A reflection from Coordinating Instructor Jean Rooney

Process – From Ideation to Creation

Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.

Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

—Rumi (Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī & Barks, 2003, p. 123).

The creative process tells a story. Like any captivating story, it draws us in, fires our imagination and demands all of us. This exciting journey is about the evolution of an idea, progressing through our thoughts and our actions into a final finished form. We live this story. Along the way, we hone our craft, develop our skills, and we wrestle with challenges. We are changed, becoming all the richer for having had the experience.

But the recent pandemic has highlighted a paradox; our artists and designers have never been more needed and appreciated yet face a profound threat to their work. Creators as a group have been significantly impacted financially worldwide. In our isolation in the ‘Quarintimes,’ we have hungered for stories, images, and music to mind us, entertain us and bring us connection through this pandemic. These emerging artists and designers from Advanced Studio Practice at NBCCD are continuing vital work in modelling how to adapt, renew and survive. This exhibition is a hopeful story of their lived experiences.

This graduate showcase celebrates five students’ work that demonstrates their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The results of Audrey Arsenault, Ben Elder-Gomes, Jodi Haley, Amy MacDonald, and Lee McLean’s works tell a story of achievement and tenacity. Their habit and persistence in practice have sustained them. We join them in celebrating their graduation into creative futures. In choosing this path, they have recognized the importance of the handmade. The importance of making and doing is a decolonizing act, is an anti-consumerism act, and is a social action of vital importance for the world we live in on Turtle Island.

While this is not the end of our graduates’ learning, it marks a milestone in completing their Advanced Studio Practice educational journey. We must acknowledge that as we celebrate, our Indigenous brothers and sisters are in mourning. We mourn with them for the loss of 215 children of the Kamloops residential school. We are reminded of how privileged we are and how our students are fortunate to have survived their educational experience, but others have not been so fortunate. As we move forward in these critical times of restorative justice, we hope that we will never forget these lost children. We will work as emerging artists, designers, and fine craft practitioners to seek justice and healing and truly listen to Indigenous voices. Only when we desire and celebrate Indigenous traditions, and language, and ways of knowing and being can any of us say we cherish culture or the arts.

This exhibition, Process, highlights our valued emerging artists and designers as meaning-makers in New Brunswick. Their handmade works and labour bring hope, connection, build inclusion, sustainability, and a way to ‘speak back’ through their work. It is my hope that these talented Advanced Studio Practice graduates will continue their important work and creative influenc­­­e by building meaning and connection through their making in our Province. It is also my hope that we will respond by supporting, encouraging and valuing their work in return.