The Estevan Art Gallery and Museum's latest exhibit called Work Hard, Be Nice, sheds an interesting light on schoolyard antics, girlhood, and an aging belief that if you work hard and be nice you will always be successful.
"We live in a world where that's rarely the case unfortunately," said Heather Benning, a Regina-based artist who was at the EAGM on Sept. 11 to talk about the exhibit and work she has done in the past.
Work Hard, Be Nice consists of a couple dozen sculptures in the form of young school girls that are strewn about the floor in the centre of the gallery. All of their dresses are painted green and each girl sports long blonde hair. The "ring leaders," as Benning described, are in the centre, while the stragglers are on the edge of the circle, trying to be part of the inner circle. Surrounding them are eight young boys standing on pillars, overseeing the crowd in front of them.
"I started making these little girls and I didn't really know why I was making them. I actually started making these smaller ones on the wall," she said, referring to the long line of action-figure-sized girls that dot a long stretch of the gallery. "They were such a dweeby size though, so I started sculpting larger ones."
The boys standing on the pillars, Benning said, represent how they distance themselves from the young girls' treatment of each other.
"I remember how I was in Grade 6 or something, 'gotta get to the bathroom first because if you're there first they won't talk about you,' and girls sort of turn on each other like that," she explained, while audience members laughed out loud and turned to the person next to them, reminiscing about a similar scenario from their childhood.
"We turn on each other like that for the likes of, I don't know, Aaron whatever-his-name-is. And he's totally above it all because he's unaware that this is even happening."
The interesting placement of the sculptures also had a specific purpose.
"I like it when they're grouped in a space like this because they somewhat demand some attention, but they're still very quiet pieces," said Benning, adding the concept behind the whole idea didn't come until a little later. "The ____ didn't totally make sense to me until I drove past a school once with the billboard outside that said 'Work Hard, Be Nice.' And then I realized that's pretty much what I'm doing, is I'm making these little be-nice girls."
Benning noted that in a schoolyard, this train of thinking is often reinforced and is a model many children follow.
"It's great for the teachers and great for the kids, but in adulthood, it doesn't really do us any favours," she said.
Benning grew up on a farm near Humboldt Sask. and over time realized she wanted to go to school for art. She graduated from Nova Scotia School for Art and Design with a BFA, and also obtained her MFA in sculpture at the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. Other work of hers worthy of recognition include a life size doll house located near Sinclair Manitoba on highway 2, a five metre long doll that has been situated in several areas across Canada and 600 sculptures of hands installed in an old tobacco kiln in Norfolk County, Ontario.
"I really enjoy working on these big projects, but they take you away from home for longer," admitted Benning, adding her work has a "rural sensibility," to it and she therefore enjoys working within the smaller market art communities.
"I find it interesting that amazing art galleries like this exist in a smaller community like Estevan. It's an amazing space, and in terms of size and scale it's even better than the Dunlop gallery in Regina," she said.
