Pow Wow in Winnipeg!

Definitely one of the highlights of my short trip to Winnipeg was having the honour of attending the fantastic opening ceremony for Manito Ahbee 2023 – an annual Indigenous cultural extravaganza that is province-wide. 

The regalia, dancing, drumming and singing was amazing. Unfortunately I have not mastered the video function on my phone and didn’t take any still photos, so these are low quality screen grabs. Luckily the Manito Ahbee Festival has it's own website with plenty of videos, pictures and information here.

My previous blog posts about my time in Winnipeg, including Indigenous Feminism, public art, The Forks and Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq can be accessed here, here, here and here.

Winnipeg Art Gallery

Though it seems ages ago that I was in Winnipeg, it was just over a month and I am still thinking of that wonderful visit! As well as Inuit Sanaugangit: Art Across Time, which I posted about here, I also saw other exhibitions at The Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq. 

There was an exhibition of the 2023 Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award Shortlist Artists. All the shortlisted artists were female and all were Indigenous.  I particularly liked the work of Ningiukulu Teevee, though since they were behind glass it was very difficult to photograph them.

This is a detail of one, which gives a better idea of the texture in the drawing.

In a lobby area on the second floor, several large works by Ivan Eyre were displayed on the walls flanking the stairwell. Although Eyre was born and grew up in Saskatchewan, he moved to Winnipeg in the early 1950s and taught painting and drawing at the University of Manitoba for 33 years until he retired in 1992. Eyre died in 2022,

This is a detail of the previous large panoramic landscape.

In another gallery room were several installations by Faye Heavyshield. It is difficult to get a sense of her work in a small photograph but each of the floating pieces are human-size. Another wall installation, my favourite actually, was unphotographable in that each part of the whole needed to be examined and an overall picture would not give any sense of the work at all!

Other posts I made about my time in Winnipeg can be found here and here.

The Forks, Winnipeg

Walking around The Forks area in Winnipeg (oh so many weeks ago now!) in search of Indigenous feminist public sculptures (which I posted about here), I had to cross the pedestrian bridge over the Assiniboine River. Looking up I noticed a brightly painted bicycle; I figured it was a piece of public sculpture, but could find no information or artist credit anywhere. I wondered about the large area behind it too, but when I continued walking ...

the mural, by Mike Valcourt was revealed.

The heritage marker for the Red River was a fascinating sculpture that required close inspection .I should have taken some more detailed pictures at the time, because I could find no information, artist credit or pictures when I googled it later (I thought I would). 

The pedestrian bridge was a perfect spot to view the smaller Assiniboine River meeting up with the larger Red River. Across the water is St Boniface, a predominantly French-speaking area of Winnipeg, where Canadian author Gabrielle Roy grew up.

 

Indigenous Feminism

 The day after I arrived in Winnipeg, I attended a fabulous workshop/lecture Indigenous Feminisms through Visual Art at MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art). Dr Suzanne McLeod led the group through an inspirational history of Indigenous feminism discussing both past and current work by Indigenous women artists. One of the contemporary artists discussed, KC Adams, who had a public sculpture at The Forks in Winnipeg and I took the opportunity to see it in person. 

Niimaamaa, the title of this collaborative piece, means “mother” in Cree, Ojibwe and Métis languages. It is an outline of a pregnant woman, apparently the first time this subject has been depicted in public sculpture in Canada. 

It is a mixed metal work representative of motherhood and Mother Earth. This sculpture is a collaboration between three Indigenous women: KC Adams, Jaimie Isaac and Val Vint.

Further along the pleasant walk at The Forks one comes across the sculpture Education is the New Bison by Val Vint. 

It is a mostly corten steel sculpture composed of “books”with laser-cut author names and titles that are important to Indigenous culture.

The bison is created from books written by Indigenous authors or allies.

Further along yet again, lies the inspirational corten steel piece by Jaimie Isaac The 8th and Final Fire. 

The tipi-shaped flame at the front continues as a series of echoes as one walks around the sculpture.

The plaque (in several languages, though I have only included the English words) gives a full explanation of the thinking behind the sculpture.

Inuit Sanauganit: Art Across Time

While I was in Winnipeg (Canada) recently, I went to The Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq to see the amazing exhibition Inuit Sanaugangit: Art Across Time. 

