Telling the stories of people often overlooked in society
Prince Albert artist’s portraits show the folks others ‘really never get to know’
Gerald makes his living in “the land of plenty,” picking bottles from people’s trash and recycling in Regina.
No longer stealing or using drugs, he hasn’t been to jail for 15 years.
He lives in a basement apartment thanks to income assistance — he says he can’t work due to a hernia.
In a portrait by Prince Albert artist Kathie Bird, he’s standing between two red garbage bins with a big grin on his face.
The painting is one of 14 pieces that make up In The Margins, an art exhibition now on display at the University of Regina’s Archer Library, designed to “introduce the viewers to people who self-identify as marginalized in society.”
“I’ve always wanted to bring together more understanding of (people), the guy who’s digging in the garbage bins in the back alley, things like that,” said Bird, who was artist-in-residence in the U of R faculty of social work last year.
Through this project, Bird continued work she had begun with a 2013 portrait.
It was then she met a man on a park bench who told her simply, “I am a writer.”
His name was Augie Merasty, and his memoir The Education of Augie Merasty is now a widely acclaimed bestseller through University of Regina Press.
Her meticulously painted portrait of him — paint and coloured varnish applied to a canvas using an eyedropper — serves as his author photo.
Bird, a mental health therapist in Prince Albert, has long been “fascinated by meeting people … who live on the outskirts of society, people that sometimes other people might want to avoid and really never get to know.”
“How many people stop and actually chat and get to know those people?” she added.
Sometimes their stories are more complex than one might guess — like that of a Prince Albert man named Murray.
He was a truck driver, a homeowner and a father. Now he is nearly blind due to a brain tumour and unable to walk due to multiple sclerosis.
“He had a basically mainstream normal life and … he lost everything,” said Bird.
Riding around the city on a three-wheeled bike, “He looks like maybe a derelict, going around collecting bottles, but they don’t know the story behind it,” added Bird.
Through portraits of people living in Prince Albert, Saskatoon and Regina — and their narratives accompanying each piece — Bird hopes to foster some compassion and “the willingness to get to know people who are different that them.”
Four social work students assisted Bird, as she based eight pieces on interviews and photographs the students had done in Saskatoon and Regina.
It was a challenging process at times for Mikaela Musqua, who is nearly finished her social work degree.
“As a future social worker, you get all this education on how to identify if ‘this person is this,’” said Musqua. “It’s really hard to keep your own judgments in check, because you assume that ‘because you’re homeless, you’re unhappy, we need to fix this.’”
As she learned, that is not always the case.
Musqua’s own paintings are displayed in the exhibition, as she has grappled with fitting “in the margins” of society.
Part Indigenous and part Caucasian, she has “really struggled with my identity and figuring out where I am in society,” said Musqua.
“Through this project I kind of did my own self-discovery.”
In The Margins is on display in The Archway exhibition space, on the main floor of the Archer Library.