As tribute to Anna Stewart, a long-time Bryson social notes writer, her niece, Lynn Glover, created a series of ceramic sculptures featuring excerpts from her columns in THE EQUITY.
One of the pieces is currently displayed at . . .
an art gallery in Toronto.
She created five sculptures, each featuring excerpts from Stewart’s columns stamped into the clay, letter by letter, in a typeface that looks like the black-and-white newspaper of her columns. The shape of the sculptures were inspired by commercial maple syrup bottles, tea kettles and old jugs she remembers seeing at the farm.
“I just felt compelled to make something out of using her own words because she was the best storyteller of that life and what she chose to tell and what she chose to share was important,” said Glover.
After her aunt Anna died in September 2018, Glover felt a great loss and it was through missing her aunt that she turned to clay and decided to create the series of sculptures titled Aunt Anna’s Jugs. “There was something really cathartic about how laborious it is because it’s like letter by letter,” she said.
She chose to use her aunt’s social notes to commemorate Anna’s life because it was a tangible thing that she left behind and the way she wrote was verbatim to how she spoke and that’s what made the columns so special, noted Glover.
“Those stories were so colourful in such a specific voice I was like, what better way to show who she was than by her literal own words.”
Anna was a vibrant person who had a contagious laugh and a gregarious personality that filled a room, which always made Glover laugh.
The sculpture titled “Great Turnout at Valentine Euchre,” made by Glover was selected to be shown at Gagné Contemporary in Toronto from May 19 to June 5, 2022, as part of the Ontario Clay and Glass Association’s Breakthrough PLUS 2022 exhibition.
“It was exciting because it’s the first time I’ve shown in a gallery,” she said.
She chose the columns that talked about her uncle James Stewart, who was a mayor for 15 years in Bryson, because she wanted to preserve those stories as they were her favourite to read, said Glover.
She recalls one of the columns being about the time her uncle misplaced his hearing aid, and it was a funny account of Anna finding it on the floor, and the fact that this was in the paper was hilarious to Glover. “So looking through them, I was just like, I have to make something about this.
To find the columns, her sister, Lorie Boucher went through archives to find the different excerpts that mentioned James to use for the different jugs.
Jim and Anna’s house was the core place where everyone gathered, Glover said.
Not only was James the mayor at the time, but together with his wife Anna, they were very involved in the community which made their home the place to be growing up.
Every other Sunday she would visit her uncle’s home where she spent her childhood, playing euchre and eating her aunt’s cakes and having tea with the family, reminisced Glover.
Because they grew up in Ottawa, their subscription to The Equity would keep them in the loop. When they were younger she and her sister would come back from university, sit down and read their aunt’s column. Just for fun, Glover would read it in Anna’s voice, she laughed thinking back to that memory.
“It was always something ridiculous, the way that she tells stories is so specific to just that world and it just reminded me of everything good that was there,” she said.
For Glover, The Equity was a way for her to stay close to her family. “It’s got a nostalgic charm to it,” said Glover. Something you can not get from other bigger newspapers, she pointed out.
Growing up, Glover was always artsy but what cemented her love for pottery was doing a co-op with a potter and painter, which later turned into an apprenticeship.
After that, she decided to study Fine Art at the University of Guelph. Later she went into teaching. She currently is a ceramics artist and art teacher at Canterbury High School in Ottawa, she has been there eight years, but has been teaching for about 20 years.
Since setting up her own studio in her home, she hopes to continue to create more sculptures and start displaying them in different galleries. She explained she likes creating art that has to do with community, which is why this series is special to her.
Currently only one of the jugs is on display but Glover hopes to find a gallery for all five of the sculptures.
“This ceramic stuff is all fairly new. So this is the start, this is the beginning.”
She said that she plans to create more as she hopes to use all the excerpts that mention her uncle James in them, as well as redo some of them to match the smudged newspaper theme she was going for.
“I heard this really cool quote about clay, it goes, ‘it’s fragile with a chance of immortality which is fantastic. Because it could break at any moment, right? Or literally, in a couple of thousand years, someone picks it up,” said Glover.
