Root words are at the heart of language. Small but powerful units, they function to hold the basic intention of a word and relate it to an interconnected etymological community of deeper meaning. From a single root word, offshoots of meaning can flourish in all directions. For example, art is the root word that gives meaning to artist, artefact, artificial, articulate, and more.
When we set out to publish a book of arts writing, our desire was to plant a seed that could disperse and grow. Root Words: An anthology of arts writing on New Brunswick artists Vol. I brings together a diverse group of 19 writers from across New Brunswick and beyond whose contributions centre and contextualize artistic practice in this region.
– Amy Ash & Jericho Knopp, Associate Director & Programming Director, ArtsLink NB
Root Words: An anthology of arts writing on New Brunswick artists Vol. I is a collection of texts by writers at all career stages, with varied backgrounds and approaches to arts writing. Bringing together 19 writers from across New Brunswick and beyond whose contributions centre and contextualize artistic practice in this region, Root Words is a celebration of impact and a record of existence to uplift both artistic and arts writing practices in this region.
You can read it but downloading the pdf below!
The Text
The Authors
Rare Beasts: The Young Women, the Rug Hunters, and the Unlikely Existence of the Smith Mat
Chloe Lundrigan (they/she) is an artist, folklorist, and avid birdwatcher based in Siknikt, Mi’kma’ki (Sackville/Tantramar, New Brunswick) whose interdisciplinary research focuses on the interplay of non-institutional settler connections to and commodifications of land in Atlantic Canada, and who believes, more than anything, in the power of vernacular practices.
They’ve spent the last few years as a graduate student at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador interviewing ecotour guides about performing place, surveying fibre-lovers about restoring an on-island carding mill, and founding LAIR! – an archival training residency which encourages appreciation for and critical engagement with the province’s documented and under-documented folk cultures.
(photo by Mercy Williams)
I Was Here: Ethel Ogden (1869-1902)
Gemey Kelly (she/her) is an independent art historian and writer living in Sackville, New Brunswick. She was Curator at the Dalhousie Art Gallery from 1980 to 1989. From 1989 to 2018 she was Director/Curator of the Owens Art Gallery at Mount Allison University, and Adjunct Professor in the Fine Art Department where she taught Canadian art history and museum studies. Her research and publications have focussed on the contemporary and historical art of Atlantic Canada. She is currently writing a book on Saint John, New Brunswick artist Jack Humphrey.
Gemey has a BA in English from the University of Toronto, a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and a PhD in art history from Carleton University. She is married to the artist John Murchie.
(photo by John Murchie)
Elizabeth Amelia McLeod (1875-1963)
Jane Tisdale graduated from Mount Allison University with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and from Queen’s University with a master’s degree in Art Conservation before starting to work at the Owens Art Gallery as Fine Arts Conservator in 1993. She completed a fellowship at Yale University in 2000, studying the early history of the Owens Collection. Besides on-going conservation work in the lab and contributing to research for many curatorial projects at the Owens, she mentors students through the Peter and Jean Flemington Internship Program.
The Essence of Joy: Considering Rothesay painter Catharine McAvity’s hard-won, later-in-life art practice
Kate Wallace (she/her/hers) is a national-award-winning New Brunswick arts reporter who, over the course of more than twenty years, has contributed to local newspapers, regional and national magazines, independent publications, and documentary films. She lives in Rothesay.
(photo by Nienke Izurieta)
Fall from Eden: The Folk Art of Henry Clayton Smith (1931-1996)
Terry Graff (he/him) is a multi-media artist best known for his evocative images of “avian cyborgs,” a distinctive vision in Canadian art that speaks to the conflicted relationship between nature and technology. His work has been presented regionally, nationally, and internationally and is found in many public and private collections. In addition, he has had a distinguished career as an art educator, curator, and art writer, and was director of four public art galleries in four different provinces. Graff has curated over 200 exhibitions and has authored numerous articles, catalogues, and books on both contemporary and historical art.
For his many cultural contributions across Canada, he has received several prestigious honours and awards, including the Fanshawe College Distinguished Alumni Award, The Commemorative Medal for the Centennial of Saskatchewan, the Christina Sabat Award for Art Criticism in Atlantic Canada sponsored by the Sheila Hugh MacKay Foundation, and two eagle feathers from the Mi’kmaq First Nation.
The Visual Arts Scene in Madawaska, Northwestern New Brunswick: An Introduction
Emilie Grace Lavoie (she/her) is an artist, curator, cultural worker, and member of the 3E Collective, originally from Edmundston, NB, the traditional unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik people. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University (2018), a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Université de Moncton (2016), and a diploma in fashion design from LaSalle College (2011). Her practice, at the intersection of sculpture, installation, and material research, questions the links between objects and their ecology, living systems, territory, identity, and collective memory.
