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The newsletter of the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery

• This is Volume V, No. 2, March April 2002

Gallery hours: Monday – Friday, 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM; Saturday, noon – 5 PM

Restless Slumber

by Gerald Folkerts

• March 8 – April 27, 2002
• OPENING, Friday, March 8, 7:30pm
• Special guest, Steve Bell

Gerald Folkerts, I believe, has a gift for looking at things from not quite straight on. Bob Haverluck is another Winnipeg artist who I feel has this same ability. They are artists who can help us look at old, sometimes overworked themes in fresh ways that don’t hit us over the head with answers but help us think anew for ourselves. Restless Slumber may incorporate sleep within every image but it won’t put viewers to sleep. These are powerful, well crafted works that invite viewers to study, wonder, sometimes squirm but never brush by. Steve Bell joins us at the opening. Why not you, too?

-Ray Dirks

The DiscCafé

SLEEPwalk/ARTtalk
Songs & Stories

An evening with Steve Bell and Gerald Folkerts

• Saturday, March 23, 7:30pm
• $10 plus taxes (limited seating)

A Gerald Folkerts’ painting is the inspiration behind a Steve Bell song on his latest CD. The Folkerts’ series Restless Slumber has inspired an evening of Bell songs and Folkerts stories to be held at the gallery on Saturday, March 23. Don’t miss this wonderful, intimate concert opportunity. Tickets are $10 plus taxes and can be purchased through the gallery, either in person at the Mennonite Heritage Centre front desk or by phone at 888-6781 (ask for Connie Wiebe) or at the door, if any tickets remain.

Not Sleeping Well?

artist statement by Gerald Folkerts

A historic confession out of my church tradition states that "Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty – all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand."1

Do shattered towers of steel and glass and concrete hurtling towards the earth with fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and uncles and grandmothers trapped inside "come from his fatherly hand"? I don’t know about that. It seems to me that there is a world of grace between what comes from God and what God allows.

A few years ago I decided I would no longer teach, but it was not exactly in the way I would have envisioned the conclusion of this chapter of my life. It was a rather dark time but certainly not the first time I had tasted darkness and despair. For a year I did little, if any, artwork. Instead, I spent the year renovating my attic studio at home as my stored paints and brushes and pencils and canvas and paper waited restlessly in the basement. This meant I also had a year to reflect on life and imagine what I might do once the renovations were complete. I don’t remember when or how the idea first came to me, but the notion of sleep as an appropriate metaphor for exploring the kind of vulnerability I was living seemed an intriguing possibility.

Restless Slumber is a body of work in which sleep is used as a metaphor to probe the uneasy tension between providence and what humanity experiences on a daily basis – life’s vulnerability. Personal experience would suggest that each of us is one death, one sickness, one lost job, one encounter with brokenness, from living in wilderness of despair where all that once suggested stability seems shallow and insecure.

Does Restless Slumber matter? I hope so! This body of work may be significant as much for what it does not do as for what it does do. Too often our world expects little more (and often receives little other than) sentimental imagery loaded with didactic intent from artists whose work is rooted in faith-based soil. Restless Slumber is an attempt to explore issues and raise questions without providing simplistic solutions, or generic answers.

I believe it’s exactly in the kind of world which we live today that God calls his people to artistic faithfulness with a renewed sense of urgency because our art may be (certainly not by itself!) one significant ingredient in a soothing ointment that God would use to heal the aching wounds which fester deep in the very heartbeat of a world that more often looks to economics, science and technology for salvation as it teeters on the edge of despair.

Now that the Restless Slumber series is complete (I think) am I thankful for the pain and despair of a few years ago? The short answer is… no! Yet I am grateful that even in that darkness God was at work so that some good (Romans 8: 28) might emerge, also.

Part of that good has been to experience the love and support of so many people; my wife, Arlis, and our children, family and friends, and so many others that God has allowed us to walk with, some briefly, and others, for extended periods of time.

Experiencing vulnerability also brings with it a heightened sense of longing for true and abiding rest. Sometimes, I can’t wait.

-Gerald Folkerts

Thanks

The MHCGallery’s relationship with Gordon Bell High School continues to grow. Thanks especially to Vice Principal Joan Lloyd and head of the ESL department Beth McFee. Currently, a group of vibrant grade 11 students originally from Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Vietnam and India are spending Thursday afternoons at the gallery with Ray Dirks and Canadian Mennonite University student Caili Woodyard. About 50 ESLers celebrated Christmas at the gallery this past December.

Next

Join us on Friday, May 3 at 7:30pm to open a collaborative celebration of peace. The MHCGallery and the Saint Norbert Arts Centre are partnering to bring together an exhibit of exciting, new works by visiting foreign artists Ahmed El Sharif, Tibebe Terffa and Rose Namubiru Kirumira. Peace themed works by Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute students will also be included, plus other surprises. All artists should be in attendance for what promises to be a full and exciting evening.

"Peace Speaks"

Artists Ahmed El Sharif and Tibebe Terffa are on their way back to Winnipeg from Sudan and Ethiopia. These wonderful friends of the MHCGallery have been invited to the Saint Norbert Arts Centre as artists-in-residence. Call SNAC for further details.

Quilts

The Manitoba Prairie Quilters present Quilt Showcase 2002, Prairie Patches, April 12, 13 and 14 at the Ramada Marlborough Hotel. Friday 1pm – 9pm and Saturday and Sunday 9am – 5pm. $5. For more information contact Tracy Popp at (204)785 8838.

March 2002

MHCGallery curator Ray Dirks will be in India, France, Switzerland and Germany from March 10-29 for the Our Family exhibition project.

Fall 2002

Dirks will spend September through December in New Haven, Connecticut where he will be artist-in-residence at the Overseas Ministries Study Center and a Research Fellow at Yale University. Call Dirks at 888-6781 or e-mail to rdirks@mennonitechurch.ca if you are interested in helping out as a gallery volunteer while he is gone.

Call for Artists

(dis)comfort level

JURIED GROUP EXHIBITION(S) IN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2002
comfort – Where do you find it? In the teachings of Christ and the apostles, in God’s nature, in the love of family, in standing up for what is just?
discomfort – What causes it? War, terrorism, stress, ill health, injustice?
SEND US SLIDES, SCANS, DIGITAL PHOTOS OR PRINTS of your art and ideas, completed or planned, dealing with comfort and/or discomfort. A jury will select artworks to make up a two section exhibit. One will deal with comfort and the other with discomfort. Together pleas will be made and answered.

The exhibit will open in September 2002. Shipping costs will be paid for artworks from outside Manitoba. Send art images NO LATER THAN MAY 20 to Ray Dirks, MHCGallery, 600 Shaftesbury Blvd., Winnipeg, MB R3P 0M4 or rdirks@mennonitechurch.ca.

CONTACT

Ray Dirks, Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery, 600 Shaftesbury Blvd., Winnipeg, MB R3P 0M4; rdirks@mennonitechurch.ca; 204-888-6781; fax 204- 831-5675

The MHCGallery runs almost exclusively on donations. Your tax deductible donations to the gallery are always appreciated and needed.