Art
Imagery Technician embraces many art formsLookout Newspaper – Victoria Lookout
Imagery Technician embraces many art forms
By Teresa Laird on Feb 21, 2021 with Comments 0
COUNTER ATTACK WATCH
A pen and ink self portrait that is based on a photograph taken by my fire team partner while on a defensive exercise in Meaford, ON. I drew this piece to portray a sense of mental exhaustion and sleep deprivation while maintaining a vigilant watch. This period of my career was the most difficult, both mentally and physically. It is also a personal reminder that when things in life seem to not be going well, or times are tough, I think back to this time and remind myself “Well, at least I’m not in Meaford.” – Master Corporal Aydyn Neifer
Peter Mallett
Staff Writer
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Sketchbook, pencils, eraser, even chalk and pens are some of the first things Master Corporal Aydyn Neifer packs when deployed – even before his camera equipment.
The Canadian Armed Forces Imagery Technician has embraced many art forms in his 43 years, from graphic design to photography, to drawing and painting.
“I can’t imagine not painting,” he says. “It’s a way to express myself even if no one ever sees them. Most of my works are just about painting for the sake of painting and trying to turn abstract concepts into visual art. I can’t imagine not being able to do that.”
Much of his work is inspired by his military service that started in 2007 as a member of Third Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment in Petawawa, ON. After three years as an Infantryman, he re-mustered to Image Tech, a trade that satisfies his itch to create.
What he likes about the military is it can take him out of his comfort zone.
“The military constantly challenges you to complete difficult tasks and learn new things,” he says.
That constant evolving is duplicated in his art. His craft tools are varied, from the usual acrylic paints, pencils, and inks, to ball point pens and pastels. His subjects are equally assorted.
“I am really not sure what my style of art or genre is called, but I try to take a concept from a photo or series of photos and then visualize it in my creations,” he explains.
His vision starts with an image, usually a photo. In his self portrait Counter Attack Watch, it was a fellow soldier who snapped the photo while they were on a training exercise in Meaford, Ont. It’s a pen and ink side view of a younger Pte Neifer peering intensely down the barrel of his machine gun set against a stark white background. His torso fades into geometric squares. The empty background brings a feeling of bleakness and isolation, something he felt at the time as he battled exhaustion while maintaining a vigilant watch.
In contrast, Cerebral Shackles is a full colour piece of a young person clutching her cellphone, half open eyes on the screen. Swirling around her, soft images of people, things, and words.
The creation, he says, is a deliberate attempt to show the ill-effects that social media addiction and the scourge of fake news has had on so many people.
“The concept is to visually portray how, in essence, we are all addicted and enslaved by our technology,” says MCpl Neifer. “It’s like a cerebral toffee pull for both our attention and our sanity.”
He’s created many pieces over the years from a small studio he made in the basement of his home, which he shares with his wife and three children. A few of his ink drawings and acrylic works are on the walls upstairs, but most have been completed and tucked into boxes.
“I have a stack of practice pieces, and over the years have accumulated many finished works that were completed in different types of media, from oils, to charcoal, to pastel, to acrylics, to graphite, and watercolour, as well as digital. As well, I have a stack of sketchbooks that I have filled up over the years.”
But his prized piece resides on a high school wall, a mural he painted as a student.
“I won a design contest to paint a mural at my high school, Fellowes, in which I helped to paint my design alongside a professional mural painter. The mural is still up in the school.”
He currently works as a photography instructor at Canadian Forces Training and Development Centre at CFB Borden. He is also part of The Steel Spirit, an art collective that showcases the unique artwork of military, police, firefighters, paramedics, hospital practitioners, and other first responders.
Never one to have an empty canvass, MCpl Neifer is working on an art piece for a friend to help bring awareness to brain injury victims.
Art, he adds, brings him much-needed calm in an often intense job.
“In my opinion art is truly a great form of self expression and a vehicle to externalize injuries. My art is more preventative medicine.”
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Filed Under: Top Stories
About the Author:
A trio plays a cover of The Eagles hit Take it Easy as a dozen people settle in for an intimate open mic night inside Derrick McCandless and Dawn Mills’s cozy spot off highways 6 and 68 in Manitoba’s Interlake.
Strings of antique-style light bulbs cast a soft glow over the mandolin, banjo and dobro guitar that hang on a wall behind the band. An array of pottery shaped in-house by Mills dots the shelves behind the audience.
The Eriksdale Music & Custom Frame Shop is full of tchotchkes — like an Elvis Presley Boulevard street sign and vintage Orange Crush ad — that create the rustic country-living vibe the couple dreamt up before buying and transforming the vacant space over the past three years.
