Artist's Statement

Fred Franzen's

Lobster fishing in Nova Scotia ends each year May 29th. Peter and I travelled to the southwestern region of the province to join some of my new found fishermen friends to document what happens on a typical day late in the season on a lobster boat.

When in Nova Scotia, I stay with my brother, who lives in Woodvale, half a mile inland on the Bay of Fundy's French shore. I have visited him there several times over the last few years. The area never fails to inspire me. The spirit of the sea is ever-present.

"The only sound you hear is the sound you make" as a neighbour puts it. But the ocean is almost always audible.

This time, I decided to make many small works with large expanses of horizons and tree lines that point dramatically inland along the coast. At my brother's I had use of the indoor workspace for rainy weather, and a large outdoor table under a canopy of pines he planted nearly 30 years ago.

Sometimes I would walk to the closest beach and work. Making it easy for myself, I would only take several small panels along with a minimal amount of tools and matgerials to sketch and paint. Then one day I decided to take along a hammer and nails.

I found a stretch of beach with unlimited amounts of material to make my kind of sculpture: all manner of bleached wood, parts of lobster traps, and most of all, bits of coloured rope; offcuts that are washed onto beaches along the shore. Nearly 500 lobster boats operate in this region of the Bay of Fundy.

Picture me: an old guy with a large hat putting bits of flotsam into little bundles. Call them shamanic verses. How do you put a price on that?

Peter Gugeler's

I had the great priveledge and luck to travel with Fred Franzen as he journeyed to his brother's home near Yarmouth Nova Scotia. I was determined to continue my hounding of The Artist at Work, interviewing and studying this rare specimen, and here I had the most patient example at my side for a full week.

There were two highlights of the trip: being a guest on a lobster fishing vessel, and wandering through a ship graveyard. I was overwhelmed by the sense of the spirit of the sea, this gigantic, embracing beast of power and beauty. Drifing through the wreckage of the sea and the detritus of the fishing industry, that awe of the sea, and the spirits of past fishermen, etched my consciousness as finely as the rust etched the metal ships.

My contribution to this art exhibit is a dialogue between new digital image capture and traditional analogue media; between pixels and painting; between the representation of the sea and the experience of the sea; and of the story of the land, as seen through two different lenses: the eye and the camera.

In my video work, I hope to bring the beast to heel in front of you, so you may see it's glory and fierce beauty. My dialogues with Fred intermix with the aural dominance of the howling creature.

In my photographic prints, I hope to bring the texture and haunting presence of the spirits of the sea, the cast-off children of a fisherman's life.

May the viewer's experience of this dialogue be as rich and provocative as I found my time out with Fred Franzen, on the Bay of Fundy..

Price Range
Please contact gallery for prices