PODCAST Season 2, Episode 6, “PIER SUPPORT"
WISDOM AT THE CROSSROADS PODCAST.
We’ve all heard the saying “it takes a village” and I am so grateful for mine.
In today’s backstory we journey to a community of neighbours and friends along the western shore of Lake Winnipeg.
The area’s iconic swimming piers come into focus with the painting “Pier Support”. Art becomes a colourful off season reminder of the value of our connections, to place, to ourselves and to each other.
The guided meditation in this episode minutes reflects on transitions and the potential for new beginnings that come with seasonal change. Tune into your body during these 10 minutes of reflective pause that begin at 7:44 In the recording.
“PIER SUPPORT”, Acrylic on Canvas, 40” x 40”
Welcome back. to the podcast and blog. With this season attempting to place an emphasis on being present I wanted to introduce you to a summer landscape that really grounds me in presence.
The Village of Dunnattor is Manitoba’s smallest municipality. Manitoba is Canada’s keystone state and this little Manitoban Village is really not that far from the geographical centre of North America…a pretty fitting place for a middle child.
Originally a train stop in Manitoba’s Interlake, set between the expansive lake Winnipeg and the smaller western lake Manitoba. The Village is made up of Matlkock, Whytwold and Ponemah, just south of the Larger Town of Winnipeg Beach on the western shores of Lake Winnipeg. Generations of families have called the region their summer home. Our family was introduced to the area when our children were young and we had opportunities to loan or rent a cottage for a few days or a week at a time.
The Village of Dunnottar’s Swimming piers are a summer feature and neighbourhood favourite. Every view is different from their wooden decks. Those big skies are an ephemeral work of changeable art
My husband is a runner and on a morning run during one of our cottage visits when our girls were quite young he discovered the Matlock Community club. They ran a summer program for children and drop in visitors were encouraged. to join in.
We were only getting to know the piers ourselves in those days but have come to appreciate the seasonal, daily, and hourly changes in sky and atmosphere from this vantage point.
Our girls were thrilled to make social contact with “Lake Kids” at the time, to feast on the candy bags at the little canteen and to participate in the Matlock “Olympics”, an event that involved skateboards hurtling across ancient wooden floors with seated riders, three legged races and actual “Olympic” medals. I jest but my seven year old treasured her ribboned medal as if it was given to her with the whole world watching.
Bingo night was a must. There were no dabbers and disposable bingo cards. Instead we got to use bingo card relics from the 50’s that featured little sliding covers. We rented our cards each evening for $1 a card and handed them back at the end of the night. The hall was a sweaty midsummer treasure and as iconic in family memories as the village’s distinctive swimming piers.
Our pier is the last pier in Ponemah. Each year our community eagerly awaits the installation of the seasonal piers. which dot the shores of Lake Winnipeg for a 5-8km stretch. They are completed before the July long weekend, sometimes only just in time.
The piers are loved by locals and visitors alike. They are a symbol of warm weather, and community, coveted by Canadians. The piers gather us together between the July and September long weekends for sure. We are all hopeful though to see them being constructed or still standing at either end of those warm weeks. The piers punctuate the shoreline all through the village. In the spring the sound of hammering is like a rallying call. The sight of deck lengths dropped off along with bundles of long thin natural posts in anticipation of reconstruction is also a bit of a thrill that gets us all excited about warmer weather even if the season is slow to arrive.
Last fall the pier looked like a character from a star wars movie on dry dock. This year waves were almost breaking over the decks boards.
…In Manitoba our only constant is change…
Our local piers have been featured in photographs on social media, in selfies and wedding pictures. They are barometers of lake health and weather systems and some years stand spindly legged above exposed sand looking like extra-terrestrials out of a star wars film. In other years they are slapped on their under decks by the action of waves brought into the south basin by the unfamiliar chill of northern air. The north wind blows in gusts and brings with it water and more water in relentless waves that refill our southern basin, sometimes too quickly.
My friend Evelyn Ward de Roo made a short film about the piers under construction in 2009. Check the link below in Youtube.
I snapped this selfie on the pier after I had made the notes for the meditation in this episode. I was windblown but definitely lulled by the action of the waves below the deck.
