SACKVILLE, NEW BRUNSWICK

SACKVILLE, A CLASSY LITTLE TOWN

A weekend is not a lot of time to judge a place, but Sackville, N.B. does seem to be a place where it’s respectable to be thoughtful. Where poets are respected. One poet, Douglas Lochhead, has his work not only printed in books but displayed on utility poles so you can read “High Marsh Road” in 31 verses as you walk through town. You can connect with nature and get exercise on the three kilometre waterfowl park where sculpture by local artists can also be seen along with ducks, geese, muskrats, redwing blackbirds and other wildlife. Museums and a harness shop along with a Carriage Factory make Sackville a very historical town, often called “The Cultural Crossroads”. Colville House honours the most famous Canadian painter who ever resided in this town. There’s no lack of theatres, movie houses, craft shops and art galleries.
It’s a clean town perhaps because of a citizen, Harold Geddes, who was honoured for his twenty years of keeping the Main Street swept and neat. His monument stands at the corner with a sculpture of his broom and shovel.
Mount Allison University is a short walk from the centre of town an has a wonderful art gallery, Owens Art Gallery with over 3,000 works of art in it’s collection.
Charlottetown, should take a lesson or two from little Sackville, a thinking person’s kind of town. We should compare the Art Gallery and Art department of UPEI to a place that thinks a University should be something more than a ‘trade school’. Have we ever really honoured our poets and painters? We have a park with a fine pond used to dump trash in. I didn’t see plastic water bottles, beer cans and other rubbish floating in the waterfowl park in Sackville. You didn’t have to pay to park in the town and bike parking racks were everywhere. The farmers market is in the heart of the town and the downtown was still very much alive.

Printmaking in Quebec

The ateliers at Engramme are located in the Sainte – Roch quarter, one of Quebec City’s oldest nieghbourhoods. Though it used to be a district of immigrants, artisans and workers it has been in the process of transforming itself into what Soho is to New York. Like the art district of the Big Apple, the quarter was once an area of factory buildings. ‘Wall – Dog” murals abounded in the industrial area when tobacco ads for Sweet Caporal cigarettes and other ads covered large expanses of brick wall. These days, that part of the city is revitalized. Ste. Joseph Street has miles of bookshops, theatres and shops where every form of craft can be purchased. I found a good source of canvas and other art supplies. There is a nearby art college as well. It was built in an old corset factory.
The Dufferin Expressway cut through the district in the late sixties and left a scar. The nineteen – seventies and early eighties was a dark period as everything moved out to the malls and the ‘burbs’. Nobody lived in the district then, but by the late eighties, revitalization had begun. The train station and waterfront was given a facelift. A farmers market installed and even the overpasses were adorned with colourful murals. A large garden and park filled an empty lot and warehouses became offices, stores, galleries and artists’ lofts.
There are two hundred artists’ studios in the area. I visited one belonging to Manon Bourdon who showed me her etchings and etching press. She now owns the loft on the top floor of an old factory building, which she purchased through a condominium plan that favours long term, low payments. Though the stairs to the studio are an exhausting climb, the view from the large window is worth it. No one in Quebec City needs a gym. Just ascending the steep hills and the thousands of steps that often separate the streets by massive cliffs would keep anyone in shape. Manon was very proud of her etching press, which she told me she had bought for three thousand dollars. It resembled and is likely an early version of the Praga presses we use at the P.E.I. studio.
Manon is an artist who exhibits both nationally and internationally. Her prints are very impressive some exceeding six feet in length, printed in sections. Her subject has often been sirens and I was very much excited by these massive dimensions and the quality and texture of her work in black and white. All this energy from a tiny elfin person on a comparatively small etching press. Manon would be an outstanding artist anywhere. She was just one of the many talented artists I had met on my stay in the city.
Manon was also very helpful in aiding my communication skills in French. It is my belief that a French-speaking person trying to learn English has an advantage. The Francophone trying to speak English is forgiven all mistakes because they sound so sexy. While the Anglo trying to speak French just sounds stupid! This is only a theory. I found nothing but helpfulness, understanding and tolerance from everyone I met, despite my language handicap.

Le Complexe Meduse

Engramme is located between Cote d’ Abraham and Sainte – Vallier Street. It is a part of the Complexe Meduse. The complex includes nine renovated buildings. My apartment was on the sixth floor, half way up a steep hill near the park and a television station. This complex was part of the catalyst for the ’artistic intrusion’. There are studios and galleries for music, photography, painting and printmaking as well as publishers and offices for arts organizations. Cafes and restaurants also are



Part of the wedge shaped buildings that are joined in much the same way as the NSCAD waterfront buildings. These changes have brought over six thousand people to the distinct, described by many as a hive of activity both day and night.

