Located in the north end of the city and about a 45-minute bus ride from campus, 270 Sherman is a hybrid of the old and new Hamilton.
Once a cotton mill during the height of Hamilton’s textile production industry in the 1900s, the five buildings that make up 270 Sherman have been re-adapted as studio space for artists. The space has also been the set of popular television series including Murdoch Mysteries, Nikita and Bomb Girls, and films such as The Art of the Steel.
Laine Groeneweg, a tenant at 270 Sherman, is one of few printmakers in the world who continue to practice mezzotint, a technique with origins in the 17th-century that involves carving images out of flattened copper plates. Groeneweg showed us how he goes about his craft and spoke about challenges he faced getting started as an artist and freelancer.
"After I graduated, I was terrified to go freelance...to live on doing my work or putting myself out there to run my business or live off my artwork," he said. "And that fear was actually what ended up propelling me into doing this. I oftentimes, as horrible as it sounds, let the fear fuel me to keep on going, to keep on making more stuff, because I don't ever see myself working in an environment where it's dictated by somebody else."
Originally from Calgary, Groeneweg moved to Toronto and then to Hamilton's burgeoning arts scene.
"This is a bit of a fresh start kind of city right now. It's cool - it's starting to take on a bit of a new life from its industrial roots. Arts and culture is what's really bringing this city back, I think."
Sophia Topper
Staff Reporter
Student artists have added a splash of colour to the Wilson Hall construction site. Their mural in progress is a part of the Spotlight on the Arts, a yearlong festival generic viagra buy usa run by the School of the Arts. Students are transforming the plain white boarding surrounding the construction site into murals depicting themes related to Hamilton’s blue collar history.
Inspiration came from the vibrant public art movement, with its associated vulnerability, mystery and public accessibility as important components to the modern movement.
The work “raises questions with community…in a different kind of context,” said Beth Marquis, a lead coordinator of the festival. The murals continue Spotlight on the Arts’ September theme of community.
“It’s a collaborative effort,” explained third-year Studio Art student Kirby Tobin. “The designs were all by our class…we each have a few panels to work on in pairs, but we’re all working on it.”
The chosen media are stencils, latex paint and wheat pasted images, which are being used to represent the reassembled remnants of the students’ past work.
The idea arose from preliminary discussions about the Wilson Building, and the hope was to create an “interesting art project that could engage the community, instead of just a practical fence,” said Marquis.
Carmela Lagense, assitant professor in the School of the Arts, volunteered to adopt the project, using it as an assignment in her Painting and Drawing class. The festival worked with Facility Services and the Department of Public Relations to gain approval for the project.
"I think this project represents everything Wilson Hall is going to be about," Laganse told the Daily News. "It's community-driven, collaborative and innovative."
“I really like the opportunity to work outside and interact with the viewers during the process; that's something new in terms of putting the work up,” said third-year Studio Art student Natalie Richard, a member of Lagense’s class.
“I wouldn't say we do public art of this sort often,” she said. “Our work is open to the public but this sort of space is a lot more inviting, especially since going to see art can be intimidating.”
“This kind of public art is a unique opportunity this year,” echoed Tobin. “I think this is possible as an extension of the effort to get the arts community at McMaster more recognized.”
The murals will be up as long as the boards are, but after that, their fate remains uncertain. Some hope to preserve the murals, but the mural’s ephemeral nature could be an asset. “[Street art] pops up and engages the community for a period of time,” said Marquis.
While the bulk of the murals are found on the boards facing Sterling Street, other classes have contributed to collaged prints on the side facing Forsyth Avenue, and the students have been given permission to use the remaining blank space for their work, and will continue depending on remaining time and material.
My dad chilling with the White Lady, circa 1965.
It’s hard to imagine a time at McMaster when there was no hospital on Main Street; when undergraduates were counted in the hundreds, rather than the thousands; when there were a mere four buildings populating campus.
