By Mark Squibb | Vol. 7 No. 5 (March 13 2019)
Winter can be a bit of a mixed bag; ice skating, snow days, shinny hockey, and tobogganing balance out the freezing cold, poor driving conditions, and hours spent snow clearing.
Art on display at the Admiralty House Communications Museum Annex offered up some of the best of winter; an acrylic painting of a snowy embrace, a watercolor of a cozy bear in a knit sweater, a wire structure of winter activities, and sculptural hooked rugs of a much-debated comfort food: Spam.
"People have been loving the hooked can of Spam. That's been getting a lot of attention on Twitter, people are fascinated by it... it's kind of a conversation piece where it leads people to chat about their experience with spam, whether they're mocking it or talking about how much they like it," explained Sarah Wade, Museum Manager.
The free exhibit, containing over 20 pieces of art, many of which were submitted by local artists, was open until the end of February.
The idea was first pitched in 2018, and the exhibit was put off in conjunction with the Mount Pearl Frosty Festival.
"Winter takes on a variety of meanings, depending on who the artist is. So, when we put out the call for winter themed art as the only stipulation, we didn't know what we were going get," says Katie Little, Administration for the Association For the Arts in Mount Pearl (AAMP), who says that the curators were quite impressed with the submissions they received.
The exhibit opened on Feb. 7, attended by a group of about 50 people, including many of the artists whose works were on display.
The Admiralty House will be looking to the skies for it's next exhibit, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first Transatlantic Flight.