Printmaking at Engramme

I have saved this section for the last because I wanted to set the stage and describe how the arts has brought new life to this part of the city and has transformed a dying district for new activities that boost the economy through tourism while at the same time benefiting the arts community. The Charlottetown community could learn lessons. There is more to the economy of tourism than red – headed kids and long – dead politicians in top hats.
I diverse, printmaking is what I was there to do in this beautiful city of Quebec. Partly because of the weather and the fact that I wanted to devote myself to the job at hand, I saw very little of the many art galleries and concert halls. It snowed and was cold during the fortnight of my stay. It can be very hard to get around in such times and as a result I saw very little of the active community life there in Sainte – Roch.
The Engramme Gallery is at the sharp end of the wedge. It is lit by large, floor to ceiling windows on both sides. Movable panels are used as walls to display the art. Denise Pelletier’s etchings were displayed there in an exhibit she calls ‘ Pli et Pluie ‘. Her prints have a beautiful Zen- like quality to them and showed clearly the power of black and white. They were beautifully hung and I felt her work is of very high quality. She is one of the artists whom I shared the etching studio with on a daily basis. Each morning she traveled an hour and a half by bus and devoted the entire day to inking and printing her work. I learned a lot about traditional use of tarlatan and the careful wiping of the plates that gave the beautiful tonal texture of her work. She is one of over a hundred artists who are members of the studio complex. They pay one hundred dollars annually and all have storage space for both their art and tools in the three main studios for serigraphy, lithography and intaglio printmaking. This is where I centered most of my activities. The studios are well equipped with modern up – to – date presses, acid rooms, arc lamps, vacuum tables and everything needed to produce works on paper. An art supply store carries everything needed and a good selection of paper.
I will take a little time here to describe the two studios where I spent most of my time. I was trained as a professional lithographer under master printer Bob Rogers from nineteen- sixty-nine onwards through the early seventies. We printed lithographs from stones for well-known painters and artists from all over the world. The lithographic studio at Engramme was the best I have seen anywhere and I have worked presses in Toronto, Wolfsburg, in Germany, St. Michaels in Newfoundland, Holguin, Cuba and Montreal. It is an excellent workspace, well lit with natural and artificial light. It is not the largest studio, but the most efficient. Everything in perfect order and ship-shape. A very good selection of stones and a perfect sized studio for the membership numbers they have. One of the two presses is a familiar Charles Brand (all of them now out of production). It has a twenty by thirty-six bed and a chain – reduction gearing, built in New York to last forever. These are the types of presses I was trained on and spent long hours rolling up stones on.



The Griffin press with a sixty-nine by thirty-nine bed was the machine to fall in love with. Built in Oakland, California it combines beauty and function like the custom-built motorcycles that are a tradition where the Griffin Machine Company comes from. It is a dazzling blue and gold with embossed details and smooth action with double chain reduction. I hope to some day have a close relationship with that machine but, I had come prepared to do intaglio printmaking.
The intaglio studio is a match in size to the litho if not a little larger. Again, the lighting was excellent. Three Conrad etching presses are the focus of the room with workstations with large glass inking tables for each. These presses are not pretty but they do operate very smoothly. The largest has a forty by seventy bed and is the one that I was assigned. The wheel alone must have exceeded six feet in diameter. It was a pleasure to use and worked very smoothly. Sian Lile was assigned the thirty-two by sixty-inch press and Denise Pelletier used the smallest Conrad with a fifty-two by thirty-inch bed. These are very efficient machines built in Whitehall, Michigan, U.S.A.
The studio is in a modernized but very old stone building. It is well equipped with an assortment of rollers and heat-stoves, aquatint boxes and every sort of support equipment needed. A number of relief prints are made here as well. Everything was again totally clean and ship-shape. A very important consideration when producing prints. Pauline Hebert, who was making lithographs there, gave me assistance with the aquatint box and my experiments with that process. I chose to work with line etching, aquatint and dry point during my stay at the atelier. As one of two artists in residence, I was required to exhibit my work and give a presentation with Sian Lile an artist from Wales. She is a recent graduate from The University of Wales and a very fine young artist. She takes a lot of inspiration from maps and charts combined with history and myth. She has also done a series based on playing card images. There was a lot to be learned from everyone there. At the opening of the presentations, I met with Evelyn and Madeleine who had been visiting artists in the studio of the P.E.I. Printmakers Council in past years.
In French, our titles were God-like. “Residence de Creations” and my creations dealt with the mythology of mermaids and sirens. Northrop Frye was quoted as saying “Within every mythology there lies within a profound truth.” Indeed, mermaids and sirens have existed in creation myths of many lands far beyond the time of Christianity. The truth within has much to do with the fact that all life is known to originate in the sea. In Finland, mermaids arise from the creation myths. The first woman, whose name was Aino, was said to have drowned herself in a dispute with the first man and was transformed into a mermaid. Throughout history of human beings, in all lands stories arose about sea sirens and even “Crocles” in the rivers of the Congo. In East Africa, mermaids are called “Mami Wata”. There are “river mermaids” in the Rhine River in Germany. In the Mediterranean Sea, Parthenope (Maiden Voice) was a siren in ancient times. There was also Triton, the son of Poseidon, a merman. Ireland abounds with pre- Christian myths of “silkies” and mermaids. They almost outnumber the fairy folk and Leprechauns. After the arrival of St. Patrick, mermaids are used in the decoration of churches to symbolize desire and lust. In China, Japan, and India and throughout Asia, mermaids go back to pre-recorded time. To me, they perhaps represent beauty and an aspiration unattainable. This is perhaps what mermaids meant to sailors throughout the world, who used the image to decorate charts or carved them as figureheads for vessels and decorated their bodies with tattoos of mermaids.
On May 19, 2005, some woodcuts and the etchings of mermaids will be exhibited at Mermaid Gallery at 131 Grafton St. in Charlottetown. “Mermaids The Exhibition” featured some of the prints I produced in Quebec and in Charlottetown. I will keep my tail in the water and keep swimming against the tide.

Karl MacKeeman,
ANSCAD





This report covers a term as artist in residence at Engramme, from February 27 to March13, 2005 with gratitude to the departments of culture for the provinces of Quebec and Prince Edward Island.

