • mosaic • jewellery • quilting

• Mystical Beings • Artists at School Show • Creations, Inc. & Greying Nation • Members' Show and Sale • The Bridge - 50th Anniversary

WESTSIDE | IVY LAKE | DOWNTOWN

Custom Giclée Printing Specializing in artwork reproduction and pro-quality photo printing “We’re the professionals” photoGraphics INC Dawson Creek

TOLL FREE

1-866-373-8488 art of the peace

23

Coming Home: three peace river artists

by Susan Thompson

kimberly boychuk Wildlife and landscape painter Kimberly Boychuk has made it her life’s work to capture moments in time. She views her function as an artist as encouraging others to stop and appreciate the beauty around them. She points out that taking time to appreciate natural beauty, both in nature itself and through art, is one of life’s few pleasures.

“Something in me drives me to do something exquisitely beautiful. Every piece I do, I try to achieve that,” Boychuk explains. To Boychuk, beauty is obviously truth, and truth is beauty, much as it was to the poet Keats.

Having left Peace River to go to school in Idaho and to study at workshops with luminaries such as Robert Bateman, Boychuk has found herself more inspired by the natural beauty of her home in the Peace River valley. Her own appreciation for its rich natural beauty has increased as she regularly walks the local hills. She has begun to find herself on a quest to capture the distinctive light of the north. The long hours of sunshine and twilight at different times of year have caught her attention through the transient play of light on clouds, water and even snow.

Now, she finds, “Snow isn’t white in my mind. It’s pink, it’s blue, it’s peach, it’s purple.” She challenges herself to capture these vibrant colours in her own work, but without allowing her pieces to become a gaudy mess of colour.

Instead, she wants people to become enchanted with the beauty of a piece without consciously realizing why.

LEFT

CENTRE

Kimberly Boychuk Chickadee Acrylic

art of the peace

Lara Felsing Runners Oil

24

RIGHT

Stephen Kos Wolf Boy Acrylic and Palette Knife

“The light is the main thing I’m pursuing,” says Boychuk.

“Before I would do a pond, and the subject would be the pond. Now it’s the lighting on the pond, and the pond. To make dynamic compositions with light, and realism - that is where I find peace and joy.”

lara felsing

stephen kos Stephen Kos also paints to show people beauty in places they usually ignore, but for him, beauty can be found in a salt stain on a bus floor. “There are universes there - universes of intricate designs and depths,” he says.

Kos describes himself as “a bit of a surrealist,” a painter who uses familiar elements in unfamiliar and even fantastical ways. While there is humour in his paintings, it tends to be a black humour, a smile that shows sharp teeth. “I’m more interested in painting monsters than I am people or flowers,” he explains.

Although Kos is currently working on a series of children’s books featuring bright, colourful characters, the artist also taught art in Hong Kong for many years, and while there he held a solo show titled Fields and Monsters. It included a mini-monster series of paintings, with monsters of all types from cute to grotesque to threatening. His larger paintings on canvas tackled still more bogeyman, but took on subjects like evil and death.

Kos is a painter who brings the entire rich tapestry of childhood imaginings to life. He understands the sense of joy and wonder we have as children goes hand-in-hand with a darker landscape, populated with fears and imagined dangers that still resonate with adults.

Painter and fashion designer Lara Felsing found herself becoming more of a Peace River artist while living and working in another province. After growing up in Peace River, Felsing moved to Vancouver, where she received a Fashion Design Diploma at the Helen Lefeaux School of Fashion Design and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Emily Carr Institute.

“The irony is that when I lived in Vancouver, a lot of my painting series were themed after rural Alberta,” Felsing says. Her subjects became a birdhouse, or a bus in a snowbank. “I became enthralled with the colour of the Alberta sky, the colours of poplar trees. Imagery so obvious became foreign.”

Even her clothing designs expressed the same symbols for home. “At my last show in Vancouver, the theme was birds and buildings. I used stitching to represent railway tracks, and embroidery to represent flights of birds.”

Felsing has returned to painting and drawing as she’s returned to Peace River. Despite the fact she acknowledges drawing is almost a non-validated art form these days, for Felsing drawing will always be her first love. She finds drawing and painting more freeing than fashion design, since pattern drawing is a type of architecture of the body that can become almost mathematical.

