Artist Statements              “Metaphor”

The story that an artist tells may be clear and accessible or hidden and confusing. Either way we are taken to another place, another view point, another perception, a doorway leading to a different, perhaps deeper, understanding of the world or ourselves. The journey may be delightful, frightening and or difficult, but good visual art stirs us and transports us like a poem, or a song, or a movie, or a caress. Its message may puzzle us, challenge us, comfort us, move us and ultimately touch us. Metaphors shift our reality, sometimes like a slow moving brook and at other times like the force of white water.

Allan Hirsh Co-Chair

Sculptor Profile: Allan Hirsh 2005

For Allan Hirsh, the process begins with a wide search for found objects, discarded pieces of wood or used interesting pieces of hardware. Yard sales, flea markets and cluttered antique stores are investigated with a particular eye. The patina, shape, rarity and perceived elegance of an object are all taken into account. The joy of the hunt and the excitement in the find becomes part of the ongoing historical narrative of each piece.

Each artifact will rest for a while in a cluttered, but organized workshop until its new calling becomes apparent.

A central idea will generate a process of assembly in which objects are added or taken away with the goal of intuitively improving what the eye sees.  The placement of an artifact will highlight its new significance. The rusty patina of a discarded Victorian hinge has a new presence when placed on a highly waxed old piece of oak. A ceramic toilet flusher somehow seems more elegant attached to wood then it did on its original toilet. What is it about antiques and collectables that excite so many people? What draws us to our past? Is it the workmanship of a time gone by or is it traces of our lost childhood?

A lever from an old meat grinder takes centre stage as it turns with a satisfying resistance. An old electrical switch clicks on command and we feel as if something has been accomplished. The illusion of control fills us with a subtle joy as we manipulate switches and levers and dials that seem to do something but, in fact, only alter our inner state. 

As a psychotherapist, Allan helps his clients discover themselves through a process of emotional archeology. Old patterns are unearthed and seen in a new light.

As a presenter and cartoonist, Allan uses humour and insight to shift perceptions into a calmer and more playful vein.

As a sculptor, he helps us see the artifacts and discarded pieces of wood that he accumulates with a different eye.

There is something calming and playful about the work that becomes apparent over time.

The work reflects the joy that the artist feels in all aspects of the work. 

Co-Chair, Allan Hirsh

John Coffman Biography

Taught High School Physical Education and Science in Sturgeon Falls for seven years then went on to other occupations in Ministry and in Social Services.

After a six weeks pilgrimage in 1999 walking the ancient pilgrim route to Santiago, Spain, I left my regular employment to follow my art directions and to work as a counselor part-time.

I see myself as an Arts Explorer, attempting various media. Most of my work reflects the various courses I have taken at Artsperience and evening courses at Canadore College.

I have had one solo exhibition at the White Water Gallery in February of 1999, and several group shows.

Betty Segar

I build wooden shadow boxes and creatively frame and enclose them behind glass. They are small worlds originating in my soul and then taking shape intuitively with people I sculpt from clay. Caught in a moment in time, I usually paint a suitable background with acrylic. Some of my shadow boxes include intricate beadwork, items formed from stained glass, tiny hand sewn clothing, photographs, etc. I also incorporate leather, metal, wood, fibre and many found objects which I have collected the aura of past owners and reflect the emotions of another day.

Although many of my miniature worlds have been described as playful and whimsical, underlying most of them is a sense of profound truth. Many depict political and environmental issues. The found objects, most of which have been destined for landfill sites, ass to the over-all character of the boxes.

Daniel Elzinga

 Although my art is relatively eclectic, it has one consistent theme which I choose to call “Deconstruction”. It is an approach that draws inspiration from post-modernism, surrealism, abstract expressionism, automatism, and mostly dada, but always involves a breaking down — or disassembly — of artistic material and one usually involving the connotative meanings of the materials. The transformation from “Found Object” to “Art Object” is the creative process. I have continued to complete and exhibit new works with soundscape as an integral component of the art.