Engramme Report

Printmaking in Quebec

The ateliers at Engramme are located in the Sainte – Roch quarter, one of Quebec City’s oldest nieghbourhoods. Though it used to be a district of immigrants, artisans and workers it has been in the process of transforming itself into what Soho is to New York. Like the art district of the Big Apple, the quarter was once an area of factory buildings. ‘Wall – Dog” murals abounded in the industrial area when tobacco ads for Sweet Caporal cigarettes and other ads covered large expanses of brick wall. These days, that part of the city is revitalized. Ste. Joseph Street has miles of bookshops, theatres and shops where every form of craft can be purchased. I found a good source of canvas and other art supplies. There is a nearby art college as well. It was built in an old corset factory.
The Dufferin Expressway cut through the district in the late sixties and left a scar. The nineteen – seventies and early eighties was a dark period as everything moved out to the malls and the ‘burbs’. Nobody lived in the district then, but by the late eighties, revitalization had begun. The train station and waterfront was given a facelift. A farmers market installed and even the overpasses were adorned with colourful murals. A large garden and park filled an empty lot and warehouses became offices, stores, galleries and artists’ lofts.
There are two hundred artists’ studios in the area. I visited one belonging to Manon Bourdon who showed me her etchings and etching press. She now owns the loft on the top floor of an old factory building, which she purchased through a condominium plan that favours long term, low payments. Though the stairs to the studio are an exhausting climb, the view from the large window is worth it. No one in Quebec City needs a gym. Just ascending the steep hills and the thousands of steps that often separate the streets by massive cliffs would keep anyone in shape. Manon was very proud of her etching press, which she told me she had bought for three thousand dollars. It resembled and is likely an early version of the Praga presses we use at the P.E.I. studio.
Manon is an artist who exhibits both nationally and internationally. Her prints are very impressive some exceeding six feet in length, printed in sections. Her subject has often been sirens and I was very much excited by these massive dimensions and the quality and texture of her work in black and white. All this energy from a tiny elfin person on a comparatively small etching press. Manon would be an outstanding artist anywhere. She was just one of the many talented artists I had met on my stay in the city.
Manon was also very helpful in aiding my communication skills in French. It is my belief that a French-speaking person trying to learn English has an advantage. The Francophone trying to speak English is forgiven all mistakes because they sound so sexy. While the Anglo trying to speak French just sounds stupid! This is only a theory. I found nothing but helpfulness, understanding and tolerance from everyone I met, despite my language handicap.

Le Complexe Meduse

Engramme is located between Cote d’ Abraham and Sainte – Vallier Street. It is a part of the Complexe Meduse. The complex includes nine renovated buildings. My apartment was on the sixth floor, half way up a steep hill near the park and a television station. This complex was part of the catalyst for the ’artistic intrusion’. There are studios and galleries for music, photography, painting and printmaking as well as publishers and offices for arts organizations. Cafes and restaurants also are



Part of the wedge shaped buildings that are joined in much the same way as the NSCAD waterfront buildings. These changes have brought over six thousand people to the distinct, described by many as a hive of activity both day and night.

Printmaking at Engramme

I have saved this section for the last because I wanted to set the stage and describe how the arts has brought new life to this part of the city and has transformed a dying district for new activities that boost the economy through tourism while at the same time benefiting the arts community. The Charlottetown community could learn lessons. There is more to the economy of tourism than red – headed kids and long – dead politicians in top hats.
I diverse, printmaking is what I was there to do in this beautiful city of Quebec. Partly because of the weather and the fact that I wanted to devote myself to the job at hand, I saw very little of the many art galleries and concert halls. It snowed and was cold during the fortnight of my stay. It can be very hard to get around in such times and as a result I saw very little of the active community life there in Sainte – Roch.
The Engramme Gallery is at the sharp end of the wedge. It is lit by large, floor to ceiling windows on both sides. Movable panels are used as walls to display the art. Denise Pelletier’s etchings were displayed there in an exhibit she calls ‘ Pli et Pluie ‘. Her prints have a beautiful Zen- like quality to them and showed clearly the power of black and white. They were beautifully hung and I felt her work is of very high quality. She is one of the artists whom I shared the etching studio with on a daily basis. Each morning she traveled an hour and a half by bus and devoted the entire day to inking and printing her work. I learned a lot about traditional use of tarlatan and the careful wiping of the plates that gave the beautiful tonal texture of her work. She is one of over a hundred artists who are members of the studio complex. They pay one hundred dollars annually and all have storage space for both their art and tools in the three main studios for serigraphy, lithography and intaglio printmaking. This is where I centered most of my activities. The studios are well equipped with modern up – to – date presses, acid rooms, arc lamps, vacuum tables and everything needed to produce works on paper. An art supply store carries everything needed and a good selection of paper.
I will take a little time here to describe the two studios where I spent most of my time. I was trained as a professional lithographer under master printer Bob Rogers from nineteen- sixty-nine onwards through the early seventies. We printed lithographs from stones for well-known painters and artists from all over the world. The lithographic studio at Engramme was the best I have seen anywhere and I have worked presses in Toronto, Wolfsburg, in Germany, St. Michaels in Newfoundland, Holguin, Cuba and Montreal. It is an excellent workspace, well lit with natural and artificial light. It is not the largest studio, but the most efficient. Everything in perfect order and ship-shape. A very good selection of stones and a perfect sized studio for the membership numbers they have. One of the two presses is a familiar Charles Brand (all of them now out of production). It has a twenty by thirty-six bed and a chain – reduction gearing, built in New York to last forever. These are the types of presses I was trained on and spent long hours rolling up stones on.



