If the Crow Doesn’t Fly: PEI artists accept that not everyone will love their work

Gerald Beaulieu accepts that his art makes some people uncomfortable. For an artist, it’s part of the territory.

Consider his piece When Rubber Hits The Road, two large sculptures of “dead” crows made from recycled tires.

It was positively received when it debuted at Art in the Open in Charlottetown in 2018, a city that is occasionally besieged by crows. People understood how it literally illustrated the “consequences of our collision with the natural world,” as Beaulieu describes it.

The work has since been shown in five counties and one of the crows was purchased by the Beaverbrook Gallery in Fredericton.

The Other Crow debuted in Ottawa earlier this month — and not everyone liked it.

“It gets the whole gamut of responses, [from] people who absolutely love it against people who also hate it,” Beaulieu said. “They think it’s grim. They think it’s inappropriate.”

The answer doesn’t always have to be just cheers and approval. I think discomfort is also a perfectly valid thing.— Pan Wendt

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, says Pan Wendt, the curator of the Confederation Center Art Gallery in Charlottetown.

Anticipating how people will react to an artwork is an important factor in determining whether he thinks it would work as an exhibit. And that doesn’t mean it gives people a warm, fuzzy feeling.

“The reaction doesn’t always have to be cheers and approval. I think discomfort is also completely justified,” he said.

“So even if the response is negative at times, you should really ask them why. Why are we so disturbed by this work of art? What is causing us discomfort?”

‘Uneasy about the message’

Beaulieu has some theories about the reaction to the crow sculpture.

“Some of the negative comments speak to the fact that people might not be comfortable with the message of the work. You know, facing the climate crisis… it feels a little uncomfortable for all of us because we know that some of our habits contribute to this and that change is not easy.

“So I think there’s a lot of it.”

It was also made public that the National Capital Commission, a federal Crown company, paid $14,022 to exhibit the crow for a year, which may have given some people a reason to criticize government spending without appreciating the art in itself .

PEI multidisciplinary artist Monica Lacey called the crow image “brilliant,” saying it shows Beaulieu’s “mastery of materials.” But she said it may not have had the same context in Ottawa as it did in Charlottetown.

“There’s already a lot of kinship with crows, and I think if you didn’t, it would be easy to see it differently.”

In one door and out the other

Lacey knows firsthand that not everyone interprets a work of art as the artist intended. She remembered a piece she made for Art in the Open, a toll booth-sized building with four different doors, one on each side.

“I kind of envisioned people moving with it in a really slow, thoughtful way at first, and they’d go in one door and out the other and it would be a more meditative piece. That was sort of of my intention with it,” she said.

“And it kind of turned into a party space. People just ran through it. Kids ran through it. Like it became a very playful party space, which wasn’t the energy I infused when I was making it, but it was really a wonderful surprise.”

Lacey considers sharing her work part of the creative process.

“For me, it’s not complete until you share it. And then when you share it, you have to let it go… You can’t have those attachments to whether people like it or how they interpret it.”

Familiarity leads to acceptance?

Beaulieu said he doesn’t “set down for people’s comfort” when his art exposes what he calls “harsh truths”.

But he hopes that the more people in Ottawa see the crow statue, the more they come to appreciate it. Being on display 24/7 is one of the benefits of art in the public space, he said.

“I imagine there might be some people who are shocked at first glance, but when they pass by on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, you know, they get a chance to see the layers of complexity and the subtleties that you the first sight may be missing.”