December 14 - December 20, 2011

From December 14-20, come visit the museum’s boat shed during museum hours to view this ceramic installation using a small wooden boat which includes 150 codfish. “Ceramics is the focus for my Bachelor of Fine Art and has been my passion for the past decade. My practice includes throwing, slip casting and hand building with stoneware and porcelain. I choose to bring my work out of the studio and into the public domain,” says the artist. This showing is for the graduation show of Ms. St. John of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. The artists vision for A Fish Tale: The Grand Banks is rich with life and in the past with cod. Cod kept communities like The Battery, Bonavista and Placentia alive. The fishermen would risk their lives in dory's, rowing out into the vast ocean and cod jiggin enough to fill their boats to the waters mark. My focus this semester is to capture the moment in time where fisherman's life is most at risk. With a full boat load of Cod to feed the family, dry and sell to the fish mongers, the men turn home. The sea has a mind of its own though and is not always ready to give. There are times when the sea swells and the winds would rise up and throw the small fishing boats around in the swell. It was not rare that the men would have to through their catch overboard in hopes to make it back alive. This unfortunate moment when the fisherman realizes he must heave his catch overboard in order to return home safely is the moment which I am trying to achieve. This mix of frustration and angish, when one has to choose between life and fish.