Comfort and Connections

HELD OVER UNTIL JULY 3, 2009

This is a duo exhibit by Irene Boudreau, photographer and Carolyn Ritchie Bedford, a painter and sculptor from Port Hawkesbury. Both artists are cancer survivors and from discussions about the recovery process, spoke on ways of their healing. After a Relay for Life event, where Carolyn drew the overnight participants as they slept, the drawings became an inspiration to design an artwork from the shapes of figures in blankets. Meanwhile Irene discovered her love of the garden and a passion for macro photography which sustained her during her recovery.

The blanketed figures and the garden are seen as a metaphor for life’s journey as contained from bloom to old age. A whole process is revealed in the garden activities along with its multiple support systems. The blankets are a source of comfort in emotional and physical hard times during events or highlights of a lifetime and are revealed as life’s post marks.

We take comfort in our connection to each other and the world around us. From this connection we receive the nourishment, care and support required to develop.

In the aftermath of a severe storm, we retreat to a safe, calm, quiet place, closed up tight, focused in the bud of recovery. We absorb the essentials of life often unaware of the source. We slowly begin to bloom once again opening to life, receiving our requirements from the world around us, relying on a support structure to keep us nourished and cared for.   It is here that the seeds for tomorrow are sowed and we begin again.

None of us make it in this world alone. We would like to thank the support systems who are so essential to the journey.