YATES EXHIBIT

ART EXHIBITS SERIES

WEAVING LIFE

The branches of the willow weave a story, a rhythm in our home, through the seasons. Relationship with family, Relationship with our Watershed, our Backyard, and Relationship with our Heritage helps us be more Respectful, feel more connected and at home in Our Place.

Through the arts we build our awareness, understanding, appreciation and ability to care for our relationships, our place. We hope you enjoy the exhibit. For more information visit www.sayee.ca. Thank you!

Paul Bohnert and Family

SACEE, (Southern Alberta Community of Environmental Educators),

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BLACK BEAR

This image of a little Black Bear Sow - well, she wasn't all that little, possibly 275+ pounds (what's that in kilos - probably 125?)
She had found a few Saskatoon bushes with berries still on - actually very rare for this year. Due to the extended winter, the berry crop was extremely poor, varying from a few laden bushes in Waterton to nothing in the Crowsnest Pass.
She was feeding with her two cubs, and allowed me to take dozens of frames - but for the final print, I chose this pose - I think as far as bear posing goes, it's nothing short of cute!

RJ Pisko

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GREY WOLF

I made this image in February of 2010, north of Golden, B.C. It was an amazing experience; I have been hoping for such an opportunity for many years.

The story behind this photograph is:
" 34 hour trip, home to home
" 800+ kilometers
" $350/hr. (guide)
" 900+ frames
" 5 prints
" 4 good shots (ones that I would allow to be published)
Well worth it - to have such a magnificent creature curious about you and meaning no harm. I'd like to go back - but maybe Yellowstone next time.

Wolves are an indicator species - large predators that keep Nature healthy. It's such a shame that the Alberta government can't see it that way . . .wolves are now being shot to preserve the Woodland Caribou population, rather than attacking the real cause of their peril - loss of habitat due to industrial development.

Are you listening Leaders?

RJ Pisko

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SECRET BEAUTIES REVEALED

Do you recognize and can you name these common and not so common flowers of Waterson and neighbouring Castle-Crown. Would a rose smell as sweet by any other name... Shakespeare.

Van Christou

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SECRET BEAUTIES REVEALED

Do you recognize and can you name these common and not so common flowers of Waterson and neighbouring Castle-Crown. Would a rose smell as sweet by any other name... Shakespeare.

Van Christou

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PEACE IN THE DAWN

Special Place to Van, Van captures the brilliance of the dawn, in the skies of the east, and then venturing west the Chinook.

Van Christou

For our Special Place Artists Circle and Reception, November 30, 2011, Yates Memorial Centre, Van created an 11 minute slide show of recent photographs from the Castle Crown, to the music of Shubert's, 5th Movement, performed by bold, ground breaking Violinist

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THE HAUNTING TREE

Medium - Embellished photograph on cotton fabric
Size - 85 cm wide x 65 cm high

This tree stands sentinel in the South Drywood Valley, one of the front range valleys in the Castle Crown Wilderness. Even in death, it speaks of the intricate interactions of all aspects of nature.

Thank you for this opportunity!

Marion Jankunis

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Troy Nickle is an artist presently based in Lethbridge Alberta whose practice encompasses creating ephemeral assemblages, installations, sculptures, book works, photographic works and collaborative projects that center on conceptual associations made between nature and culture, geographies, and place. Troy is currently creating installations and site specific installations with vegetation and natural materials, exploring landscape topographies and a collaborating on a book work to document the effects of seasonal change on the landscape and wildlife. Previously enrolled in the BFA Program at the University of Lethbridge, Troy has studied at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, and periodically teaches community art courses at the Bowman Arts Centre in Lethbridge. Troy has exhibited his work in Lethbridge, Calgary, Waterton, and Toronto.

I work in situ with a variety of vegetation and natural materials to create interventions and installations that embody an awareness and expression of place. A large part of my identity growing up in southern Alberta has been influenced by the landscape and topography of the foothills which have become a site for interventions, marking our cultural relationship to the land or a geographic form to be sculpted or depicted. I am concerned with how the natural world shapes and molds our cultural identity and experiences. I am also interested in the knowledge and insight given to an "inner experience" through encounters with the material, physical and "outer experiences" one has with the world.