Felsing says her recent work is a tribute to the simplicity of the every day, an attempt to capture “how little kids see things,” and then give that importance by placing it in an oil painting. Now that she is a parent, Felsing’s paintings have become permeated with nostalgia for a childlike sense of wonder, allowing a re-experiencing of childhood as an adult. art of the peace

25

Jim Stokes

a gallery of

artists Showcasing a selection of Peace Region art

www.artofthepeace.ca

The Flower Show The Center for Creative Arts - April jimstokes.net

realistic renderings of nature in coloured pencil and oil painting 780-532-0846 acdesign@telus.net

Carol Adrian-Clark Corinne Cowan 780-532-6643 corann@gpnet.ca Watercolour & acrylic paintings of various subject matter

Eileen Coristine 780-494-3410 ecoristine@hotmail.com

Janet Enfield I have been painting for 40 years and work in oil. People, pets or wildlife are all things that I love to paint.

Paintings are perfect for gifts or to commemorate a special occasion.

Commissions are welcomed.

780-766-2795 | janet@jenfield.ca

art of the peace

26

PWS/CSPWC

Wendy Stefansson

Exhibits with the Grande Prairie Guild of Artists and the Peace Watercolor Society

Visual Artist

780-624-8522 | wendystefansson@gmail.com

780-539-4046

Barb

GREENTREE

Unique rural art from the Peace Region available at the Beaverlodge Cultural Centre

Vicki Hotte

780-532-6658 barbgreentree@telus.net My artwork captures the ruggedness of the Wild Kakwa and Peace Country in acrylic, watercolour and oil mediums.

780-354-3712 www.vickihotte.com

Evelyn E. Harris

Grant Berg

Grandmother

Judith A. Brown Mother

ASA

Unique Gallery March 25 - April 17 Stone Sculptor | 780-568-4400 | www.grantcberg.com

Painting by Judith A. Brown

Carolyn Brown Granddaughter

Three Generation Watercolour Artists 780-864-3608 | www.art3g.net

Marj Taylor 780-532-0355 mataylor@telusplanet.net 9506 77 Avenue, Grande Prairie, Alberta

780-568-4124 art@suzannesandboe.com www.suzannesandboe.com

Suzanne Sandboe

ASA, PWS

art of the peace

27

Beaverlodge, AB Beaverlodge Cultural Centre Exhibits & Events Donna Kaut Show & Sale April 25th – May 28th Beaverlodge Regional High School Art Students May 30th – June 11th

Pastels, Pens & Paints Susan Woolgar June 25th, 26th or 27th One Day Workshops For info call Vicki 780-933-6030.

Opportunities The Schoolhouse Studio is available for retreats, classroom, gallery or meetings. For info call 780-512-6316 or visit www.mcnaughthomestead.org-a. googlepages.com

Beth Coulas Show & Sale June 27th – July 23rd

Dawson Creek, BC

Emily Lozeron Show & Sale August 29th – September 23rd

Dawson Creek Art Gallery

Teresa Hill & Robin Hill Show & Sale September 26th – October 29th Sarah Smith Show & Sale October 31st – November 26th Darlene Dautel - The Fire Within November 28th – December 23rd

Exhibits & Events Exploring Art Time Out for Seniors Group March 31st – April 17th Mixed Media Work from Visual Arts Students in School District #59 April 19th – May 8th

Exhibitions+ Opportunities CHECK OUT WWW.ARTOFTHEPEACE.CA FOR MORE DETAILS, LOCATIONS AND HOURS Programs Programs in pottery, stained glass, batik, weaving, acrylic, oil and watercolour painting. Call 780-354-3600 for more info.

Opportunities Gallery exhibition and gift shop sales opportunities are available.

Call 780-354-3600 for info.

McNaught Homestead Events Euphemia McNaught Festival & I.O.D.E. Strawberry Tea July 25th, 1 - 4 pm At the Homestead Programs Beginners’ Digital Photography - Angie Patterson May 5th, 6 - 9 p.m.

May 8th, Full Day For details call 780-532-8876 Art Journaling - Barbara Daley June 5th - Full Day Workshop For info call Vicki 780-933-6030.

Intermediate & Advanced Photography with Don Pettit June 12th, One Day Workshop June 19th, One Day Workshop For info call Lori 780-354-3328.

art of the peace

28

Transcending Chandra Wong May 11th - June 6th In the Summertime South Peace Art Society June 7th - August 8th Dori Braun August 10th - September 11th High Art: Passport to the Peace Robert Guest and Dr. Darcel August 10th - September 11th Inspiration Six Mary Mottishaw, Mary Parslow, Judy Templeton, Barb Daley, Sandy Troudt, Cindy Vincent September 14th - October 2nd Feathers and Fur and Everything Else Denise Lindley and Judi Roberts October 5th - November 6th Programs Pottery Place Setting Workshop - Laurie Embree April 7th - May 12th,10 am - 1 pm Life Drawing Studio April 5th - June 28th, 7 - 9pm Digital Photography - Kit Fast April 7th - 21st, 6 - 8 pm

Opportunities Opportunities for exhibition. More info at www.dcartgallery.ca.

