Author Archives: maryannsteggles

I went to the UK as a Commonwealth Scholar in 1990 and received my PhD from the University of Leicester in 1993. After three decades of university teaching, I retired to devote my time to the study of raptor behaviour. I am particularly interested in Ospreys and am working on a long term project on third hatch survival and siblicide in these raptors. My blog is a result of a fascination with my local wildlife and the desire to encourage others to love and care for birds! I live on the Canadian Prairies and prior to the pandemic travelled a lot. I am questioning the use of aviation fuel at the moment as we all strive to help our planet. My early research was in politics and art including British public statues exported to Southeast Asia and Vietnam Resistors that contributed much to Canadian ceramics. Books and articles were published on those subjects over a period of 3 decades. Now I am working on books for children so they can learn about the challenges our raptors face.

Scotland, Day 7 The McManus. Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum

Our second stop, highly recommended by my old friend, Hazel, was the McManus Museum yesterday.  For those thinking about going, entrance is free.  This is a great place to take a family, lots of things for children to do and photography is allowed in all of the galleries unless it is a special exhibition.  For those who cannot climb stairs, there is a lift and a cafe with a gift shop.  The McManus is right in the centre of Dundee.  A lovely place to visit with lots of shops about.

The building was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, and it has been the heart of the city’s culture since it opened in 1869.  Scott was a leading architect of the Gothic Revival style.  He was born in 1811 in Buckinghamshire.  At the age of sixteen, in 1827, he moved to London where he trained as an architect under James Edmeston.  Scott became enamoured with medieval Gothic and began travelling across Europe to see the buildings firsthand in the 1840s.  Gothic Revival as it was in the 19th century drew its inspiration from the architecture of medieval Europe with its pointed arches, trefoils, and naturalistic foliage decoration.  Scott was knighted in 1872 for his contributions to British architecture.   The following year he became the President of the Royal Institute of British Architects.  Scott dies five years later; he is buried in Westminster Abbey.

The McManus Museum was initially known as the Albert Institute.  It was designed by Scott with building commencing in 1865.  The structure was finished three years later in 1868.  Initially, it had a library on the ground floor and a public hall on the second.  Additions were added by David Mackenzie II (1832-1875) in 1872-74, and William Alexander (1841-1904) in 1887.

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The first floor has several galleries including Dundee and the World, The Victorian Gallery, The Long Gallery, the 20th century Gallery, a revolving exhibition entitled ‘Here and Now’ and the Creative Learning Centre.

Dundee and the World showcase the international and maritime collections centred on world trade.  Dundee was known for its business in jute and its whale hunting.  Today along the coast of the North Sea corporations drill for ‘black gold’ or oil.  The tour guides tell you that long before people had any need for this oil, they used oil from plants.  Around 1700 someone discovered that oil from whales would soften jute and leather, could be burned as a fuel and could be made into soap.  The boats carried crews of between 40 and 70 men who chased the whales in the North Sea and harpooned them.  They would be tethered to the side of the ship where strips of blubber would be cut off and rendered to extract the oil.  That was stored in barrels and sent back to Dundee.  It is believed that the very first whaling ship to leave Dundee was in 1753.  The early whalers travelled as far as the North Atlantic and the Arctic.  Overhunting meant that by the 19th century almost all of the northern whales were dead.  But the demand for oil did not stop, and Dundee whalers would travel to the South Atlantic to hunt.  In 1872 Dundee was the most crucial whaling centre in Britain with catches of about 200 whales per year.  The community prospered.  Sails had to be made, ropes were needed, men to load and unload and to work on the ships.  In fact, ships had to be made.  Whaling stopped in 1912 as the number of whales had significantly declined and made it uneconomical.  Whale oil was also being replaced by new oils including paraffin that was extracted from shale.

In its heyday, whale bones were used for lamp oil, cutlery handles, and lubricants while the baleen was used to stiffen corsets, for parasol ribs.  The spermaceti from the head of the sperm whale provided the wax used in candles, cosmetics and medicines.  The blubber or whale oil was processed for softening the jute in Dundee.

Other traditional Dundee industries included wool.  The fibres were sent to the Netherlands to be dyed.  Leather processing including processing the hides from Scottish cattle to make belts, shoes, gloves, hats, saddles, and harness.  Shipbuilding was, of course, a big industry.

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One startling exhibition was of two ‘Branks’.  Branks were used from the 1600s onwards.  They were also known as ‘Scould’s Bridles’ and were iron contraptions put on the heads of women accused of slander or sweating to prevent them from speaking.  They were then led through the town!  They were said to have originated in Germany and the Netherlands.

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There is a lovely model of the city.  Notice the church and all of the cramped quarters.  When the jute mills were working you could not see the city from across the Tay, all of the fibres mixing about.  And then there was also the pollution from the coal fires.