It’s both a humorous and humbling adventure exploring archival articles and photographs from back in the day, and has become a frequent pastime of Sil staff. So much has changed (or not changed) over the course of McMaster’s history, for better and for worse. This week, we wanted to share a piece of that history in the form of featuring throwback content in every section.
Perhaps most striking about these recycled pieces is how timeless they are in their continued relevance to student life, government policy and Hamilton culture. Behind the yellowed newsprint and antiquated language are opinions, issues and thoughts that still matter and deserve a second run of publication.
Such nostalgia is a powerful conversation starter. Personal connections and forgotten stories often find their way into the present when we spend a moment wondering about the past. If we hadn’t published last week about the vandalized White Lady statue – who she is and where she came from – I would never know that once upon a time, a toddler-father of mine once sat in her arms in a blue jumper (and that there’s photographic evidence, as pictured, to prove it).
It’s easy for memories like that to get lost in the passage of time, especially on a campus where student – and student government – turnover happens at an accelerated rate. What is particularly disheartening is when those fighting the good fight on any variety of issues don’t have long enough to accomplish their goals in such a short time here, and when the progress they started is forgotten shortly after their convocation date. Their concerns and campaigns are often reincarnated a brief time later – but only once the momentum has died and the advocates, representatives and leaders don’t have the context or history to pick up where others left off. They’re back to square one.
That’s why concerns that were raised 30 years ago about (and by) the SRA are echoed today, the same old opinions get written every year, clubs have continuity issues and statues remain – years later – sadly graffitied, former glory all but forgotten.
This is how it has always been, but not how it needs to be. Sometimes, it isn’t until we take a moment to look back that we can know more clearly how we want to move forwards.
Karen Wang
Graphics Editor
My immediate reaction is a gut-wrenching, petrified revulsion.
The photo portrays an attractive redhead in her fifties, naked except for a pair of garters and stockings, looking directly, intensely, into the camera.
But it wasn’t just the stark nakedness or the sexually provocative posture that shocked me. What was haunting was the caption “mum” juxtaposed against the imagery of lingerie, sagging breasts, pink skin against blue-toned backdrop and a pair of suggestive, demanding eyes. It was like having just drunk sour milk too quickly and being unable to spit. To what have I just subjected my eyes – and my mind?
Yet, fascinated by the obvious abomination, I couldn’t look away.
This image is from a collection of more discerning photographs published in 2008 in a book titled, Pretend You’re Actually Alive by an artist named Leigh Ledare. The model is his mother. At fifty, Tina Peterson’s natural beauty is intensified by an ageing elegance and astuteness. The album captured her in a myriad of postures: trying on clothes at a thrift shop, posing as a corpse, styling her hair half-naked, doing the missionary…
On the other side of the camera is thirty-seven-year-old Leigh Ledare. Born in Seattle, Ledare is an artist and a teacher. As discomforting as the photos are to a layperson, it is unimaginable what it must be like for Ledare. What could have been his motivations in the beginning? What kept it going for eight years? I mean c’mon, did he not think it’s weird?
Asked how he felt shooting the series by The Guardian, Ledare replied: “I moved between different feelings – uncomfortable, absurd, funny.”
Sitting in Starbucks, my face purple with embarrassment, my curiosity is at its peak. What is it that turns my stomach but simultaneously causes me to take sneak peaks for more photos? Am I as sick as these “artists” must be?
It might be easy to dismiss this as a simple case of artistically licensed insanity: an Oedipus exploration gone too far. Getting over the initial shock, I began to feel a sense of admiration and increased curiosity. The purpose of “shock art” is to challenge taboos and commonly accepted notions through images that are discerning and provocative. Hence the big questions: what is the message here, and can this be considered art?
The book is a narrative of Tina’s struggles and vulnerabilities with life and aging documented through her sexual prowess over a period of eight years. Beneath the obvious absurdity are strangely and truly beautiful images showing her vulnerable, confused, poignant, mourning, and inevitably, orgasmic. To Ledare, it must be a daunting, though initially terrifying, realization that Tina Peterson wasn’t just his mother. She was also a ballet dancer, featured in seventeen magazines.
