Winlaw Artist protests Enbridge pipeline through Art
By Nelson Daily Staff
By Suzy Hamilton, The Nelson Daily
Frustrated with government bureaucracy, Winlaw artist Pete Corbett took brush in hand with fellow Penticton artist Glenn Clark, and they painted their way along the proposed route of the Enbridge pipeline.
Corbett, 51, and Clark, 53 have been painting buddies for years. They exhibit together at the Lloyd Gallery in Penticton among other galleries.
(http://www.lloydgallery.com/glennclark/glennclark1.htm; http://www.lloydgallery.com/corbett/corbett.htm)
Corbett is also a fish biologist.
“They’re gutting scientists left, right and centre,” Corbett said from his Winlaw studio. “As a fish biologist, there was nothing I could do. Maybe I can do more as an artist.”
After four seasons of traveling the pipeline route, from the Rockies to the Coast, meeting the people and producing hundreds of field sketches, the pair are ready to exhibit their work, Abandoning Paradise: The Northern Gateway Project.
Their goal is to bring greater awareness to what they believe will be lost if the Northern Gateway Project is approved.
Twenty percent of all sales will go to Vancouver Island’s Dogwood Initiative, outspoken advocates of banning the Enbridge pipeline.
“I’m not preaching to the converted,” said Corbett. “High end art is the world of the rich. They may not go to a talk at Dogwood, but they might go to an art show. This is one way I can reach them.”
Last spring, financed with a BC Arts Council grant, the two loaded their painting gear in an old Chevy van dubbed the Grey Whale, with a bitumen-spewing dragon on one side and a mural on the other, and headed to the Great Bear Rainforest near Kitimat where the proposed pipeline will end.
In the summer they located in the Rockies, where the pipeline would cross, sought the brilliant gold of the aspens in the Bulkley Valley in the fall, where the pipeline would travel westward, and weathered the cold north of Fort St. James last winter on the pipeline route.
“It was always on the back of our minds: This will never look like this again,” said Corbett. “We weren’t just looking for pretty things. We were almost like filmmakers, but using brushes instead of film.”
They drew attention everywhere they went. “The level of opposition is staggering,” said Corbett. “What is the footprint of a pipeline? Large, large, large. Just the amount of roads that have to be built, the footprint alone is staggering.”
And as a fish biologist, Corbett could see the potential ruination of such famous salmon and steelhead bearing rivers as the Morice and the Copper Rivers. “Spilling bitumen is not like cutting down a tree. Trees grow back. This thing sucks.”
First Nations artists, carvers and painters came to greet them. “They told us, ‘this is no different than the residential schools being rammed down our throats. We don’t want money, we want our land back. It’s time to ‘warrior up’.”
Corbett said the year long experience didn’t change his painting style much. But it changed his attitude: “I’m at the point in my life where I can start fighting. I’m willing to risk my reputation as an artist.”
Abandoning Paradise: The Northern Gateway Projectopens in Williams Lake in May. The exhibit comes to Nelson at Touchstones for the summer from June 15- September 15, and from there will travel the province.
