3-D & Installations
Headwind
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My art installation inhabits the Ortona Gallery as an embodiment of wind. Based on archival research of early prairie women’s diaries and letters, Headwind explores the effect of the wind on the psyches of settler women.
The wind on the bleak southern prairie gave rise to physical and mental torment, amplified by the isolation and loneliness that the homestead system created. This was felt most keenly by the first wave of settler women who rarely had the opportunity to travel to see neighbors or go to town for supplies and the socialising that these trips allowed the men.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, immigrants were lured to the prairies by government propaganda promising a utopia that did not exist. Their lack of knowledge about living within the harsh prairie environment caused loss and privation. They fought to tame the soil that was often not suited for cultivation, and the wind then took the soil from them.
The settler women’s quotes and photographs that inspired this exhibit:
Diaries, letters and memoirs:
Evelyn Springett’s published memoir, For my Children’s Children, 1937. Evelyn came to the Macleod, Alberta area from Quebec in 1893.
Anne Pringle Hemstock’s letter to her Aunt Nell, May 6, 1932. Anne came to the Hanna, Alberta area from Chatsworth, Ontario in 1918. Letters: The Alberta Women’s Memory Project, Athabasca University.
Cecily Jepson Hepworth’s diary, 1931 and 1934. Cecily came to the Readlyn, Saskatchewan area from Chorley, Lancashire, England in 1930. Diaries: Saskatchewan Archives R-E190.
Esther G. (Vann) Cooper’s memoir. Esther came to Pangman SK (south of Regina) from Kirkby Mallory, Leicestershire, England in 1912. Saskatchewan Archives #R-E539.
Edna Banks’ memoir, 1911. Edna came to the Swift Current area of Saskatchewan from Ontario in 1911. Memoir: Saskatchewan Archives S-F137.1, R-E2912
Photos: Pauline ____, Baintree, Alberta, ca. 1920s, private collection.
Ms Averbach, ca 1920s. Jewish Archives and Historical Society of Edmonton and Northern Alberta.
Clara Lawrence, Peace River area Alberta, 1902. Glenbow Archives #NA-2502-16
Mrs. Hugh Leavitt, Cardston area, Alberta, ca. 1920s. Glenbow Archives #NC-7-970
Exhibit hours:
Saturdays & Sundays 1pm to 5pm May 13 to 28, 2017
The Ortona Gallery, Ortona Armouries Arts Bldg
9722 – 102 Street, Edmonton, AB
| MEDIA | Mixed media |
| DATE | 2017 |
We Were Here
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Visual and sound installation, 2014 (Photo transfers on vintage flour bags, vintage needlework, thimbles, needles, cookie cutters, tea cups, hardware, medicine bottles, rosaries, egg shells, and seed pods)
By now I realize that this is essentially a man’s country and that a woman has practically to sink her own identity and take on her husband’s interests.
Quote from Monika Hopkins’ letter to her friend Gill, [September 1909]. Monika came to the Priddis, Alberta area from England in 1909. Letters: Glenbow Archives M 536; M 5951; 1 M 6189
Men have so much the best of it! During the short working months the work id hard…but in the long winter they have much leisure.
Quote from Hilda Kirkland’s memoir, 1895-1905. Hilda came to the Qu’Appelle district of Saskatchewan from London, England in the late 1800s. Memoir: Saskatchewan Archives, S-F266.1, R-E3149
…it is the women, not the men, who are making this great West a country of homes.
Quote from Mrs. L. Doran’s letter to The Grain Growers Guide, January 3, 1912.
When the pioneer woman hurried through her own work, and then walked across the snowy field with three loaves of bread and her last jar of preserves to minister to her sick neighbor and stayed to clean the house, wash the children, and cook a meal, she laid the foundation for the Victorian Order of Nurses, and the Women’s Institutes…the great and powerful Ladies Aid and Missionary Societies whose splendid activities each year would fill many volumes.
Quote from Nellie McClung’s manuscript. Nellie came to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1911 from her family’s farm near Brandon, Manitoba, and then to Edmonton, Alberta in 1914. Manuscript: British Columbia Archives MS-0010; 98307-1
The photographs for the image transfers in the painting were selected specifically for their deterioration and obscuring of the subject. Damage includes mold, silvering out, stains, fading, emulsion lifting and cracking. Thanks to the various Alberta archives and staff for helping me locate these photos.
| MEDIA | Mixed media |
| DATE | 2014 |
The Sewing Chair and the Garden in Back
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3-dimensional mixed media, 36”X16”X21”, 2014 (vintage chair, vintage objects and seeds. Chair seat is a vintage flour bag quilt piece sewn by my late Aunt June Majcher)
Women often wrote of working on the homestead from the wee hours of the morning until late at night, with little time to sit. When they did sit, it was often after everyone had been fed and gone to bed, and then they would sit and sew, spin, knit, weave, and mend.
I did my sewing after I got the children off to bed at midnight.
Quote from Mabel Barker’s oral history interview and transcript. Mabel came to Shepard, Alberta from Ontario in 1891. Oral history: Provincial Archives of Alberta PR1981.279/20
She owned just two dresses, made of flour or sugar sacks, one for work and one for Sundays and dances, always snow-white and spotlessly clean. Aprons were made from gunny sacks.