In Milking the Tree, 2006 a metaphor associates the slang “milking something for all you can” and a wood box as a stage with a baby suckling sound loop activated by a motion sensor. A toy doll announcer sitting in wood box under a rubber breast adds a comic question/association to the whole. The sounds are heard as someone approaches the piece. As well, I have begun to include digital video in my creative works.  I am now incorporating this new media into new projects, hopefully as music video freeform.

Mary Green

“skin deep” is part of an automatic rewriting of self which stretches back through the last year and a half to the moment of loss of the gaze of another.

Where once that gaze provided a sense of self, photography has stepped in. Developing awareness of visage and surroundings has allowed me to take a closer look at notions of beauty.

Look: to use the eyes, watch or find somebody

Cocco Russell-Falk

Haiku poetry holds the closest morel for my own artistic slant. I am struck by the “instant” in this world. I am moved by the bittersweet, the bizarre, the succinct, the vast, the mediocre, the repulsive, and preposterous. I find a moment, notion or circumstance that begs capturing and simple strive to translate its echo. The use of varied media (painting, printmaking, photography, textile art, poetry and earth art) allows me a rhythm in my work while harmonizing my creative spark and desire to challenge myself.

Art has been my consistent language as long as I can recall – to share, to cope, to grow, to thrive. My Father’s influence was my primary guide in accepting my own voice. For over 15 years I have traveled, exhibited and studied with many teachers, but his erudite artist’s perspective was imprinted on me from the start. Be Patient, be radical, be true.

Notes from my family tree and multicultural childhood influence are veins of exploration for me both personally and artistically (especially my Filipino, Spanish, Japanese, and hindu threads). My art has also been affected by the challenges catamenial epilepsy brings to my daily life. I work to examine my role in our global community and the life issues we each face. Advocacy for those with limited public support/resources is essential to me. Human rights, gender identity, sexual orientation, domestic violence, poverty and geopolitical concerns are all topics close to my heart and experience.

Eleanor Mackey

I paint to enjoy the sensuous exploration into non-objective painterly pictorial spaces. The flow and density of the paint; the patterning of lines, edges, shapes, forms and colours; the processes of staining pouring, and brushing; the opacity, the matte or glossy surface – all point to the tactile reality of the materials and the logical authenticity of the painting process. These qualities impact the senses.

Jacqueline Amber Carter

Jacqueline (Jackie) Amber Carter is a student at Nipissing University, and has been an artist in the North Bay community for five years. When not pursuing an education in the Bachelor of Arts program at Nipissing, Jackie is selling original and commissioned art through her business JAC of Arts. As an oil painter, the subjects of Jackie’s artwork deal with the nude, landscapes, and still life. The most important subject of Jackie’s artwork is color; typically using bright vivid colors straight from the tubes. The inspirations for much of Jackie’s work come from Canadian artist Emily Carr. After completing her education at Nipissing University, Jackie hopes to continue her artistic career in North Bay.

Roberta Whitmore

Born in Bradford, Ontario and graduated from Toronto Teachers, College in 1957. Roberta moved to North Bay in 1962 where she graduated from Laurentian University in 1980, with a B.A. (Psychology and Fine Arts) She taught for the Nipissing Board of Education in special education classed until retirement in 1994.

Roberta began painting in oils in 1956 and since then she has worked in a variety of media, including pencil, ink, water colour, acrylic, pastels, fabric and most recently fabric collage and thread painting.

Amy Wallace

Amy Wallace is a second year Fine Arts student at Nipissing University.  She enjoys experimenting with various media and styles in her educational artistic pursuits.  Inspired to create this work after a late Sunday afternoon walk down one of her favorite paths on the south shore of Lake Nipissing, the artist attempted to capture the tangled patterns of light and the elongated shadows cast onto the forest floor by the trees and their branches.

Ken Stange

Mothers01 – Son of War is based on photographs I took at the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris -- and on a feeling of despair regarding human beings' continued willingness to send their children off to kill and die for stupid ideological reasons.  It is the 87th of my digital artwork series: one half of a diptych entitled "87: Mothers".

Keith Campbell

For White Water.

Marina Nicolaou

Kati Kirke

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