Behind the Exhibit: Cross Cut

Your new exhibit Cross Cut is a series of linocuts. Can you explain what a linocut is to those who might be unfamiliar?

Linocuts are prints on paper made from inking images carved in linoleum, originally a flooring material. In the early 1860s Frederick Walton invented linoleum in an experimental factory in Chiswick, England from a mixture of oxidized linseed oil, cork dust and pine resin with a backing of jute cloth. He patented this affordable flooring material in 1863. In 1897 Austrian artist, teacher and education reformer Franz Cižek started the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna, with classes for five to fourteen year olds. He began using linoleum as a medium in his art classes, being softer and easier to cut than wood, and therefore ideal for small hands. Through Cižek’s broad range of influential art friends, the use of linoleum as a printing medium started to spread through Europe. German expressionist artists from the collective Die Brücke (The Bridge) such as Erich Heckel and Gabriele Munter made their first recorded prints around 1903. Since then artists like Matisse, Picasso and Kandinsky have used the medium effectively in their art practice.

Rob Niezen’s linocuts use both the traditional method of carving, and contemporary and experimental ways of mark making, including drilling, scratching, laser engraving and etching with lye—going against the grain of the traditional technique, as it were. Linocuts invoke the era of the chosen traditional songs. By applying innovative techniques, and adding contemporary elements to historical scenes, he conveys the parallels and juxtapositions of then and now.

Can you let us know who Edith Fowke is? What is her connection to the exhibit?

CBC radio host and folklorist Edith Fowke collected thousands of songs in rural Ontario from 1956 to 1964. She taped her first field recordings at Towns’ General Store in Douro, five kilometres from artist Rob Niezen’s home. The origin of these songs dates back to a period of 1820 to 1950. Folkways Records produced five vinyl albums from Edith Fowke’s field recordings. In 1986, the Smithsonian Institution of Washington D.C. acquired Folkways Records and still keeps the recordings available to the public through streaming and on CD. In addition to the recordings, Edith Fowke created 15 song books based on her research. The majority of the linocuts for the Cross Cut exhibition are based on songs that Edith Fowke recorded in Eastern Ontario, including Peterborough and the Kawarthas. Rob learned about Edith Fowke and of songs she collected through workshops led by historian and musician Dr. Allan Kirby at Lang Pioneer Village Museum near Keene.

What type of themes exist within this exhibit?

The linocuts address a broad range of themes that are as relevant today as they were 200 year ago: love, politics, crime, war, immigration, work and leisure, as well as murder and death. Folk songs make these themes accessible, and makes the bridging of historical and contemporary social issues approachable for many. We interpret visuals based on our backgrounds and personal history, and the narratives of these linocuts as an accompaniment to the song lyrics inspire reflections on society then and now. Just as folksongs in the traditional sense do. Lyrics and tunes were adapted to local experiences and the personal preferences of the players, and offer a reflection of society at different moments in history. The underlying themes however are of a timeless nature, as they deal with human existence.

The exhibition includes narratives of settlement and immigration with Charming Sally Greer, Scarborough Settler’s Lament and Opeongo Line. The Cobalt Song is as much about settlement and boom towns as about mining exploration and extraction of natural resources.

“The Battle of Queenston Heights” and Battle of the Windmill feature the theme of war (and peace) and rebellion, while “Farewell to Mackenzie” is a politically informed song about Mackenzie’s appeal for reforms in England and the linocut makes the bridge to our constitutional right to vote.

The old Ontario songs count numerous tunes about logging. Thematically these songs are about seasonal labour as well as mechanization and ecology. Examples are River Driver, Shantyboy’s Alphabet and The New Limit Line. The logging song New Limit Line for example, describes the 19th century seasonal trek from summer work on the farm to the logging shanties in the winter;  today it is agriculture that needs seasonal workers, which come from the Caribbean islands, Mexico and Central America to work the Ontario fields in summer, and live in caravans and bunkhouses or other modern day equivalents of the shanties.

Local songs like The Backwoodsman (featuring Omemee and Downeyville) and Bill Dunbar (Kinmount, Pigeon Lake), and Saturday Night in the Kawarthas are about leisure, but their narratives carry multiple themes: The Backwoodsman is equally about work and neglecting one’s duties, as about drinking and partying, whereas the Ballad of Bill Dunbar is as much about the perils of winter travel. Beans, Bacon and Gravy and Trans Canada Highway are songs from the depression years that add to the labour theme from the point of view of not having work and of poverty. Trans Canada Highway is about hard labour and also about nation building, a theme that can also be found in earlier mentioned Opeongo Line and The Cobalt Song.

Death is a recurring theme in many traditional songs. What’s the Life of a Man is a philosophical song about death and our time on earth. Maggie Howie and Hanging of Reginald Burchill are murder ballads about real events in Ontario, while Barbara Allen is a song about love and death that goes back as far as the 16th century. Johnston’s Hotel is about jail and petty crime. Fair and Tender Ladies and Mary Ann are songs about love, although not necessarily happy ones. Mary Ann is a sailor’s song, and a sailor's life is still a life of saying goodbye and long stretches of time away from loved ones. Fair and Tender Ladies (also titled Little Sparrow) deals with broken promises and flighty suitors, and current day luring via social media.

The exhibition invites us to reflect on the lives of Canadians from the past and today; superficially things have changed, but human nature and the dynamics of society are not that different from the past.