Reflective Legacy
Celebrating the Life and Works of Heidi Oberheide
This exhibition celebrates the work and legacy of the late Heidi Oberheide, one of the co-founders of St. Michael’s Printshop, who passed away in October 2023 just shy of the shop’s 50th anniversary. The exhibition presents a selection of Heidi’s lithographic works created in the studio from 1974 to 1981, arranged into distinct themes she explored during her time here. The exhibition meditates not only on Heidi’s life and her lasting impact on printmaking in Newfoundland, but also this place, and how she saw herself reflected in it. From snapshots of the original printshop’s windows, to reflections in coastal tide pools, to contemplation on the plight of pothead whales, Heidi’s work reveals a deep connection to this coastal place, and the reciprocal marks she and outport Newfoundland made on one another.
Inviting Stories
Sharing our Memories of Heidi Oberheide
To accompany Reflective Legacy, we also hosted a story sharing event in honour of Heidi. This was a hybrid online and in-person event where people could share memories, write in stories to share and spend time together celebrating Heidi's life. View the slide show here, and/or scroll down to read some tributes:
Memories of Heidi Oberheide from Bruce Parsons For the past 50 years I have been an avid visitor to Newfoundland to vacation and find inspiration for my art practice. The gathering of artists with Heidi Oberheide and Don Wright to do a summer workshop on the environment on the border of the Atlantic Ocean next to the bird sanctuaries was a pleasure like no other. The printing facilities were excellent, and we were busy from morning to night for the most part outside for daytime in the morning and working on projects in the afternoon. We ate together for dinner followed by guest talks, discussion, slideshows, music and dance. I had my wife and 2 kids with me and they quickly connected with local children and craft artists. The group made collective performance creations at the Doctor’s Cove for a video work with masks, props, the rock formations and waves surging forcefully against the gigantic cubic black rocks. We were inspired by Josef Stacey’s song about the Point au Gaul tidal wave in 1920, when a fisherman in his boat heard a church bell ringing as his house floated out to sea. I think everyone produced a unique element for our performance that day. I was still making works as a result of our gathering for the following years. I had exhibitions in Halifax, Ottawa, NYC, Quebec City, Toronto, and Hangzhou China. These exhibitions were based on the theme of the “Tidal Wave”. My first Newfoundland workshop was with Don Wright in 1972 in Lamaline and Point au Gaul, working with NFB video equipment recording folk singers and doing children’s art workshops in the community centre. We had our own family house for several months. Wild ponies came to our yard and we got water from the communal well. The fisheries were active and the communities lively. I thought the sounds and the fiddle music was the best along with sea urchins, lobster and freshly jigged fresh cod, all thanks to Memorial University extension department. One result was I produced an illustrated journal for the National Gallery of Canada. The title is “Artists in Atlantic Canada.” In 1979, I was a guest instructor with a group of young artists with time to explore life opposite the Bird Islands and the Avalon Peninsula. Heidi Oberheide was a resident printmaker and made us all at home and feeling connected in a community that made us welcomed. I remember picking cloudberries, trout fishing, chowder feast, hooked rugs, quilts on a clothesline, the timing of the tides, the pilot whales, fog, puffins, gannets, murres, kitty hawks, gulls, and Harry the old horse on the opposite field from the workshop. My works also featured the dying pilot whales on the beaches of Point au Gaul similar to Heidi’s work. Heidi Oberheide was a brilliant guide in our gathering. She was good spirited, laid back but always a guide for me and the others. Everyone sharing and absorbing the subtle energy present in the sea and the shores. I since visited the east coast Newfoundland many times, my last visit was in 2019, and I walked around the old location of the workshop, Heidi’s presence was still in the air. Dear friend, rest in peace. Bruce Parsons
Memories of Heidi Oberheide from Bill Ritchie I first met Don and Heidi in 1976 when I was en-route to Labrador. They were very encouraging and I was impressed by the situation they had developed. As a recent graduate of NSCAD the problem was to find a printshop that would be both suitable to rent space in and live near by, St.Michael’s was a beautiful rural situation. After four or five years living in Labrador Gilbert Hay and myself applied to the local Art Council for funding to come and work on a book project we had in mind and that’s what started the ball rolling. Not only did we get a lot of work done we met most of the local people of St.Michael’s and the arts community of St.John’s. I remember that there was certain day of the week that Heidi would take the visiting artists/printmakers to Big Goods in Goulds to do their shopping. She drove an old green station wagon, the dash board was covered with things she found on beaches. Every time she took a sharp turn everything would slide from side to side and it was the job of the front passenger to contain the fallout. She invited Gilbert and myself out to visit her at her studio home on the point of St.Michael’s. We weren’t allowed to smoke in her house so Gilbert and I stood on the front blue berry patch looking at the view which was and is still remarkable. The inside of her house was sparse. The living room was her painting studio and she had built an annex onto the living room so she could explore using a spray gun. She was experimenting with photo emulsion applied to paper, quite a messy operation but she didn’t care about appearances, she was direct and to the point totally, focused on her art making. At some point Heidi decided to come and visit Gilbert and I in Nain. I took her to Dog island (Illitsasuk) to visit with Gilbert and his family who had moved their to salmon fish for the summer. I had my own