Art Above Politics, Love Above War

Several years ago, I met Helen, a newcomer from Russia, at Bev Morton’s Wayne Arthur gallery here in Winnipeg. (Bev sadly passed away in Nov/21).  Helen’s art was as captivating as her warm personality. As a newcomer to Canada, she was eager to be accepted in our culture using her art as a universal language. During one of her doll workshops, I got to know her better while creating my little ‘kulak’ doll. 

Unfortunately, Canada is home to many a starving artist.  Becoming financially independent as an artist is a huge challenge for locals as well as new residents. My Russian friend struggled to make the proper connections but money was always tight. Disappointed, she finally returned back to Russia, her Canadian husband, Ed, in tow.  

Helen and Ed created a home for themselves—and for Helen's art—outside of Togliatty (known for its Lada cars) in the Samara Oblast. 

My Katya doll

Before Helen left Canada, she and I had collaborated on a picture book. Time was short and the project shelved until late 2021. Finally, in January, 2022 we focused time online working on the details. Helen was determined to make this happen and I admired her tenacity. Then in February 24, 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine and our book project was again stalled.

Kudos to Helen for believing in the power of family, of friendship and of art, for finishing up this story project. I wrote the English text, Helen supplied the Russian translation and created the art, the layout and the final production. She launched the book at her gallery in Samara earlier this fall. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to visit Togliatty on the Volga River and together we can spread the message that just because people are different, doesn’t mean we can’t still love and support each other.

Someday this war will end and we can return to feathering our nests instead of destroying them. And someday, I will have this book about storks and cuckoos produced for distribution in Canada. 

Nature's Library

Lake Manitoba 

Shorelines attract me. I’m drawn to them like a bookworm to a library. They’re meeting places—where the water connects to land and to the sky.

Tangled Roots On Lake Winnipeg

I especially like rough, neglected shores, off the beaten track. A couple of days ago it was cold, windy, with intermittent rain. Not the sort of weather my dog, daughter and I had envisioned for our beach-combing adventure—but inviting—nonetheless.

The pre-holiday, off-leash dog beach was pleasantly deserted. It was just us, the crashing waves, and nature. We found art in timeless stones and in the driftwood of uprooted trees. So many stories in the ancient stone, in the wave-crushed sand and in the bare, mangled roots of once strong trees. 

I take pieces of this history home where they get artfully (I try!) arranged in my garden like souvenirs from a journey, or artifacts in a museum. My garden tells silent tales of other places and past traumas. Out of place and yet showcased … made meaningful by my memories and imagination.

My mother's shore
The Baltic Sea off the Curonian Spit

Seems to me there’s a writerly point to all this. The stones and the roots—damaged or changed by storms and by time—are like characters in a novel. Moments of trauma, of heartbreak, of the relentless passage of time, creating insight and receiving artful (I try here too!) placement into a narrative. My garden, my stories, my attempts to make meaning out of the random chaos of life. Stories ... shorelines where imagination creates art.  Shorelines … time-less and yet so time-full. 

My father's shore
View on Heligoland of the North Sea

Zoos, Butterflies and Books

I visited the Assiniboine Park Zoo here in Winnipeg last week. The coordinator at the Immigrant Centre where I volunteer had given us passes and I was curious . . . I’d not been there for quite a while. 

Our local zoo used to be quite affordable, but now it’s a rather expensive outing for a family. Of course, my kids are way past an age where going to the zoo would be considered fun, but I’m not sure who this renovated zoo actually caters to. Rich, entitled tourists? Definitely not young families with limited disposable income and definitely not the animals trapped inside.

We have to maneuver our conversation around the roar of ascending and descending planes . . . the zoo is under the airport flight path. How do the animals, with their sensitive hearing, manage? I think of the special events during the winter when even long winter nights get lit up for our entertainment. What a barrage of sensory pollution we force upon them. 

The polar bears provide us with entertainment in their pool of water. Orphans rescued from Churchill, they seem to have the largest area to roam. Seals dance underwater to unheard rhythms, while the grey wolf towers above us on his artificial rock ledge. Does he miss his pack?

Camels meditatively munch grass, while antelope and buffalo flip their fly-swatter tails back and forth. . . politely ignoring us. People point and gawk, lick cones and sip from water bottles. 

