The Winnipeg Foundation

As many of you know, I'm wrapping up my forth and final term in the Creative Communications program at Red River College. Term four incorporates two three-week work placements into the curriculum; students may choose an organization or business to work for as an unpaid intern to gain first-hand experience and understanding of the industry they'll be soon be working in.

I chose The Winnipeg Foundation - a very large non-profit group which supports charitable groups,community-building projects and organizations through grants. The Foundation is the oldest community foundation in Canada (founded in 1921 by William Alloway) and the second largest in the country, with an endowment of just over $440 million.




















William Forbes Alloway, by Leo Mol (photo by J.Booth, 2008)


Another reason I wanted to work at The Winnipeg Foundation was my interest in gaining some experience in how non-profit groups operate, and honing my skills in areas outside of advertising (My amazing summer job last year was with Winnipeg ad agency McKim Cringan George).

I definitely found what I was looking for.

The Job

On my first day my supervisor LuAnn Lovlin, Director of Communications, left me a memo outlining what I was to work on during my time at the Foundation. My four jobs were, to write as many Foundation Feature articles (advertorials) for the Free Press as I had time for; to produce at least four podcasts for their website, pertaining to Foundation projects and personnel; editing together some footage provided by grant recipients for the Foundation website; and writing up a very rough marketing strategy for Will Week, to promote writing a will. I wrote five feature articles, produced 11 podcasts, and edited six videos. Aside from that, I immersed myself in the organizations literature and corporate culture. I attended dozens of meetings: staff meetings, departmental meetings, managed fund meeting (pretty fancy breakfast), professional advisors group meeting (very fancy lunch), and internal communications meetings. I also assisted with some basic clerical and day to day operations type work. (Help move the Christmas tree into storage, etc.)

Getting to Know You...

Staff were unbelievably welcoming and friendly, and most importantly accessible. Any questions I had were answered right away, staff at all levels took the time to converse and get to know me better (lot’s of questions about CreComm, my career path, and my perspective on the Foundation). I had a favourable opinion of the organization going in, but I went away feeling inspired about what they do, and the city I live in. They are a very well organized team, and even in one of the busiest periods of their year, nobody seemed stressed out or out of it. I was surprised by how many important events and meetings I was invited to, and they were very good about introducing me to important people as well. I met the outgoing chair of the board, Greg Hanson (incoming United Way chair), and the incoming chair, Richard Bracken, along with a slough of business professionals associated with the Foundation.

I was also very appreciative that Foundation CEO Rick Frost took time to sit down and talk with me about the organization and its history.

Surprises

The friendliness of the staff, and the extremely sweet office with a window view of the Exchange from the 13th floor of the Richardson Building. Didn’t expect that at all.




















My awesome view, January 4-22, 2010.


What I Learned

A LOT about the organization; I have a tremendous respect for the work that they do, and intend to support them in some capacity in the future. It was fascinating learning about the history of the Foundation, the literally hundreds of projects the support in the community, and intricacies of running a non-profit enterprise in the midst of a financial meltdown. I also learned some general stuff about how non-profits work, and about a number of different charities in the city. I also learned a bit about the career paths that people followed that lead them to work at the Foundation.

And, I picked up a few tidbits on smart investing.

If I’d known there was going to be so much audio production, I would have booked out a better microphone from the get-go. Also, it seemed like they really wanted more video, so making arrangements to book an HD camera for a few days would have been smart. You live and learn.

Conclusion

Overall, I think this was a very good work placement. Last Wednesday I attended one of the public meetings the Foundation was holding around the city – because, believe it or not, I actually wanted to check it out. The enthusiasm there is pretty infectious.

In my farewell email thanking the staff for the opportunity to work with them, I said this: "Every time I visit the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden and see the statue of Mr. Alloway, I will reflect fondly on my experience here, the people I was fortunate enough to interact with, and the exemplary work which the Foundation contributes to the City of Winnipeg each and every year."

Good stuff.

-J

Winnipeg Loses Creative Force

Leading Visual Artist Left Huge Body of Work

A coworker mentioned to me today that Bruce Head died last week. Head was an iconic Winnipeg artist whose work I had been familiar with for years without ever knowing his name. I had the pleasure of writing a review of his retrospective show at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 2008, and familiarizing myself with one of Winnipeg's most gifted visual artists.


















"Untitled" 32 × 47½" • acrylic on panel • 2000, Ken Segal Gallery

Unfortunately, I never had the chance to meet the artist, but judging from interviews and a documentary film which ran along with the show, he seemed like an intriguing and genial man.

My 2008 review:

Bruce Head isn’t a household name, but anyone who’s walked beneath Portage and Main is familiar with his art, whether they know it or not. Head sculpted a massive 130 metre untitled concrete relief, that looks as though it were excavated by anthropologists, below the city’s most famous intersection. The abstract piece’s interlocking forms, which resemble cracked ice flows on the Assiniboine River in spring, cover the full height and length of the center of the circular tunnel in Winnipeg Square. In a way, the 77-year-old’s work sits in the very heart of Winnipeg.

Head Space: Five Decades of Bruce Head, at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, is a retrospective and exhibition of 137 paintings, sculptures, and prints by one of Manitoba’s most talented abstract artists. The show is well worth the admission price, ranging from $4 for students and seniors, to $6 for adults (free for kids under 6). Spend an hour or two exploring how the artist’s outstanding work has evolved since he graduated from the School of Art at the University of Manitoba in 1953.

Head’s most famous innovation came in 1967, when he stretched canvases over metal film reels to create his first “shaped canvases.” The protruding shapes of the canvas are smooth and sharp, angular and curved, like bones beneath a stretched hide, as though the paintings have been starved. One of my favourites, The Ross Quartet (1968), is like a lava-lamp frozen in time and spread with a butter knife across four intersecting planes. The sculptural qualities of these works allow one to move around and study them from different angles for different perspectives. The varied colours almost suggest topographical maps. I can envision myself exploring the surfaces of the paintings, measuring elevations, surveying valleys of yellow, and hiking over mountains of blue.

Head’s acrylics (from the early 90s to 2008) are densely layered with thousands of tiny strokes, small squiggles and glyphs of every hue, to compose large fields of colour. One superb painting, Bingo (1992), features small dabs of red and gold fluttering out toward the viewer, evoking a gust of wind stirring up a bowl of petals. Heads work seems to encourage creative interpretations. Brushstrokes can become arteries and veins, fields of colour become autumn leaves, storm clouds, or pools of algae. Dots could be people and lines could be streets. One painting has me imagining a waterfall of licorice allsorts, or a tide of tiny multi-coloured sea creatures.

In the 1960s, Head was considered by some critics to be one of the most promising abstract oil painters in Canada. However, I prefer his ink graphics during this period, particularly, Interior Bay (1964). Its dark lines swirl in red, pink and brown washes, and look like signatures written in some fantastic, forgotten language.

“I don’t get it,” is what I often hear about abstract art, likely because it lacks the visual references we normally see everywhere in our lives. That’s alright. What makes abstract art successful is its ability to influence our emotions, to stimulate our minds and imaginations. I suggest enjoying Head’s exemplary work on your own terms. Visit the exhibit in the mindset of an explorer to a strange and wonderful land, not a critic, and you won’t be disappointed.

Head Space, curated by Amy Karlinsky runs until Nov. 23, 2008.

If you happen to be heading through Winnipeg Square, or stopping by the Woodsworth Building on Broadway in the coming days, take a few minutes to contemplate the work of Bruce Head.

-Jay