The Griffin press with a sixty-nine by thirty-nine bed was the machine to fall in love with. Built in Oakland, California it combines beauty and function like the custom-built motorcycles that are a tradition where the Griffin Machine Company comes from. It is a dazzling blue and gold with embossed details and smooth action with double chain reduction. I hope to some day have a close relationship with that machine but, I had come prepared to do intaglio printmaking.
The intaglio studio is a match in size to the litho if not a little larger. Again, the lighting was excellent. Three Conrad etching presses are the focus of the room with workstations with large glass inking tables for each. These presses are not pretty but they do operate very smoothly. The largest has a forty by seventy bed and is the one that I was assigned. The wheel alone must have exceeded six feet in diameter. It was a pleasure to use and worked very smoothly. Sian Lile was assigned the thirty-two by sixty-inch press and Denise Pelletier used the smallest Conrad with a fifty-two by thirty-inch bed. These are very efficient machines built in Whitehall, Michigan, U.S.A.
The studio is in a modernized but very old stone building. It is well equipped with an assortment of rollers and heat-stoves, aquatint boxes and every sort of support equipment needed. A number of relief prints are made here as well. Everything was again totally clean and ship-shape. A very important consideration when producing prints. Pauline Hebert, who was making lithographs there, gave me assistance with the aquatint box and my experiments with that process. I chose to work with line etching, aquatint and dry point during my stay at the atelier. As one of two artists in residence, I was required to exhibit my work and give a presentation with Sian Lile an artist from Wales. She is a recent graduate from The University of Wales and a very fine young artist. She takes a lot of inspiration from maps and charts combined with history and myth. She has also done a series based on playing card images. There was a lot to be learned from everyone there. At the opening of the presentations, I met with Evelyn and Madeleine who had been visiting artists in the studio of the P.E.I. Printmakers Council in past years.
In French, our titles were God-like. “Residence de Creations” and my creations dealt with the mythology of mermaids and sirens. Northrop Frye was quoted as saying “Within every mythology there lies within a profound truth.” Indeed, mermaids and sirens have existed in creation myths of many lands far beyond the time of Christianity. The truth within has much to do with the fact that all life is known to originate in the sea. In Finland, mermaids arise from the creation myths. The first woman, whose name was Aino, was said to have drowned herself in a dispute with the first man and was transformed into a mermaid. Throughout history of human beings, in all lands stories arose about sea sirens and even “Crocles” in the rivers of the Congo. In East Africa, mermaids are called “Mami Wata”. There are “river mermaids” in the Rhine River in Germany. In the Mediterranean Sea, Parthenope (Maiden Voice) was a siren in ancient times. There was also Triton, the son of Poseidon, a merman. Ireland abounds with pre- Christian myths of “silkies” and mermaids. They almost outnumber the fairy folk and Leprechauns. After the arrival of St. Patrick, mermaids are used in the decoration of churches to symbolize desire and lust. In China, Japan, and India and throughout Asia, mermaids go back to pre-recorded time. To me, they perhaps represent beauty and an aspiration unattainable. This is perhaps what mermaids meant to sailors throughout the world, who used the image to decorate charts or carved them as figureheads for vessels and decorated their bodies with tattoos of mermaids.
On May 19, 2005, some woodcuts and the etchings of mermaids will be exhibited at Mermaid Gallery at 131 Grafton St. in Charlottetown. “Mermaids The Exhibition” featured some of the prints I produced in Quebec and in Charlottetown. I will keep my tail in the water and keep swimming against the tide.

Karl MacKeeman,
ANSCAD

ENGRAMME STUDIO

Printmaking in Quebec City

The ateliers at Engramme are located in the Sainte – Roch quarter, one of Quebec City’s oldest neighbourhoods. Though it used to be a district of immigrants, artisans and workers it has been in the process of transforming itself into what Soho is to New York. Like the art district of the Big Apple, the quarter was once an area of factory buildings. ‘Wall – Dog” murals abounded in the industrial area when tobacco ads for Sweet Caporal cigarettes and other ads covered large expanses of brick wall. These days, that part of the city is revitalized. Ste. Joseph Street has miles of bookshops, theatres and shops where every form of craft can be purchased. I found a good source of canvas and other art supplies. There is a nearby art college as well. It was built in an old corset factory.
The Dufferin Expressway cut through the district in the late sixties and left a scar. The nineteen – seventies and early eighties was a dark period as everything moved out to the malls and the ‘burbs’. Nobody lived in the district then, but by the late eighties, revitalization had begun. The train station and waterfront was given a facelift. A farmers market installed and even the overpasses were adorned with colourful murals. A large garden and park filled an empty lot and warehouses became offices, stores, galleries and artists’ lofts.
There are two hundred artists’ studios in the area. I visited one belonging to Manon Bourdon who showed me her etchings and etching press. She now owns the loft on the top floor of an old factory building, which she purchased through a condominium plan that favours long term, low payments. Though the stairs to the studio are an exhausting climb, the view from the large window is worth it. No one in Quebec City needs a gym. Just ascending the steep hills and the thousands of steps that often separate the streets by massive cliffs would keep anyone in shape. Manon was very proud of her etching press, which she told me she had bought for three thousand dollars. It resembled and is likely an early version of the Praga presses we use at the P.E.I. studio.
Manon is an artist who exhibits both nationally and internationally. Her prints are very impressive some exceeding six feet in length, printed in sections. Her subject has often been sirens and I was very much excited by these massive dimensions and the quality and texture of her work in black and white. All this energy from a tiny elfin person on a comparatively small etching press. Manon would be an outstanding artist anywhere. She was just one of the many talented artists I had met on my stay in the city.
Manon was also very helpful in aiding my communication skills in French. It is my belief that a French-speaking person trying to learn English has an advantage. The Francophone trying to speak English is forgiven all mistakes because they sound so sexy. While the Anglo trying to speak French just sounds stupid! This is only a theory. I found nothing but helpfulness, understanding and tolerance from everyone I met, despite my language handicap.