We have a front row seat to witness the changes in weather and light with the pier in view from our cottage so I have amassed a healthy collection of images to inspire me. I have only ever painted the pier once though. My painterly style is less representational than that of many artists so a formal architectural feature isn’t something I am usually drawn to (pardon the pun) It’s a challenge to harness my loose style into a suggestion of an architectural structure more conducive to a draftsman’s accuracy and concern with detail.
PIER SUPPORT moved in with a neighbour one WAVE weekend. The bunkhouse during the WAVE weekends comes into play. Preparation can go long into the Friday night before guests arrive.
Every surface comes into play. This was the last viewing of the Healing Blanket Project before it was completed and donated to Ronald MacDonald House in Winnipeg. “Visitors made off with a little “Jazz” in the first wave since Covid with protocols still in place.
Given my painterly style and the fact these piers are so iconic and beloved by so many you might think a small painting would satisfy my need but no It was a 40” x 40” panel that I under painted with the intention of capturing some essence of our pier, the last Pier in Ponemah.
The sky is big on the prairies; we aren’t called big sky country without reason so the sky was going to be a character in this composition. I tried really hard to strive for simplicity. The underpainting of the foreground came forward in a range of deep and warm reds.
I then focused on the negative space between the structural elements of the pier using swaths and daubs of liquitex’s brilliant blue liquid acrylic.
A large summer cloud bloomed to assist the composition and to help balance the intensity of the stick dock whose familiar form was merely suggested. I loved the challenge of trying something new.
This pic was taken just last week during October’s Full moon. The Pier is resting in its off season configuration. When the lake freezes the legs would quickly be lost and decks washed away due to the pressure exerted by the ice.
I was part of the WAVE Interlake Artists Studio Tour that summer and this painting became the poster image for an event at the Winnipeg Art Gallery called WAVE at the WAG. The painting had all kinds of exposure but did not immediately sell so I had framed it with the intention of hanging it in my own cottage. During the fall WAVE event over the September long weekend at the end of that summer I had hung all available paintings on the exterior of the cottage in a lakeside exhibit as I do for this fun community event now in its 21st year. Our next door lake neighbour popped by to visit and unlike previous visits she held her purse close to her ribs as it hung from her shoulder. I joked with her and asked “why the purse?”, “Shopping” she said which was pretty funny considering we knew where she lived.
This is a very poor snapshot of the WAVE at the Wag poster. A detail of Pier Support fills the map of Manitoba.
As other visitors took my attention I wasn’t concerned about my neighbour thinking she was in the garden or taking in the paintings that stretched around the side of the cottage. Some time later I noticed my neighbour being assisted by my husband. They looked like a pair of cats who had swallowed the canary, as they carried the freshly framed “Pier Support”, from our backyard and into hers. My husband had years before been banished from selling artwork from the interior of our house but apparently that request had not extended to the interior of the cottage.
The Pier features in all kinds of artwork besides my single painting and thousands of photographs I also made a series of Quilt Gems featuring our pier. This gem is 6” x 6” and features my Mother in Law Doris on the deck and my husband on the stand up paddle board. Neither was comfortable around water but the lake has a magical quality that helps many got leave their fears behind.
(Silk dye sublimation fabric collage machine stitching.)
The painting “Pier Support” is now an off season reminder of our neighbours connection to this very special place that is the summer community we share at the edge of Lake Winnipeg in Ponemah. Our neighbours like so many Canadians have strong ties to their summer landscapes and like us look forward to the annual return of the Village’s swimming piers and all the community connections and summer memories they share and inspire. We love the lake.
Not many cottages become art galleries twice annually. Ours features an assortment of picture hangers year round. ( The paintings don’t stay out beyond the Wave weekends ) This Wave action was our first in person gathering in 2021 while mask mandates were still in effect. It was great to see people out and about.
It seems we have reached the end of todays backstory. Thanks for tuning in to this episode. I really appreciate you spending some of your valuable time with me. I hope the images are helpful and that you are finding something of your story within mine by listening in to the podcast, or catching up through this blog.
The meditation this episode is ….minutes but I guarantee you will feel refreshed after taking a self care pause with me.
If my work or words inspire you please consider sharing the podcast with a friend or writing a review on Apple Podcasts. You can listen to the full episode on apple or anywhere you get your podcasts.
Thanks for joining me. Hope to see you next Tuesday.
All best,
Amanda