A stripper. A sexual being. A vulnerable woman fearing ageing and menopause. For Tina, the amount of courage it must have took to be stripped bare, naked in emotion and weakness, for her son to witness and analyze.
Having grown up in a very conservative Asian family who never even calls sex by its name, Ledare’s world is an alternate universe from mine. When I was fourteen, while looking for a pair of pantyhose in my mother’s nightstand, I found a pack of Trojans. My reaction was utter denial. I’ve never opened a drawer since. When parents cross that asexual boundary, there is just no turning back. The fear isn’t just sex itself. The fear is that our parents are neither asexual nor perfect. They are human, with their own set of flaws, failures, prejudices and needs.
With all genres of art, there are good and bad. Successful “shock art” not only disturbs the eye, but also generates discussion by questioning the norm. Ledare’s series of images wasn’t simply sensational. Sure, the idea of a son photographing his mother having sex has a gripping, abominable dimension. But shock isn’t all – there are depths to his art that can withstand some critical thinking and pondering by any average audience. At least for me, I haven’t been able to keep it off my mind.
J.J. Bardoel
Silhouette Intern
When rushing to their next class, students may tend to look past all of the history on campus. However, for those who walk through Hamilton Hall may find it almost impossible to ignore the large statue. The statue of Greek mathematician Anatolius is still a relatively new addition to the vast collection of sculptures and statues scattered throughout McMaster.
Created over a span of two years, numerous faculty members and Hamilton artists Bryan Kanbara and Brian Kelly collaborated on the sculpture to create a piece which appealed to other members of the McMaster community, not just those who thrive in mathematics.
“The sculpture represents Anatolius of Alexandria, a 2 A.D. mathematician who was [canonized] for his peace-making activity,” said Kanbara. “This adds a human-ness to the theme of mathematics and gives it a poetic glow.”
The artists wanted the sculpture to represent the fact that mathematics was predominantly experienced in class. The three-piece sculpture has mathematical equations covering the majority of its body.
Months prior to the unveiling in January 2008, faculty began visiting the studio where the sculpture was held, writing their own equations on the robes, and primary school students’ schoolwork was projected onto the sculpture and drawn on. These equations vary in difficulty, representing how all different people have partaken in mathematics.
Comprised using old-fashion methods at the two artists James Street North studio, the sculpture was pieced together, with wood, Styrofoam, epoxy resin, fiberglass, latex and spray enamel paint making up the body.
Artistically, the sculpture is a unique combination of different styles. Some areas are statuesque, while others are more abstract. The elements of the stature were meant to contrast the modern architecture of the interior of Hamilton Hall, officially known as the James Stewart Center.
The globe which hovers over the sculpture is a common symbol associated with Anatolius and the book the sculpture is holding is a James Stewart textbook, the sponsor of the creation. The cherub, found a level above the main portion of the statue, acts as another reflection of the mathematician’s sainthood, extending a halo down upon the figure.
The sculpture currently rests in a light well within Hamilton Hall, making it a very distinct sight for visitors of the building.
“We wanted Anatolius to be a surprising encounter for first time viewers,” said Kanbara. “And a comforting, large presence for frequenters of the building.”
Aurora Coltman
Silhouette Intern
Spending time on campus means that you may not notice things around you. One such overlooked feature of campus is the White Lady, the marble statue with the Gene Simmons-like mask that existed in the shadows near the daycare at the former Wentworth House. Now, in the midst of the construction, she sits behind the Michael DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery, her history slowly being forgotten by those who pass by.
Despite our curiosity, few people know the whole story behind the White Lady. The statue, built between 1959 and 1962, was designed and created by the artist Elford Bradley Cox (1914-2003), a Canadian sculptor born in Botha, Alta. His primary mediums included limestone, marble, alabaster, wood, precious and semi-precious stones, porcelains, and various metals. Cox sculpted everything from animals seen in Canada – bears, lynxes, owls – to the human figure – several torsos, stylistic faces.