Le Complexe Meduse

Engramme is located between Cote d’ Abraham and Sainte – Vallier Street. It is a part of the Complexe Meduse. The complex includes nine renovated buildings. My apartment was on the sixth floor, half way up a steep hill near the park and a television station. This complex was part of the catalyst for the ’artistic intrusion’. There are studios and galleries for music, photography, painting and printmaking as well as publishers and offices for arts organizations. Cafes and restaurants also are



Part of the wedge shaped buildings that are joined in much the same way as the NSCAD waterfront buildings. These changes have brought over six thousand people to the distinct, described by many as a hive of activity both day and night.

Printmaking at Engramme

I have saved this section for the last because I wanted to set the stage and describe how the arts has brought new life to this part of the city and has transformed a dying district for new activities that boost the economy through tourism while at the same time benefiting the arts community. The Charlottetown community could learn lessons. There is more to the economy of tourism than red – headed kids and long – dead politicians in top hats.
I diverse, printmaking is what I was there to do in this beautiful city of Quebec. Partly because of the weather and the fact that I wanted to devote myself to the job at hand, I saw very little of the many art galleries and concert halls. It snowed and was cold during the fortnight of my stay. It can be very hard to get around in such times and as a result I saw very little of the active community life there in Sainte – Roch.
The Engramme Gallery is at the sharp end of the wedge. It is lit by large, floor to ceiling windows on both sides. Movable panels are used as walls to display the art. Denise Pelletier’s etchings were displayed there in an exhibit she calls ‘ Pli et Pluie ‘. Her prints have a beautiful Zen- like quality to them and showed clearly the power of black and white. They were beautifully hung and I felt her work is of very high quality. She is one of the artists whom I shared the etching studio with on a daily basis. Each morning she traveled an hour and a half by bus and devoted the entire day to inking and printing her work. I learned a lot about traditional use of tarlatan and the careful wiping of the plates that gave the beautiful tonal texture of her work. She is one of over a hundred artists who are members of the studio complex. They pay one hundred dollars annually and all have storage space for both their art and tools in the three main studios for serigraphy, lithography and intaglio printmaking. This is where I centered most of my activities. The studios are well equipped with modern up – to – date presses, acid rooms, arc lamps, vacuum tables and everything needed to produce works on paper. An art supply store carries everything needed and a good selection of paper.
I will take a little time here to describe the two studios where I spent most of my time. I was trained as a professional lithographer under master printer Bob Rogers from nineteen- sixty-nine onwards through the early seventies. We printed lithographs from stones for well-known painters and artists from all over the world. The lithographic studio at Engramme was the best I have seen anywhere and I have worked presses in Toronto, Wolfsburg, in Germany, St. Michaels in Newfoundland, Holguin, Cuba and Montreal. It is an excellent workspace, well lit with natural and artificial light. It is not the largest studio, but the most efficient. Everything in perfect order and ship-shape. A very good selection of stones and a perfect sized studio for the membership numbers they have. One of the two presses is a familiar Charles Brand (all of them now out of production). It has a twenty by thirty-six bed and a chain – reduction gearing, built in New York to last forever. These are the types of presses I was trained on and spent long hours rolling up stones on.



The Griffin press with a sixty-nine by thirty-nine bed was the machine to fall in love with. Built in Oakland, California it combines beauty and function like the custom-built motorcycles that are a tradition where the Griffin Machine Company comes from. It is a dazzling blue and gold with embossed details and smooth action with double chain reduction. I hope to some day have a close relationship with that machine but, I had come prepared to do intaglio printmaking.
The intaglio studio is a match in size to the litho if not a little larger. Again, the lighting was excellent. Three Conrad etching presses are the focus of the room with workstations with large glass inking tables for each. These presses are not pretty but they do operate very smoothly. The largest has a forty by seventy bed and is the one that I was assigned. The wheel alone must have exceeded six feet in diameter. It was a pleasure to use and worked very smoothly. Sian Lile was assigned the thirty-two by sixty-inch press and Denise Pelletier used the smallest Conrad with a fifty-two by thirty-inch bed. These are very efficient machines built in Whitehall, Michigan, U.S.A.
The studio is in a modernized but very old stone building. It is well equipped with an assortment of rollers and heat-stoves, aquatint boxes and every sort of support equipment needed. A number of relief prints are made here as well. Everything was again totally clean and ship-shape. A very important consideration when producing prints. Pauline Hebert, who was making lithographs there, gave me assistance with the aquatint box and my experiments with that process. I chose to work with line etching, aquatint and dry point during my stay at the atelier. As one of two artists in residence, I was required to exhibit my work and give a presentation with Sian Lile an artist from Wales. She is a recent graduate from The University of Wales and a very fine young artist. She takes a lot of inspiration from maps and charts combined with history and myth. She has also done a series based on playing card images. There was a lot to be learned from everyone there. At the opening of the presentations, I met with Evelyn and Madeleine who had been visiting artists in the studio of the P.E.I. Printmakers Council in past years.
In French, our titles were God-like. “Residence de Creations” and my creations dealt with the mythology of mermaids and sirens. Northrop Frye was quoted as saying “Within every mythology there lies within a profound truth.” Indeed, mermaids and sirens have existed in creation myths of many lands far beyond the time of Christianity. The truth within has much to do with the fact that all life is known to originate in the sea. In Finland, mermaids arise from the creation myths. The first woman, whose name was Aino, was said to have drowned herself in a dispute with the first man and was transformed into a mermaid. Throughout history of human beings, in all lands stories arose about sea sirens and even “Crocles” in the rivers of the Congo. In East Africa, mermaids are called “Mami Wata”. There are “river mermaids” in the Rhine River in Germany. In the Mediterranean Sea, Parthenope (Maiden Voice) was a siren in ancient times. There was also Triton, the son of Poseidon, a merman. Ireland abounds with pre- Christian myths of “silkies” and mermaids. They almost outnumber the fairy folk and Leprechauns. After the arrival of St. Patrick, mermaids are used in the decoration of churches to symbolize desire and lust. In China, Japan, and India and throughout Asia, mermaids go back to pre-recorded time. To me, they perhaps represent beauty and an aspiration unattainable. This is perhaps what mermaids meant to sailors throughout the world, who used the image to decorate charts or carved them as figureheads for vessels and decorated their bodies with tattoos of mermaids.
On May 19, 2005, some woodcuts and the etchings of mermaids will be exhibited at Mermaid Gallery at 131 Grafton St. in Charlottetown. “Mermaids The Exhibition” featured some of the prints I produced in Quebec and in Charlottetown. I will keep my tail in the water and keep swimming against the tide.