Quote from Margaret Charlotte Falkson Thompson’s memoir. Margaret came to Fort Assiniboine, Alberta from Germany in 1919. Memoir: Provincial Archives of Alberta PR1984.156
The longing for a more genteel life was expressed partially through planting a few flowers among the vegetables in the garden. The garden was an important source of food and family income, but flowers were what their hearts longed for.
… some bulbs and some lovely daffodils are now in bloom. I have to be very careful with them and set them near the heater at night. I had a geranium coming on a treat when we went to meet Sarah, but it froze while we were away… it was 40 below zero, Marvin, poor kid, thought he would take care of my bulbs and put 10 down by the heater and the cat chewed them all off. Six were “Rainbow Tulips” and coming up just ready to bloom! Gee I was mad.
Quote from Barbara Alice Slater’s letter to her friends in England, January 28, 1912, about flowers that she was growing in the house in winter. Barbara came to Stoppington, Alberta from Colchester England in January 1911.
A broken collarbone, a badly mangled left arm and bruises from my nose to my foot! …It’s the last place in the world for an invalid…The thing that disappointed me the most was having no garden…I am a hindrance enough without bothering my old man to make me a flower garden. Some sweet peas are struggling up and nasturtiums and I have loads of seeds that I shall keep for next year. The garden is on raw land and the vegetables are growing like wildfire.
Quote from Barbara Alice Slater’s letter to her friend Lily Anna in England, June 11, 1911, about a severe injury that she sustained when she and her husband were building a curb around the well.
Slater letters: Provincial Archives of Alberta PR1978.79/11, 13-14
| SIZE | 36”X16”X21” |
| MEDIA | 3-dimensional mixed media |
| DATE | 2014 |
The Effect of Collected Memory on the Adorned Body
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The Effect of Collected Memory on the Adorned Body is a collaborative project where I received contributions of pins, jewellery, buttons and other small objects that could be attached to two mannequin torsos – one female and one male.
The artwork came to represent a memorial object for some of the participants, especially for those who contributed costume jewelry and other items that had been in the possession of their departed loved ones. They did not wish to keep the items; nor did the objects have any great resale value. However, they could not bear the idea of disposing of these tokens of memory and emotion. My art project provided them with a satisfying solution.
Other contributors, some of whom had not ordinarily been involved in creating art, became part of a collaborative creative process and felt a connection to the activity and community of art. Their exploration could take place through the intimacy of personal objects within the familiar context of the human form.
The Effect of Collected Memory on the Adorned Body is an exploration of how personal memory can merge into collective memory, and how potent memorial entities and can act as creative catalyst.
| SIZE | Female Torso: 21”X22”X14” Male Torso: 39”X24”X15” |
| MEDIA | 3-dimensional mixed media |
| DATE | 2013, 2016 |
Serpens Oleum: The Phantasmagoric Amphigorium of Dr. Wybury
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Serpens Oleum: The Phantasmagoric Medicine Cabinet of Dr. WyBury
Marlena Wyman (3-dimensional mixed media)/Chris Westbury (interactive computer program)
Interactive 3-dimensional mixed media 102”X53”X 23”, 2012 (Altered wood cabinet with found and constructed objects, and a computer & screen with attached lever input device)
An interactive computer screen and *“Victorian” mouse are housed in the top section of a Victorian cabinet of medical curiosities assembled from Marlena Wyman’s collections. The screen combines digital images of Marlena’s phantasmagoria (her medical/Victorian based artwork) and Chris Westbury’s amphigory (his language-based computer program of bogus medical advice). Visitors to the installation are invited to press the amphigory button to display the computer-generated bogus medical advice.
With our installation, we are seeking to raise questions about how medical facts are presented and simplified for popular consumption; in particular the way in which we are bombarded with “medical fact” via the internet, and how misinterpretation or incomplete reporting of research can subvert medical fact, resulting in a modern version of the snake oil elixir of Victorian times.
See on-line catalogue of exhibit here
*”Victorian” mouse created by Isaac Lank, U of A Dept of Psychology
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| MEDIA | 3-dimensional mixed media |
| DATE | 2012 |
Mary, Star of the Sea
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Mary, Star of the Sea
Marlena Wyman (3-dimensional mixed media)
Installation for the In/Hospitable Women group exhibit at the Nina Haggerty Gallery for the SkirtsAfire Festival, March 2017.
Mary, Star of the Sea is an ancient name for the Virgin Mary that is common in Catholic coastal and fishing communities. Newfoundland has numerous Catholic churches named for Mary, Star of the Sea and Our Lady, Star of the Sea.
My installation includes ten 8”X10” Mary Portraits, a 30” mosaic Mary figure , and small Mary figures collected from thrift stores.
The focus for my installation is the cemeteries of Newfoundland which are populated with small Mary figures. Newfoundland seems to have three or four unfinished plaster-cast versions of Mary that can be purchased and hand painted by family and/or friends of deceased loved ones. My installation is based on photographs that I shot of these Mary figures in Newfoundland cemeteries.
The commercially produced Virgin Mary that most of us encounter is one of consistent beauty. The hand-painted, heartfelt Marys of Newfoundland evoke both humour and pathos, but above all, represent a loving tribute that is touchingly and imperfectly human.
The Mary Portraits are image transfers onto encaustic on cradled birch boards. The backgrounds are image transfers of vintage ocean-themed wallpaper. The mosaic Mary figure is made from plaster, modeling clay, sea shells, beach glass and china shards.
| SIZE | |
| MEDIA | 3-dimensional mixed media |
| DATE | 2017 |