Cox started the statue in 1959 when a Canada-wide art competition was begun for a “sculpture of a family group” that was to be placed outside the City Hall in Hamilton, Ont. Six sculptors, Cox's among them, were promised $250 each, and submitted models for consideration to the jury. It was decided on Jan. 19, 1959 that Cox would receive the award, and create a sculpture to adorn City Hall.
Only members of the jury had ever seen the draft for the statue, meaning it was to be a surprise at the unveiling. However, the statue was never placed in front of City Hall due to controversy between city officials.
Despite research by the McMaster Museum of Art and other interested parties, what happened to the statue afterwards was never fully discovered.
It did end up at McMaster, and there are two theories as to how. The first theory, the only proof being written in a letter by Dr. George Wallace, a McMaster professor from 1960-1985, wrote that William Kilbourn, another professor, and one of the members of the jury for the competition, suggested that McMaster University, “recompense [to Cox] and [place] it in front of Wentworth House.”
An alternate theory suggests that Lloyd Kyles, architect of Wentworth House, was the donor of the Cox sculpture.
Whatever the case, it is clear that Kyles was involved in bringing the statue to McMaster in 1962.
Plans to place her on the circular patio outside former Wentworth House failed, as she was not ‘appropriate’ for the setting, looking apparently unappealing against the brown brick, and being considered scandalous for the figure’s lack of clothing. The statue wound up next to its final resting spot next to the nursery.
The White Lady was moved slightly in 2001 when art conservator Sandra Lougheed was invited to repair the statue by the McMaster University Future Funds project. As the statue had been secluded, taggers had taken the opportunity to cover its torso and face in black acrylic paint. Lougheed took it upon herself to restore the statue to its former glory, fixing cracks, cleaning dirt and mould from the surface, and peeling away the acrylic paint.
Naturally, vandals reclaimed it mere weeks later, replacing the Gene Simmons mask with almost an exact copy. There has been no discussion since of restoring the White Lady.
Photo credit: Aurora Coltman / Silhouette Intern
Lene Trunjer Petersen
The Silhouette
Supercrawl was busy on Saturday night. Everywhere you could see art displays and food wagons, while music was coming from almost every corner. Here I was walking down James St. N., when I saw something different. Well, it was really just a black painted fence, but the unusual part of it was that everywhere people were writing quotes or their names with chalk, and taking pictures of the fence and themselves.
My curiosity won, and I went over to see.
What was going on? Was this actually an intended work of art? Who was the artist behind this? Was there one? Somehow there must be one, or else who started the writing? So I asked around me. Nobody really seemed to know, until this sort of shy guy came up to me, confronting me, asking if I really wanted to know? Yes, of course, I replied.
It all started with an Andy Warhol quote
The artist who stood before me was very reluctant to be a part of my article, but he gave me permission to paraphrase him and his thoughts about art. So what is art really? He elaborated that every one of us has a godly spark of creation. But whether or not it might come from a divine inspiration or a feeling of ‘need’ to create, the most important thing is to follow this tone of creation through. He felt that too many people were wondering about the right way to express their artistic thoughts instead of just doing it. That was why he wrote part of the Andy Warhol quote on the fence:
“Don’t think about making art, just get it done.”
Besides the Andy Warhol quote, he had also hung a few pictures on the fence. While he was writing, someone had asked for the chalk to write some of his own, and that was how the engaging fence writing came to be and transformed itself into a work of unified art.
Memory Wall
But what were the participants’ thoughts about the writings? I said thanks to the artist and went over to the fence and talked to people. Why were they writing on the fence, and what were they thinking when they did so?
The first person I asked was a younger guy, who answered that he wanted to be part of what he described as a feeling of togetherness. This feeling of being part of something bigger was a very unanimous reply. An older guy pointed out that it was everybody’s ideas, which made it a very inclusive art display. He also liked the idea that it was temporary and, with a good solid rain, the words of chalk would disappear, while the feeling and pictures would remain. Two other women I asked worked in home design. They wanted a picture of themselves in front of the fence for their webpage, to illustrate the varieties of art. Another person shouted graffiti and memory wall, before he turned around to help his kid to draw his own little creation.