Karl MacKeeman,
ANSCAD





This report covers a term as artist in residence at Engramme, from February 27 to March13, 2005 with gratitude to the departments of culture for the provinces of Quebec and Prince Edward Island.

Mermaids

Mermaid Notes

• The first representation of a merman was the male sea-god, Oannes. He was worshipped by the Babylonians (aprox. 5,000 BC) A source of light and goodness and life. He represented the positive values connected with the sea.

• The goddess and counterpart to Oannes was Alargates (or Atergatis ) in Greek called Derketo, the first mermaid. She gave birth to Semiramis, who became the Queen of Babylon. Alargatis was an important fertility goddess. She represented the dark forces of night and love and was potentially a destructive power. In Britain she was known as Dea Syria.

• Aphrodite was a later form of the goddess Alargatis in human form. Her fish attributes were transferred to her escorts the Tritons and the female Tritonids.

• The abundant flowing hair symbolizing an abundant love potential in her role as a fertility goddess. A mermaid’s comb had sexual meaning since in Greek the word ‘kteis’ and ‘pectin’ also signified the female vulva. The mirror that later became a symbol for vanity was originally representing the planet Venus. The mermaid is a link with the old goddess between passion and destruction.

• A brother and sister offspring from Alagatrus were Tethys and Oceanus. They produced over 300 sea-nymphs called Oceanids. Amongst these were the mother of Zeus and a multitude of Greek gods.

• Nereid was synonymous with mermaids in 80ce (the time of Pliny. They were protective of sailors.

• Nereids helped seaman and were known for their beautiful voices.

• Sirens were dangerous and ensnared sailors with their enchanting voices. They were originally bird-women related to the Egyptian god Ra. Demons of death sent to catch souls. They gave mermaids a bad name and the unpleasant reputation of drowning sailors.

• Greeks used sirens and sea-monsters to discourage rival trade.

• In the Christian times sirens were merged with mermaids to embody the lure of fleshy pleasures. The mermaid became a victim of repressive sexual attitudes of the Christian Church in Mediaeval times.

• Mermaid carvings figures were prominently in church decoration in the Middle Ages.

• Christians considered them to be soul-eaters (the legacy of the bird sirens) Mermaids were considered not to have souls.

• Mermaids could acquire a soul by marriage to a human.

• Liban was a young woman who was drowned and transformed into a mermaid. She lived as a mermaid for 500 years and was helped by St. Comgall of Ireland to gain a soul.

• Iona wept about her soul-less condition.

• St. Patrick transformed pagan women into mermaids.

• Melusine and Undine were water spirits in France who married noblemen. Mixed marriages fail miserably in legend. Mermaids cannot abandon their ocean element.

• Lorelei or Nix blonde sirens that sat on cliff luring Rhine River boatmen to their deaths in Germany.

• Morgan Le Fay was a sorceress of Arthur’s’ time, her descendants became morgans. Mermaids that lore all who come near to the treasure of their underwater palaces. (a Brittany legend)

• Ningyo were Japanese mermaids.

• This poem written a few years after Mary Queen Of Scots was beheaded shows the way mermaids were symbolically associated with whores in Elizabeth’s reign.

“Thou rememberest since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maids music.”
-Shakespeare

• On January 4th, 1493 Columbus sited 3 mermaids on his voyage to the new world.

• St. Murgen was a mermaid caught off the N.E coast of Ireland and converted to Christian baptism and education.

• In 1403 a mermaid was washed through a broken dike in the Netherlands. She was found by Milkmaids flailing her tail in the mud of a near by embankment. She was clothed and fed. She learned to spin wool with her webbed fingers. She lived 13 years and died in Haarlem, as a Christian.

• In 1560 off the Coast of Ceylon seven mermaids were caught in fish nets. A team of Jesuits and Dr. Bosquez performed an autopsie and published their findings. They concluded except for the fishtail section, mermaids were anatomically and spiritually identical to humans.

• On June 15th, 1608 Henry Hudson off the coast of Russia sited a mermaid swimming close to the ship. “She was pale and speckled with a tail like a porpoise.”

• In 1614 an English sea captain named John Smith sighted a mermaid close to the ship while in the Caribbean Sea. He wrote, “She was swimming with all possible grace…She had green hair and large eyes.

• In 1700 Christian missionaries wrote to Rome concerned that native Angolans were catching mermaids from the river and eating them.

• In 1717 Peter The Great, Czar of Russia, traveled to Amsterdam to obtain verification of a “sea wyf” caught by Dutch sailors off the coast of Borneo. She lived nearly a week before she died in a large vat of seawater. She was called the “Mermaid of Amboine” she was 5’ long and sounded like a mouse.

• In 1739 the crew of the ship Halifax off the East Indies caught and ate several mermaids. They said it tasted like veal.

