• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Wandering Carol's

Seeking Elsewhere Magazine

Luxury Travel Magazine

  • Home
  • About Seeking Elsewhere
  • Destinations
    • Asia Travel
    • Caribbean Travel
    • Europe Travel
      • Austria
      • Czech Republic
      • England
      • France
      • Germany
      • Hungary
      • Ireland Travel
      • Italy
      • Spain
      • Switzerland
      • Wales
    • North America Travel
      • Canada Travel
      • Mexico Travel
      • USA Travel
  • Spas and Wellness
  • Experiences
    • Hotel Reviews
    • Romantic Travel
    • Sacred Places
    • Adventure
    • Solo Travel
  • Contact

Mourning in Saskatchewan

Luxury travel blog » Places » North America Travel » Canada Travel » Saskatchewan » Mourning in Saskatchewan
March 9, 2013 by Carol Perehudoff

This post may contain affiliate links.

I miss many things about Saskatchewan, some that are not even gone. I still miss the old Capitol Theatre in Saskatoon, the interior reminded me of Romeo and Juliet, and it was part of my childhood. Torn down for a mall.

I miss my father, William Perehudoff, an artist, who of course was part of my childhood, and who now is so recently and shockingly – though yes it was expected – gone.

Snow painting by Catherine Perehudoff
Snow painting by Catherine Perehudoff

 

I miss the Mendel Art Gallery & Civic Conservatory, a stunning, well-loved early sixties modernist building on the South Saskatchewan River, which is still there and won’t be torn down (I hope), but as an art gallery will soon give way to the new  Remai Art Gallery located a nudge farther along the riverbank.

Winter painting Catherine Perehudoff
Winter painting Catherine Perehudoff

 

And yes, yes, I’m sure I’ll fall in love with the Remai Art Gallery, too, but right now I am in mourning, because the Mendel was my part of my childhood, as my father was, and because when I walked over to the Mendel the day after my father’s funeral, Alison Norlen’s show LUNA was so crazy and shiny and faux-Eifel-Towery it cheered me up.

Dorothy Knowles Winter Painting
Dorothy Knowles Winter Painting

 

Now here is my new target of mourning – the closure of the famous, and sometimes infamous, Emma Lake Workshops, which my family’s summers were centred around (and still often are), and where hundreds of artists came for painting vacations, sculpture workshops, crafts and the intense camaraderie of being with like-minded creators. The Emma Lake Artists Workshop takes place at a rustic art camp now called the Kenderdine Campus, part of the University of Saskatchewan, in northern Saskatchewan. The workshops brought in a number of art star New Yorkers in the 60s and 70s such as critic Clement Greenberg and artists Kenneth Noland and Frank Stella. Even composer John Cage made it up there (and got lost in the muskeg).

Other artists from all over the world have been there, and it’s part of our Canadian cultural history. The workshops have continued to struggle on – until now. According to the CBC, “The U of S has decided to close the Kenderdine Campus at Emma Lake for the next three years.”

And there goes another part of my childhood.

A cold place in winter
A cold place in winter

 

Will the Emma Lake workshops be resurrected? Are things ever? I don’t know. But let me tell you about Emma Lake, a little epitaph.

What were the Emma Lake Artists Workshops?

The Emma Lake Kenderdine Campus is a mismatched collection of studios and decrepit wooden cabins and deep forest and mosquitoes and an old biology building and aluminum canoes and a round dining hall that looks out over the lake and moss and artists and craftspersons (and sometimes biologists and once I saw some gymnasts there).

It’s like a huge mud-mucked painting with twigs and smashed wild strawberries and pine needles all stuck in the mess, with maybe some leeches underneath the thick paint, and a few old palettes and some silver metallic acrylic slashed overtop. And it’s beautiful. Like an Anselm Kiefer painting maybe, if he were to come to the Saskatchewan boreal forest.

 

Snow print by Rebecca Perehudoff
Snow print by Rebecca Perehudoff

 

A thaw will come

I keep thinking of  TS Eliot’s line in the Wasteland, that “April is the cruellest month, breeding/Lilacs out of the dead land.”

But this is still winter, at least in Saskatchewan, and winter, Eliot says, keeps “us warm, covering/Earth in forgetful snow/ feeding a little life with dried tubers.”

I think there is comfort there somewhere, but at the same time I think these things are the snow: my father, the Mendel and Emma Lake. They will breed the lilacs. Even as they melt away.

Rebecca Perehudoff snow paintings
Rebecca Perehudoff snow paintings

 

More about William Perehudoff:

William Perehudoff obituary

The Optimism of Colour: William Perehudoff rides again

I love my dad: William Perehudoff in Victoria

William Perehudoff at the Glenbow Art Gallery in Calgary

 

Category: Art, SaskatchewanTag: William Perehudoff

About Carol Perehudoff

A former freelance travel columnist for the Toronto Star, Carol has won more than 30 writing awards and honours. A spa and luxury travel expert, she’s written for top travel publications around the globe.

Previous Post: « William Perehudoff obituary
Next Post: Shangri-La Hotel Bangkok blog review Shangri-La Hotel Bangkok swimming pool »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Canada's Boomergirl

    March 10, 2013 at 7:53 pm

    I’m with Lesley. Here’s hoping Emma Lake Workshops rise again. Michele Peterson’s tweet led me to your poignant post. Seeing your mom’s work for the first time and Catherine Perehudoff. Wistful feel. I like them all.

  2. Lesley Peterson

    March 10, 2013 at 3:07 pm

    Sad post on what sounds like the end of an era in Canadian art history, Carol. I hope the Emma Lake Workshops are only temporarily dormant. Keep us posted.

  3. Rebecca Minton

    March 9, 2013 at 3:38 pm

    Lovely thoughts, Carol.

  4. Rebecca Minton

    March 9, 2013 at 3:36 pm

    This reminds me of my recent dream…dreams being always so illogical but sometimes containing a germ of symbolism…where discarded half finished canvases of Dad, all with a dark grey ground ready for color but never to receive color, are lying on the pine needles on the ground at the Emma Lake Workshop, and next to them, a green house full of new shoots being nurtured.

  5. Dane Moore

    March 9, 2013 at 3:33 pm

    I felt your dad’s departure from this world in the relentlessly sunny Puerto Vallarta….I walk by ‘the Optomism of Colour” and think of his quiet and patient optimism even when he would be at the dental office …..I expect all of that to continue in my mind…its the pressence that we will all miss..abrazos Dane

Talk to me! Leave a comment Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Sidebar

Subscribe and you won't miss an article!

luxury travel blogger wandering carol on train

About Wandering Carol

In my 10+ years as a travel writer and columnist I've seen the best of what the world has to offer and written for some top publications around the globe - and now my goal is to bring this expertise to you. For more blah blah blah, visit my
About page.

Connect with me online

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
Carol Perehudoff published in top media, logos for newspapers and magazines

Categories

How to use this adventure and luxury travel site

  • Use the SEARCH BOX if you’re looking for something specific.
  • Click on the ‘DESTINATIONS’ tab on the top menu to see the countries we write about.
  • The CATEGORIES drop down menu above will point you to places and popular travel themes such as outdoor adventure and solo travel.
  • SUBSCRIBE to keep up with the latest articles and get tips to make your next journey inspiring.

Inspiration

“Who says you can’t run away?”

Share

Copyright © 2022 · Wandering Carol’s Seeking Elsewhere Magazine · All Rights Reserved · Disclosure and Privacy Policy