Tread Softly

Artist Statement

Tread softly on the earth as it is replete with delicate spaces. The marks made on the earth and others can be as soft and delicate as calligraphy or as violent as a strip mine. When we see each blade of grass as something larger than ourselves, something that will outlast us, we will tread more softly. Treading softly is an ancestral practice. Looking at the living soil and the earth as a panorama of time and space that extends in all directions exposes how small we are compared to the incomprehensible size and scope of the planet’s history now impacted by each human. Never before have humans had such power to impact the planet.    

The earth provides our needs, but our wants are exceeding what the planet can supply.  We don’t know the speed of environmental decline until it interacts with our personal reality.  The dance on the land of our time is becoming loud and harsh, the ballet of the past filled the theater, our earth, with irreparable damage. It is impossible to live on this earth without an impact but the dance of your life can be as light as a butterfly on air or as abrupt as the march of an army. We don’t exist without leaving traces, large or small. The reality of all people is not the same. Everyone views the world from a different perspective.  Life is filled with moments and experiences and we never know when is the last time we will experience these moments.  When is the last time we will see a friend, see a butterfly, feel the rain?

Everything depends on everything else, there should be a connection through the web of life. The symbiotic relationships in the world are damaged, find a path and leave footprints of least impact. There is a game of whispers that occurs in boardrooms where treading is a tsunami of destruction, disregard and apathy. The earth records the dark calligraphy of decisions and injustice from these decision makers in its roots, soils and sky.

These pieces were created using a suspended marker over transparency film and then printed.

Wanuskewin Heritage Park

April 18 - August 2023

Spend time in the landscape at Wanuskewin Heritage Park and you will experience a natural ecological environment thousands of years in the making. It is a quintessential Plains environment, arid, flat, and incised by the Opimihaw Creek, a tributary of the South Saskatchewan River. This northern piece of the North American Great Plains has a six-thousand-year archaeological record and is steeped in the history of the hunting and gathering communities of the First Peoples. Some would say that there is an essence of ‘sense of place’ at the core of the Wanuskewin landscape, a landscape where time has borne witness to a quiet connection between nature and the existence of humankind. To a group of twenty-one artists from across Saskatchewan, this prairie setting provided a venue for deeper connection and understanding of Wanuskewin Heritage Park’s unique and historic Plains environment.

During a series of artists’ retreats held the spring, summer, and autumn of 2022, three small groups of artists met and emersed themselves in the Wanuskewin Heritage Park landscape. Through their personal choice of media, each artist created a visual response to their experience of the park. The ‘WANUSKEWIN: A SENSE OF PLACE’ exhibition has been curated from the artwork submitted by the twenty-one artists who participated in those artists’ retreats. The exhibition artwork embodies ceramics, mixed media, painting, photography, fiber, and printmaking.

The Artists:
Alexa Hainsworth, Edie Marshal, Anne Brochu Lambert, Kathleen Slavin, Bobbi Clackson-Walker, Kathy Bradshaw, Bonnie Conly, Kit Loewen, Bonny McNab, Louisa Ferguson, Brenda Kennedy, Monique Martin, Bridget Aiken, Pat Danyluk, Debra Marshal, Pat Doig,Diane Laroche Ellard, Paula Cooley, Donna Stockdale, Roxanne Enns, Val Miles

We thank Wanuskewin Heritage Park for providing us the opportunity to work in the landscape. Thank you to Wanuskewin Heritage Park Galleries Curator, Olivia Kristoff, for nurturing our exhibition and providing us with gallery space to share our work. Finally, a special thank you to Dr. Ernie Walker, Chief Archaeologist, Board Member and founder of Wanuskewin Heritage Park for sharing his time, enthusiasm, and vast knowledge of the Plains.

In the Tall Grass

Ink on paper – Monoprint and silkscreen
30 x 12” 

This piece was not selected for the exhibition but is one of
my favorites inspired by my time at Wanuskewin.

Four Stones

Analog Collage -  paper on paper 
31 x 23”