• In 1797 William Munro, school- master, saw a mermaid sitting on a rock combing her hair, in Scotland.

• Again in Scotland in 1811 a farmer named M’Isaac saw a mermaid “near the cliff in Kintyre.”

• In 1830 in Benbecula, Outer Hebrides, a farmwife cutting seaweed on the shore sighted a miniature mermaid turning somersaults . Local men tried to catch her but she got away until a boy hit her on the head with a rock. She washed ashore dead the next day. Large crowds gathered to see her and she was eventually laid to rest in a coffin made by order of the local chief-magistrate of the Island.

• 1900”The Mermaid of Benbecula” by Alexander Carmichael describes in detail of the examination of a dead mermaid washed up on the beach.

• 1961 exhibition of fakes and fraud showed the PT Barnum fake mermaid built in Japan in the 1850’s and discovered by Andrew Steinmetz to be a cottage industry in a small village in Japan. They made mermaids from monkey and fish parts.

• People of the Orkney Islands who have webbed hands and feet are said to descend from selkies.

• The Penobscot tribe in Maine is descended from mermaids.

• Apsaras were the water nymphs of India who played the lute beautifully.

• Jalpari were the water fairies of the Punjab region.

• In Ireland the merfolk were called merrows or sometimes murdhuacha (though these are often confused with seacows). Both sexes of merrows are quite beautiful and besides fish tails they have webbed fingers. They have dark green or blue eyes and sometimes have light green hair. The Irish believe that a sighting of merrows could proceed a storm.

• “It was amazing to Jack that, though living in a place
where the merrows where as plenty as lobsters,
he never could get a right view of one.”
-W.B. Yeats

• Kelpies are sea creatures from Scotland and Cornwall
that appear in the sea-foam just before storms.


• Menana of the waterfall was a mermaid that lived among the Ottawa nation for a time and was raised as the adopted daughter of the chief. She fell in love with a warrior named Piskaret of the Adirondacks. That tribe feared Menana’s powers over water andrefused to allow the two to marry. They said that she had a fish tail and brought flood and death to their people. After a forced seperation and a great struggle they escaped the tribe and Piskaret was changed to a water spirit like Menana. They married and lived beneath a waterfall.

• Parthenope was a mermaid called the 'lovely One'. She appeared beautiful and virginal and lured men to their deaths.

• Loreley was active on the Rhine and caused whirlpools. She sang while combing her hair luring saikors to thier death.

• Seelamia was a Roman she-demon that set off water spouts. She has the head and breasts of a woman but a serpant body. Her colouring is green, blue and gold. Sometimes she can be striped. She takes men to the Ocean floor.

• Echidna was a storm-bringer and sea nymph. Her son was named Cerberus, a five headed Hydra.

• Barigenae were nine virgin priestessess who lived near the coast of Brittany. They could control the wind and help sailors.

• Ouessant Priestess where also able to influenced the wind.

• Hera held the four winds in her hands.

• Tuuleamma an Estonian goddess that can control the wind.

• Medusa was once a beautiful woman raped by the sea god Poseidon. Athena was so enraged she transformed Mudusa into the lady with the snakes on her head that was killed by Perseus. The rapest gets off unpunished.

• Gorgo was the name of the sea monster that pulled ships under the waves to Davy Jones Locker. It was also a name for mermaids who were beautiful but fatal. Though a paradox, it corresponds to the ambivielence in which sailors viewed females.

IS ART WORTHLESS?

What is the value of art? Do we measure it by the inch, say seven-fifty per inch plus matt and frame? Would by the pound be better? Japan was closed to the rest of the world until a U.S. Navy ship sailed into the harbour at Yokohama and Admiral Perry signed an agreement of trade. Japan eventually realized that, if they did not enter the modern world it would eventually overtake and consume them. A nation that had never been invaded or conquered in modern times was still a medieval empire that otherwise could have easily been conquered and made into a colony of European industrial power. What were the sought after goods of trade in Japan? Silk was one and pottery was another. The high standards of craftsmanship and manufacture was a very much sought after commodity.
The colour woodblock print was not considered a high art form in Japan. It was a throwaway like a comic book or a newspaper. Such prints were used as wrapping paper. That “wrapping paper” fell into the hands of western collectors. When unwrapping a teapot they found the wrapping paper far more interesting than the pot. These prints, meant to be discarded, fell into the hands of well-known European artists. The American expatriate James McNeil Whistler and a long list of others, influenced by these accidental imports, changed art history. Today those same woodblock prints are valued at the least sixty thousand dollars and at the other end as much as eight-hundred thousand dollars in Paris, New York, London or Toronto. I do not have to tell you what the monetary value of a painting by Vincent Van Gogh is on the world market. Where do you think he got his ideas? From the same wrapping paper that I told you about. Think of how something considered worthless eventually makes a great contribution to the economy of many nations.
What does all this have to do with Prince Edward Island? Think about how a certain book found its way to Japan and influenced the tourist industry here. Think of the attitude that prevails here toward the arts. As an art teacher, at the bottom end of society here, as human resources, the artist and craftspeople on this island are treated as a burden on society. Like many others in the arts here we struggle and scrape to get by. There is no art school and with very few exceptions, no art education opportunities. The schools seem to want all the students to become accountants or real estate salespeople. Contrast that with the island of Japans’ high standards of art education, Where the most valued of its artists and craftspeople can be honoured by becoming a national treasure.
The people in power here often measure their values by coin, paper and plastic in the pocket. We may eventually find that capitalist values, based on supply and demand, don’t work on one level. My father was a fisherman when the price of fish was so low that it was not worth the expense of taking them to market. Fish were so plentiful that they were used as fertilizer. This summer, I can’t take my children for some recreational cod fishing because they are not so plentiful now. So, what is the value of a fish when they are all gone?
What is the value of mental health? What does it cost to deal with addiction to alcohol, drugs and gambling? What is the cost of violence and general unhappiness? I was talking to an artist recently who had to face a very traumatic experience where a family member had killed himself. It occurred to me that the beautiful art she produced had much to do with her ability to cope with that situation. What recourse does someone without art in their life have? Would she have ended up institutionalized? What would be the cost of that to society --- not just in monetary terms? A lot has to do with how we look at things.
Consider how the arts contribute to the community and yet very little encouragement exists. Every other industry on the island is given a little help here and there. Think of how HRDC contributes to the fishing industry and other “seasonal” jobs. I am going to make several suggestions here that I hope may merit some attention.

