Vera Saltzman, “Kennedi,” 2016
photograph, 15” x 15”
Vera Saltzman found it difficult to adapt to life in Saskatchewan after she moved there in 2012.
Living in Fort Qu’Appelle, northeast of Regina, she figured she needed to learn more about “Saskatchewan identity” to fit in better.
So she picked up W.O. Mitchell’s classic novel, Who Has Seen the Wind, about a boy’s often troubled life in small-town Saskatchewan during the 1930s.
While reading the book, Saltzman, who grew up in Nova Scotia, began to wonder how the lives of today’s rural children differ from those in Mitchell’s era.
With one eye on the past and another on the present, she began to photograph arresting, unsmiling portraits of boys and girls from farms, small towns and Indigenous communities. She chose children from ages four to 11, spanning the years in the life of Mitchell’s fictional character, Brian.
In many ways, rural Saskatchewan is much the same as in Mitchell’s day. The flat landscape still shapes children’s lives, although they are more tech savvy and less innocent than their predecessors.
Another big difference is that the rural population has become more culturally diverse. Saltzman’s photographs capture that.
Vera Saltzman, “Dannalee,” 2017
photograph, 15” x 15”
This month, 18 of her black-and-white portraits, collectively titled O Human Child, are starting a two-year excursion to nine Saskatchewan communities, courtesy of the popular touring program run by the Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils.
The first stop is Gallery Works and The 3rd Dimension in Melville from April 1 to April 23. The show will also travel to Yorkton, Hudson Bay, Shaunavon, Warman, Melfort, Outlook, Lloydminster and Rosthern.
The show will be on view at the Slate Gallery in Regina from Sept. 12 to Oct. 26, alongside sculptural portraits by the late Joe Fafard and paintings by Karen Holden. It will also be exhibited in Ottawa and Portland, Oregon.
Saltzman specifically asked her photographic subjects to refrain from smiling.
“If we just see children who are always smiling then we lose sight of the fact there is great depth to children,” she says.
“That’s very superficial to have a smile all the time. These kids have thoughts and emotions. I wanted to have that part of them come through so that, hopefully, when people would look at the images they would pause and think about what is life like for these kids and how do they live today.”
Vera Saltzman, “Samuel,” 2016
photograph, 15” x 15”
Indeed, the children are posed in ways that reveal much about their personalities and the landscape around them.
A boy who loves hunting is seen outdoors. Dressed in camouflage, he holds a recently killed wild goose. A little girl poses in front of her lemonade stand. An Indigenous girl who uses crutches looks determined as she stands in front of Pasqua Lake in the Qu’Appelle Valley.
It’s clear these are children who have secrets, dreams and complex personalities. These are kids we would love to meet.
The title of the show, O Human Child, is a line from the W.B. Yeats poem, The Stolen Child, about fairies beguiling a boy to run off with them. The poem is magical but unsettling, reflecting the joy and sadness that encompasses childhood everywhere, including rural Saskatchewan, past and present.
It is seven years since Saltzman moved to Saskatchewan. She has made friends and now feels at home. It helps that she lives on the shore of Echo Lake in the Qu’Appelle Valley. The water reminds her of where she grew up. But she has succumbed to the uncluttered prairie landscape, and says she now feels claustrophobic driving through Nova Scotia’s dense forests. ■
O Human Child begins its two-year tour of Saskatchewan at Gallery Works and The Third Dimension in Melville from April 1 to April 23, 2019.