Artists in Fredericton residency program put public work on display

Tucked under the shade in Fredericton’s Botanic Garden, Gary Crosby hammers and chisels, giving a large log new meaning. Slice by slice, the wood chips fall and a face forms. He’s carving a mythological Green Man.

For the seventh summer, public art is on display and the city’s Artist in Residency program is offering a window into the world of how someone’s creativity becomes their creation.

“The Green man is a combination mixture of a human figure and forest leaves and growth. It’s usually a sign of spring,” Crosby said.

At Killarney Lake Park on Fredericton’s Northside, Sarah Maloney eyes her surroundings to inspire her creations. Last week she embroidered flowers.

This week, she’s making wax moulds of Lady’s Slippers and finches that will be cast in bronze. Her work responds to the natural world. Art is how she understands it.

“It’s how I make the world make sense through looking at things and making things in response to the things I see and learn and observe and collect and immerse myself in the natural environment,” Maloney said.

Crosby and Maloney are Fredericton’s latest summer Artists in Residence. It’s a rotating program that lasts two weeks and includes eight artists between the end of June and August. Each gets a weekly stipend from the city.

“They’re in residence for two weeks. And they just get to create based on their environment. And it’s an opportunity for people using the park to meet an artist, see what they’re up to,” said Angela Watson, Fredericton’s Cultural Development Officer.

Crosby joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1981 and has toured in Germany, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Afghanistan and Honduras. Carving offers an escape.

“The rest of the world falls away, and I just focus on what I’m doing,” he said.

Thirty monarch butterflies he carved now rest atop the rafters of Fredericton’s Bill Thorpe Walking Bridge, a popular spot for locals and tourists alike. He’s also made sculptures of Mother Nature and a Green Man for Fundy National Park.

During his residency, he will also construct a sculpture that will feature in a short story.

“There’s a short story which I’m building into a book about, a young UNB student who finds a Green Man in the forest that just sort of came to life,” Crosby said.

Maloney is a contemporary sculptor and textile artist. A survey of more than 25 years of her work will be on display at Fredericton’s Beaverbrook Art Gallery until Oct. 19. The works are part of an exhibition called Sarah Maloney’s Pleasure Ground: A Feminist Take on the Natural World.

One of the highlights includes a display called Water Level, which exhibits several bronze water lilies and lily pads on steel stems. When walking through, you can imagine walking through a pond or lake at water level.

But on this day, her focus is on a workshop for the public. It’s part of the residency.

“Mostly it’s to pique their curiosity about things and get them to see something in a new light,” she said.

Last week she taught embroidery. This week it’s clay modelling.

Steve Banks brought his two granddaughters back to this week’s workshop after enjoying the first week so much.

“Spending a couple hours quality time, it’s nice,” he said.

Both artists bring people along for their journey.

“Any of this stuff I’ve got here, they get to see it being created and being done and what my thought process is as I go through it,” said Crosby, adding that seeing art hanging on a wall or in a gallery or shop is one thing to actually talk to the artist as they create it is another perspective.

“It just creates more questions. And the inquiring minds want to know.”