Sassamatt

Everett Baker travelled around Saskatchewan with his 35mm camera loaded with colour slide film. This is an interesting example of early colour photographer, being done by local photographers. His images can be found on the following site. Below are a few examples. https://everettbakerslides.smugmug.com/Photography

Mr & Mrs George Posnikoff at home. Aneroid. 09/15/1949

Harvesting oats. Brightsand. 11/23/1954. W.J. White of Maple Creek and crew going for hay. Cypress Hills. 08/27/1948

www.sassamatt.com

Artist Residency, April 2022

We arrived on April 1st at the Wallace Stegner house after a three-day journey through the landslides and heavy weather of British Columbia, emerging onto a high prairie and its large skies. The sounds of travel were quieter on the broadly divided highway moving lazily over and around the subtle undulations of the terrain; then we turned onto 21, and the adventure began.

Stegner’s Eastend family home on the Frenchman River offered a warm reception. It was well outfitted for our arrival. Everything we needed for a comfortable working stay was there for us. It allowed us to unpack quickly, settle in and begin to work. 

The Road to Shawnavon

On the second floor was the bedroom with a view of the street and an office equipped with items we might need to work, everything from pencils to a printer. The bookshelves were filled with resource books about the area, literary journals, and writers’ guides of all sorts. Between the two rooms,  a small, well-curated library of books immediately got my attention, months of books, I want to pour through.

A Dog Leg Road Back to Eastend

We wandered out back and saw that the Frenchman River, so eloquently described in Stegner’s Wolf Willow, was just across the lane. On the other side lay the hillside and the river valley. How can one not be inspirited by this setting? Over the next few days Edward began to explore the town during his morning walks, camera in hand, and in the late morning driving the roads that curve out from the centre of the town in all directions. In those curves, the town reaches out into the valleys, coulees, mesas and benches an embracing them and their history.

Conglomerate Valley

Phyllis begin reading to understand the sense of place, foraging through the library, taking in the nuances and history page after page. In the afternoon during their walks, her eyes fixed on the ground, studying the plants and materials, and contemplating what camera-less photographic material she might use to record a sense of this place. It was spare landscape, and the plants were not yet prepared to show a hint of green. Thoughts of Lumen  Printing techniques, photographic papers, sheet film and cyanotype methods mixed with her study of the vegetation. 

Alkali Grass in the Morning Fog

We walked through the streets of Eastend and took in the various buildings. Later we discovered many had been relocated here and others resurrected, like the Stegner house. On Redcoat Drive and Maple Avenue, businesses housed within buildings that may have served many purpose over the years, and then handed down to the next generation.

Eastend Grain Elevator

Inside the Stegner House, artists had left paintings on the wall, books on the bookshelves, ceremonial documents and photographs. We could see this was a place where previous residents had created new directions, gathered from previous artists, were cared for by the town, and works had flown forth. We thought we knew the prairies from personal experience and having come of age when classic Canadian writers had created landscape characters in novels and poetry about this expansive, historically layered terrain. 

Homestead Remains

On our creative journey we met guides who took us through Eastend’s historical and geographic paths, sharing the history both written, unwritten and to be written. The more that was absorbed, the more our language moved and changed with the nuisances of the town. Embedded in these nuances were tones of knowledge passed down by those who had arrived in the last two centuries and those who had been here before.

April Snow

Following a Surprise Spring Blizzard, we were treated to a Prairie Winter Redux, a rare rolling back of time and season to watch with artist’s eyes how winter stillness awakens slowly and only when the time is right. The wind, the snow, and the fickling sunshine brought great inspiration and surprise to our visual art. The visually dynamic weather somehow made a connection with the new landscape.

During our stay we found new artistic avenues to explore; developed the foundation for a new exhibition; gathered the material to produce a photographic book of our experience, and developed skills we intend to pass on to other artists in our teachings. Our residency at the Wallace Stegner House made all this possible. We are thankful for this opportunity and the warm embrace of the Eastend Arts Council and the people of Eastend.