Artist: Beth Alber
The place of women in our Canadian culture has been the major theme in my work for the last few years. I have looked at myself as a middle class, middle aged woman and assessed how I have chosen to live, the particular choices I have made and the ramifications of those choices. This search has propelled me to look further in our society. My journey has taken me to research the angst of younger women and their insecurities and to the other extreme, to issues surrounding violence against women. The work resulting from these searches has heavily relied on the use of materials to express the concepts.
Granite has been used to express our geographical place and the internal, unspoken knowledge of who we are, where we belong and our heritage to the land whether born to it or adopted.
Steel has been used to express the industrialization in our society, its strength, our dependence on this material, and the patriarchy surrounding it. I have work with steel deliberately to frame my work and shift the position from industry to home and the vital importance of the role of the care takers in our families. The work focuses on the importance of everyday activities in our individual lives.
The noble metal, silver, has been used to imbue power on the everyday activities associated with the preparation of food and nourishment.
The physical activity of working with these materials has imparted important information to the works. The activity could be striking the steel with a hammer, or forging the silver or cutting the granite with a chisel or a sandblaster. Careful attention to details adds powerful clues to the work and clarifies the concept. Photo documentation of the process has also added depth and clarity to the work and also the research and development stages.