In 2017, she won the silver medal at the 8th Francophonie Games in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in the Sculpture and Installation category. More recently, in 2024, she was invited by the French Embassy in Canada to participate in the Refaire le Monde festival in Paris as part of the Francophonie Summit. Her works have been exhibited across Canada and are part of public and private collections.
A Secret Third Thing: Cultural Venues as Third Places in New Brunswick
Lindsay Jacquard (she/her) is an artist and arts administrator from Nova Scotia, now living in Menagoesg/Saint John, New Brunswick. She holds a Master’s in Arts Leadership from Queen’s University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from NSCAD University. She is passionate about encouraging and enabling creative pursuits, working with organizations such as Imperial Theatre, Third Space Gallery, Flourish Festival, Halifax Regional Municipality, and the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts. Lindsay’s own artistic practice involves painting, portraiture, strangeness, and play.
(photo by Nick LeBlanc)
Sixth Sense: A Legacy of Collaboration in New Brunswick Metal Art
Maegen Black (she/her) holds over 20 years of national and international experience in the craft sector. In her current role as Associate Dean at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, she shares her broad experience in arts administration, advocacy, and entrepreneurship, guiding programs that strengthen students’ abilities as independent makers, designers, and artists. With a background in jewellery and metalsmithing and a passion for all craft mediums, Maegen is a collector, a curator, and an active volunteer whose main goal is to see craft careers thrive.
(photo by Kelly Baker)
Hearts on Fire: The Transformational Power of Woodfiring Ceramics
Since 1997, Alison Gayton (she/they) has been making life through clay. She still travels the globe to expand and focus her art, but that rural life in Hampton is where her heart is. Between woodfiring, printmaking, figurative sculpture and low volume production pottery, clay is home. She began winning awards, grants and scholarships almost 25 years ago, but is still a bit of a late bloomer. She hopes to give clay a way to help people say the unsayable for the rest of her life.
(photo by Chris Small)
Personal Freedom over Institutional Oppression:
Mi’kmaq Artist Michael William Francis
Starlit Simon (she/her) is Mi’kmaq from Elsipogtog First Nation and a PhD candidate at UNB. Simon’s writing has been published in the National Geographic Traveler, Dawnland Voices, Dawnland Voices 2.0, The Fiddlehead, and in the Arts NB blog and has had her academic writing published by Routledge and Springer.
Simon has been an award recipient for Arts NB Equinox Grants for Cross Cultural Artist residencies and has given artist talks at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and at the Atlantic Artist Symposium, as well as academic conferences on arts-based research in California, Montreal, Norway, and London UK.
Simon’s research is on Roadkill Epistemology and was awarded the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship. Simon’s porcupine quill art has been exhibited at the Saint John Arts Centre, UNB Arts Centre, The Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery, Sunbury Shores Arts and Nature Centre, the Downie-Wenjack Legacy Space in New Brunswick, and the Dieppe Arts Centre.
All of the Artists I Knew Were Old
Victoria Hutt (she/her) (BDes) is a visual artist, writer, and designer based in Florenceville-Bristol, where the Wolastoq (Saint John) river winds through potato country in western New Brunswick. A NSCAD alumni, her work bridges rural life, creativity, and community well-being, building spaces where art, resilience, and rural communities thrive together.
Alongside her creative practice, she coordinates Farm Talk Care, a program supporting farmer wellness and safety. Over the past fifteen years, she has contributed to New Brunswick’s arts and cultural landscape through leadership, collaboration, and storytelling, including roles with the Canadian Crafts Federation, the Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery, and the ArtsNB Board of Directors. She continues to trace the ties between land, community, and the stories we carry.
(photo by Pam Everett)
Relinquishing Control: The Key to Institutional Inclusion in the Arts
Kate Giles (they/them) is a disabled, queer artist and curator living in St. Andrews, NB, the traditional territory of the Peskotomuhkati Nation. Kate is a graduate of Emily Carr University of Arts & Design (ECUAD), and is currently working as the artistic director at Sunbury Shores Art Centre.
Their visual practice is rooted in drawing, provisional processes, and intentional incompletion, working on a language of absence to explore the melancholy in struggling with daily life– the exhaustion and doubt of perpetual struggles. Their curatorial practice is led by a belief in action over perfection followed by dialogue to connect communities and strengthen communication.
Stepping Out: Expressing Identity Through Fashion
Sara Chamberlain (she/her) was the first BHS graduate to receive the title of artist of the year (2012). Since moving to Moncton she’s made art and crafts for friends, including fashion designs and book editing. Her focus so far has been painting and writing about stars, as well as clothing design.
