Exhibition at Sarnia art gallery has ties to local IODE chapter

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IODE members from the Sarnia area spent time Saturday with Inuit stone carvings one of their chapters donated more than six decades ago.

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Local members of the national women’s charitable organization set up displays at the Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery in downtown Sarnia Saturday afternoon as part of activities marking IODE’s 125th anniversary.

Founded in 1900 as Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire, and shortened to IODE in the 1970s, the organization began as a way to support Canadians heading off to fight in the Boer War, said Helen Danby, provincial president and member of a chapter in Petrolia.

Through a “very lovely coincidence,” the public art gallery is hosting the exhibition, Sculpting Life, with Inuit sculptures from its permanent collecting, including several donated by a local IODE chapter in the 1960s, said curator Sonya Blazek.

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She had already decided to create an exhibition of carvings from the collection to run alongside Dark Ice, an exhibition in the main galleries also connected to the far north, when she learned about the IODE’s anniversary.

All but three of the 19 sculptures in the exhibition came from the IODE donation, ‘so I thought, ‘I need to get ahold of these ladies and let them know I’m pulling the sculptures out,’” Blazek said.

The donation in 1960 was made to mark IODE’s 60th anniversary, said Helen Danby, provincial IODE president and a member of a chapter in Petrolia.

At that time, the organization was focusing on helping Inuit communities, she said.

“Now that we’re celebrating our 125th anniversary, it’s nice to come back and take a look,” she said.

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Blazek said most of the donated carvings are believed to have been created in the 1950s.

“That was the beginning of the contemporary Inuit art movement,” she said. “These sculptures act as this really interesting time capsule.”

Blazek said 1948 to 1960s was an active time for the art movement that grew out of traditional carving in Inuit communities.

Information about the history of the art movement, including a map showing communities in Northern Quebec where the sculptures were made, is part of the exhibition and the gallery is hosting a lecture, Influence, Power and Inuit Art, May 22, 7 p.m., by Pauline Wakeham, a professor at Western University. The lecture is free but registration, online at jnaag.ca, is required.

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Along with assembling the exhibition, Blazek researched the identity of some the artists since several pieces had no names, or the wrong name, connected to them.

“It’s a beautiful moment to revisit the sculptures and also return the artists’ names” to the pieces, Blazek said about the exhibition that opened in November and runs through July 6.

“With every anniversary, it’s good to go back, look at your accomplishments and then plan what you’re doing (going) forward,” Danby said.

Last year, 88 IODE members in three Sarnia-area chapters donated more than $23,000 to support local students, planted trees in parks, gave $25,000 for renovations at Victoria Hall, $5,000 for a new Petrolia bandshell, and contributed more than $40,000 to community organizations, she said.

“We’re very proud of what we’ve done,” Danby said. “Even though we have dwindling numbers now, we still are there, as a force in the community.”

pmorden@postmedia.com

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