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The children seemed to love the area that might be classified natural history as much as I did.  There were hawks, Golden Eagles, rabbits of all sorts.

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The Victoria Gallery was staggering.  It is precisely what you imagine the annual exhibition at the Royal Academy would look like with pictures stacked one on top of the other.  It was a bit overwhelming.

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Restaurant recommendation for the day:  The Bellrock in Arbroath.  The fish (cod and haddock) are fresh every day, and if you think you have had great fish and chips, you need to try this place.  It will cost you a tenner (twice as expensive as in Canada but twice as good). And because of the amount you get could be easily shared!  On Sunday there is a buffet but the best fish is ordered off the menu.

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Scotland, Day 6 Juteopolis

While the plan had been to go castle hopping today, the weather took a wee bit of a turn, and it was raining snow.  Cold to the bone-chilling cold.  Lucy, Kiki, and I went museum hopping in Dundee instead.  Three museums:  The Verdant Jute Museum, the MacManus Museum, and the new V & A Design Museum.

The jute industry was the heart of the city of Dundee.  In the late 19th century, over 54,000 people were employed in the industry.  The featured image shows a map of the trade in jute.  Dundee was known as Juteopolis.  In 1901 it was at the very height of its power and was a bustling international city with people from Russia, India, the United States, Germany, and Poland.  Merchants travelled back and forth between Dundee and the Indian subcontinent.

The raw material was imported from Calcutta and processed in Dundee.  It was the women and young children that were used in the mills, and it was the women in charge of the pay packets.  In the 1860s, the jute barons of Dundee had set up jute mills on the Indian subcontinent because labour was so cheap.  By 1901, the processing of jute was in decline in Dundee and in 1947 at India’s independence, no more jute was shipped to Scotland.  A few years later, in 1912, the whaling industry died.  So many whales had been killed that the industry was no longer profitable.  I was surprised to learn that it was whale oil that made the jute fibres so soft, like cashmere.  In 1914, the Scots raised their own local battalion, the 4th Black Watch and went off to fight for British imperialism.  It was the first time that many of the men in Dundee had work.

In 1863 the average life expectancy of someone living in the country around Glamis was 60 years.  It was 33 years in Dundee.  The infant mortality rates in Dundee had one in every three children dying before their first birthday.  Infant suffocation was five times greater in Dundee than in Glasgow in the 1880s.  The people in Dundee were either impoverished workers or jute barons with a middle class that was pushing for religious and drink reforms.  The Temperance Union was growing.  But the reality of life was so bleak that most turned to drink.  Babies and young children were given ‘bread meat’ which was bread soaked in a cup of water with a wee bit of milk added and a little sugar.  As a consequence, people were malnourished and did not grow.  Notice the size of the children playing with the hydrant.  The doll with its porcelain face was imported and would have been owned by the children of the wealthy jute barons of the city.

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The museum is staffed by volunteers who give the most amazing tours.  They talk about the life of the workers in the mill and the clerks in the office.  The clerks had full-time work and were paid regularly although they did not make much more than those on the floor.  The mill workers were paid by the piece of work they completed that day.  Others gave tours on the different kinds of jute, the history of the mills in Dundee, and the social impact of working at the mill and the class differences in the city.  The entrance fee is 11 GBP and includes a visit to the Discovery.  If you ask they will give you a card that is good for visits to the museum for an entire year.  The cafe was very reasonable, much more so than any of the other we visited and the sandwiches and soup were quite good.  I highly recommend a trip to this museum, children included, if you come to Dundee. Below are some pictures of the various areas of the museum.

The jute dress is what the women working in the mills would wear pre-wedding.  I can’t possibly imagine how scratchy it must have been.

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This is what the men would put on their backs so that they could carry the big bales of jute.  If you look closely at the bottom of the image, you will see a man with one of these on his back.

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The mills of Dundee provided sails for the ships, tents for the army, flour sacks, covers for the wagons heading West in the United States, sacks and bags for all manner of things, including linoleum.

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This is an image of where the clerks would work.  They were required to work standing up all day.  Notice the female secretary on the left is seated at her desk!

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One of the newer looms that allowed for weaving to take place.

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Our guide did not tell us the name of this piece of equipment for the looms. Initially, the women were in charge of two looms.  They were paid for piece work which meant if they had to go to the toilet they had to stop their looms.  The looms were also connected to clocks to check for efficiency.  This device allowed the looms to continue working when the operator had to leave for a few minutes.  When the owners discovered this, they put the women in charge of SIX looms!  Dundee eventually comes one of the most organised labour cities in England.  In fact, Winston Churchill was elected as a Member of Parliament for the Labour Party and turned Tory.  He was subsequently voted out and had to run elsewhere.IMG_2667

Tomorrow I will take you on a tour of the MacManus Museum.

