SPECIAL EXHIBIT
Lefurgey Cultural Centre, Wyatt House are celebrating 150th anniversaries with a special project.
Canada is not alone in celebrating its 150th birthday this year.
The Lefurgey Cultural Centre and the Wyatt House in Summerside are also marking sesquicentennial anniversaries.
To celebrate, 20 P.E.I. artists were asked to take part in a creative exercise. They were invited to tour the Wyatt house, select an artifact or two from the collection and bring them to life through a work of visual art.
“We assembled the artists on a particular evening, broke them into three groups and three staff members accompanied them on the tour, with extra time allowed for questions. We asked them to keep an open mind,” says Jean MacKay, one of the event organizers.
Each participating artist came with a different background.
“Some had never been in the house. Others, who had been in Summerside a long time, knew Miss Wyatt,” says MacKay.
After the artists had their tour, there were refreshments and a draw. The name of the first person drawn from the hat was Eddy Schwartz. He chose the “The Tea Set” at Wyatt House.
His is one of the 20 completed works that line the walls of the drawing room of the LeFurgey Cultural Centre in Summerside where they provide insight into the lives of the people who once lived there.
“Wanda and Tawny” by Bernadette Kernaghan is a painting of a cat and a nightgown disappearing on the stairs.
“Wanda always had a cat and the artist had known about the cat,” says MacKay, pointing to the work.
Nearby, “The Girls Day Off” by Grace Curtis is a painting of a young woman looking into a mirror as she combs her hair. The artist was inspired to create the piece after stepping into the maid’s room of the Wyatt House, while on tour.
“I felt a camaraderie with the maid who was just a girl, but held a household of new responsibilities. The room — too — inspired me as a delightful, girlish space. The eyelash windows and vintage blue-green walls instantly caught my imagination,” writes Curtis on her website.
The artist also romanticized about the 1940s era and wondered what life was like, at that time.
“The fine details of the room, the 1940s calendar, which inspired the magazine in her lap, the charming quilt and tiny vases on the window sill were perfect hints at a great story.”
But her focus turned to the other side of the young woman’s life. Curtis learned
that the maid would receive one afternoon off a week.
“One maid who worked in the Wyatt House, 85 Spring St., in the 1970s explained that Thursday afternoons were sometimes free as well (if no-one was expected for tea). Free time was most often a day out and away with friends, but sometimes friends would be invited to into the little room for a fun get-together.”
But, in this piece, her apron has been tossed aside, her curlers are out and her handbag is ready.
“She was just a girl looking forward to a day off,” says Curtis who came back at a later date with a model and posed her in the chair.
MacKay loves the painting. “It’s very authentic,” she says.
Island artist Wayne Wright knew Wyatt and so he painted her portrait into the lively work, “You’re My Mona Lisa”.
“His painting was very interesting because he brought a lot of things together, including the tiger pelt and the Mona Lisa (print) in the front room. The elephants represent Wyatt’s world travels.
“There’s also the children that go (to the house) every Christmas to learn about her life.”
The exhibition runs until the end of September.