Art retains the essence of place

OLGA LIVSHIN

Nicole Schouela’s art went through several transformations before she settled on photography. She started her artistic life as a dancer in San Francisco. “I would’ve still danced if I could’ve,” she said in an interview with the Independent. “Dancing was my passion. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay young forever. I had lots of injuries too.”

The conclusion of her dancing career coincided with the big earthquake that struck San Francisco in 1989. “My daughter was very young then,” she said. “It was terrifying.” The family decided to relocate but they didn’t wish to abandon the West Coast. They moved to Vancouver in 1990.

“I didn’t know anyone here,” she remembered. “I felt lonely, so I joined a ceramics class. I wanted to do something with my hands.” Used to communicating through shapes and movements as a dancer, she felt drawn to ceramics. “Clay also moves. You shape it, change it. It is fluid,” she laughed, “until it’s fired, of course.”

Working with clay agreed with her, offered an alternative avenue of self-expression to the former dancer. She began selling her elegant vases and bowls and continued taking more classes, constantly improving her skills. She enrolled in what is now Emily Carr University of Art and Design to study ceramics, but her teachers didn’t encourage her rigid adherence to a single art form.

“They urged us to try different ways, different genres. I didn’t want to. I even cried,” she confessed. Still, the more she learned about photography, an artform that was so different from anything she had done before, the more she was drawn to it. In 1998, she graduated from Emily Carr with a double major – in ceramics and photography.

“I don’t feel that the original photographs are all that important,” she mused, admitting that she always wanted to alter the images, make them resemble photographic collages. At first, she did it the old fashioned way, in the dark room, but later switched to digital manipulations through Photoshop to get away from the chemicals.

She calls her images “constructs,” and they have little to do with the original photos she takes. Her current exhibition at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Place Settings, reflects the places she loves. “They are places I have intimate relationship with,” she said.

Jericho Park and Hornby Island, Pacific Spirit Park and Spanish Trail – they all have inspired her digital photomontages. None of the pictures in the show is a facsimile of the actual vista, but all of them retain the essence of the place, its spiritual connection with the artist, and its sense of spatial integrity.

The abstract compositions on the gallery walls lean towards black and white, with occasional splashes of color and pastel undertones. “Sometimes I use 30 or more images for one picture,” she said about her artistic process. “It is fun. As I move little pieces around, shuffle the bits, they tend to lose color.” That change is advantageous to the final image, however. “My constructs are complex; they don’t need much color. Visually, when an image has so many components, it’s better in the gradations of grey. Color would take over the picture, make it tired.”

As much as she resisted her Emily Carr instructors’ attempts to steer her towards photography, now Schouela can’t imagine her life without it. “When I concentrate on creating a picture, it feels like I’m getting an internal massage. Something is cleaning me inside, leaving me centred.”

Schouela hasn’t abandoned her first art love – ceramics – either. “Ceramics is therapeutic for me. I like playing with clay. I enjoy its tactile feel, but that’s all it is now. I don’t sell much of it anymore. Photos are how I see myself as an artist. Ceramics is just for fun. I had commercial success with it when I started, got commissions and, in the process, it lost something important, its main attraction. I don’t want to lose it again.”

Surprisingly, despite her artistic success, neither ceramics nor photography takes up the majority of her time. “Only about 35 percent of my time is dedicated to art. The rest is reserved for my school.”

In 2008, Schouela volunteered with American Jewish World Service and spent four months teaching ceramics and photography at a school in Uganda. The experience affected her so deeply that she decided to start her own school for children. In 2009, the Stand Tall Training Centre opened in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Schouela is its founder.

“I have a wonderful board of directors,” she said. “We have many volunteers from Canada teaching there, mostly artists.” Although the school has a regular primary school curriculum, its emphasis is on the arts and on crafts. “The kids we teach – they are amazing,” she said. “They all come from extreme poverty, many are orphans, abused and damaged. We try to promote creativity in them, help them stand on their feet. We also feed them. The school employs a cook and, for some kids, what they eat during the school hours is the only meal they have all day.”

Since the founding of the school, it has become an integral part of the artist’s life. Schouela has been traveling to Uganda twice a year, each visit lasting for several weeks, to teach and do whatever needs to be done. “This year I’ll only go once. The school is doing very well now,” she said proudly, although she still spends several hours every morning on school-related projects, primarily fundraising, which is a never-ending concern of hers.

Her frequent travels to Uganda inspired several images on display at the gallery, including “Hijack” and “The General.” The latter is an extremely emotional image, and a scary one. “I created them after the travel security tightened at the airports everywhere. These pictures reflect our fears,” she said.

Place Settings is at the Zack Gallery until June 9. To learn more, visit nicoleschouela.com or the Stand Tall website, standtalleducation.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

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