Tip for those travelling to Scotland.  May and June are the best times to come.  It is too cold in March and is nice and warm by May.  After the end of June, the bugs are so bad that they can almost drive one mad.  Thanks, Lizzie for that insight.  Also, if you go out into the country, away from the tourist spots, your trip will be much more economical.

Day 6, Hospitalfield

It is 7 minutes until midnight, almost day 6 at Hospitalfield.  But tomorrow I am going to take a break.  The clay moulds take a long time to dry here.  In fact, I can pour one and go castle-hopping and come back and take it out of the mould without worrying a bit.

So there are said to be 19 amazing ‘romantic’ castles in Scotland.  Most do not open their doors until April 1, secure in that date that spring should have fully arrived and their gardens will have that ‘wow factor’ for all the visitors.  So tomorrow I am going to go and see two of those having ticked off Edinburgh Castle last week.

Dunnotar Castle is north of Arbroath, right along the coast.  It is about a 35-40 minute drive.  Today, the castle is run by Clan Keith. It is a ruined medieval fortress but its fame is the fact that it is positioned on a rocky outcrop hanging over the North Sea.

For Scotland, it was a very important site because it is where the Scottish crown jewels were hidden when Oliver Cromwell and his invading army from the south came in the 17th century.  They held Cromwell off for eight months saving Scotland’s heritage.  Visitors to the castle (when it was intact) include the Who’s Who of Scottish history:  William Wallace, Mary Queen of Scots, the Marquis of Montrose and the future King Charles II.  Sir William Wallace is known as being one of the great heroes who united all of the clans in Scotland to fight against Edward I’s army.  The most significant event was a battle at a bridge near Stirling in September 1297.  It is said that the stone bridge was only wide enough for two horses side by side and that it would take the English army hours and hours to cross.  On 11 September the Scots forced the English to have to cross that bridge.  William Wallace and his men waited until half of the army had passed over the bridge before charging it.  The others went along the banks of the river preventing the English from escaping their deadly fate.  5000 Welsh Guards died with 100 fatalities for Wallace and his men.  Known as the Battle of Stirling Bridge it is viewed as part of the first war of Scottish independence.  Mary Queen of Scotts is probably the best known of all the Scottish heroes and martyrs.  She was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth 1 when she sought help during the battle of the Reformation (Catholic vs. Protestants) for nineteen years.  In the intrigues of the day, Mary was discovered to be plotting against Elizabeth and she was executed at the guillotine at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587.  Mary’s son would become James I of England and VI of Scotland after Elizabeth I’s death in 1603.

 

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The second castle is Glamis Castle.  It has been occupied since 1372. Most people consider it to be the most romantic castle in Scotland.

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Information from Scottish Home & Garden says:  “Glamis was the family home of the Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, and has been in the Lyon family since the 14th century, when Sir John Lyon, Thane of Glamis, received the land as a gift from King Robert II.”

It is said to be the setting for Shakespeare’s MacBeth and it was the birthplace of the late Princess Margaret.

The entrance fees for all of the castles are about $15 CDN, children are most often free.  This gets you into the houses and the gardens.  Each and everyone has a shop where you can buy products related to that specific castle as well as having a meal.  You can even stay in cottages on the Balmoral estate of the Queen.

Photo Credit:  Scottish Heritage and Scottish Home and Garden.

Hospitalfield, Day 3

Each of us, at breakfast, seemed to have settled in.  Everyone has adjusted to keeping warm and many of us threw off covers during the night.  The wind off the North Sea subsided and we woke to glorious blue skies.  Today, was an opportunity to stop thinking about being creative and to enjoy a tour of the library and the house with Alasdair Sutherland.  I learned so much that it was impossible to keep track of everything but today, I will begin writing about the ‘true’ history of Hospitalfield and not that contained in many accounts.  Alasdair gave us insight into the reasons for the carvings, the history of the pictures in the collection as they related to the Fraser family, and showed us some amazing books including the account books of the woodcarver whose work decorates the house.  To not overwhelm you, this will be done in instalments!  The house is the history of the Parrot family from Hawkesbury Hill in Coventry and the Fraser family.

The original building was called Hospitalfield but it was because it was a place to receive pilgrims arriving to go to St John the Baptist Abbey. — ‘hospitality’  A statue on the front of the house is original to the medieval era.  It was only later a place for those ill with leprosy and the plague.

