For folks who did not have a chance to see my window show Rise Up! Rise Up! (Neutral Ground Artist Run Centre, August 2026) – this post is for you!  Myka Der, pictured above left, curated the show and wrote a wonderful  essay  about it which you can read here. This is also a perfect place to thank Myka for her invitation, her vision, her hard work, her friendship and all the wonderful fun we had together. I learned so much from her.

Because the show was installed in a picture window which could be viewed both from the street and from an inside hallway, Myka and I were able to play with the placement of different layers of art-  some close to or right on the glass and others that were further removed. The photo above labels the different layers or segments – 6 Friezes, Nest,  Birds Rising Up,  and 3 Watercolours – as they appeared in the window gallery. I will say a little about each grouping below.

Six Friezes

Grounding the exhibit are six friezes depicting aspects of the genocide in Gaza , devastation in the illegally occupied West Bank, as well as imagined visions of what could be. Palestine and Gaza have occupied my mind and heart since just after October 7, 2023. Because I knew so little about the histories of Palestine and Israel, I have been learning and unlearning by  reading history, novels, memoirs, poetry as well as listening to podcasts and following citizen journalists on Instagram. I also joined a small group of women artists who led Art for Palestine, a wing of Palestine Solidarity Regina. We hosted many events encouraging others to join us as we made signs, banners, flags and a community story quilt to express our resistance, solidarity and grief. I am so indebted to Carla Shirley, Clara Der Chung, Melanie Monique Rose, Mehr Khan Tajik and Valerie Zink (Art for Palestine friends) for their friendship and shelter – here was a safe place to learn, talk, to cry, to grieve about the atrocities taking place in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Because we all experienced the loneliness of not feeling free to talk about Palestine in many of our circles, we were grateful that this was something we could do together – both through conversation and creating art.

As I listened to podcasts, I began to carve rubber stamps outside my usual repertoire – these included killing machines – rockets and army tanks and explosions,  as well destroyed cities. I carved birds in cages, birds escaping cages, and birds carrying the proverbial olive branch. I learned to call “peace birds” “liberation birds” because peace is impossible if people are not free.  Carving stamps helped me integrate some of my new understandings of the world.

These rubber stamps were the genesis for the six friezes below. As my ideas evolved, I created new rubber stamps – olive trees being destroyed, the Apartheid wall, illegal Israeli settlements, Palestinians carrying body bags, others lined up for water. The first three friezes show images familiar to all of us from our newsfeeds. However, we can only stand so much horror and our eyes glaze over. We see, but don’t really see.  I wondered if presenting these images in simple carved shapes might help us see anew? These friezes acknowledge the considerable  place Palestine has taken in my heart, in my thinking, and in my art.

The friezes were adhered to the glass. Because of the translucence and fragility of the paper used, they could be seen both from the inside hall and the outside street view.

Nest

In the left corner of the glass case, was a nest woven from uncarded wool between the branches of a hawthorne. While one imaginary bird rested in the nest, her companions fly around her, continuing to resist –  lending credence to idea that that when we work for change in community, we can take a rest when we need to while others carry the torch. In this way, we support each other, and build the communities we want to live in. Rest but return. For further thoughts, see this blog entitled “Nest”.

Birds Rising Up

From the nest on the left, a flock of birds rises up to the top of the display case on the right. I have been obsessed with imaginary birds, usually taking flight, all of my life! Some of these collaged rice paper birds are sandwiched between layers of plexi glass, others take flight in paper skies. Some of  these panels were created 10 or more years ago. The photos below are examples of these.

Newer flocks of birds were created in community, especially for this show. Early on, Myka and I decided to  co-host  a small PLAYshop, where we could create a whole variety of rice paper birds to join the flocks I already had. Time was short, so we pulled together family and friends for a joy-filled evening of making paper birds, sharing a meal, conversation and laughter. Inviting community to participate added many elements to our birds – birds that were 3-D, that were ethereal, and especially, birds that flew outside the bounds of the plexiglass.

Myka taught me a lot about the role of birds in my art. She subtitled the show “A Bird’s Guide for Sustained Resistance”. For Myka, the vibrant birds are “communal expressions of grief, hope, joy and rest” as well as beings actively resisting the forces of oppression. The birds are a community, a flock and they each depend on the group as a whole. Their very diversity is strength. You can see examples of the birds we created at this community PLAYshop below.

Three Watercolours

Hanging on the left side of the window were three watercolour paintings which connect the friezes at the bottom and the flocks of birds rising up.

Garden Hopes for a Ravaged Land was painted when I was feeling a lot of despair. I poured coffee on a sheet, let it dry, used some of the same rubber stamps used in the friezes and then, let my imagination loose. This painting is a prayer really and reflects some of the reading I was doing about child amputees and planting seeds in the most unlikely corners of the Gaza Strip. You can read more about this painting here. 

Rise Up! Rise Up! is the title piece. This piece was inspired in part by my four daughters and I chanting “Women of the World, Rise Up Against the Forces of Oppression”. We did this when they were young, jumping up on kitchen chairs, pumping our fists and laughing at ourselves. I loved adding the birds into our chorus, and this piece expresses my belief that resistance, while serious, needs  also to be joyful, colourful, even silly.  Resistance is best practiced in flocks! You can learn more about this painting here.

When Myka came for her studio visit, I was about half done painting “This is the World I Want To Live In”. I had begun it with trepidation, thinking it was too lighthearted for the times we are living in. Nonetheless, I added a little every day and slowly my confidence grew. Not only did this painting seem  integral to our show, but Sherri Mitchell’s words also gave me faith: When creating a new way of being in the world, we cannot use the old tools (conquest) – we need to focus on creation rather than destruction…We can stand in the flow of harm, we can be educated and aware of the harm, we can learn what is feeding that harm, we can withdraw our support from that harm, protest the harm, stop the flow of harm. Dealing with the harm should take 20% of our energy.  80% of our energy must go towards  visioning – feeding the vision we want to inhabit.” The world depicted here is my immediate world – some of it real, some of it imagined. Amongst the real elements, my beekeeper husband, a funeral march for a dear friend, an Art for Palestine gathering and my buddy Catherine playing her mandolin. In my imagination – a book club taking place in a tree, time to smell the flowers, and a market sharing food and free poems! The flock of birds brings new life-giving ideas and possibilities, colour, flight, accompaniment and song!!

I am grateful To Myka and to Neutral Ground Artist Run Centre for this opportunity to explore  how we acknowledge and resist the terrible things happening in the wider world and here at home, while also living into and imagining the life affirming communities and loving world we all deeply long for.