Landmarks: The Art of Dorothy Knowles

Landmarks: The Art of Dorothy Knowles
Text by Terry Fenton, Art by Dorothy Knowles
Published by Hagios Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$25.95 ISBN 978-0-9783440-2-3

If members of the general public were asked to name a prominent Canadian landscape painter, I’d guess that they might identify a member of the Group of Seven or Emily Carr, but here in Saskatchewan we also have a number of landscape painters of prominence, and high on the list is Dorothy Knowles.

Terry Fenton, acclaimed landscape painter and former Mendel Art Gallery director, has forged an aptly-named homage to his friend and fellow artist, Saskatoon’s Dorothy Knowles, and Hagios has packaged the text and forty stunning Knowles’ images in a book that one might expect to pay twice as much for.
“Land Marks: The Art of Dorothy Knowles” is a tour de force.

Fenton met his subject at an Emma Lake Artists Workshop in 1965, where another artist commented: “That housewife from Saskatoon is making good paintings.” Not surprisingly, the famous Emma Lake workshops (initiated in 1933 by Walter Murray and Augustus Kenderdine) played an integral role in Knowles’
life and work. It was here that she “discovered a passion for art that was to change her life”. Her connection with Emma Lake continues: since 1968, Knowles and her husband, artist William Perehudoff, have owned a cottage near
the art camp.

Aside from exploring Knowles’ personal history, Fenton also winds readers through the evolution of landscape painting here, noting that “members of the Group of Seven weren’t attracted to the Canadian prairies.” He details the importance of the Mendel family to the Saskatoon art scene; the development of
the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Saskatchewan; and the importance of the American abstract painter Barnett Newman’s Emma Lake workshop, which spawned the group of artists known as the “Regina Five” and”set the tone for the great workshops of the 1960s and ’70s”. (Knowles, who had become a mother of three, missed the Newman workshop).

It’s interesting to learn about Knowles as a person, as well as a painter. “One senses that she sees life as a kind of comedy, like Jane Austen, perhaps. She is as bemused at her own accomplishments as she is with others,” Fenton writes, and comments upon her “inquiring mind” and ability to continually challenge herself. He speaks of her practice of painting on location – using a van “as a kind of portable studio” – and how the camera became a “sketchbook for reference in the studio.”

Knowles’ main subjects are the valleys of the North and South Saskatchewan; “holiday country on the fringe of the wilderness; and mountain scenes, which differ from other artists’, in that “They convey an impression of being in the mountains without being about the mountains.”

Of the genre itself, Fenton writes “A landscape painting is a kind of stage set without players.” I like that. Like Knowles’ luminous images, offset in the book by wide white margins, it is unselfconsciously poetic. And I agree with Fenton: “Knowles is Knowles, uniquely.”

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Published in:  on 10 September 2008 at 11:31 am Leave a Comment
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Phosphorus

Phosphorus
Written by Heidi Garnett
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$15.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-13-3

Writing a book and having it accepted for publication is often a long and arduous journey. It can take years, decades, even. Sometimes, despite all efforts, the stars never align for a writer. Unless one is self-publishing, there is a fairly common “route” one embarks upon.

Like numerous other professional writers’, Heidi Garnett’s work had appeared in reputable literary journals and chapbooks, was broadcast on CBC, and earned her awards. She had honed her craft at the renowned Banff Centre, and participated in other creative writing programs. In short, the poet had an impressive curriculum vitae before her first book, “Phosphorus,” was ever published, and the proof of her apprenticeship is in the quality of the poems themselves.

“Phosphorus,” (Thistledown Press), is a multi-faceted book. On one hand, it details the atrocities of Nazi Germany in World War II, based on family experience. An aunt witnessed terrors in Hamburg: “a Rorschach of flames\five times taller than the Empire State Building,\people dancing jigs as they melted into asphalt,\their songs deafening.” Sage advice – “Everything can be taken from you,\except what you have learned.” – is offered by a father. Uncles learned to “keep hunger away by chewing bark”. The historical biographies are passionately and unsentimentally relayed. (Sentimentality – the death knoll for poetry – screams of amateurism.)