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Patrick Allan’s family did not really want him to be an artist.  Not much different today, parents afraid their children wanting to be artists will be impoverished all of their lives.  His family did apprentice him with his grandfather who was a very skilled draftsman.  He then goes to art school in Edinburgh where he specialises in portraits.  From there he went to Rome where he made a very successful career selling drawings and pictures to people on the Grand Tour.  It is in Rome that he will meet some other painters and sculptors who will become his lifelong friends and will supply work for the rooms here at Hospitalfield.  In 1841, he set up a successful portrait business in London and traveled back and forth to Paris.  Patrick Allan becomes one of the founders of a group of artists, The Clique, in the late 1830s.  The group was known for their rejection of academic art and embracing genre scenes.  They also had a great disdain for the Pre-Raphalite Brotherhood, more of that later this week!

In 1842, Patrick Allan was approached by Robert Cadell, an Edinburgh publisher, who wants him to produce illustrations for Walter Scott’s Antiquity, which I mentioned the last post.  Patrick Allan did create the work but, according to our guide, not that enthusiastically.   Our guide today also said that there is no shred of evidence that Scott’s novel was based on people and places in Arbrough or that Hospitalfield was Monkbarns.  It is a myth that has been perpetuated (even by me yesterday).  While he is in Arbroath working on this series, he meets a widow, Elizabeth, whom he married in 1843.  Elizabeth will inherit all of the Hawkesbury estates in 1883.  Below are three large oil portraits painted by Patrick Allan-Fraser on the left, Elizabeth, his wife, on the right, and her mother in the middle.  The bottom picture is an image of Elizabeth holding her favourite cat painted by Patrick.

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I would like to draw your attention to the material on the wall behind the portrait of Elizabeth.  It is the most beautiful 17th-century Dutch embossed leather and was all the rage when the couple were renovating the house.  The room that these images are in was the original entrance hall of the James Fraser House.  One other curiosity about this room is the installation of gasoliers, gas lighting.  It was trendy and a status symbol, just like the imported leather wall panels.  They, however, did a lot of damage to the ceilings and objects in various rooms within the house with the fumes.  This was compounded by the soot from the candles and the coal that was used.

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The fireplace was shown at the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations of 1851 at Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851.  The models of all of the various items that could be purchased could also be bought.  That is how the fireplace wound up in Hospitalfield.

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The beautiful wood carving through the original Hall and then the dining room was done by a local carver, James Hutchinson.   His work can be seen throughout the house including the framing of the triple portraits.  Below is a detail.

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The Drawing Room features two 17th century tapestries that Patrick acquired in Bruges.  The Room was decorated in 1870 when cedar was used to cover all of the walls to protect the fabrics from moths.  The room is the earliest example of the Scottish Arts and Crafts Movement.  The intent, through the subjects of the tapestries, was to link the inside of the house with the outside environment.  The ceiling has 197 different plant carvings found on the property.  It was done by a local carver, David Maver, who was paid seven pence an hour.  Hospitalfield has the complete book of his accounts.  Some of the ceiling carvings took up to one hundred hours.  Maver later moved to New York where he made a name for himself carving for the grand houses along the Eastern seaboard.

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Other images of the tapestries in the Drawing Room.  Because of their age, the light from the windows is curtained off.  The brilliance of living a room with cedar to protect artworks at that time was quite impressive. Other cabinets within the house are made of solid cedar and lined with camphorwood to safeguard the beautiful clothes of the women.

Tomorrow I will give you a tour of three more rooms in this great house.

The winds are still down, and the sun is shining brightly in Arbroath.  Any artist seriously looking for a place to do a residency should seriously consider Hospitalfield.  They have a small dedicated staff.  The costs are reasonable and if you take public transportation – and not rent a car – you will really only have to bring your supplies.  For some of the writers this March, that has meant only pens and paper!

 

Arrived at Arbroath and Hospitalfield House

From my window in one of the most historic bedrooms at Hospitalfield, I can see the North Sea.  To get there, one only has to walk through the garden, full of blooming daffodils and crocus.

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The photographs provided by Hospitalfield show the amazing exterior of this medieval building, but it is the interior spaces that give you that ‘wow, oh my goodness’ moment.  Built in the 13th century, the warren of rooms was home to the people who had leprosy and the plaque….hence, the name Hospitalfield.  Right now, it is both home and inspiration to the nine or ten of us who are here as interdisciplinary artists from various places including Brooklyn, London, Glasgow, Holland, and Newcastle, Great creative people.

Cicely Farrer wrote to us and told us that it is both cold outside and cold inside this old stone building,.  She is right.  It is cold to the bones which, in some way, has a connection with the SHEEP that are everywhere and the wool industry.  Did I forget my wool jumper from Ireland just so I could get a new one from here?  Did I really?!  But, for those who are thinking of travelling to Scotland, the first word that comes to mind is SHEEP.  There are more sheep in Scotland than there are people.  Did you know that?  And some of those sheep are even orange!

