ESTEVAN - It's been half a year since the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum (EAGM) welcomed its first artist in residence in a long time.
Since then, Ruth Langwieser has spearheaded different projects and organized many workshops. Her original idea of exploring the old brick plant changed a bit, taking a different shape.
"For this residency, I was thinking about working with the remains of the old brick plant. But this idea made some loops. During the summer, I was working at Woodlawn, we had this art tent running with the Art Gallery, and I had some pottery workshops,” said Langweiser in sharing the sotry of the transformation of her original idea.
“I was attracted to the circular shape of these old brick plants, the half-spherical roofs. And this half-sphere I transformed into my workshops. We did things with half-spheres. We did all kinds of different stuff and these jellyfish. And the jellyfish, they have such tiny arms, with pottery, it was not going to work. So I thought, why don't we use these PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles here?”
The jellyfish with plastic arms set the way for her first installation and her largest art project.
For the Festival of Lights, Langwieser built a piece of art that was placed at Woodlawn Regional Park last week for the EAGM's display.
"It's a community project. Several groups worked on it together with me," Langwieser said. "The different colours are different recycled PET. It's recycled installation, as it's one of my concerns."
Langwieser explained that she could have taken plastic bottles to SARCAN to be recycled, but her concern is that she doesn't know where they end up, as some of the garbage and recycling gets shipped abroad for further processing and often doesn't get disposed of or recycled properly, further polluting the planet.
So instead of that, she decided to use plastic and turn it into art. She also pointed out that the ecological ideas weren't the main focus of the project. First of all, Langwieser, who is a ceramist, was interested in exploring a new material.
"It's not in the first place. It's not to put the morale bottom, so to say. It's a material, good material. Why don't we use it?" Langwieser said.
"I'm a ceramicist, so it was a new material, an interesting one. I did all kinds of different shapes and forms that were moving in the wind. I did some clips with these new shapes and I went outdoors and hung them up and made them move in summer, and posted some little clips on Facebook.
“And then we wanted to do a community project, something about winter with icicles. And that's how it ended up."
For the project, Langwieser worked with a group of people through the Estevan Public Library, as well as Estevan Diversified Services participants and some local residents who came to the EAGM this fall.
Participants cut the icicles and Langwieser transformed them using heat, and then put them on 30 strings and with the help of her husband, created an installation, which sings and dances in the wind, playing with light.
"It is really the material, the translucency of it and the lightness of it, the interaction with other elements, like light, wind. And at night, it will be lit up," Langwieser said.
The installation took 1 1/2 to two months to build. A lot of private people donated plastic bottles for creators to work with.
"I wouldn't have thought ever before when I started the residency that I would work with plastic. No, but it is so, and it is so right. It also has a little bit of a message. What are we doing? What are we as a society? A little glimpse. But playfulness is more important," Langwieser said.
The installation is named Lucy's Winter Coat.
"I like to include classical, ancestral themes. So the first title was Luke's Winter Coat. Luke is a goddess of ice," Langwieser explained. "But then some people said, 'Oh, it looks like a female feather boa.' Okay, good, why not? So I changed the gender. Now it's Lucy's Winter Coat."
Over the past half a year, Langwieser was also involved with other projects at the EAGM. She hosted ceramic workshops and also had some drop-in activities.
She worked with people of all ages but said the highlight for her was a workshop for adults, which saw them making gnomes. She also made some animals with a parent-child audience, all based on the idea of half-spheres. She started exploring a new ceramic technique called porcelain paper clay as well.
Langwieser also worked on the Inside Out outdoor exhibition at the park in the summer.
She said she is really enjoying her residency.
"I'm really happy to be in the community and do this residency with all these different people," Langwieser said.
"It was really a journey that has been adapted. We also adjusted to the needs of people. We had an idea and then all of a sudden we felt that people's needs are different," Langwieser explained.
More projects and art is coming up for the second half of her residency.
"We are on the train to set up. So there will be some events coming. And I will be present also at schools. They can book me for interviews, all about ceramics. And I will have a … personal project. At the end of the residency, I will have another installation at the art gallery," Langwieser said, adding that while general plans are in place, only time will show how the art pieces come out in the end.
