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| Dawn MacNutt in her studio. (Danny Abriel Photo) |
Weaving and social work might seem an unusual combination, but the two have always been intertwined for Dawn MacNutt.
The 72-year-old artist graduated from Dalhousie with a Master of Social Work in 1970 and worked as a social worker for more than 35 years in Halifax; she advocated for clients in family court and helped them navigate the social welfare system; she counseled patients at the Nova Scotia Hospital; she provided marriage counseling to couples.
Then, as her art began to take up more and more of her time in the 1990s, the single mother of three wasn’t ready to leave behind social work until her house was completely paid off.
Even so, she never did completely let go ...
Her free-standing sculptures, woven from natural materials including willow, wisteria, honeysuckle and seagrass, dip into a deep well of human emotion. One evokes the caring friend who bends her head to listen; another a mother who cradles her sick baby; and still another, a neighbor dejected and overwhelmed with sadness. And yes, this she achieves from using basketry techniques that she’s adapted into high art. Her work is uniquely, distinctly her own.
“I am affected by everybody I’ve ever met,” says Ms. MacNutt, who recently became a bride again. She became re-acquainted with her husband Merle Pratt – “a gentle giant of a man” – at the 50th class reunion at Mount Allison University, where she did her first degree, a BA, majoring in psychology with a minor in fine art. “People have always been my main inspiration source.”
Further, her work “captures the beauty of human frailty.” Her weaving is irregular, with ends hanging out instead of tucked in, and branches seemingly out of place. Her bronze works, moreover, never seem to come out of the forge quite right; there are always fragments missing.
“The work is full of imperfections and that’s OK. I love materials that are irregular because people are like that, so full of differences and irregularities.”
Since the wedding, colour has begun to creep into her work and has now exploded in rainbow glory. She’s taken to painting metal and natural sculptures alike with automotive paints in delicious pearlescent colours. In her studio, for example, she has a willow sculpture on display that she’s painted bright red; its branches reach skyward like the flames of a campfire and seem to express the unabashed happiness of the artist’s new life. “I think everything is in danger now,” she says with a throaty laugh as she eyes older works.
The newlyweds live on a 140-acre property in the New Glasgow area, close to where Ms. MacNutt grew up. In a strange coincidence, she has set up her studio on the property’s surplus house, which after a little bit of research, the couple discovered had been built by Ms. MacNutt’s great-great-great grandfather in 1838.
“Halfway through restoring it, Merle got out the deed and I got out my father’s genealogy and we discovered the connection,” she says, amazed. They gave the raccoons the boot and renovated the old house so it would be airy and open. The front room opens to the second floor, to give space to display her taller sculptures.
“When I’m alone here and working, the place just creaks and groans and I wonder about the people who lived here and their lives. What were they like? What kinds of problems did they face?”
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| Dancer/choreographer/scientist Lisa Phinney. (Nick Pearce Photo) |
Lisa Phinney can close her eyes and she’s there: emerging from her tent in the early morning, she pauses by the shore of the mist-shrouded lake and listens enthralled at the tremulous calls of the loons.
It was a strange sight: loons are very territorial and only one pair will nest on a small lake. But on this morning, she could count several.
“I could see through the mist that there were at least nine of them,” says Ms. Phinney, who at the time was doing research in Kejimukujik National Park as a summer student with Environment Canada. “It was like they were having a meeting.”
As an atmospheric scientist, Ms. Phinney was part of a research team investigating how the mercury found in loons’ bodies flows through the ecosystem. As a choreographer, she is interested in the birds for different reasons: the way they glide along the surface of the water; the way they dive like torpedoes in search of food; the way they carry their babies on their backs.
Her encounter with loons that morning is the inspiration behind her latest dance work, which debut earlier this month through Live Art Dance Productions. Like scientific research, it’s a multidisciplinary enterprise, involving dancers, music composer Sageev Oore and set design by Peter Dykhuis, director of the Dalhousie Art Gallery.
Called Analogy for Solid Bones, the work brings together her two worlds: her love of science and of dance.
“Practically speaking, it’s a little bit tricky serving two gods, if you will,” explains Ms. Phinney, who divides her time between her job as an air quality researcher at Environment Canada and her work as an independent choreographer. “But in a way, they don’t seem that different to me; they are both expressions of fundamental truth but explained in vastly different ways.”
Throughout her life, she’s struggled to find the balance between science and dance. After doing her first degree at Dalhousie, majoring in physics and oceanography, she moved to Toronto to pursue a career in dance. But life as a freelance artist in the big city was not appealing, and after a few years she returned to Halifax as a founding member of Mocean Dance.
At about the same time, she returned to Dalhousie to work on a master’s degree in atmospheric science. Her thesis project – investigating the link between phytoplankton, tiny algae which live in the world’s oceans, and their affect on global climate – led to a dance expression of scientific processes called Point/Counterpoint (homeostatis). The dance debuted at Neptune’s Studio Theatre in 2004 and aired on Bravo and CBC-TV.
“I know it sounds a little strange, but I can see these cycles of nature expressed in a creative way,” says Ms. Phinney. “I just see such similarities in artistic creation and scientific inquiry – you’re coming up with ideas, finding the relationships, drawing conclusions. It’s all very rich for me.”
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| Singer/songwriter/scientist Alana Yorke. (Nick Pearce Photo) |
For Alana Yorke, it’s not so much about how her research influences her art – it’s more the other way around.
As a singer-songwriter, she is the outsider looking in, analyzing feelings and emotions for her lyrics. It works the same for her research.
“You keep a foot outside the field and it allows for a lot of creativity,” explains Ms. Yorke, 28, a graduate student in marine ecology at Dalhousie. Her research is focused on invasive species, including one found in Atlantic kelp beds. A widely distributed bryozoan, Membranipora membranacea likely came from Europe. She’s interested in how this exotic encrusting organism interacts with native species.
“You start asking questions that no one has thought to ask and I think that comes from having an outsider attitude … so instead of going down the same, well-worn path, you deviate a bit. In any case, I think it’s very important that science brings in people with a diversity of backgrounds; that’s where the fresh ideas and approaches will come from.”
From the village of Bass River, N.S., Ms. Yorke has written and performed music since the age of five. She’s been compared to artists like Joni Mitchell and Sarah McLachlan for the expressiveness and dreamy quality of her voice. She also plays the piano and guitar.
Until recently, she’s been a solo performer, but now has her own band, cheekily named The New Oceanographers. Band members are bass player Clark Richards, who is working on a PhD in physical oceanography at Dalhousie; drummer Katie Patterson, studying at the Leeds College of Music in the U.K.; Joyce Saunders who sings harmony; and keyboard player Ian Bent, a professional musician and piano teacher, not to mention Ms. Yorke’s fiancé.
The band went into the studio last summer to record original material for an album which Ms. Yorke hopes to have out in the fall. With help from musician and engineer Don Mackay, she is self-producing the EP which is, as yet, unnamed.
“I identify myself as an artist and, in a way, I’m trying this out, this science thing,” she says with a laugh. “I am deeply connected to the natural world – I have some ideas that I want to explore and test, and science is the tool I am using right now.”
Listen to Alana Yorke's song Push. To listen to more of Alana Yorke and the New Oceanographers, check out Alana Yorke on MySpace.