Annual art exhibit is ode to unique beauty of the season
By Mark Squibb | Vol 8 No. 3 (Feb 13. , 2019)
We now know why our winter has been so rough: we’ve upset the Cailleach, the bone mother, who guards the bones of animals that have died in the winter so that they may be reborn in the spring.
See, with all this talk of clearing snow, and getting the job done, we have forgotten that winter is a time of rest. That winter is a time to just not be so busy, a time to appreciate the beauty of the season.
And if we embrace the stillness of winter, we may yet be able to tame the bone mother’s wrath.
Christine Hennebury is with the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl (AAMP). She told of the bone mother, and of the natural beauty of winter during the opening night of the Wintery ReMix exhibit.
The exhibit being a collaboration between AAMP, and the Admiralty House Communications Museum.
It was housed in the Annex alongside the Mount Pearl museum.
Randy Blundon has been drawing and painting since he was young. Blundon is a familiar face in Mount Pearl, teaching out of his Mount Pearl studio on Topsail Road.
“You get a lot of colour in winter,” Blundon said. His painting of a southside St. Johns landscape depicting icicles formed on a rocky cliff surface is on display at the exhibit.
“In theses ice candles, you get greens, and blues, and purples, and the dogberries are left on the tree,” he said. “There’s always colour somewhere. And even when there’s a lot of snow, there are shadows and snow sculpted by the wind into different shapes. Everywhere you look there’s something different.”
Blundon, who has been drawing and painting since he was young, is a familiar face in Mount Pearl, teaching out of his Mount Pearl studio on Topsail Road.
E.B. Reid has displayed her photos at St. John’s exhibits, and it was her first time being displaying her work in Mount Pearl.
“I’ve never actually had a piece submitted outside of Downtown St. Johns, so to actually make it to the Pearl is amazing.”
E.B. Reid is used to displaying her work in St. Johns, and said it’s been a great experience, sharing her work in Mount Pearl.
Her black-and-white photo depicts a stroll through a wonderland of perfectly symmetrical trees and park benches, offset by a single, solitary lamppost.
It looks like it might just be the magical land of Narnia— it’s Bannerman Park on a Sunday afternoon.
“I was walking through Bannerman Park, and it was a beautiful day, and I was just struck by how beautiful it was.”
“When life gives you an image in front of you like this, you have to just capture it on your camera or your smartphone,” she said.” “A shot like this is a gift.”
Reid has been shooting photos since she was a young girl. She shot her first photos with a Kodiak while volunteering as a Girl Guide, and has recently begun displaying her photos.
Angela Hennebury is an artist born and raised in Mount Pearl.
Her work is a mixture of mediums. It depicts a snow-covered tree, inspired by a simple look into her out backyard.
“It’s a little bit of everything,” she said. “It’s on a pine panel, it has tissue paper over it to give it texture, and then an acrylic medium to bring it, and it’s covered in sparkle and beads.
“I like to make art that has as much texture as possible.”
She made the piece at the Annex over a period of a couple weeks.
Hennebury, who has been creating art for the last decade, said that winter has just a little extra sparkle than any other season— perfect for an artist that loves glitter.
And displaying that art in Mount Pearl is especially exciting.
“Whenever I go anywhere and my name is net to a piece of art, it’s exciting. But, also, because this is Mount Pearl, and this is where I grew up, and it’s people I know going through, and people I’ve grown up it, it’s pretty cool.”
The exhibit, launched in connection with the Mount Pearl Frosty Festival (Frosty himself dropped by to check out some of the artwork on display), will be on display until Feb. 21.