Troy Nickle

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SPIRIT LAND, 1996

Medium: acrylic on canvas, 44" x 62"

Description:
Mother Earth is represented here by a woman's face and hands. Her garment is of mountains, trees and foothills. Her left hand is almost skeletal to signify what we have taken from the earth and not put back. Her right hand is strong to represent her self-renewing or the earth healing itself. The animals are integral parts of the environment and are also spiritual entities.
The representation of the spirit of the earth is not reflected below just as the industrial mentality fails to see any spirit in the land; only what can be taken or exploited for material gain

Val Good Rider

Val's paintings integrate symbols derived from her Blackfoot culture and her own life experience. Rather than signifying one thing in visual form, the paintings are multi-layered and multiple stories may be read and emerge from one painting.
Val's early experiences growing up in a family where art was part of daily life are the inspiration for her paintings. Her mother, Madeleine Good Rider would always encourage her to paint. When Madeleine started the Three Eagles store in Brocket, in the 1970's, Val sold her first paintings and beadwork.
Art, as well as other craft work is Val's way of passing her traditional knowledge, not only to her children and grandchildren, but to aboriginal children in the community. Val holds graduate and post-graduate degrees in education and leadership.

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REFLECTION, 2011

Medium: acrylic on canvas, 3' x 4'

Description:
A young woman sits with her child watching three eagles off in the distance while her horse waits patiently for them in the sky. This painting has many symbols, the bears, horse, grass and sage, red shawl, lightning bolts, water and one can read into it whatever they please.

Val Good Rider

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JESSICA, 1981

Medium: acrylic on canvas, 24" x 30"

Description:
I painted this when my daughter, Jessica, was a young child and I was thinking about the choices she would have to make and the paths she would choose to follow in life. We were living in the city and I was fortunate to have grown up in an unspoiled natural environment. I was hoping she would have that same option.

Val Good Rider

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Then this past October when I was on my way home from a Mule deer hunting trip in southern Alberta I seen a raven standing on a fence post at the edge of the highway. It was foggy out too which brought me back to my idea for this painting. Once I got back home I got right on it and did a few sketches and started the painting within a week. I am glad I seen that lone raven that day because if I hadn't, this painting would have been another one that would have gotten away on me.

WINTER RAVENS

(36 by 48" acrylic on board)

This is my largest piece of work to date, 4 feet long by 3 feet high. Created on a large piece of masonite board which I had previously used as a backboard while I was drawing "Autumn in the Parkland". Once I had finished that drawing I coated the board with gesso to prime it for a painting. I got the original idea for this painting in February 2010 on a trip to southern Alberta during our schools reading week to gather some reference photos. The first morning it was extremely foggy out which gave the landscape this creepy feeling. I remember looking off to the sides in the ditch while I was driving and seeing a fence line with just solid fog beyond the fence posts. On one occasion I saw 2 Ravens sitting on fence posts which caught my eye. I was thrilled at how they looked in all that fog. They seemed to fit in with the fog perfectly, adding an even creepier chill to the landscape. The idea to paint these Ravens sat in my head to the point where I almost forgot about even painting them.

Colin Starkevich

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Soon after, my High School art teacher Brenda Savella gave me a lesson on a basic technique for oil painting using an underpainting over 2-3 lunch hours. I picked up on it immediately and started to take off. My art teacher continued to mentor me and encourage me to do my best. The following year my art teacher taught me another technique for oil painting using liquin. Not even a year later from when I first learned how to paint when I was in 12th grade my art teacher encouraged me to enter my artwork into a contest. I created my 4th oil painting and submitted it to the national Robert Bateman get to know art contest. I was selected the winner in my age category and have been able to meet master wildlife artist Robert Bateman on a few occasions since. On one occasion he critiqued a photo of one of my paintings I had brought for him. After his critique he offered me to attend his Master Artists Seminar in British Columbia.
After graduating High School in 2007 I decided that I would attend Lakeland College in Vermilion, Alberta to receive a diploma in Wildlife & Fisheries Conservation. I felt that by gaining more knowledge about what I love to paint and draw so much would strengthen my skills as a wildlife artist. At the same time I knew it would also open up doors for me where I can contribute to the conservation of the natural world and its wildlife. While I was attending College I never stopped painting. In my free time I would be out sketching, reading about art, and of course painting!
After graduating with the diploma in April of 2010 I feel more confident in my art since I feel I know my subjects and their habitats a lot better. I then went on to attend Robert Bateman's Master Artists Seminar in which he personally invited me to attend. I still keep in touch with my High School art teacher as she continues to mentor me, she is a great help to me. I am currently attending the University of Lethbridge to further my knowledge about wildlife and art.

