Ueber Coddiwomples 2018 by H. RogueRaiders

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Helma Rogge Rehders, "Dice and Whale," 2018

About the show:

- to coddiwomple - an Old English verb

meaning:

- to travel in a purposeful manner toward a vague destination

- Coddiwomple by H. RogueRaiders is a drawing with aspects of a ‘doodle’

- Ueber Coddiwomple - a large ‘doodle’ with extensive icons with meaning on many levels

Ueber as adverb

example:

having the specified property to an extreme or excessive degree; very:

an ueber fancy restaurant

‘Ueber’ today’s buzzword

Ueber Coddiwomples 2018 follows Helma’s 2017 show titled ‘Coddiwomples’, small scale pen & ink drawings, which was a resounding success. The artist replaced the ‘doodle’ in the vernacular, with the apt title ‘Coddiwomple’ which was picked up with enthusiasm by the local art making community. Artists, frantically ever doodling, emerged in great numbers. Such fun to have initiated a ‘movement’.

The artist faced the challenge to preserve the whimsical nature of her small coddiwomples. From seven inch by nine inch drawings the Ueber Coddiwomple can measure three feet by three feet.

Living a stone’s throw away from Lake Winnipeg, Boundary Creek Marsh in particular, Helma developed icons e.g. red winged blackbirds, pelicans, snapping turtles, dragonflies, the not so well liked fish fly and more. These icons appear time and time again in new compositions. Then there are icons with universal meaning, such as dice. Placed in the coddiwomple they punctuate the artist’s imagined secret life in her drawings.

About the Artist

Born in northern Germany she spent her formative years in the hamlet of Wellingsbüttel, hailing back to the Bronze Age. A place at the brook Alster, a tributary to the mighty river Elbe. The Elbe is a river like the Red River, gateway to the see faring world, the Hanseatic League City Hamburg. At 17 she continued her education in Windsor, Berkshire, England, living as au pair in her sister’s household.

From birth she was in the ‘cross winds’ between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. To the north at Hedeby a full Viking Ship Burial was excavated in the dunes near her maternal ancestors, sheepherders for many generations, The Danish archipelago in close proximity ergo possibly Viking blood runs in her veins. To the west the islands Helgoland and Sylt, to the east Rostock along the Southern Baltic Sea coast, punctuated with Island Rügen’s archipelago, then Strahlsund.

Five years in several, independent African countries, during which she home schooled her three boys, also broadened her education. 2018 finds her in the Manitoba Interlake between two great big inland oceans, her fine art studio tucked securely between old tree stands, in the lee of the unpredictable lake gusts.

Helma is a painter first, poet second. Playing the Irish penny whistle, third. Labeled a garden-variety philosopher by her middle son, she is also an enthusiastic coddiwompler. She lives to create, write, and is proud to be in print in the journal of the LWWG ‘VOICES’.

She taught drawing whenever she was offered the opportunity. A particular memorable time was coaching young Zambian high school boys in drawing and painting to achieve their high school diplomas. In Winnipeg she coached young people to complete the entry requirements/portfolio into the applied arts course at Red River College.

Helma keeps up her visual art practice at her cottage/studio and maintains a close association with the WAVE Interlake Artists Studio Tour, as well SCAPE/Stronger Communities Through Art Participation for Everyone. Since graduating she practiced art making uninterrupted to this moment. One very pivotal event was receiving a Manitoba Arts Council A grant in 1996, for which she produced a body of work that proved seminal to her practice and output to this day.

H. RogueRaiders aka Helma Rogge Rehders BFA HONS 1987 University of Manitoba.

Artist reception Sunday, June 3 from 1 to 4 PM

Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 11 AM to 5 PM