By Robert Hirtle, March 25, 2008

Bridgewater Bulletin and Lunenburg Progress Enterprise

The works of seven students and two graduates from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) in Halifax, all with a Lunenburg County connection, will comprise the second feature exhibit of the 2008 season at the Lunenburg Art Gallery.

Highlighting the month-long show are NSCAD graduates Heather Keeling and Kristine Vermeulen, both 2007 alumnae of the school and the second pair of former students to be selected to serve a year-long residency at the college's Lunenburg Studio. An Ontario native, Ms Keeling settled into the ceramics department upon her enrolment at the school in 2003, directing her focus on modelling and sculpture.

"With my ceramics, I am exploring the idea of 'Canadian mythology' in combination with Canadian wildlife images," she explains. "Animals are the vehicle I use to narrate my story."
She says her Lunenburg residency is particularly important, "as my work is in a very experimental stage. I am working in new building techniques, combining mould making with hand building and modelling to explore these personal stories. Humour, religion and morality are the driving force."

Ms Vermeulen hails from the Annapolis Valley and graduated from the college last year with a major in fine arts and a minor in drawing.

She says a large part of her work reflects her life growing up on the family hog farm, and the childhood memories she longs for.

"Recently, I have been occupied by this underlying desire of wanting to be attached to a place of permanence," she says. "To address this desire, I have begun a series of paintings and drawings focusing around this central idea of home."

Four of the seven exhibitors currently enrolled at the college are mature students — Anne Tweed, Wendy Muise, Svetlana  and Susan Beavan.

Ms Tweed, who gave up painting in high school, returned to the easel in 1988 and rediscovered a passion. After taking classes with several local instructors, she enrolled as a part-time student at NSCAD in 2002 and is slated to earn her bachelor of fine arts degree this year.

She considers her paintings to be primarily explorations of materials and subject matter, with landscapes as a popular source of her images.

Moscow native Svetlana  is a graduating student at the college who is majoring in textiles with a minor in art history.

Her contribution to the show will feature examples of traditional female national dress which was a staple of Russian identity and culture for centuries, until its forceful interruption by the Socialist Revolution of 1917.

Her works highlight such techniques as painting, printing, weaving and embroidery, arts included in the practice of making and wearing traditional folk dress which has all but disappeared entirely

As a groundbreaking woman in the predominantly male world of television nearly four decades ago, Susan Beavan retired from TVO in Toronto in 2001 and moved to Nova Scotia, enrolling at NSCAD in 2005.

With her son Mike, she owns and operates her own production company as well as her own gallery, Noble Home Studio and Gallery.

She says her interest in art is the result of her admiration of the graphic designer's she worked with in Toronto "who, on a daily basis and often on a very fast deadline, created marvellous works of art.

"I always wanted to do that, because I had never received any art training in school," she explains. "So when I retired, I set out to learn how to do art."

She says since her enrolment at NSCAD, she has achieved a familiarity with various media "and the confidence to try new things with every assignment,"

For Wendy Muise, owner of the Black Duck Gallery in Lunenburg, enrolling at NSCAD as a part-time student in 2001 was the realization of "a dormant dream."

She says her exhibit, "Series of Stones," relates the origin and journeys of each of her subjects.

"The sensuous curves of a stone, shaped over time by the endless tumbling of the sea, speaks directly to my soul," she says. "And so with these paintings I tempt the viewer to contemplate the mystery of stones and appreciate their silent beauty."

Growing up on the South Shore in a century-old home gave Jenny Henderson an appreciation of familiarity, later influencing her artistic work which features colour as its main subject.

"It is through the colourful exteriors of old houses from Halifax and the South Shore that I offer this subject for contemplation," she says. "The bright and lavish colours that populate the small ... communities like Lunenburg and Mahone Bay are unique to many, but are a familiar sight for me."

Lunenburg native Heather Emeneau has been studying at NSCAD since 2004, and is involved with a wide range of media including painting, printmaking and video.
Each of her contributions to the Lunenburg show are oil-on-board paintings of floral still-life studies.

Claire Worthington is a native and lifelong resident of Mahone Bay who has displayed a flair for creativity since her childhood.

She says she likes using media that aids her in "telling the story to the best of its ability," and leans towards pencils, either graphite or coloured, as her preferred vehicles.
"This way I'm able to show the finest of details, which is how I like to produce things," she explains. "I'm interested in realism and taking it out of an everyday context in order to create new narrative."

The Lunenburg County NSCAD Students' Show opens at the Lunenburg Art Gallery April 1 with a reception beginning at 5 p.m., and will continue on display until April 27.