The plan is to fix the studio and give it to the town of Lumsden, turning the location into a community centre for events, art and more
Back in the day, John Nugent’s art studio smelled amazing, as hundreds of litres of beeswax were poured and formed into ornate candles for most of the Catholic churches in Western Canada, as well as private customers around the province.
Now, it smells a bit earthy.
The unique studio, styled with a bright white conical roof, blends into the snow-covered hills of the Qu’Appelle Valley during the winter months and stands out during the warmer days of the year. A large part of the studio is underground, build into a hill with a series of concrete culverts used as windows along the base of the building, looking out toward Lumsden.
The studio, designed by renowned architect Clifford Wiens, is the birthplace of two statues of some notoriety made by Nugent — one is of Canada’s first prime minister John A. Macdonald, the other is of Métis patriot Louis Riel.
Inside the main dome of the studio part of the roof — which contains asbestos — is cracked. The floor is full of items placed there for storage but it is clear that repairs are needed. The roof was built over five weekends, as Nugent and Weins would spend their off-time making and building the studio in 1960. It’s a modern design, which shares much in common with Wien’s other design work.
Surrounding the building there are sculptures made by Nugent, but the local deer are the most frequent visitors.
Art from Nugent, Wiens, Ted Godwin and several other Saskatchewan artists will be up for sale at two May 7 auctions, with all money going towards the restoration of the studio.
The auctions, one silent and one loud, will take place on May 7 at 7 p.m. at Lumsden Centennial Hall. There are 20 pieces available in the auction and over 60 for the silent auction.
The studio has sat unused for almost two decades, despite its history and despite its connection to Saskatchewan art and culture.
“Well, John got old, he was born in 1920,” said Rand Teed, who worked at the studio when he was a teenager, helping Nugent with his artist endeavours, and learning the crafts of candle and bronze statue making. Nugent died in 2014.
“The last 20 years or so he wasn’t really able to work much, and so (the studio) just kind of sat and deteriorated a little bit,” said Teed.
On Saturday morning, digging through some of the items left in the studio he found one of those old candles. Asked if it was one that he might have made, Teed said that no, all his candles had long ago been burned.
Inside the studio, a large metal beam juts across the space, suspended from the ceiling. Teed explained that there was once a furnace in the studio that was hot enough to melt bronze, and using the beam, the molten metal could be poured into moulds, making statues.
Nugent also made crucifixes, crosses and chalices for Catholic churches across Canada.
While the artistic pedigree of Nugent and the studio has long been known, enthusiasts are now wanting to restore the studio and hand it over to the town of Lumsden.
Teed remembers the studio as a hub for creative activity and culture.
It’s where he first heard Bob Dylan, a place where artists and critics from all around would gather, and Teed hopes to see that kind of life and energy again at the site one day.
“When it was really active here there would be lots of artists from the city coming out to visit,” said Teed, adding that once, even art critic Clement Greenberg came to the studio.
Cheryl Robinson and her husband Bruce live close to the studio in Lumsden, and are part of the restoration effort.
“Last year, we patched … all the cement work and got it repainted because it was starting to look pretty darn shabby,” she said.
The inside needs to be patched and grading alongside the building is also needed. The site is a provincial heritage property, and work has been done on the 2.7-hectare parcel of land it sits on, but grants for repairs are insufficient, said Robinson.
Teed, the Robinsons and Nugent’s daughter Karen all want to see the studio return to its former glory, and to create a new community space.
Tickets for the auctions are available for purchase at 306-536-6383.
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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.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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