UNews - ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Department

Australian Aboriginal artist explores southern Alberta landscape

caroline.zentner — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 22:09:35 +0000

When Australian indigenous artist Bianca Beetson arrived in southern Alberta, she was first struck by the flatness of the land and then by its dramatic geographical changes as she neared the Rocky Mountains.

As an artist, Beetson is a keen observer, so it’s no surprise she soaked up the geography when she arrived in Crowsnest Pass in September to be an artist-in-residence at the Gushul Studio. The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Department facilitates the program through its Australia Indigenous Arts Residency Exchange, which started in 2011.

In Australia, Beetson leads the team in the Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art program at Griffith ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. During her residency in Canada, she says she wants to know how the Aboriginal experience in Australia compares with that in Canada.

"There are so many similarities between Australian and Canadian Aboriginal culture. The national apologies were on the same day in Australia and Canada. The issues around assimilation and the impact of assimilation are extremely similar. You’ve got reserves; we’ve got missions and there’s a lot of the same social issues around the missions as there are around reserves,” says Beetson.

She’s been exploring the similarities in Aboriginal culture and creating artworks that have been influenced or inspired by the southern Alberta locale. That’s no easy task as Beetson is sensitive to appropriating cultural images or symbols.

“It’s kind of hunting and gathering of images and putting them together in one big pot to create work. It’s always a challenge making work outside your own country,” she says.

One image that keeps popping up is the cross, whether the vertical cross on a church or a horizontal cross like the one that appears on a railway crossing sign. Diamonds and circles have also been playing around the edges of her mind.

She’s been working on a 365-day self-portraiture project that is part of her doctoral work. Each day she takes a series of self-portraits and posts one of them to a social media site. When she first arrived in Crowsnest Pass, her self-portraits frequently showed her feet, something she suspects is due to her feeling that she was standing on someone else’s land. Then her portraits showed her feet in the air, symbolizing a feeling of being a little lost in the new landscape.

“My work is about my country and my land and my identity. Being in someone else’s country, creating a work is always a challenge but there’s elements, motifs and symbols that kind of keep resonating and that’s where I’m focusing a lot of work,” says Beetson.

Beetson at work in the Gushul Studio in Crowsnest Pass

Identity is also central to Beetson’s work, historically and politically. Her work touches on the loss and rebuilding of identity, something that she sees her students grapple with, too.

“I often say to them ‘Until you feel comfortable in your skin you can’t really move forward,’” she says.

She has seen the healing power of art, regardless of the skill of the artist. When she worked in community art for a local government, they worked with people who are called drones. She explains they are typically alcoholics who live in a public park. They hang about on the outskirts, make plenty of noise and annoy people. The art project involved painting a block of public toilets, a place where many people had taken their own lives. One of the rules was that people had to stay sober if they were involved in the art project.

“The whole time we were doing it — it lasted about three weeks — they did not drink. They guarded that toilet block with their life because they had a purpose and they had something to do,” says Beetson. “They did an amazing job. I was trying to get an arts and cultural centre for them for that reason. A lot of the time we need something like that because the only way we know to heal the pain or not feel the pain is through drinking or substance abuse. I’ve seen it so many times. They get drawing or writing or just sort of making and moving and they’re getting it out. It doesn’t matter if it’s good; it’s cathartic.”

Beetson understands the catharsis that can come with doing art because it helped her cope as a child.

“I was dyslexic so I always struggled with education and school and reading. I was always creative but never thought I was very good at art because I couldn’t draw,” she says. “I was an outsider and I found it difficult to make friends because I travelled around a lot as a child and changed schools and was dislocated quite a lot. It was always a difficult process so I used to go and hide in the art room. It was where I felt comfortable and it was my way of communicating without being judged because of my learning issues.”

Beetson returns to Australia later this month. She says the artist-in-residency program has given her the luxury of time to focus on her art, do research and just look.

She is one of the many artists-in-residence who has worked out of the Gushul Studio since the residency program first began in the late 1980s. The program initially operated on a lease agreement with several Crowsnest Pass organizations. The property and buildings were gifted to the U of L in the early 1990s. The artist-in-residence has proven to be a popular program, with some artists and scholars returning every year.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ loses Granzow

trevor.kenney — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:05:38 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ community wishes to extend its most sincere condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of the late Carl Granzow, age 65, a founding member of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Faculty of Fine Arts (Art Department). Carl was an internationally known sculptor, long-serving faculty member, lecturer, creative influence and friend to many on campus and off.

He passed away Saturday, April 11 surrounded by his family. His spouse Friederike, children John, Michael, Andrea and Kara, and three grandchildren survive Granzow.

A memorial service has not yet been finalized.

Condolences can be directed to Karen Mahar in the Faculty of Fine Arts Dean's office (karen.mahar@uleth.ca) for forwarding to the family.

Carl Granzow's research focused on experimental forms of sculpture and his work has been exhibited in Canada, the United States and Germany. In 1985, the American sculptor Larry Bell selected Granzow's work for exhibition at the North American Sculpture Exhibition in Golden, Colorado where he won the Foothills Art Centre Award for Sculpture.

