The highs and lows that come with raising livestock on the Prairies is the subject of a new exhibit at the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum.
The artist's reception for A Shepherd's Diary by Manitoba native Gerry Oliver was held Friday at the EAGM. It examines a year in the life of Oliver as she cared for her sheep and the various experiences that go along with that work. Each painting is accompanied by diary entries from Oliver that corresponds to the particular moment.
Oliver was in attendance at the opening and said she happened upon the idea after she was urged to work on projects she was familiar and passionate about.
"It just all of a sudden came together that I could do something about my sheep and that is what I did," she said. "It took almost two years from start to finish and I documented both with a written journal and reference photos through a whole year's work, with the sheep going from breeding through lambing and sheering and all of the different aspects of raising the sheep.
"At the end of that, I was able to pick and choose parts that would show the benchmark moments of a year raising livestock."
Oliver said in choosing what to depict, she looked for moments that would appeal to a wide audience.
"With raising livestock you have all kinds of things happen; there's happy, there's sad, there's times when you laugh and times when you cry. I wanted to show all of those things with this," Oliver said.
"I wanted to show all of those things with this and I hope that my passion for my animals shows as well. That is what I hope people see when they look at the images."
Oliver said the reaction to her work has been positive. She noted the exhibit has been shown in three locations while Estevan was the first place in Saskatchewan to host the exhibit.
"People are seeing what I was hoping they would see with it and they feel what I feel with each of the images and the text that goes with it. People learned a lot about what it's like to have livestock by reading the diary entries that go with the image," she said. "The words were recorded every day; how I felt and the emotions. Those things were on a daily basis. It's all real and I hope that they see it and feel it."
Oliver added that some pieces of the exhibit have been entered into juried art shows and did very well.
Also on display at the gallery is the exhibit Trade/Survival/Need by Belinda Harrow who was unable to be in Estevan Friday due to the weather.