“I have met so many people in this community through them that I probably wouldn’t have … because of this hub,” says Mills’s cousin Dana-Jo Burdett.
Mills and McCandless are bringing people together in their rural community in more ways than one — though a return to Mills’s hometown wasn’t always in the cards.
The couple met in Winnipeg in 2011 while McCandless was playing a party at Mills’s cousin’s place. They had plans to settle in the Okanagan in McCandless’s home province of B.C. until he suffered a health scare. After that, they decided to head back to the Prairies.
WATCH | McCandless and Mills channel creative spirit into Eriksdale community:
Dawn Mills and Derrick McCandless host the RogerKimLee Music Festival in the Manitoba Interlake community of Eriksdale. They also turned a long-vacant space in town into a live music venue, instrument repair and sales store, and pottery and framing services shop.
It was the height of the pandemic in fall 2020 when the pair relocated to Eriksdale, about 130 km northwest of Winnipeg. They bought the old Big Al’s shop, once a local sharpening business that was sitting vacant.
“He was an icon in the community. He was a school teacher. He did a drama program here,” said Mills. “He brought a lot to the town.”
The building has become their own personal playground and live-in studio.
“It keeps evolving and we keep changing it and every room has to serve multi-function,” says Mills. “It’s a meeting place.”
While they love the quiet life of their community, they’re also a busy couple.
McCandless is a multi-instrumentalist with a former career in the Armed Forces that took him all over. Now, he’s a shop teacher in Ashern who sells and fixes instruments out of the music shop.
WATCH | McCandless plays an original song:
Derrick McCandless plays one of his original songs on acoustic guitar at the Eriksdale Music & Custom Frame Shop in March 2024.
Mills helped found Stoneware Gallery in 1978 — the longest running pottery collective in Canada. She offers professional framing services and sells pottery creations that she throws in-studio.
They put on open mic nights and host a summer concert series on a stage next door they built together themselves. They’re trying to start up a musicians memorial park in Eriksdale too.
One of their bigger labours of love is in honour of McCandless’s good friends Roger Leonard Young, David Kim Russell and Tony “Leon” — or Lee — Oreniuk. All died within months of each other in 2020-2021.
“That was a heart-wrenching year,” McCandless says.
They channeled their grief into something good for the community and started the RogerKimLee Music Festival.
Friends from Winnipeg and the Interlake helped them put on a weekend of “lovely music, lovely food, lovely companionship” as a sort of heart-felt send off, said Mills.
That weekend it poured rain. Festival-goers ended up in soggy dog piles on the floor of the music shop to dry out while Mills and McCandless cooked them sausages and eggs to warm up.
“It was just a great weekend,” says McCandless. “At the end of that, that Sunday, we just said that’s it, we got to do this.”
Mills says the homey community spirit on display during that inaugural year is what the couple has been trying to “encourage in people getting together” ever since.
The festival has grown to include a makers’ market, car show, kids activities, workshops, camping, beer gardens, good food and live music.
This summer, Manitoba acts The Solutions, Sweet Alibi and The JD Edwards Band are on the lineup Aug. 16-18.
Burdett has been a part of the growth, helping with branding, social media and marketing. McCandless and Mills’s habit of bringing people together has also rubbed off on Burdett.
“There’s more of my people out here than I thought, and I am very grateful for that,” says Burdett.
Their efforts to breathe new artistic life into Eriksdale caught the attention of their local MLA.
“The response from family and friend and community has been outstanding,” Derek Johnston (Interlake-Gimli) said during question period at the Manitoba Legislature in March.
“The RogerKimLee Music Festival believes music to be a powerful force for positive social change.”
Dolly Lindell, who has lived in Eriksdale for about three decades, said the couple is adding something valuable that wasn’t quite there before.
“There’s a lot of people that we didn’t even know had musical talent and aspirations and this has definitely helped bring it out,” Lindell says from the audience as McCandless, Dave Greene and Mark Chuchie wrap their rendition of Take it Easy.
McCandless, 61, said there was a time in his youth where he dreamed of a becoming a folk music star. Now his musical ambitions have changed. He’s focused on using that part of himself to bring people together.
“I think it’s that gift that I was given that that needs to be shared,” he says. “I don’t think I could live without sharing it.”
WATCH | Trio plays song at Eriksdale music shop:
Derrick McCandless, Dave Greene and Mark Chuchie play a cover of The Eagles hit Take it Easy at McCandless and Dawn Mills’s music shop in Eriksdale in March 2024.
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