Barbara Goretzky is a local artist who lives and works in the Qu’Appelle Valley. Her exhibition titled “Diggers” is in the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre’s Mosaic Art Gallery until Jan. 23.
“Diggers” showcases the obsession of humanity with altering the environment around them for their convenience. Goretzky was partly inspired by watching heavy equipment working around the artificially-created Wascana Lake in Regina.
Her pieces reflect on the often tenuous line between reshaping the environment for our pleasure and comfort, and our enjoyment of the natural world. The irony is that most people don’t want to go walking through an undeveloped forest or a pristine natural swamp. We prefer gravel or asphalt paths, and undergrowth cleared enough for a view through the trees. We want to feel safe from things like poison ivy, large animals, venomous snakes, and ankle-breaking deadfall.
In the end, we want our nature just natural enough, and we use machines to make it that way.
“I wanted to show that big equipment, but bursting with lots of colours, leaves, flora, and fauna,” Goretzky told MooseJawToday.com. “To show that, you know, when we do things with the big machinery, I hope that it’s always for the better.”
Goretzky said her interest has been long-term. Two of her brothers-in-law worked at a coal mine in Tumbler Ridge, BC, and she always hoped she’d get to ride in (or even drive) one of the massive earth-movers they used there. She resisted making art out of machinery for several years because her fascination seemed to conflict with the current push toward environmentalism.
What is colloquially called the “Big Dig” at Wascana Lake created a park that Goretzky said she loves to visit when she’s in Regina. “Wascana Lake is beautiful. I just thought the ‘Big Dig’ was a fabulous thing for the city to do… but we have to stop and think, because sometimes what we do doesn’t make things all that great.”
Along with the artificial diggers, Goretzky’s exhibition features ground-dwelling animals such as foxes, gophers, and jackrabbits. These animals also make a practice of modifying their surroundings, albeit at so much smaller a scale that the comparison cannot be used as justification.
Having animals alongside the machinery mirrors the hope that we can realize a cooperation between what is completely natural, and what can be said to be completely artificial. Goretzky wonders what it might be like to use our incredible landscaping ability for the benefit of animals as well.
Perhaps the fusion that “Diggers” reflects will find increasing acceptance for humankind – an invitation for harmony that relinquishes some control to wildness, rather than the rejection of that wildness in favour of glass, concrete, and herbicide.
Barbara Goretzky: Diggers is sponsored by the Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils (osac.ca). Moose Jaw is the exhibit’s last stop, and it will leave on January 23. It can be viewed at the Cultural Centre during regular hours, Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