Born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, I was able to enjoy the natural world in its purest form ever since I was a child. Since our house was built in the northern most neighbourhood of the city at the time, the countryside existed just minutes on a bicycle from my front door. Once I was old enough to ride a bicycle and brave enough to venture away from home, I would wonder off north of my house to the forests and slough which existed there. Even though I grew up hunting and fishing, I feel that it was these forests and slough's where I think everything began. My passion for nature, and of course, my passion as an artist. I spent most of my late childhood and early teen years at these places exploring. Once I got into my later teens however, these places started to get destroyed for urbanization. Now even though many of those places I would love to explore when I was younger are gone, I feel that I have truly gained everything I could from there. It was the basis of what formed me into who I am today. Every day I think about times I have had at those forests and of course that big old slough.
I never knew how to paint back then but I did draw quite a bit when I wasn't pondering around that slough or skateboarding. I took my first ever drawing class when I was 16 in 11th grade. This is where my talent really started to emerge. It wasn't until the second semester of grade 11 when I wanted to start painting. I wanted to learn how to paint because I felt that I could show others the true beauty of nature how I see it.

Colin Starkevich

www.colinstarkevich.com

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David Short

Pastel Artist, Teacher specializing in Portraits
Local pastel artist and member of Lethbridge Artists Guild has travelled abroad using his artistic talent to show the connection and relationship within families, cultures, and Place, or, Loss of Place. What happens when access to family, government, food, and place is severely disrupted, "The concept of relationship is fundamental to our understanding of our own place in the world. When this relationship, which is integral to family, ecosystem, and universe, suffers, we all suffer."
Castle Wilderness, work in progress, pastel sketch by David Short. On a hike hosted by SACEE and the Castle-Crown Wilderness Coalition, David introduced families to Pastels and the effect of light, after their somewhat invigorating swim in our headwaters.

For more information on the upcoming Special Place Pastel Class Series, visit paintingbydavidshort.blogspot.ca.

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WILD BLUE CLEMATIS, Quilt,

The Castle Crown Wilderness has been a favorite area of mine for hiking and camping since I moved to Lethbridge in 1983. On the July long weekend of this year a small group of us hiked to the Carbondale fire lookout, and it was then that I took a picture of Wild Blue Clematis, (Clematis occidenetalis), a much shyer flower than the cultivated varieties of clematis. One of my hobbies is quilting, and I particularly enjoy designing quilts of flowers. I designed and pieced this quilt using the paper piecing techniques of Ruth McDowell. The quilt is made of cotton fabric (including two recycled shirts) and batting, and is machine pieced and quilted. I have been a member of the Lethbridge Centennial Quilters Guild since approximately 1994.

Kim Godwin

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DISCOVERY

Much of our world is man made. But if you have the courage to open the door, there is a whole world beyond your understanding.
It takes humility to open the door and enter in.
Do not be afraid to look beyond what you can create or see, and discover the deeper and most beautiful things.

Brian Meierhofer

About the Artist

All things created by God are beautiful. God is the most amazing artist of all. I want to be a part of that creative process by producing artwork that depicts what is already more beautiful than I can express. Nature is poetry in motion and I am awestruck by it. My journey has taken me through the Environmental Science Program at the College, Art School and participation as Assistant Director of Camping in the mountains, using our natural world to help children learn about themselves
and God. My wife and our ten children enjoy the art of discovery everyday.

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A WOODLAND BEAUTY

The striped coralroot Orchid, quilt,

My quilt is a striped coralroot orchid, Corallorhiza striata, one of the 4 orchid species we saw growing along the trail to the the Carbondale fire lookout on a walk in late June. The trail is an easy walk, mostly through forest, in the northern portion of the Castle area. Orchids are rare and unique, seen in undisturbed areas, and a symbol for me of wilderness. The work is appliqué, and machine embroidery on a sun printed background, 21 x 23 inches.