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This is the first residency that I have been on in more than 30 years.  It feels like a first time because everything is that much more different.  There is a fantastic chef here named Simon who cooked us pilaf, a chicken curry, slaw with Nigella seeds, and his homemade flatbread.  This was followed by a chocolate brownie with real whipped cream and a raspberry coulis.  It is nice to be taken care of and not having to think about anything – a mantra that seems to be on everyone’s mind.

So this is the four posters historic bedroom at Hospitalfield that is mine for two weeks.

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Some of you might recall that I was given a -37 degree C sleeping bag.  It will definitely come in handy tonight!  It makes me appreciate all of those big two-story frame farmhouses in Manitoba and all their small rooms and doors. Apparently to keep the warm in.

Here are some other views of the inside hallways.  The wood is beautiful.  Some of the private rooms have coffered wood ceilings and carved wooden walls.  I fear that they would crack in the dry cold of Manitoba,

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Scotland is on many of your bucket lists.  It is a gorgeous country with vast open spaces.  That is one of the single reasons that Scotland is a favoured tourist destination for the Chinese.  The tops of the Highland hills have snow on them today. March is chilly.  The great houses open in April.  You should come after April 1 if you can.

And if you do come, you need to start planning in advance and check out all of your options.  From Canada, for example, I found out that you can fly from Halifax to Glasgow.  Other places even land in Dundee, but the majority of travellers I am told begin their journey in London.  It is easy to get to Scotland from London King’s Cross; it takes about five hours, and if you book at least 5 to 6 weeks in advance with NLER you can get a much-discounted ticket.  Most everyone I know automatically thinks about renting a car.  If you absolutely need to, plan, so you only need to for a short period.  It isn’t the cost of the daily car fee that is so expensive.  It is the cost of insurance.  The price per day of full coverage with Europcar is 37 GBP.  At the moment it is 1 GBP to 2 CDN.  While the daily rental might seem insignificant, insurance can add up.  Figure it out before you travel.

If you decide to go ahead and rent a car then make the most of it!  This means not travelling on the motorways – at least as much as you can,  Wandering off to find small villages with quaint shops and local food is part of the fun.  And do check out the local fare.  To give you an idea of what fast food costs in Scotland and an excellent reason to stay away from it, I can tell you that a Burger King Jr Whopper meal is 7.14 GBP or $14.28 CDN.  Thank goodness the chef at Hospitalfield House is so amazing.

Cosmic Joke?

I was so looking forward to getting out of snowy Winnipeg that I couldn’t think of anything but green grass, lochs, dramatic hills, daffodils, and Scottish shortbread.  The weather reports were for ‘rain, rain, and rain’.  That chill to the bone cold is something that we got used to I was a student at the University of Leicester.  And speaking of Leicester, I was going to get to connect with one of my friends from that era, Hazel, from the Shetland Islands now working for Scottish Museums.  Our original plan was to walk through the Old Town part of the city with its cobblestones, public statuary, and beautiful stone buildings.  The icy wind and rain meant that we shifted from one sitting spot to another during the course of the morning.  Our first stop was for tea and scones (OK, Hazel had an elephant-shaped piece of shortbread).

The Elephant House is located in the old part of the city.  It is easy to find and any local can give you directions because this lovely boutique cafe claims to be one of the cafes where J K Rowling wrote Harry Potter.

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The Elephant Cafe is one of a few coffee and tea shops that Rowling visited with her baby daughter so that she could write.

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Rowling is a true rags to riches individual.  As a single mom struggling on welfare in Edinburgh, she had, of course, no idea that two decades later people would travel to Edinburgh to visit the sites of her stories.  Rowling’s home was full of books and from a very young age, she wanted to be a writer.  Her website says that she wrote her first book at the age of six called ‘Rabbit’ while she finished her first novel five years later at the age of eleven.  Rowling went on to University, spent a year in Paris while she was a student and eventually marries a man from Portugal.  But, in 1995, that marriage fell through and she returned to Edinburgh only for her mother to die shortly after.  In the midst of two tragic events, the divorce and the death, Rowling took the skills she had learned in her Classics courses and set about to finish a book that she had started years before.

In 1990 on a delayed train from Manchester to London King’s Cross, she conceived the idea for the Harry Potters series.  She built up the outline for the series of seven books on odd pieces of papers.  In 1997, Bloomsbury Children’s Books published the first of the seven books.  For many, it is like a fairy tale and it is easy to see from all of the shops selling Harry Pottery memorabilia that the books continue to have a great following.  If you travel to Edinburgh, you can go on the Harry Potter tours.  But if you just want a great scone or shortbread and a pot of British tea, then step into the Elephant House Cafe.  One bit hint, this is a very popular bistro cafe amongst the locals as well and tables at the normal busy times of day can mean a lineup.