What is art?
A lot of different ideas seemed to flow around that evening by the black fence, and it made a lot of the participants reflect on the concept of creation. But what seemed really important was the opportunity to be involved. Art is no longer the right of geniuses or the protected paintings behind the windows of an art gallery. Art is what speaks to your heart; it gets you involved, leaves a feeling of being part of more then just yourself and makes you reflect on art, life, creation and beyond. Finishing up my interviews, I found a piece of chalk and drew my own little cartoon, my statement, among the others who found that the memory wall was a truly significant art piece at the fifth annual Supercrawl.
In the midst of a large research university, some disciplines may get lost in the shuffle. But this year is the time for Mac’s arts to be in the spotlight.
McMaster’s School of the Arts is launching a yearlong festival designed to highlight the arts and their role in the university. The Spotlight on the Arts festival will see eight months of events, including lectures, exhibitions, and theatre productions.
Virginia Aksan, former Acting Director of the School of the Arts and one of the main coordinators of the festival, sees it as an opportunity for the department to be more vocal on campus.
“My vision was to promote the [image] of School of the Arts —which surprisingly, very few people know about,” she said of the reasoning for the event.
School of the Arts was created in 2001 to amalgamate the departments of Art and Art History, Music, and Theatre and Film Studies, a move Aksan considers to be primarily economically driven. But she also believes they hold a further connection.
“They share a vision about human creativity that I think is so much part of downtown Hamilton now,” she explained.
And it’s this vision that she has seen flourish under the leadership of current university president Patrick Deane, whom she describes as a “huge fan of the arts.”
Aksan felt that the leadership of Peter George, president previous to Deane, left something to be desired when it came to arts education. Deane began his role as president in 2010.
“What Peter George did was to create a university that was internationally renowned in heart research or in health studies,” she said.
“[But] the humanities… are the continuity of intellectual life of the human, and we kind of take it for granted. We’re in an age when we can’t have that happen anymore.” She added that she hopes to remind people “Mac does things besides what it’s renowned for.”
While the purpose of the Spotlight festival is chiefly to promote the work of School of the Arts, the project has been “building and growing from the original purpose to stimulate more arts based activity,” said Beth Marquis, another of the lead coordinators of the festival.
Marquis serves as a professor in the Arts and Science program, in the School of the Arts, and works at the McMaster Institute for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (MIIETL). She sees the festival as an opportunity to create more connections within the McMaster community, between disciplines and departments, especially considering the size of the university.
“It’s such a big and complex place,” she said of McMaster. “Sometimes you miss a lot of great opportunities that are happening…I think it’s just the nature of a place like this.”
The festival, with its variety of events, will be organized into four different clusters: connect (September), activate (November), empower (January), and integrate (March). Through the different themes, Marquis hopes to encourage people to think about the role of art differently.
“[We want people] not only to approach the arts as entertainment…but also [to understand] that the sense of social work while we’re being entertained.”
Photo: Studio art students printing their original T-shirt designs last year in Arts Quad. They will do the same this year at Supercrawl. C/O Anqi Shen.
Seeing as I spent my formative years in the company of two practicing engineers, I developed more than a little cynicism for the impractical. Over the years I’ve shed some of this snide attitude and added a little humanism to my utilitarian outlook, apparently possessing some shade of artistic inclinations.
Last week I was invited by a good friend to go to the Detroit Institute of Arts, to which their multiple van Goghs particularly drew me. I was so excited that, not unlike a child with a tooth under their pillow, the promise of a rewarding morning kept me up in my bed at night and roused me well before my alarm had a chance.
The van Goghs were as wonderful as I thought they would be, but did not turn out to be the most memorable parts of my visit to the DIA. For one, in the same room as Bank of the Oise at Auvres, there hung a painting by Renoir (who I had never heard of). In this piece sat a young woman with crossed arms whose soft features and softer brushstrokes commanded gently, but certainly, that I should fall immediately in love with the subject and painter alike. I obliged.
