Self-portrait, 1993
June 6th, 2010 § 1 Comment
In 1993 I won an award at the Silvermine Gallery in Wilton, CT, for a diptych, Two Letters. They were a pair of “envelopes”, a memorial to men and women who died under Stalin’s KGB. Each envelope bore a black and white photo of a prisoner in the upper right hand corner, like a stamp. Addresses were etched in a cryptic formal script. One was done on a nice creamy sheet of hot press Arches watercolor paper, the other on black scratchboard.
After I finished these two pieces, it was late May, and close to my June birthday. I was inspired to do something more personal, an envelope addressed to myself, using scratchboard as a medium. The photo is of myself at the age of three, standing on a chair between snowbanks at my grandparents’ back door in Blaine Lake, Saskatchewan. This portrait was made possible, one might say, because my grandmother Anna convinced her husband Jake to leave Russia in 1923, thus escaping the Great Purge of the Stalin years, which pretty well eradicated the family members which did stay there, although I have a Great Aunt Neta who survived the Siberian work camps and now lives in Berlin. The “return address” in the upper left corner is my birthdate and birthplace. The address in the middle is the word “Survivor”, scratched out in dramatic flourishes. I used rubber stamps and silver ink to create postmarks, and sealed it all with my thumbprint. Happy Birthday, Joanna Wiebe.
Hi Joanna, Thanks for reaching out! It is a funny kind of thrill to meet someone who shares my name. It’s happened once before — a young cello player in London, Ontario. Is your family of Mennonite background? That’s my guess considering the name “Wiebe” is shared by mostly Mennonites. The coincidences are definitely amazing. Except you’ve got an agent for your book and I’m still shopping for an agent! I have been sending it out to one agent at a time, for four months now, giving each one one month to review. My book is titled Wild and Precious Life, and it’s drawn from four months in my life, traveling in Guatemala, when I was 27.
Are you in New York? I see Conversion Rate Experts has an office there. I have a son who lives in Brooklyn and works in New York for Channel Advisor. My niece Jamie Wiebe, who is also a writer, in the journalism program at Northwestern University, is in New York for an internship this summer. I used to work in New York myself, in the 1980s and 90s.
Enjoy this summer day — stay in touch. Joanna Katherine Wiebe Baer