We then spent our time catching up on our lives for the past two decades sitting amongst the Titians at the National Gallery.  What a beautiful gallery.  It was Valesquez’s Old Woman Cooking Eggs that caught my attention after the colossal images by Gainsborough with fabrics you can reach out and touch – it sure feels that way.  The Museums in Scotland are free admission and those in Edinburgh are located within walking distance of one another.  If you stay in this part of the City, you never have to hire a taxi but you can simply walk from one venue to another with ease.

There are a number of ways to get to Edinburgh.  In fact, this trip taught me a lot.  If you live in Canada, you can fly via Halifax to Glasgow with WestJet Airlines.  You can also fly to Edinburgh via either London Gatwick or London Heathrow.  When I booked, Gatwick was the cheapest option.  Then you take the Thameslink to London San Pancreas International.  The return ticket is 21 GBP.  Today that is roughly $42 CDN.  It takes about 40 minutes.  In San Pancreas you can find some lovely food shops – much better in my opinion from those at King’s Cross.  Then you take the LNER train to Edinburgh.  Now here is also a big tip:  If your train is delayed by 30 minutes you will get some compensation.  If it is delayed by an hour you can get the entire cost of the ticket refunded.  My train was 78 minutes late in arriving.  Bingo!

Edinburgh is a very cultural city and there are festivals throughout the summer.  Most of the big manor houses or even Balmoral Castle allow for visitors.  They open April 1.  There are even cottages to let on the grounds of Balmoral Castle.

I am leaving for Arbroath tomorrow instead of today.  The snow is tapering off and melting so I have hope that the 8 degrees C is for real.

 

 

 

Profound Sadness at the passing of Dr Sandra Alfoldy

It is with a very heavy heart that I acknowledge the untimely passing of Dr Sandra Alfoldy on February 24, 2019.  Sandra championed Canadian crafts and their history in every class she taught at NSCAD, in every public paper she delivered, and in her books.  She was immensely helpful to me in my research on Vietnam resisters that had moved into the Kootenays.  Sandra grew up there, and her Master’s thesis, Theory and Craft: A Case Study of the Kootenay Christmas Faire for Concordia University in 1997 came from her intimate knowledge of the event.  Her parents, fine crafters, were inspirational to her.  In that document, she states:  “Through years of active involvement in British Columbia’s Kootenay Christmas Faire, held annually since 1974 in Nelson, I became aware of a concern in the craft world that the introduction of theory into studies of craft would disregard practice. This fear was combined with resentment as artisans perceived
a hierarchically-based disdain toward the crafts and their producers. For years this
has led to a self-referential “art-versus-craft” debate which is not only counterproductive, but also leaves the area of craft under-explored in the institutional and academic art world.”  This was early Alfoldy and her research and her belief that craft could be part of a contemporary art world with all of its theories guided her creative research.  She was, at the time of her passing, looking to the Great Exhibition of 1851 and a response from the colonies (Canada).  Her thoughts on this will be missed, and the craft community in Canada will struggle to find such a remarkable advocate as Alfoldy.

Sharp-Shinned Hawk

If you have come to find out about ceramics today, I am sorry to disappoint.  Today’s chatter is about some of the visitors to our garden.  One of the reasons that we have remained living in the urban centre of a growing Canadian city is our garden.  Twenty years ago a dozen lilac bushes were planted along the east side of the property at the back.  There is also a peony bush that thrives despite the fact I am told it is over fifty years old.  The wild roses climb about along with a flaming willow inspired by a friend’s in Kelowna, a super tall Brandon cedar, a myriad of thickets and Virginia creeper.  There are literally hundreds of birds every day, a pair of Chickadees and Nuthatches, a lone Downy Woodpecker this time of year, two grey squirrels, a red squirrel, and three rabbits.  And then, there are ‘them’.

‘Them’ refers to the Sharp-Shinned Hawks. These hawks are small ‘accipiters’.  That is they have short round wings and a long tail.  When their tail is folded, it appears to be square or notched, with a narrow pale tip.  When fanned it is slightly rounded in appearance.  Their head is small and rounded (not flat like the Cooper Hawks).  Their neck is short and they can rotate their head almost 360 degrees.  Their breast is rusty-barred and they have an orange eye.  They fly, according to Peterson, in several rapid beats with a short glide.  Petersons also says they are better adapted at hunting in the woodlands than most of the other hawks.  While several other books on Manitoba birds does not indicate it, Peterson says this:  “Habitat:  Breeds in extensive forests; in migration and winter, open woodlands, wood edges, and residential areas.”  Their food is chiefly birds and occasionally small mammals.