Most beautiful is the Amur tiger (also known as the Siberian tiger).  Pacing, pacing, back and forth. I’m reminded of the book by John Vaillant, set in eastern Russia: The Tiger: A True Story of Vengence and Survival and I can’t help but feel sorry for this magnificent creature.

My mood improves immensely in the butterfly cage. Glorious colours. Wings and blossoms. Fluttering. Constant motion. I connect the butterflies with art and with life. So many stages to the butterfly. The egg, the caterpillar, the pupa or chrysalis, and finally the letting go and flying away. 

So it is with writing a book. You have the idea. You let that idea grow, gorging it with words and more words . . . let it grow big and fat. Then you let it sit. This is the pupa or chrysalis stage. Okay, maybe the comparison falls apart here. 

Every writer knows that there’s more whittling and shaping required before that butterfly emerges ready to take off. We don’t have quite the magic or privacy of the butterfly whose big changes happen hidden from view. But in the end our idea gets wings and takes off into the world’s big garden to live its short and fragile life . . . hopefully laying eggs along the way. 

Learning about Manitoba Mennonites

I’ve just finished reading Making Believe, by Magdalene Redekop, a book about Mennonites and their relationship to art. It was nominated during the recent Manitoba Book Awards and received the Mary Scorer Best Book Award by a Manitoba Publisher Award. (University of Manitoba Press). 

I picked up this book because I’ve always been aware of, and curious about, the Mennonites in Manitoba. This book, along with a few friendships along the way, has given me some insight into this sizeable population of our province.

I was not raised as a Mennonite, but I lived in a parallel universe being raised as a German Baptist. There are differences and similarities between the two faiths. While I no longer consider myself a German Baptist, I get the sense that someone born a Mennonite is always a Mennonite.  Mennonites often marry other Mennonites, go to Mennonite schools, live in Mennonite-centric communities and keep in close contact with their extended family and fellow churchgoers. 

Redekop’s memories reminded me of the many similarities between her Mennonite upbringing and my own German Baptist one. Dancing, make-up, movies, rock music etc. was taboo. Baptism was not to be done at birth, but as a conscious decision when one grew older. I appreciated her musings on the evangelization of the young. Those big meetings were carefully choreographed scripts and German Baptists are much like the Mennonites when it comes to manipulating the young through music and guilt. 

Redekop’s book also showed the complicated (to me) differences within the Mennonite culture. Types of Mennonites depend on the times of immigration. For example, there are the Kanadier and the Russländer Mennonites. Then there are the Mennonite Brethren (more like the German Baptists) and the other Mennonites, like the Swiss. All new to me and a bit confusing.

What I found most interesting is how the Mennonites have continued to be an insular group, easily identified by their names.  My own maiden name, Schroeder, could be seen as Mennonite, although my father was Lutheran and from the Hamburg area. As a young woman, I was eager to remove any connection to Germans or Mennonites and ended up with a married surname that has sometimes been mistaken as the Jewish Goldstein.  Goldstone might have South African or British connections. A student once called me Mrs. Goldrock and I liked the non-ethnic sound of that.

A huge difference that I noted between the Mennonites of small-town Manitoba and my German Baptist upbringing in the big city, is that our congregation was quite diverse. My church was a ragtag of displaced war survivors from different parts of eastern Europe.  Men were at a premium and my mom married a Lutheran. That guaranteed that I’d never be a genuine German Baptist and I grew as an outsider. 

Redekop writes about the noticeable ‘renaissance’ of Mennonite writers, specifically from Manitoba. There’s Toews, Bergen, Klassen, Friesen, Wiebe, Brandt and many more. Now there’s a newly minted children's novelist from my writing group with the last name of Driedger.  Why are so many Mennonites writing? I’d like to think it’s for the same reason I like to write. Every church service I attended when young was focused on studying the word of God or singing. Since my singing or piano playing was not encouraged, I found power in the written word.

I recommend Magdalene Redekop’s book, Making Believe, to anyone curious about the Manitoba history of Mennonites and art. You need a bit of tolerance for her academic approach and there were some parts I struggled to digest. Mostly, I appreciated the snippets where the author revealed herself. She didn’t hold back and I connected with that authenticity. For the most part, a non-Mennonite like me found it to be a compelling read.