He also presented at international sculpture conferences in Yorkshire, England and in Oakland, California.

Before discovering art, Granzow attended California Western ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ on a track scholarship and studied physics. However, his love of art changed the direction of his career.

Granzow came to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge in 1975 as a lecturer in sculpture and design and in 1979 he accepted a tenure track position in the Department of Art, where he maintained a balanced interest in teaching, research/creative activity, and administrative service.

Over the past almost 30 years, he was instrumental in the development of Papokan, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's Sculpture Park; the Gushul Studios Artist Residency Program in the Crowsnest Pass; and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's art studio program.

Administratively, he served as Chair for the Art Department, President of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Faculty Association, and was most recently the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts and Director of the Papokan Sculpture Park.

Granzow also initiated and coordinated the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's Phase Two Sculpture Competition that resulted in the acquisition of a major work entitled Western Channel by John McEwen.

Recently, Granzow worked with the U of L Grounds staff to create a large tree-planting project near the U of L's Aperture Lake. Calling it the 100-Tree Grove, the work consists of a large planting of trees and a rock spiral sculpture on a hill overlooking the lake.

He also designed a large sculpture, Sphere of Influence, which now sits in downtown Lethbridge.

Some of his work is part of the exhibit "First Faculty: works by early members of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Department" currently on display in the Helen Christou Gallery.

McGeorge highlights First Faculty exhibition

trevor.kenney — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:41:13 +0000

Pauline McGeorge was born on January 18, 1930, and grew up at her father's lumber mill near Placerville in Northern California. Her parents, Bart and Elsie, instilled a respect for and love of nature in her that remained a prominent theme throughout her life and artistic practice.

McGeorge completed her education at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of California at Santa Barbara (receiving a Master of Fine Arts) and in 1966, she responded to a posting for a full-time art instructor made by the Lethbridge Junior College.

McGeorge moved to Lethbridge with her four children where she became the founding faculty member of what would become the Art Department at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. At that early stage the facilities were primitive, with no visual aids, art books or rooms designed for the needs of art instruction.

Over her 20-year career at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, McGeorge was extremely influential in the growth of the department and the founding of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Art Gallery. She was beloved by her students and other faculty members, many of who kept in contact with her through the years.

Upon her retirement in 1986, McGeorge moved to her property on Kootenay Lake where she developed extensive flower and vegetable gardens. She continued her art, drawing

Pauline McGeorge, Untitled, 1977. From the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Collection; Gift of Dr. Ches Skinner, 2003.

inspiration from the simple beauty of nature. Pauline McGeorge died on July 2, 2008, at her home in the presence of her family.

Select pieces of Pauline McGeorge's work, held by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Collection, will be on display in the Helen Christou Gallery as part of the exhibition First Faculty: Works by Early Members of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Department, running from Mar. 20 to May 29, 2009.

Canadian artists have a history of drawing inspiration from the land. This has been true of Pauline, but unlike many others, she has not felt the need to seek out the exotic site. She has found the extraordinary in her own backyard, more specifically in her large vegetable and flower garden and the surrounding trees. Pauline's watercolours and pastels recall the rhythm of the university condensed into the wind-swept branch of a pine tree or a single head of cabbage.

Professor Emeritus Charlie Crane
��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Department

Lasting Images - Pauline McGeorge (1930-2008)

trevor.kenney — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:14:52 +0000

McGeorge completed her education at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of California at Santa Barbara (receiving a Master of Fine Arts) and in 1966, she responded to a posting for a full-time art instructor made by the Lethbridge Junior College.

McGeorge moved to Lethbridge with her four children where she became the founding faculty member of what would become the Art Department at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. At that early stage the facilities were primitive, with no visual aids, art books or rooms designed for the needs of art instruction.

Over her 20-year career at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, McGeorge was extremely influential in the growth of the department and the founding of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Art Gallery. She was beloved by her students and other faculty members, many of who kept in contact with her through the years.

Upon her retirement in 1986, McGeorge moved to her property on Kootenay Lake where she developed extensive flower and vegetable gardens. She continued her art, drawing inspiration from the simple beauty of nature. Pauline McGeorge died on July 2, 2008, at her home in the presence of her family.

Select pieces of Pauline McGeorge's work, held by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Collection, will be on display in the Helen Christou Gallery as part of the exhibition First Faculty: Works by Early Members of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Department, running from Mar. 20 to May 29, 2009.

Canadian artists have a history of drawing inspiration from the land. This has been true of Pauline, but unlike many others, she has not felt the need to seek out the exotic site. She has found the extraordinary in her own backyard, more specifically in her large vegetable and flower garden and the surrounding trees. Pauline's watercolours and pastels recall the rhythm of the university condensed into the wind-swept branch of a pine tree or a single head of cabbage.

Professor Emeritus Charlie Crane
��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Department

UNews - ��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Department

Australian Aboriginal artist explores southern Alberta landscape

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