Fairview, AB Fairview Fine Arts Centre Exhibits & Events Mystical Beings Christina Cedar, Ernst Cedar and Wendi Nordel.

April 9th - 30th Artists at School Show May 7th - 29th Chili Cook-Off May 8th, 5:00 pm 2nd Annual Creations Inc. & Greying Nation June 4th - 26th Members’ Show and Sale June 28th - July 31st The Bridge: 50th Anniversary August 2nd - 28th Programs Phone the Centre at 780835-2697 or send an email to finearts@telus.net.

Fort St. John, BC Fort St. John Community Arts Council Exhibits & Events Arts and Culture Week FSJ Public Library April 20th, 2pm Artists’ Show and Sale & Children’s Art Activities Centennial Park July 1st, 11am-4pm Annual Flower Pot Auction Centennial Park TBA - Early June Programs Acrylic Workshop Teressa Berbard April 22th – April 25th, 9:30 am - 4 pm

Grande Prairie, AB Centre for Creative Arts Exhibits & Events Jim Stokes April 16th - May 28th Pottery Centre Show June 4th - 25th The Grande Prairie Figure Drawing Club July 9th - 30th Grande Prairie Guild of Artists October 1st - 29th Programs The Centre has classes for everyone! Check out our website, www.creativecentre.ca Opportunities We are currently looking for instructors to teach a variety of classes.

Grande Prairie Museum Exhibits & Events 3’s a Congeries!

April – December 31st The Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Project April – December 31st Heritage Discovery Centre Programs Tours and school programming available phone 780-532-5482.

Grande Prairie Regional College Exhibits & Events Glass Gallery Exhibits throughout the year.

Picture Perfect Events 18th Annual Capture the Beauty of the Peace April 3rd - 24th Winners announced April 28th Opportunities For exhibition opportunities call 780-539-4091.

Prairie Art Gallery

Grande Cache, AB Grande Cache Tourism & Interpretive Centre Exhibits & Events ACACA North Show May 14th - 16th Exhibiting the Palette Pals Art Club, local art, year round.

Check out www.grandecache.ca for more info.

Exhibits & Events 30th Annual Art Auction April 10th Wisdom of the Ages Janet Enfield April 2nd - May 17th Hers: The Sky’s the Limit Izabella Orzelski-Konikowski & Bogdan Koral-Konikowski April 2nd - May 17th Spring Hurlbut Le Jardin du sommeil June 4th - August 22nd

QEII Hospital, The Courtyard Gallery

Vicki Hotte June 3rd - 26th Opportunities Opportunities for exhibitions. Call Dan at 780-538-2790.

Exhibits & Events GALLERY As I See It Linda Henderson March & April

Tumbler Ridge, BC

The Colour Of Life Brenda Kreller & Charlette LaCount May & June AFA Traveling Exhibition Ken Housego July & August SHOWCASES Blain Askew April, May & June Katrina Favell July, August & September Opportunities for Artists For exhibition info call Carrie at the QEII Foundation 780-5387583.

celebrate the works art & design festivals’

25th anniversary in 2010 “For Gilbert”Tribute Exhibit for Gilbert Bouchard during The Works 2010 • Deadline May 15, 2010 The Works Art Market • Deadline April 15 • Smaller than a Breadbox • Deadline May 1, 2010 For more information or for an application visit www.theworks.ab.ca/societyfolder/calls/calls.html

Exhibits & Events Spring Show Art for Happiness March 19th & 20th at the Community Centre

Sign up for Give a Day Get a Disney Day • www.theworks.ab.ca/societyfolder/volunteer/volunteer.html

Silk Festival April 30th & May 1st Workshops and entertainment Creative Peace August 20th - 22nd Opportunities CALL FOR ENTRIES: Flag of Peaceful World Contest www.artforhappiness.com

Unique Gallery

Artful Retreat Silk-painting weekend workshops Starting in April www.artforhappiness.com

Exhibits & Events Sibling Revelry Grant Berg, Warren Berg & Cheryl McCartney Showing until April 17th

For more info on events and opportunities, contact mila@persona.ca.

Dan Arberry May 6th - 24th

National Conference for V i s u a l A r t s

AGM

May 14 & 15, 2010 Banff, Alberta CARFAC invites you to come meet your fellow artists in the mountains and discuss the issues that are important to you -- such as marketing, artists’ fees and public funding.

