NOVEMBER 2, 2007
22 • INDEPENDENTLIFE
GALLERYPROFILE
W
hen Chapel Arm native Tia Warren attended Sir Wilfred Grenfell College on the island’s west coast, she first thought she would specialize in photography. Instead, she fell in love with the technique of printmaking — and a fellow printmaker. Michael Connolly of Kilbride started his art education at Grenfell in the same year. The married couple acknowledge there were sparks right off the bat, but they weren’t necessarily the romantic kind. “We used to fight most of the time,” says Tia, with a grin. “But by the end of the year we were together,” finishes Michael. The relationship resulted in a wedding, daughter Anna (now 15 months old), busy careers in the art field and their first joint show. Sticks and Stones and Garden Gnomes will be on display at the Leyton Gallery in St. John’s Nov. 3-24. The collection of acrylic paintings, drawings, collage and prints is a gentle and innovative interpretation of the natural world they share and enjoy together. A professed woodsman, Michael’s
TIA & MICHAEL CONNOLLY
Visual Artists work is the sticks and stones part of the exhibition. A recent concentration on wood — particularly the stands of birch and spruce growing around his family cabin in Mobile — led to working strips of birch bark into the ultimate wood product: his paper canvas. Michael has drilled holes into the bark (akin to the province’s woodpeckers), pasted pieces of it onto paper and inked a spectrum of pulpy beiges, yellows and browns over the natural material. The dark slubbings of the bark show through filmy tracing paper and fecund, drooping catkin seeds are drawn over the whole works — the life cycle of the paper prod-
uct and an artist’s working surface built into a frame. “I really like trees,” he says. “I like the movement, and each tree has its own personality which I think is really neat … the human aspect I find interesting, the human potential of the everyday things we take for granted.” From tree bark and arrowhead drawings — Michael’s stone fixation — to fish and flocks of vibrantly coloured birds, nature’s influence and humanity’s manipulation of it figures subtly in both artists’ work. Tia has also produced several pieces focusing on trees and leaves, but one image, Veronica’s Long Road, features a neon blue ghost of a Newfoundland pony. Tia’s father bred the ponies at one time, and his daughter was in charge of turning the little horse out into its summer grazing ground. “I rode her only once when we had to go from Chapel Arm to Whitbourne to bring her in there for the summer. She was going to be in this field with all these other horses and so I just got tired of walking, it takes hours, so I hopped on her back,” she recalls.
The house in the painting’s background is a concoction of Tia’s imagination, gathered from photographs and what her husband has described to her about the family stead. Michael’s grandparents owned the Kilbride home, but it no longer stands. The two cool subjects are separated and highlighted by electric tracers in red and yellow, perhaps a visual representation of the nostalgic journey of Tia’s past. Another image, of a tree silhouetted by dusk, is on the surface a sensual study of a quickly darkening sky flecked with gold. Upon closer inspection however, the garden gnome of the show’s title makes an appearance, adding a distinctively light touch to the work. His little red Santa Claus hat is a charming dissonance that hints at the artist’s light-hearted personality. Asked whether their shared artistic pursuits enhance their relationship, Tia responds succinctly. “It is our relationship,” she says, looking at Michael. He nods in agreement. “It always has been.” mandy.cook@theindependent.ca
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‘One to note above all’ From page 21 comedies Little Mosque on the Prairie and Corner Gas coming up smiling in major categories. There is a huge irony in the littleknown fact that most of Little Mosque on the Prairie is shot in Toronto and that Corner Gas is, well, not that funny to anyone living east of Kenora, but then no one asked me to do any judging. Perhaps when the Geminis are televised from St. John’s we’ll see some of the top prizes awarded here. And then there’s award-winning writer Jane Urquhart, whose elegant face actually made it to the front page of the Other Paper last weekend. I nearly fell off my chair, unaccustomed as I am to seeing any novelist, let alone one from away, so prominently featured in The Telegram.
The story centred on the fact of an imminent reading by one of Canada’s leading writers and that Urquhart has always found this province to be a rich source of literary inspiration and writerly support. Here is a case where a strong handful of prestigious awards have gone a deservedly long way. Having been short-listed for all the significant literary awards in the universe, Urquhart has already claimed a Governor General’s Award for the novel The Stone Carvers and the notable distinction of having remained on the Globe and Mail’s bestseller list for a record-breaking 132 weeks. Urquhart is also an Officer of that club of clubs, the Order of Canada. And that brings me to Patrick O’Flaherty, professor emeritus, author, educator and passionate advocate of Newfoundland literature and culture, not to mention columnist for
this paper, now named as a worthy member of that prestigious Order. In a season of award ceremonies, last weekend’s annual ritual marking the investiture of members of the Order of Canada surely ranks as the most distinguished. “It’s the unexpected public recognition of a life’s work carried out mostly in the obscurity of academic settings,” Dr. O’Flaherty remarked on the honour with characteristic wit. Music and film and even writing awards get a lot more attention, but O’Flaherty’s scholarly achievement is the one to note above all. It transcends the marketplace, is as free of commercialism, cronyism, and bias as it gets, and everyone gets to bask in it. Bravo! Noreen Golfman is a professor of literature and women’s studies at Memorial. Her column returns Nov. 16.