But the most surprising portion of my visit came when I found myself in the Modern and Contemporary Art sections of the DIA. The curators, I should note, ought to be commended for the careful layout of this exhibit. In the first room I entered, there were some of Picasso’s works from various stages in his life. Fairly uninitiated to his art, I was surprised to find that he had not in fact always been a cubist, as I had known him for. The first Picasso you see upon entering this room is an absolutely captivating painting.
This piece, Portrait of Manuel Pallares, is not a standard portrait for sure, but it is easily recognizable as a moustachioed man. The lines are bold, the strokes straight and the angles dramatic. My friend gestured to the rest of the (cubist) Picassos in the room, and commented that it was rather too bad that he had gone a bit off his rocker. Looking at the strange ensemble of shapes and curves, in comparison to the bold portrait beside me, I agreed with him entirely. We chatted briefly about modern art, exchanging quips I had heard many times from my engineering parents along the lines of “Anyone can put geometric shapes on a canvas,” “My little sister could do that,” and of course, “I don’t get it.” There is a strange sort of satisfaction that comes with dismissing famous art that I felt set comfortably back into my engineering-wrought psyche.
As I stood frowning in front of a large, slightly confusing, painting called Sylvette, my friend pointed out a small placard accompanying the piece. These excellent informative placards are scattered throughout the museum beside certain pieces, and this was one that described in brief how the model for Sylvette, Lydia Corbett, had met Picasso. As it turns out she was just a girl that he happened across in the street but requested she pose for him. Next to this blurb was a black and white photograph of her. I was shocked: seeing the picture in tandem with the painting it became immediately obvious how this was indeed a portrait of Lydia Corbett. In an intangible, bizarre way, it completely captured her.
While I stood staring, mouth unattractively agape, my previous notions towards the piece, and all contemporary art, fell away and I felt my mind revving up. Still reeling, I walked through the entire Contemporary section, taking in each and every piece carefully, reading all the placards I could find. I ended up spending what I later found out to be two hours in the exhibit, which I had considered skipping entirely when I initially saw it on the map. I now assumed that each piece held for me a moment of catharsis similar to Sylvette, I just had to look a little longer, think a little harder, empathize a little more. In the African-American area of the exhibit, there was a huge painting by Kehinde Wiley depicting a strong Black man wielding a samurai sword while riding on the back of a (visibly male) horse. The contrast between the grandiose scene and the vivid colour palate was enough to capture, at least for a moment, the attention of everyone who walked within view of it. The placard beside the painting explained that with this piece, Wiley was commenting on the dearth of African-Americans honoured in history classes, media and conversation. The composition of the piece was exactly that of any number of paintings depicting white men from American armies. The painting suddenly became so much more than its already impressive display of artistic talent. It was emotive, strong and clever.
Not every moment of - at least partial - understanding and appreciation came as easily as reading a placard, but with effort I was able to get more out of the work in the Contemporary exhibit than in the rest of my visits to other sections. That being said, there were certainly pieces that earned nothing more than a frustrated scoff or slow shake of the head, but only after putting in significant time and attention. And even some of these, though I was not able to appreciate emotionally or intellectually, I found compelling for their creativity, strangeness or, in the case of some sculptures, mastery of physics (the engineering in me was not completely gone after all).
After I had finally seen and at least attempted to understand everything that the Contemporary exhibit had displayed, I exited and walked into the historical American section. Now I say walked, but it felt oddly like stumbling. I didn't realize until the third room why, but as I looked around this less colourful, less bizarre space, I realized that it was lacking the same energy I'd just left. I'd only realized upon exiting the Contemporary section how lively it had been for me, how engaging and strange and splendid.
I stood for a few minutes thinking about this, adjusting to it, before I spotted my friend for the first time since Sylvette. I didn't know how to tell him that I'd changed my mind about Contemporary art, because it would have been untrue to generalize and say "I get it now!"
But damn if I didn't try.