My first encounter was on March 29, 2018, when I came face to face with a female at 10 am – in my nightgown no less.  She was perched on one of the sheds that hold the firewood for our wood stove.  She was rapidly plucking something and thinking it was ‘the’ rabbit, I ran out in the snow to confirm and discovered- seriously, much to my relief- that the lunch was one of the songbirds.  [I need to add here that we do not feed the other animals so they will be a hawk buffet].  She was stunningly gorgeous and quite large.  We stared at one another for about sixty seconds.  I would like to think that day that our chat might keep her away from the rabbits and realising that hawks are endangered, I recognised that she also had to eat and feed offspring.  She and her mate came again in April.  The male is much smaller (about 22 cm tall) than the female (at least  35-45 cm tall) and his hunting skills weren’t very sophisticated last year.  If this is the same one, he has much improved.

Today, he was successful and then just sat, quite content on the edge of the firewood holder.  This appears to be his ‘plucking post’.  The hawks catch their prey with their long legs and sharp talons.  Normally, he would have left after he finished eating but, today, he was there – frozen still – for about forty-five minutes.  The songbirds in the lilacs and the grey squirrel on the suet did not move.  At the end of almost an hour, they even got a little squirmy.  Some were hiding in the Brandon Cedar.  Then the hawk flew away only to return to the thicket some five minutes later.  The photo was taken with my iPhone.  My presence, less than two metres from him, was not a bother nor were people walking up and down the back lane and cars.  Then he left again.  We were looking out the window to see if he had returned, talking about how well he was camouflaged, only to be surprised when we looked ‘to our right’ and there, on a 2 x 4 holding a solar panel to the outdoor lights, he was cheekily perched.  Several minutes later he swopped past the lilacs and away.  It was 4;40pm.

Has climate impacted these hawks?  Most of the bird books talk about their migration and the fact that they live in forested areas in the north, not in the City of Winnipeg!

Meeting fabulous women artists and thinking of Graysville

Several weeks ago, the Director of the Manitoba Crafts Council, Tammy Sutherland, asked me if I would be interested in being a facilitator for The Love of Craft members exhibition.  Even though there are regular critiques that I lead in my university classes, I wondered if I was up to the job.  There was such diversity in the participants – well, it was a bit worrisome.  All of that disappeared when, to my surprise, a former student was standing in the gallery, Erika Hanneson.  I had seen her name on the list of those that wanted to be part of the afternoon discussion but, there could have been many Erika’s as Manitoba has a sizeable Icelandic community.  But, it was her.  There is something beautiful about teaching, and it is seeing the students thrive and prosper when they leave that is the most rewarding.  I am afraid that my photograph of Erika’s work does not do it justice.  At first glance, most of the visitors to the gallery thought that the large plate had been entirely wheel thrown.  But, it isn’t.  The body of the vessel is a manipulated slab over a slump mould.  On the reverse, there is a wheel thrown foot ring.  The base is heavily gouged with the lines filled in with a dark slip.  There are subtle transitions in the glaze towards the rim giving the impression of a fall prairie landscape.  She has recently moved her studio to Gimli, Manitoba and no doubt the colours of the Lake Winnipeg and the summer sky will provide more inspiration.

Like many of those that come to the School of Art, Erika was a nurse, but her passion was art.  She was enrolled in the Diploma programme, but shortly after beginning her classes, Erika discovered that she liked the academic courses and did well in them.  She went on to get her BFA degree while raising children and working.  An excellent role model.  Now she devotes most of her time to her craft.  I wish her every success in her new studio and am anxiously awaiting the end of winter to go and visit.

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I intend to write about all of the women who I met on Saturday.  Each and everyone is doing something they are passionate about, and there were so many similarities in their stories.  Each tries to give voice to their experiences, they appreciate different materials and processes while acknowledging that one must practice a craft, ‘the verb’, and do things well.  One other thing we discussed is the need for meeting new people, the sharing of ideas, and the importance of positive support.

The other talented woman I would like to introduce you to is Judith Rempel Smucker.  Judith is also a graduate of the School of Art here in Winnipeg where she studied graphic design and the Basel School of Design in Switzerland.  She lived for some years in Pennsylvania where she taught graphic design.  The featured image is a photograph of a mixed media collage, one of 28 originals, that form the pages of her book, RE-encounters.  Views from the Field.  Here she has used vintage material, repurposed letters from the newspapers, and bouncing images of sheep.  Judith took 28 words that begin with ‘RE’ and gave them to 28 individuals who are part of her daily life.  She asked them to provide her with a text.  Re-count, re-direct, re-fresh, re-new are amongst the words chosen.  It is a delightful book and is available at the Manitoba Craft Council Shop on Cumberland.