Networking, panels, workshops and more!!

w w w. c a r f a c . c a

& CARFAC

More information at:

Original Works by Local Artists

Linda Henderson

Lower Level, QEII Hospital 10409 98 Street, Grande Prairie, AB Exhibition Opportunities Available by contacting Carrie at 780-538-7583

Dawson Creek Sept 14 - Oct 2

Inspiration

6

Fort St. John Oct 8 - 21

www.artistsnorthcanada.com

Wil-Frame

Custom Picture Framing

Artful framing of all arts, needlework and sports memorabilia.

Phone 780-831-5238 Fax 780-766-3757 Email mcswater@telus.net

art of the peace

29

My students invariably ask, “Why do you do portraits?”

My answer always surprises them. I do portraits because I could never draw faces. This was a challenge that kept haunting me.

After I attended the Atlin Academy of Arts in 2002, my work centered on domestic violence and the “choice” to either freeze, like a deer caught in the headlights, or make positive moves towards happiness and calm. Everyday we are caught up in making choices about things that really have no relevance to our quality of life. As an artist, I would like to bring awareness to the important choices we need to make and spend less time wandering the grocery store aisles trying to choose the “best” toilet paper to buy.

My medium of choice for portraits is chalk pastel. I like to get my hands into my art.

I get the feeling I’m sculpting the face with the chalk. I pay special attention to the subjects’ eyes. This is where the heart of the soul shines through.

Buzzie Mason Pastel on paper 16” x 20”

Ada Lovmo art of the peace

30

This portrait features my uncle Buzzie Mason. During his life, Buzzie had many experiences that created the character lines on his face. These lines so fascinated me that doing his portrait had always been a goal of mine.

I teach my students that art is a muscle. The more you work it the stronger it gets. Each subject I take on offers me a new opportunity to exercise this muscle and reinforces the strength I have gained from previous portraits.

GRANDE

PRAIR I E

R E G I O N A L

C O L L E G E

The Fine Arts Department at GPRC offers courses in Music, Art and Drama with a focus on student learning and success. The Department provides in-depth learning opportunities and one-on-one instructor time not often found at other institutions. We offer a range of programs in both traditional and new medias.

MUS IC

ART Visual Arts

CERTIFICATE PROGRAM

Diploma in Music ACOUSTIC

Diploma in Visual Arts STUDIO PRACTICE

Diploma in Music

Diploma in Visual Arts

Bachelor of Music

Bachelor of Fine Arts

INTERACTIVE DIGITAL DESIGN

UNIVERSITY TRANSFER PROGRAM

DRAM A

INTERACTIVE DIGITAL DESIGN

UNIVERSITY TRANSFER PROGRAM

Diploma in Drama TECHNICAL THEATRE

Diploma in Drama

DRAMA & PERFORMANCE

finearts.gprc.ab.ca | 780-539-2944 | Toll free 1-888-539-4772 ext. 2443 10726 106 Avenue, Grande Prairie, AB, T8V 4C4 | Email: finearts@gprc.ab.ca

U PC O M I N G EXHIBITIONS JANET ENFIELD Wisdom of the Ages April 2 – May 17, 2010

This portrait exhibition earnestly captures the spirit and unique perspective of Peace Country elders whom the artist has had the pleasure of interviewing and photographing. To honour the many character’s individual life stories, every oil painting reveals a senior’s favourite colour, animal, vegetable, and inspirational quote, as well as how many children he or she has. It was once said, "The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person." Enfield’s intent is to help pass this wisdom along.

SPRING HURLBUT Le Jardin du sommeil Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay

June 4 - August 22, 2010

The moving sight of 140 cribs and cradles lined up in orderly fashion in The Prairie Art Gallery will summon up memories of hospitals, orphanages, dormitories, schoolrooms, cemeteries—images that telescope the cycle of life: birth, life and death. Le Jardin du sommeil (1998) is a remarkable installation by Canadian artist Spring Hurlbut.

The work evokes both childhood and the loss of childhood. It is made up of 140 antique, found, metal cribs and cradles, simply and soberly arranged in rows.

This exhibition is part of the MOMENTUM series, a touring project from the Collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.

Cette exposition s’inscrit dans le cadre de la série MOMENTUM, un projet de circulation de the Collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.

The MOMENTUM series has been made possible with the financial support of the Department of the Canadian Heritage through its Museums Assistance Program.

La série MOMENTUM a été rendue possible grâce à l’appui financier du ministère du Patrimoine canadien par le biais du Programme d’aide aux musées.

Located in the Montrose Cultural Centre #103, 9839 103 Avenue, Grande Prairie, AB T8V 6M7 P: (780) 532-8111 | F: (780) 539-9522 | E: info@prairiegallery.com art of the peace

32

www.prairiegallery.com