On Friday, May 1, the Brock Art Collective (BAC) held its first virtual art show via Lifesize. Community members and students alike tuned in to watch artists present their artwork in a 30-minute video call.
Stephanie Dancer, the president of the BAC, facilitated the show along with Angelina Turner and Joshua Harwood. Dancer opened the online floor up to artists that otherwise would not have been able to display their pieces.
“We wanted to come together and create this really cool community event. That’s our focus for the year, which is to make our club really inclusive and community-based,” says Dancer. “We thought it was a really great time to open up and do that [promote inclusiveness] virtually, especially because a lot of the graduating students weren’t able to show their work. We wanted to give them a platform to show their work off and tell us a little about what they’ve been working on over the year.”
Although unprecedented, the show ran smoothly. After introductions and some technical instructions, the artists began to share their work. Each participant was allotted two minutes to share a bit about their unique art display. From visual art to a silk-screening demonstration, Adaptations was an eclectic show.
The art show was fittingly named Adaptations to reflect the current state of the world. “The reason we [BAC] named it Adaptations is because we are in the midst of this unprecedented time where we are all under quarantine and we have to adapt our lives to different situations. We thought the name was really reflective of what was going on in society right now,” says Dancer.
The BAC is hopeful that Adaptations serves as a foundation for future online art shows. “It is our first show, as much as we have planned this out, we really are doing a test drive for future shows,” says Dancer.
One of the artists in attendance was Aidan Frenette, a third-year student in the Visual Arts program at Brock University. Frenette uses a variety of mediums to create their artwork, from strawberry syrup to cake to canvas and paint; their art knows no bounds. Even a global pandemic cannot stop them, along with other student artists, from sharing their passion.
In the virtual art show, Frenette shared a three- by five-foot painting of filmmaker David Lynch. Each inch of Frenette’s painting was divided into nine little squares, which created a pixelated effect. Beyond artistic technique, their pixelation is an ode to Lynch’s work Twin Peaks.
“Obscuring the portrait is a reference to his own filmmaking and the minute themes within that filmmaking. On a small scale, if you go into his filmmaking or television series, it won’t make sense if you look at one character,” says Frenette. “You need to really look at the relationship between everything and then you will get the bigger picture, which is like the painting that I’ve done. It won’t make sense if you stand up close, you have to stand about five feet back and then you can actually see what I’m talking about.”
Frenette’s piece was just one of eight that was shown during Adaptations. Each artist took the meaning of Adaptations to heart, resulting in a collection of masterful, unique works. Despite being online, viewers could easily feel the passion radiating from all of the artists involved.
Alongside Frenette, Lindsay Allen, Jessica Thomas, Kayla Chin-Loy, Lindsay-Anne Chilcott, Lauren Sandal, Josh Arcari and Avrie Coney shared their works. There was plenty of diversity featured in Adaptations. Arcari captivated the audience with his silk-screening demonstration that kicked off the show. Thomas’s abstract piece “Fleshy” was a heartfelt nod to the scrutiny those under quarantine face in regard to their bodies and mental states.
Each artist articulately shared their works’ meaning to the audience. Participants watched intently and silently clapped to congratulate the artists on their hard work.
Adaptations was a success for the BAC as it brought the community together to enjoy the talent of young artists. The artists displayed their ability to adapt, leaving audience members in awe even from afar.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
