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Dec. 28, 2007
A collaborative effort
Sisters' parents the subjects of art exhibit.
BAILA LAZARUS
Hard as it is to collaborate on any artistic endeavor, when the stakes are family, the hurdles become even more challenging.
And so it was with Bonnie Leyton and Leanne Averbach, and their current show, Teacups and Mink. Leyton, a painter and sculptor, worked for two years with her sister, a text and performance poet, to bring this exhibit about their parents to the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. They had hoped their mother, at least, would be able to see it, but she passed away in June.
The exhibit is a fascinating mix of visual art (paintings, whimsical sculpture, mixed media) and poetry, either mixed into the artwork, or mounted beside. It follows the lives of Betty and Louis Averbach, who immigrated from Russia to Canada. Through the artwork and poetry, the sisters relate the stories of their parents – the hurdles they had to overcome, the lives they lived, the sacrifices they made and the success they had. Leyton and Averbach grew up in Canada and their father was the personification of the rags-to-riches story: a man who came with one dollar and built a furniture empire, and was able to give his family everything he wanted; hence, titles in the exhibit – "Furniture Mogul" or "Hadassah Queen" and the terrifically lyrical "Seat of Power III."
"My father was a really powerful man, so he's 'Seat of Power III,' " said Leyton in an interview from her home in Newfoundland. "Seat of Power I" was about Joey Smallwood, and "Seat of Power II" was commissioned by the John Crosby family.
Ironically, it was once the two sisters actually started sharing their memories of family that they ran into rough seas.
"I've done a lot of collaborations and it's always difficult," said Leyton. "People have different focuses, which is always good because it fills in a project and gives it much more body. But when you're working with your sister,... [it's hard] to discover that not only were our experiences, of course, different, but even our memories of them are different, and even what we wanted to keep as truths were different."
Averbach agreed: "Collaboration is really quite challenging, but with a family member it's even more so," she said. "You know someone really well, certainly with Bonnie and I, we're used to being open with things and talking about things, but it was rally raw at times.
"Before we could accept our differences, there was an attempt to fuse our different points of view. That was the key to the process – accepting the way things were going to unfold.... We each interpreted history differently. For example, I was looking at history in terms of grainy details and she looked at broad strokes."
The broad strokes of Leyton are what capture the universal themes in the show – hope, triumph, struggle, failure – such as in the set "Mother and Child" and "Father and Child," where the faces look like masks.
"I think there were times where life was really hard for my parents, some dreams were being met and some weren't. The courage to immigrate and then try to build a life in a new country ..." Leyton's voice trailed off. "And then the growing of a family, the fears and darkness; [the faces] were meant to have that kind of ambivalent hint about them."
For Averbach, the grainy details she looks at might be in the character of each individual, in the clothes they wore or the car they drove. The lines in "Perception" – "Mama was a slim blond in red T-Bird convertible" or "Dad perspired in plaid suits the day of a big sale" – show how Averbach's view of her parents differed from that of her sister.
"My sister's parents were audacious and bold. They were history, they gave us our good lives ... whereas I looked at them as individuals, how they survived, how they behaved."
The process was difficult at times, said Averbach, but it was a rich one and one that offered her a different view of family.
"I've been writing about my family since I started writing and that comes easily, but this was a fresh way of looking at them.... I think the older I get and the further I get from having lost them, the more I appreciate those broad strokes."
Leyton, who grew up in Vancouver, now lives and works in Newfoundland, where she also runs a gallery. She made a point of thanking the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council for their financial support.
Averbach lives, writes and performs in Vancouver. She often reads her poetry accompanied by the blues/jazz group Indigo. They performed at the Zack Gallery on opening night.
The exhibit runs until Jan. 13. Call 604-257-5111 for more information.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, photographer and illustrator living in Vancouver. Her work can be seen at www.orchiddesigns.net.
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