“Spirit Horses Lodge” ©2013 Jan­ice Tan­ton. Oil on bel­gian linen. 40“x72” Pur­chased by Cen­ovus Energy Inc.

Ear­lier this year, I was invited along with 36 artists  in Alberta and Saskatchewan to par­tic­i­pate in the inau­gural “Cen­ovus Art Com­pe­ti­tion”. The focus of the com­pe­ti­tion was to iden­tify “under-recognized artists” in Alberta and Saskatchewan, in the form of a com­pe­ti­tion. Nor­mally, I don’t go in for these sort of things, but I liked what the com­pany was propos­ing to do.

For too long, many of us “older” artists have tired to see big art com­pe­ti­tions such as the Sobey Award and the RBC Art Com­pe­ti­tion in Canada focus on the “young”…the “up and com­ing”. If you’re under 40 or a recent grad — there’s big bucks in art com­pe­ti­tions in Canada. Kind of makes this senior feel like dog food at times, to tell the truth. I’m thank­ful Cen­ovus looked at mer­i­tous work­ing artists. And I’m super excited that local col­leagues David Fox­croft and Michael Cameron were rec­og­nized as “hon­ourable mentions”!

It was nice to be rec­og­nized for not being rec­og­nized, and then rec­og­nized. Ha. Odd…but true.

Some of my strongest pieces were too large for the specs in the com­pe­ti­tion, so the dif­fi­cult task I had was to find some­thing I felt wor­thy of my cur­rent prac­tice, beliefs and thoughts as an artist. Com­ing off the CAMP exhi­bi­tion (my first ever solo pub­lic exhi­bi­tion) at Oko­toks Art Gallery, I chose “Spirit Horse Lodges” for my entry into the competition.

Artist State­ment — Spirit Horse Lodges

“Title: Spirit Horse Lodges
Dimen­sions: 40”x72”x2.25”
Medium: Oil on linen

No artist worth their salt can engage in deep research and sub­ject mat­ter from a dis­tance. They must be immersed, involved and see them­selves as part of the work, the place and the spirit. My prac­tice focuses with all of my soul, my heart and my emo­tion, on cross-cultural rela­tion­ships and “the space between” .

With an eye to the objec­tive – the rep­re­sen­ta­tional, but with a paint­brush filled with move­ment, spir­i­tual guid­ance and immer­sion, I cre­ated “Spirit Horse Lodges” which describes the three aspects of our Human exis­tance – the real, (the touch­able), the spir­i­tual and most impor­tantly the Super­nat­ural – the space in between. As a tipi holder, hav­ing spent many star­lit and stormy nights in Sik­sika under the cover of the tipi can­vas, the tipi comes to rep­re­sent our house, our body, the nat­ural and the spirit world. The sto­ries and songs inter­wo­ven with the expe­ri­ence of being in and of the tipi are sacred. They come alive when spo­ken and told in front of the fire, with an energy that draws us all together and cre­ates mean­ing in our lives.

Spirit Horse Lodges sym­bol­izes our human link to com­mu­nity, four tipis rep­re­sent­ing the turns of the med­i­cine wheel, the sea­sons, and the peri­ods of our lives. The red ochre, a sacred colour car­ries the sig­nif­i­cance of fire and life as just two of their many mean­ings. The run­ning horses, some “real” and actual part of the design of the tipi, take on a spirit, energy con­nec­tion as they leap from one lodge to another, sig­ni­fy­ing our con­nec­tion to each other in com­mu­nity and to the supernatural’s and spirit world. The horses (Ponoka-mitaa) them­selves, a social and spir­i­tual part­ner to humans, illus­trate in all their dif­fer­ent colours and moods – who and how we can be, together.”

I hear from the com­pany, that a great deal of dis­cus­sion took place around my work. This pleases me immensely, as at the core of what I do and why I paint is to question.…to cre­ate dia­logue and span those spaces “in-between”.

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While my piece did not win the glory and the much–cov­eted pub­lic­ity of the award, there was some sweet vic­tory for me in know­ing that the dis­cus­sions around the topic of the work were had, AND.…Cenovus went wayyyy beyond the com­pe­ti­tion and pur­chased the work for their cor­po­rate col­lec­tion. This is tes­ti­mony enough for me that the right pieces end up in the right places. I’m excited! Not only that, it helps to sup­port our fam­ily through some very dif­fi­cult times — spir­i­tu­ally and financially.

May you always take a step out­side your com­fort zone to explore new territory.

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Oh…and the jury for this new com­petion? Have an eyebrow-raising look. Impressive!

Chris Cran, senior artist

Cather­ine Crow­ston, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Alberta Art Gallery

Lynda Haver­stock, an avid sup­porter of the arts who was hon­ourary patron to many arts orga­ni­za­tions dur­ing her tenure as lieutenant-governor of Saskatchewan

Ann McCaig, phil­an­thropist

Brett Wil­son, a well-known entre­pre­neur and art collector