The huge exhibition included work by artists spanning from 200 BCE to now, so we decided to start in the smaller, top floor gallery and work our way down. There were a number of sculptures here and walking space around each, in order to view in three dimensions.

The mezzanine-like top floor gallery, allowed me to look down on the main gallery. This view shows only a portion, maybe a third, of what awaited!

The catalogue of work, names and years was far-ranging and included finely decorated weapons, such as this bolus

detailed drawings on horn bone

and utility items such as pipes. It also contained traditional textiles, such as clothing, and I enjoyed earwigging on a school tour to hear some stories and facts related to various works.

This is an enormous exhibition that encompasses Inuit art forms from 200 BCE to now, so it contained traditional older work as well as contemporary work by Inuit artists. 

The catalogue accompanying the exhibition was so huge that it was impossible for me to keep track of new vs old work and artist names.I was always glad of the careful spacing of sculptures, allowing the viewer to see it easily from all vantage points, especially larger ones, such as this, which changed so drastically from one side to the next.

The exhibition included sculpture, drawing, painting, textiles (tapestry and clothing) as well as printmaking. Having recently taken a Japanese woodblock printmaking course. which I blogged about here, I was delighted to see the woodblock displayed with the print allowing me to examine the registration marks and carving techniques. The woodblock carving itself being seen as an artform always makes me think of Canadian artist Paterson Ewen, whose paintings I greatly admire.

rooftop archive 12 - the noughties

I think this might be the last post about the rooftop archive. For my penultimate rooftop archive post visit here and within that post are links to all the previous posts of the archive. Though this sketch is probably from 1991, I forgot to process it and post it in the correct decade of the archive so I decided I would include it in this post anyway! Although it is an undated sketch, I remember creating it in my studio in Toronto before I started the second group of paintings in the My Tower of Strength series. I have long since discarded the rest of the sketchbook (either an A4 or 8.5x11 inch) this sketch manages to survive all my various purges. I used a variety of media to create this sketch – metal leaf, oilstick and some turpentine brushed around some areas of oilstick.

In 2000 or 2001, I was still living in the middle of Bray on Florence Rd and was enjoying creating large plein air sketches in my tiny backyard. In this one I was regarding the upstairs window and the strange pipes surrounding it. I was sketching with watercolours and charoal on paper, 84 cm x 60 cm.

There was also a geranium plant out the back that had managed to survive untended for years before we moved in. Again this is mixed media on paper, 84 cm x 60 cm.

I think this painting of the flower lesser celandine is from 2001 (though I'm not entirely sure). It is untitled, acrylic on card, 88 cm x 50 cm.

One of the reasons I think these works are from 2001 is that I also did a very large painting of dying tulips on canvas that year, before I became pregnant, and these remind me of that work.

untitled, acrylic on card, 88 cm x 50 cm

untitled, acrylic on card, 88 cm x 50 cm

I haven’t eaten any physalis in a long time (I don’t know why) but for awhile I loved the fruit itself and also enjoyed drawing it – I especially loved the material contrast between the solid orange fruit and it’s delicate, papery wrapping. 

untitled, mixed media on paper, 60 cm x 84 cm, 2000

untitled, mixed media on paper, 60 cm x 84 cm, 2000

more from the "Lost" series

I am still working away on my Lost series of contact monoprints. So in addition to what I blogged about here and here, I am posting more in the series. Because the process can be very random, I can never be quite sure if the print is successful until the final lifting of the paper away from the plate. Sometimes I may have either over-inked or under-inked the plate so I put the print to one side to study if there is anything I liked about it and perhaps make more attempts with the specific image. I have limited myself to three tools for mark-making: a sharp pencil, an eraser and an old credit card. These three tools are giving me crisp sharp lines, soft blurs and sharp areas, respectively. I am very happy with my choices! All of the works are the same size, 12.5 cm x 18.5 cm (or 18.5 cm x 12.5 cm if they are vertical images), printed on Japanese mulberry paper.

Many things went missing from the shared studio

After thirty years abroad, they never regretted their return home

Despite the isolation, we made the place our home

There were only a few occasions when the whole family was together

The kitchen window offered a great view of visitors in the back yard