THE ART OF NEWCOMERS TO PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

The nine artists featured in the Guild exhibit (Mar. 5-28) show a great variety craftsmanship and style. It’s refreshing to see another approach to art. Too long the Island has been in need of outside influence.
We live in an isolated place in regards to the visual arts. The loss of the School of Visual Arts and the co-operative print-making studio has been tragic to the cultural development of this province. This province is perhaps the only one in Canada without a provincial art gallery and likely has the only University that has no art gallery or effective art department. Yet the Island has inspired a good number of competent visual artists. Now we are attracting a number of outlanders from all points of the compass. These people will have had access to other cultures and ideas that can only enrich our local culture. They’ve known better art educational opportunities. Whether they will be able to tolerate the great indifference there is here to the visual arts remains to be seen.
The artists themselves bring a great splash of colour to the gallery. Painters like Tomoyo Suzuki who was an Artist in Residence there. She has a touch of humour and whimsy to her work. Many years ago I wrote an article for the Atlantic Advocate about the Teapot Houses in Halls Harbour, Nova Scotia, but she has invented a ’teapot’ lighthouse which is very imaginative!
I particularly admired the skilful work in water-colour by Sunae Park. She capture the Island lupines very skilfully.
I hope this becomes a regular event at the Guild each year.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ART HISTORY

As I approach the last weeks of my three-year course at UPEI Seniors College, I wanted to express my feelings as to why my own efforts will be directed elsewhere. For one thing, I don’t agree with dropping art history from the program, as if it is a program of no importance. It is not as if there are other alternatives. No similar courses are taught elsewhere in the province. “The cheese stands alone” as we used to sing at St.Agnes.
Visual arts encompass much more than painting and drawing. Though I concentrated my studies and teaching to the visual arts, I’m not uninformed or in any way unappreciative of the other arts around us. A culture is the most important contribution of human existence. It defines us as human beings rather than hair-less apes eating, sleeping and making a mess in our environment. So art-history is about being a human being. Humanity should strive towards knowledge and enlightenment.
I taught “A Glimpse at Art History” for the past three years because I was aware that art history has not entered the general education of PEI citizens of any age. Even though it is likely the most important element of history. We are not defined by kings and presidents, nor are we ever able to look at the wars and conquests and see any positive effects continuous to the advancement of human-kind. It was in fact, emplacing the “his” in “history”. Art records the soul of the human race. We can see that from the first known images painted on the walls of caves to the art produced in the 21st century. Exposure to art history on PEI has been very limited. Only one high school in the province teaches the subject. The University of PEI hasn’t shown great leadership in this regard. It does not even have a public art gallery. The role of the provincial art gallery to educate the public doesn’t come into play because no such gallery or museum exists. For its part, the Confederation Centre has really not filled that gap as a national institution although it houses some very valuable works of art.
“Women and Art” was very much a ground-breaking course taught by Suzanne O’Callaghan at UPEI Seniors College for the past few years. It was highly attended by a large number of students of both sexes. It should well have received awards of recognition for the innovation of tackling issues very relevant to the 21st Century. The presentation and oratory skills of the courses’ inventor was highly deserving of praise. This course looked at art from the point of view of woman throughout their evolution towards freedom of speech and expression. In my life-time, which is not so long ago in the turning of the universe, major textbooks in colleges and universities almost completely excluded women and the role they played in the advancement of art.
The unique and revolutionary course O’Callaghan taught was to present the point of view of her half of the worlds’ population. We learned about the particular challenges of being a woman in a “man’s World” in a profession that is a challenge under the best of conditions.
“Women in Art” is particularly relevant in light of the new documentary film “Who Does She Think She Is?” directed by Pamela Tanner Boll. Professor of gender studies at Hunter College in New York, CE Martin offers insights to the role of women in art. One quote from the film is by Maye Torres, “Art is the soul of being human.”
Suzanne shows us quite clearly that women were in the front-lines of art for over 500 years, “Women In Art” lifted the curtain on that aspect of our civilization.
Without a past we have a dim future. Art history is the story of our cultural development as human beings. It should be included in every high school, college and university curriculum. It would be the civilized thing to do.

Learning is a life-long activity. It does not belong only to the young. When one of the world’s greatest artists, Hokusai (1760 – 1849) demonstrated his talent by painting a sparrow on a grain of rice, the artist (who continued work until he died at age 89) was asked by the Emperor, “How long did it take you to learn this?” The artist answered, “Eighty-one years!”
When Francisco Goya (1746-1828) was near the end of his life while in exile in Bordeaux, he wrote on a drawing of himself as an old man, “I’m still learning!”
Georgia O’Keef (b.1877), who also lived well into her nineties, objected to being called “…one of the greatest American woman painters”, She insisted that she was one of the “…greatest American painters”. O’Keef continued to prove this by living long and continuing to paint well into old age.
Learning is a life-long activity. I do hope this is something that can be learned at UPEI Seniors College.