I have been quilting for 3 years, and a member of the Lethbridge Naturalist Society...

Patty Greenlee

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Artist's Biography
I took pictures with my mother's Brownie Reflex (Synchro Model, made in Canada) when I was just a tad, and it amazed me so. By the time I was nine the desire for my own camera was overwhelming, so I spent my last few dollars on a Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash camera in a five-and-dime store, Woolworth's I think, in Great Falls, Montana when I was attending a Boy Scouts of America International Jamboree. I really got interested in a very serious artistic way at the University of Lethbridge in the late sixties as an art student studying photography, and further as an educational media student. From thereon I was totally hooked, making images of everything and anything with my Kodak Instamatic, and, when I got a job and could (barely) afford it, my Miranda singles lens reflex.
I was soon into Nikons and Canons, shooting weddings and portraits and scenery and junkyards and rock bands, scenery and animals, bird and flowers, rocks and water, and most of the photos for the school yearbooks where I taught.
I began to teach co-curricular photography clubs and taught several Lethbridge College courses in photography and darkroom technique. I co-founded the Lethbridge Photography Club in the early seventies. It is in operation yet today.
I have taught several photography courses in the Crowsnest Pass and Pincher Creek , and have provided weekend field workshops for the Waterton Natural History Association.

Castle-Crown Wilderness, Beaver Mines Town, Lake and Area

Bob Pisko

Aerial Photo taken Spring 2011. A great force to face... photographer, Bob Pisko, shares how he had to focus inside the cockpit of the plane, then aim and shoot.
The Castle-Crown, north of Waterton and south Pincher Creek, is designated one of 81 Special Places in Alberta, by our Provincial Government.
For more information on the Castle-Crown, and Citizen Involvement with the planned Wilderness Park and Logging Concerns, visit, www.ccwc.ab.ca and www.cpaws.org

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Castle-Crown Wilderness, Beaver Mines Lake

RJ Pisko

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THE VIEW

Dimensions: 72 inches by 9 inches
In the 15 years that I've lived in Lethbridge, I've visited and hiked in Waterton Park numerous times, but I had never visited the Castle area. I was delighted to finally have a chance to do so when I hiked to the Carbondale Fire Tower with Kim Godwin and Graham and Pat Greenlee. With three such knowledgeable naturalists as guides, the hike was a wonderful lesson in identifying the incredible diversity of birds, insects, and plants along the trail. I must have taken several hundred photos and I kept wondering how I would ever decide which to feature in my artwork. The decision was easy when I later strung together a series of photos to recreate the panoramic view from the fire tower.
The quilt is appliquéd cotton fabrics, using a technique learned from the wonderful fibre artist Katie Pasquini Masopust. Quilted with cotton and polyester threads, the batting is made from recycled pop bottles. The challenge of creating this work expanded my artistic horizons, just as hiking to the Carbondale Fire Tower expanded my life's horizons. I look forward to returning to this wonderful area for more explorations.

Connie Chaplin

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Calm before the BIG WINDs... and Prairie Fires,

Stunning panorama... Saturday, November 26, 2011, Van Christou captures his first full Chinook Arch on camera. The Chinook Arch in this image foreshadows the GREAT record breaking WINDs, (144 km per hour), Sunday, November 27, that stoked the Prairie Fires around Lethbridge, even distracting people from the 2011 Grey Cup. As with our Headwaters to the Oldman, our Chinook Winds, flow east, reminding us of our close relationship and significant relationship with the Castle-Crown and area. The Chinook aids in creating, an unique transitional topography, hosting the place where the prairies come closest to our Continental Divide.
As an artist, steward and resident, Van Christou shares his unique vantage point, shared by other residents and Stewards of the Castle-Crown who are concerned about proposed logging in the area that resulting in great strain in the ecology and economy of the area, including significant loss of topsoil, endangered animals, rare plants and plant communities. The Castle-Crown, a Special Place, with extreme and unique weather, result in many rare plant and plant communities, including Aspen with unique biology, slow tree growth and slow creation of top soil, compared other areas.

Van Christou, Photographer

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