(photo by Paul Chamberlain)
Bridging Cultures on Canvas
Shalini Tewari (she/her) is a writer and storyteller who captures the essence of cultures, landscapes, and human connections. Published globally in lifestyle and travel magazines, she shares travel stories, cultural narratives, and marine conservation through powerful storytelling.
Her work encompasses a wide range of subjects including environmental conservation, social issues, world cultures, and the arts. A Women Divers Hall of Fame scholarship recipient for photojournalism, Shalini weaves environmental advocacy into her work, particularly through underwater photography.
Beyond publishing, she creates impactful campaigns for advocacy organizations, using writing to amplify voices and foster social change. As a certified wellness facilitator, Shalini integrates writing with personal development, blending creative expression with somatic and mindfulness techniques. She is curious about belonging and works somatically, weaving stories that bring out the commonality of our human experience.
For Shalini, storytelling bridges the personal and universal—a journey of discovery that empowers others to explore their inner worlds while connecting deeply with their environment.
The Ties Between Us: Public and Private Performance
in a Disconnected World
Gina Catherine Grant (she/her) is a writer based in Menahqesk/Saint John, New Brunswick. Her work has been featured in Soliloquies Anthology, Its Burning Off and Billie: Visual – Culture – Atlantic.
(photo by Michael Mohan)
A Constant Flow of Inspiration: The Work of Gary Weekes
As an Acadian-Senegalese woman, Hillary LeBlanc (she/her) has spent her career working in Communications in the non-profit sector helping share stories of those in marginalised communities she herself has lived experience in. From this, Hillary founded BlackLantic, a podcast bringing East Coast voices to the world. As a journalist she has written for Narcity. CBC, ByBlacks, Addicted Magazine, AnnKM, produced her own radio series and hosted several red carpets. From sustainability, philanthropy or highlighting marginalized communities, her voice aims to be an extension for any who remain unheard.
She won the inaugural Canadian Women’s Foundation Feminist Creator Prize, received distinction from the House of Commons for her work with BlackLantic, was named Digital Innovator at the Youth Entrepreneur Awards by the BBPN and was nominated for Youth Entrepreneur of the Year by the Black Business Initiative.
(photo by Bert Van Der Plas)
Realizing the Real: Theresa MacKnight
An art education professor at the University of New Brunswick from 1989 to 2014, Jennifer Pazienza (she/her) is an art writer, curriculum theorist and curator who created and produced over 50 one-minute for Instagram and YouTube promoting New Brunswick art and artists. An award-winning painter with over 40 solo and group national and international shows to her credit, her paintings reside in permanent, public and private collections in Canada, the US and Italy including the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, McCain Corporation, the UNB Art Centre and White Plains Hospital, White Plains, NY.
Jennifer Pazienza earned her art education B.Ed. from William Paterson University 1976, MEd and PhD degrees 1985 and 1989, with minors in painting from The Pennsylvania State University. She lives and paints from her beloved Keswick Ridge, New Brunswick home and studio. Jennifer Pazienza is represented in Fredericton, NB by Gallery 78 and Alex Ferrone Gallery in Long Island, NY.
(photo by Joy Cummings)
Face to Face: Barbra Wire Quilts Queer Community
Gemma Marr (she/her) is a writer and educator based in Saint John/Menaquesk. She holds a PhD in English Language and Literature from Carleton University and held a postdoctoral
fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in the Department of Historical Studies at UNB (Fredericton) from 2023-2025.
Her research and writing interests rest at the intersections of gender and sexuality in Atlantic Canada and she has published in Canadian Literature, Studies in Canadian Literature, the Journal of Canadian Studies, and more. She is currently working on a collection of short fiction as well as a graphic novel.
(photo by Julia Wright)
We Don’t Hollywood: The Art of Living with the Land
Rachel Bryant (she/her) is an English professor in the Department of Humanities and Languages at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John. She studies colonial literary cultures and non-Indigenous responsibilities under the Peace and Friendship Treaties.
Rachel’s collaborations with Waponahki artists have featured in regional arts symposia and in public and open-access venues such as the Journal of New Brunswick Studies and the Network in Canadian History & Environment. In 2025/2026, she is collaborating with Gina Brooks and Tara Francis on two new research creation projects while also embarking on a research program focused on New Brunswickers’ intimate relationships with paper prior to the advent of the wood pulp paper industry.
She is a current steering committee member for the Material Culture Collective, based at Dalhousie University, and she supports land-based, Wolastoqewi-led treaty education as a member of the board at Caribou Club.