The arts from up here
The weather is cold, the pandemic continues apace, and we need some significant cheer. My Beautiful Flin Flon has been in a -30° C degree deep freeze since before Christmas! You may think we are exaggerating but it’s true, though some of us still seem to get out there every day to take and post photographs. You can’t keep a good artist down, especially a landscape photographer.
We can always see the beauty of the natural landscape in Flin Flon and environs after someone else takes the photograph. Some of that is because we only have an ‘eye’ after the picture is taken but most of it, truth be told, is our natural disinclination to be tramping about in the bush at any time. Our idea of the great outdoors is a cool beverage on the screened-in deck, in July or August, perhaps with a bouquet of cut flowers on the table. Winter is most definitely a time to be warm and cozy, indoors.
We are blessed though, with wonderful landscape artists in the north. We have an amazing number of indigenous artists as well, who draw much inspiration from the natural environment. The current Northern Visual Arts Centre (NorVA) gallery exhibition, ‘Honour and Reverence: For the land, the animals and the work of women and men’ by Pat Bragg, is an excellent example, to prove our point. Bragg spent some of her formative years in Flin Flon and has lived in Winnipeg before making her home in the Yukon. She makes wearable art from hand-dyed silk, wool and dyed fur and beaded photographs, pieces that are incredibly evocative. Bragg has had several exhibitions of her work including at Cre8ery Gallery, Winnipeg and Focus Gallery, Whitehorse, YK. The NorVA exhibit will be on display until February 15.
The Northern Juried Art Show, a 45-year-old institution in northern Manitoba, is coming back to Flin Flon in 2022. There are or were, six regional juried art shows every year in Manitoba, Central, Eastman, Interlake, Parkland, Western and Northern. They encouraged all artists in that region to submit examples of their work for feedback from professional artists who were established in their art practice and careers. COVID-19 has played havoc with these shows and has made it necessary for them to go online. The artists still receive feedback from the jurors and art lovers get an opportunity to see all of the pieces from all over the province because photographs are uploaded, and the Manitoba Arts Network displays them on its website. Unfortunately, one is not able to get the entire feel of a work of art from a photograph but, we have enjoyed seeing them all when previously we could only see one or maybe two physical shows and that only with extensive travel.
We were hopeful that we might see northern works of art in person over the three days of the show in Flin Flon. The Omicron variant has put that idea to the test, but it may still be possible. The NJAS group that has taken responsibility to organize previous exhibitions will meet soon to determine dates for the show in Flin Flon. The last two iterations of the NJAS, in Thompson and in The Pas have been online and the 2020 and 2021 versions of the Manitoba Rural and Northern Juried Art Show, which brings together the pieces judged to be the best in the regional shows, were also online events.
The categories of pieces run the gamut from painting, in oils, acrylic or watercolor to ceramics to beaded moccasins. The MRNJAS will certainly happen in September 2022. We will be sure to remind you! Of course, there will be several landscapes, but none will be as beautiful as Flin Flon.