Mariann Taubensee says it wasn't until she got into garbage that she found herself in art.
The Paynton artist who runs Salvation Art Gallery says she had always bounced from this to that, not really finding her own voice. What helped her find her true path?
"Saskatchewan. When I moved out here."
Taubensee, whose work is being featured at the artist run studio, ARC, in downtown North Battleford this month, says, "Saskatchewan has been good for the art for me."
Taubensee moved to Saskatchewan 11 years ago. Why Paynton?
"The cheap church," says Taubensee. "I live in a church."
Taubensee and her husband came to Saskatchewan from Edmonton, Alta.
"My husband was doing long-haul trucking at the time and he always stopped at the truck stop at Paynton," Taubensee explains.
He got to know the people who ran it and at one time discussed buying the owner's house. They couldn't afford to buy a house in Edmonton and things were still cheap in Saskatchewan, she said. When they decided to make an offer on the house, they were one day too late. It was disappointing. But the truck stop owner had another idea.
"She said 'I know this other place' and pointed out the church and gave us the contact info and we got if for the back taxes," says Taubensee.
And it was at the truck stop, whose restaurant has been destroyed by fire since, that a moment of serendipity occurred for Taubensee.
"When I first moved out here I worked at the truck stop out at Paynton, and it just so happened a truck driver pulled in one day and sat down for lunch ... and when I went past him I looked at the book he was reading. I thought 'this is really strange, he's reading a book on the granddaddy of metal sculpture David Smith.' Not your typical truck driver book fare."
Taubensee started up a conversation with the man, who turned out to be Ric Pollock of Arlee, a well-known Saskatchewan sculptor, and discovered he drove truck only part time to support his art habit.
"He invited me into the group reARTcycle that he had founded and from there it's just been garbage."
Taubensee says it was meant to be.
"The funny thing is I had really moved away from the art world for a few years in Edmonton and the move to Saskatchewan was to get me back into doing
art full time again. So the fact that I just happened to run into him when I first moved out here was just perfect, because within months I had my first show with them and I was forced to produce stuff and they were a great group to hang around with."
Although she may have strayed away from art for a time, it had been her first path.
"I went to college three years after I graduated high school,"
After having taken a few years off just to work for awhile, she went to art school, doing three years at Grant MacEwan College, which has since become a university.
"I got two diplomas there, one in fine arts and one in fibre arts."
She followed those up by attending the University of Alberta where she earned a degree in metal sculpture.
"It's kind of a weird mix of things, going from fibre arts, the fabrics, and then ending up in metal sculpture," says Taubensee.
Looking back at her training and influences, it seems to be colour that inspires her.
"I'm big on colour, which is really hard to do in metal sculpture unless you paint the metal and a lot of times that really distracts from metal sculpture."
Taubensee uses found items, glue, resin and pigments to create colourful sculpture. She describes it as "very much about layering colour on top of colour on top of colour ... which is a fabric dying technique."
The show at ARC this month is entitled Revision. Taubensee says it has no particular theme; it is a review of the work she has been doing for the past year. There are standing sculptures, vessels, hanging art pieces, encaustic paintings and rubber jewelry.
"Most of the pieces, like the bowl vessel pieces, those all come from my solo show at SCYAP [Gallery in Saskatoon] this year, which was called Imperfect," says Taubemsee.
"Basically, the theme of that show was this idea of being imperfect, that we are all a vessel and that even though we get broken and smashed and fall apart throughout our lives we can pick up our pieces and put ourselves back together in a whole new and different way.
“That's what those pieces are specifically about – rebuilding and not throwing things out. You don't throw the baby out with the bath water, you pick up the pieces and put them back together."
The materials she uses reflect the theme.
"The standing pieces are mostly broken glass and found metal objects — nails, fencing staples, barbed wire, that sort of thing," says Taubensee.
Other pieces contain a variety of other materials, which is always expanding, including plastic.
"I've really started using a lot more of the plastic netting bags."
"There's no limit to what I would use," she says. "My new paintings I'm working on right now have dog hair in them."
She also uses rubber tire shreds and, about a year ago, she started a line of rubber jewelry made of inner tubes.
"It's getting popular because it's so lightweight and comfortable," says Taubensee. "The more I do, the more I find interesting ways to cut it. It's very relaxing and meditative."
Is recycling a big part of her art?
"Recycling is the whole part of it," says Taubenss. "That for me is the biggest part."
Recycling may be the theme, but the result is abstract. The pieces may not represent a particular object, but you can't just throw them together willy nilly. As in abstract painting, the artist needs to be knowledgable of the traditional way of doing things, Taubensee explains.
An artist needs to know about colour, composition, form and figures to come up with a good abstract painting, she says, and it's the same with sculpture.
"You have to have the background to work without a plan," she says.
In addition to her solo career, Taubensee also enjoys collaborating with other artists. Having attended two sculpture symposiums at the Chapel Gallery in North Battleford, the jackfish sculpture on display there was a collaboration among herself and three other members of reARTcycle.
"I like collaborating," she says. "It can be difficult, artists are artists, they all have their own weird idiosyncrasies in the way they see the world so that can sometimes clash, but I've done some really nice successful collaborations and it's always interesting to see how, when you put two people's work together, they work and interact with each other."
Taubensee has often collaborated with her fellow sculpture Ric Pollock.
"Specifically we've done quite a few tables together. He builds a base and I build the top, and we're just discussing doing some more."
She looks back on a collaboration with puppeteer Tamara Unroe with particular pleasure.
"I did a collaborative show with her, which is still one of my all-time favourite shows."
The 2010 show at the SCYAP Gallery, which is dedicated to providing an exhibition space for emerging artists while promoting equal opportunity and diversity, focused on plastic pollution in the ocean.
She has also collaborated with local ARC artist Chris Hodge.
"Chris and I just finished a collaboration."
Taubensee's show Revision is on at the ARC for the rest of the month of March. To view the exhibit, visit ARC during regular hours, noon to 4 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. To book a viewing with Taubensee outside of regular hours, call 306-903-7903.
The pieces are for sale as well as for exhibit, with prices ranging from $125 to $1,500, excluding the jewelry items. It's all lower- to mid- range price, says Taubensee.
"I haven't brought too many of the really pricey pieces here."
The more expensive pieces are on view at her gallery in Paynton.
The gallery is also home, and it has been an ongoing project. She and her husband of 14 years will occupy a back addition on the church. The children have left the nest and are producing grandchildren.
"I have a grown daughter and son and they are having children," says Taubensee. "I already hit great-grandma status on Dave's side."
Taubensee's gallery is located in a former church, however it is presently open by appointment only while renovations are being done.
"When we moved out here we were dead broke, so it was just a matter of surviving for the first few years."
There was no heating in the building, so one of the first things they did was install a wood stove in the addition on the back of the church.
"For two years we heated with the wood fireplace and sort of got things going. We finally got some regular heat in there and now we've been renovating."
Taubensee says they've re-roofed and re-insulated the back addition and installed all new windows and doors.
"We've been struggling for the last four years repairing the church foundation, because it's all stone. We have to rebuild the whole fieldstone foundation bits at a time."
The renovation process has been slow, "a little bit here and bit there as we can afford it," she says.
The gallery is in the main section of the church, although they've had to give over some of that space for the "household" being displaced by the renovations being done on the back.
In the future, the original church section will house the gallery only and Taubensee's studio and she will be able to have regular opening hours. In the meantime, contact her at 306-903-7903 to visit the gallery.
