Landscape as Muse, Season V (2009)
(Documentary Series, Seasons I-V, 51x30 minutes)
The Gemini Award-winning Landscape as Muse showcases both the world-class artists and spectacular landscapes that are found in Canada. Following the artist's gaze, this beautiful cinematic program examines the inspirational relationship that exists between art and landscape.
Shot in nine provinces, two territories, and two countries; and featuring major Canadian artists, Landscape as Muse has established itself as one of the most comprehensive documentary programs of contemporary Canadian visual arts that exists.
Gemini Award Winner
(Best Arts Documentary Program or Series)
S5E546: "The Searcher with John Chalke"
Governor General’s Award-winning ceramicist John Chalke is an explorer, cowboy, and child at heart. His search for the perfect clay leads him to Saskatchewan’s Frenchman River Valley. Later in his Calgary studio, he uses both rigorous and playful techniques as well as sophisticated glazes to create experimental pieces. Finally, a firing in his kiln transforms the earth into elegant works of art.
S5E547: "Clayoquot Sound with Fae Logie"
Sculptor and installation artist, Fae Logie’s meticulous artworks speak to the rhythms and textures of the west coast. A combination of found objects and natural materials, her pieces come to life when placed within the landscape. We travel with Fae to Clayoquot Sound where she installs works that seem at home on the rain swept beaches and thick rainforest of Vancouver Island.
S5E548: "Lake Superior with Michael Belmore"
Michael Belmore is an Ojibway sculptor and installation artist whose work explores our cultural connection to nature – its raw materials in particular. On the shores of the massive Lake Superior, Belmore crafts an intricate relief map of the place he grew up, where civilization meets wilderness. With mallet, chisel, and torch in hand, he patiently hammers a copper plate, allowing the Lake Superior tide to roll in to cool the hot metal.
S5E549: "The West Coast with Takao Tanabe"
A critic once remarked that “if you've seen one Tanabe, you've seen them all.” Revered painter Takao Tanabe doesn't disagree with this statement, yet it hasn't stopped him from painting landscapes for the past thirty-five years. A close examination of his canvasses reveals subtle changes in atmosphere, colour, tone and a lack of visible brush strokes. Camera and sketchbook in hand, Tanabe travels on land and sea in the North Vancouver Island area, bringing six decades of painting history to bear on the vistas and horizon line of the sea and islands.
S5E550: "Bay of Fundy with Thaddeus Holownia"
Thaddeus Holownia has dedicated his career to conveying the soul inherent in architectural, urban, and natural landscapes. Working in black and white with a 7x17" view-camera, Holownia travels around New Brunswick and Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy – home to the highest tides in the world. Here he photographs the dynamic tides, subtle marshlands, and luminous mudflats of the region.
S5E551: "Athabasca Sand Dunes with Sandra Meigs"
Self-described "Gothic painter," Sandra Meigs travels from her Victoria home to remote northwestern Saskatchewan's enigmatic Athabasca Sand Dunes. Spanning almost 2000 square kilometres the isolated Dunes are Canada’s largest active sand surface -- and the most northerly active dunes on earth. These Dunes are home to at least nine species of plant not found anywhere else in the world. Observes Sandra,
“…everything has its own three feet of territory. A plant has its own little system. And the creatures that need it to survive. It's a beautiful living organism. I think of this, where we are, as an organism. And we're here relating to it.”
Back at her studio, Meigs completes a very large painting featuring an imaginary sand dune creature, inspired by the journey.