The book also, however, offers gentler evocations, upon everything from “The Wish Book” (“You could spend hours\looking at the Sears Roebuck catalogue”) to smalltown decline. In “Stealing Blue,” I admire Garnett’s image of a smalltown graveyard as “a picket crossword puzzle holding secret clues.” In the section “Ground Truth,” there are a series of honed “snow” poems.

My favourite Garnett poems are those that address nature and the elements. In “Edges,” she writes: “The northern lights are tissue paper\folded into greens and mauves and blues.” In the superb “Fog”: “Fog moves\like a sleepwalker in bare feet … memorizes low places.”

I also appreciate the order of the poems themselves: it can be difficult to get this right. The book gets off to a grand start with two strong pieces guaranteed to make the reader feel, and ends with a zinger titled “Cognac”. In a collection that includes poems which feature the depth of “man’s inhumanity to man” (and woman), Garnett demonstrates how, despite the depravity, at the close of the day and at the last breath of life, there is still, always, a reason to sing. This is the way to end a book:

I tell you, life has been rich. I have known time
to stand still, light to stay suspended in a bead of amber,

and with it has come a surety, a belief love satiates us
enough to face our hunger, the acceleration of gravity,

the long winter. Don’t say anything. Tonight I believe
in immortality, that we will live longer than desire

and know one another; be smoothed and filled
by the earth itself.

Heidi Garnett, I’m glad your stars aligned.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Published in:  on 6 September 2008 at 1:15 pm Leave a Comment
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Tuck and Kayuk’s Adventure

“Tuck and Kayuk’s Adventure”
By Robert W. Friedrich
Published by Last Mountain Publishers
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl

In my career as a writer, I’ve often met people who say they have an idea for a novel or a children’s story and are going to write a book one day. I expect that “one day” never arrives for most of these would-be authors, nor do they realize how difficult and time-consuming it is to acquire a publisher. Sometimes,
however, the story does get written, and the writer sidesteps the long process of publishing with a publishing company by taking the matter into his or her own hands.

The self-published children’s story “Tuck and Kayuk’s Adventure,” by Regina writer Robert W. Friedrich, and illustrated by Walter Mink, of Le Pas, Manitoba, is a fine example of what can result when one has the determination to see their story in print.

As the title suggests, this is an adventure story, which Friedrich dedicates to “all young boys everywhere.” The main character, Tuck, lives in the (undefined) north with his family and his canine companion, Kayuk. The boy dreams of being “the best hunter in his village” and being celebrated as such by his community.
One day he goes out on his sleigh with Kayuk, and at the sea’s edge they watch the whales. Soon “A terrible thundering sound” is heard, and boy and dog find themselves drifting away on an iceberg.

This story of faith (in the Great Creator), bravery, animal loyalty, and family is charmingly illustrated in black and white, in what appears to be a combination of pencil sketching and ink, with much crosshatching. The landscape is simply and effectively rendered, and the uncluttered pages, with their abundance of white,
echo the snow and ice-filled terrain. Friedrich’s employed a bold font and has not superimposed it over the images, making the text – at times poetic, ie: “He could feel goose bumps popping on his skin like little tents” — easy to read. The story is printed on thick, quality paper and coil-bound, which means it should stand up well to the rigours of little hands.

It might also be said that this is a story about community, because Tuck wishes to “harpoon a whale for his whole village,” and “other villagers” join the search party with Tuck’s father.

If readers of this review have an idea for a story they want to see in print and possess the desire to self-publish, they would be well-advised to view as many locally self-published books as possible, including this one. The story of “Tuck and Kayuk’s Adventure” contains good lessons for children, and for adults who
wish to embark on the adventure of self-publishing, it demonstrates one way in which this can be done. As Friedrich advises in his dedication: “Dream big dreams.”

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP AT WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Published in:  on 3 September 2008 at 11:08 am Leave a Comment
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