Thumbing through the pages of RE-encounters made me recall part of my life tas a rural potter.  I lived in Graysville, Manitoba.  It is roughly eleven miles west of Carman Manitoba.  There was grain storage, a church, a school, and the general store run by Ada and Howard Stephenson.  The railway line that went all the way to Snow Valley had been removed.  The young people were leaving.  Most of the farms were getting larger and larger.  Some, like my neighbours to the east, used an old tractor and didn’t spray.  None of the ‘new fangled’ technology there.  I loved Graysville and the people who lived there.  And there are times when I miss them all.  I had a marvellous friend, Walter Toews.  He lived with his family near Graysville.  Walter was a teacher, and in his spare time, he raised sheep.  It has been so long ago now that I have forgotten some of the details but..in a nutshell.  Sometimes Walter’s ewes had twins.  And sometimes the mothers didn’t want to have to contend with two sheep so they would push one aside.  At other times, ewes whose lambs had died decided to literally butt in and try and take those of another mother.  Looking at their faces and their soft woolly bodies one would never imagine such things.  They are so cute.  Walter had heard about me from someone, perhaps his daughter who used to come and babysit my children, Cris and Jaine.  At any rate, it came to pass that Walter would give me the orphan lambs.  He didn’t have the time to deal with them.   So, they went in my basement at the beginning because the barn was too cold.  Yes, you read it right – lambs in the basement.  They were fed with bottles of milk from Elsie, the cow.  We were all gleeful when they were around.  The idea was that they would become outdoor pets used for their wool,  and die of old age.  Then one summer, the vegetables in the garden were getting eaten by some kind of worm.  It was taking its toll but, looking up and down, produced no sight of caterpillars or any other insect crunch a munching on the broccoli.  Ah, but one day Jaine and Cris came to tell me that they had seen something so ‘cute’ – it was the word they used.  Little Cindy was in the garden eating up all of the green beans!  Cute I asked myself.  Cute?!  This garden had been years in the making – getting rid of all the weeds and then having it killed by the farmer’s spray the second year.  This year there would be vegetables…an electric fence had been put around the area to keep the calves out.  But apparently, that lovely wool insulated the sheep.  They could go in and out.   We did get to eat those green beans one way or another…but I must thank Judith for bringing back those memories.  Someone asked her why she chose sheep and Judith replied it was because they were innocuous.  I smiled and didn’t say anything.  Shrewd might be the word I would use!

I want to thank the Manitoba Craft Council for inviting me to be the facilitator of the discussion.  I gained more having met three talented women previously unknown to me and become re-acquainted with a former student.  It was my pleasure.

Warren MacKenzie, 1924-2018

I was reminded by ceramic artist, Sally Michener who provided the featured image of MacKenzie, that he lived to be 94!   That is a staggering accomplishment.  Sally also mentions often that it takes bravery to live a long life.  Very true.  Sally was a student of MacKenzie’s when she was working as a social worker in Minneapolis, a time before she went to study for her MFA.  In fact, he fostered her love of clay.  Sally hoped to visit him this year.  Instead, I imagine, that she is so grateful for those times that she was able to spend with him.  MacKenzie was a role model to so many lives.  His teaching was inspirational, and it was a testament to his patience and generosity that he shared his knowledge freely with anyone that had queries.  He did not hide it away.

MacKenzie produced functional ware, and he did not apologise for it!  The tableware that he threw on his Leach style kick wheel – the jugs, mugs, salad bowls, soup bowls, plates, and teapots were purchased by generations of enthusiastic clients.    Those pieces enriched the daily lives of all who used them in the way that Bernard Leach and Soetsu Yanagi imagined – the marriage of beauty and functionality giving joy to the user. It is said that a little corner of Minnesota was renamed ‘Mingei-sota’ in recognition of MacKenzie’s debt to the Mingei movement promoted by Leach, Yanagi, and Hamada.  MacKenzie desired is to create the best functional work that he could by repeating shapes over and over again.  For him, like so many others, throwing was meditative, something that he learned from Hamada.  His work is, as many say, the antithesis of that of a throwaway society.  He never succumbed to calling himself an ‘artist’, setting himself apart from those that created work to be useful.  Indeed, he fought to curb the rising price of his work.  His profound belief that people should be able to enjoy his pots just as much as collectors led him to attempt to control the price of his work and the amount that individuals could purchase. He did this so that profiteers would not accumulate stock and sell it on one of the online auction sites marked up ten or twenty times the purchase price.

MacKenzie was very humble.  As a young student at the Art Institute of Chicago, he acquired a copy of Leach’s A Potter’s Book.  He believed that it was possible to join artistic expression and good design with functionality; in fact, this served him well for the more than sixty years he worked as a potter out of his studio in Stillwater, Minnesota. Warren MacKenzie lived to an incredible age leaving beautiful, functional work for all of us to enjoy along with all of the students who themselves have become teachers and mentors.  He left the world a better place.