speed boat and gear so I was independent. After there we travelled down to my cabin at Zoar Bay, half way between Nain and Davis Inlet. I have a photo someplace of Heidi standing in front of the door at Zoar. I got her back to Nain in time to catch the ferry south. Gilbert and I travelled back to St.Michael’s a number of times and when our project was complete I came south on my own, I was transitioning south but I didn’t know it yet. Heidi let me sleep in the north facing spare room next to the office and I became the defacto technician, my pay was the room and shop rental. For me it was a perfect situation. I met all the visiting artists and printers not to mention all the local artists/printmakers. I became friends with the Melvin’s and eventually rented their old family home next to the shop. Around this time Heidi moved to Washington State, Don was focused more on Port Kerwin and painting and Peter Walker was hired as the shop manager. Heidi’s House was bought by Bunty Severs, a fabric artist from St.John’s. I asked her for first refusal if she ever decided to sell the house and she honoured that promise, I bought the house and property. Bunty had built on a shed roofed studio to the west attached to the house which made a perfect studio for me so the otherwise tiny home portion became a very comfortable place to live and work. I live their still. William Ritchie
Heidi Oberheide: Remembrances… Derek Michael Besant RCA I met Heidi Oberheide in 1977, when Alexandra Haeseker and I were two of the first Canadian artists invited to spend an artist’s residency out at the St. Michael’s Printshop on the Southern Shore of Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula. Heidi and Don Wright had established the Printshop through Memorial University’s Extension Services Visual Arts Program, and we already knew several well-known artists from the far Eastern coast of Canada. So the invitation was indeed an adventure to the unknown for us as Western artists in Canada. One that still resonates in my mind as “a trip to the light fantastic!” Even then, Heidi’s work was like a diary of her experiences – taking in the climate, culture, local folk-art practices, found objects along the shore, awareness of the watching for weather conditions, with a colorful vocabulary that included: fiddleheads, humpback whale bones, cod tongues, hooked mats, seagulls, Mummers, Twillingate, Fogo Island, Come by-Chance… all of which still conjure up a magical place with such a unique identity that is Newfoundland. Heidi’s work always seemed to contain a dark mood of foreboding to me… It held a mystery and shadow-like spirit that I soon learned came not out of observation of things like a storm rolling in, or anything to do with the beautiful isolation she chose to live by in the hand-built home perched overlooking Bird Island where the whales blew fountains and puffins dove into burrows. Events that Heidi’s work was steeped in while living in Newfoundland came out of incidents like witnessing beached whales, and her emotional responses to life on the edges that existed there… Her limited color-palette of greys, blacks, bluish tints, echoed the surge of the sea, and how it boiled and sprayed as a force to be reckoned with in the stark cold of falling light. Heidi’s balance between photo sources and hand-drawn elements utilizes the mark much like an excavation into the psychological material she was drawn to as subject matter. Heidi’s soft-spoken considerations when we would discuss philosophy, art, or nature, was a counterpoint to her laugh and smile when we found something absurd in our dialogue or debates. Her drawn images underline a mysterious quality beyond illustration of anatomical themes - into the spiritual realm of the land itself… Faint ghosts of schools of whales, are as elusive in her lithographs, as the real creatures are half-submerged in surface water during a rough sea night with the sun about to go down on the horizon. Icebergs, birds, deer, and bear imagery looked farther than the physical subject, deep into the “anima” spirit of other species, as if to underline connections that dwelt within her soul as a woman that felt a kinship with the planet - and whatever else inhabited the same world in parallel existence. Heidi’s adoption of place during her Newfoundland years allowed her to get to the heart of so much about Newfoundland, even though she was “from away’ – (as we were too). But an outside perspective can often get to the truth of the matter as well. I think the fierce pride that we observed in the cultural milieu we were introduced to by Heidi and Don as insights into Newfoundland - gave us similar outsider perspectives into why the far East Coast landscape continues to be an inspiration for art-making on many levels. In her later works, Heidi’s darker hues and subjects gave way to introductions of color that illuminated her subject matter. The shifts in her awareness into sources of life that are abundant if you observe the surrounding wilderness, or at least nature and what it contains – invite a kind of connection to self. Her Transformation works from the mid-1990s are celebrations of life, balanced in fragile juxtapositions and inviting the eye to explore and accompany the artist in her search. Feathers, leaves, birds, a hint of topographical landscape – delight the eye as an exercise in the artist’s hand and direct media applications. Oberheide’s more recent Woodside series deconstructs her subject matter down even farther, almost becoming cellular structure of language that everything is constructed from. A unifying playfulness is apparent with a sense of urgency in how the paint is applied – it hastens a focus she obviously has, in having the image show itself to her in the act of making These works are a statement that tells us we are part of something bigger that is all around us. In this, Heidi Oberheide arrives at a pinnacle of what we can trace back to those first searches in her work I saw emerging during our artist’s residency on the far shore of Newfoundland. An artist’s life is measured across time and becomes an indicator of that person’s own subconscious becoming a conscious reality. These are the works of Heidi Oberheide…
Memories of Heidi Oberheide from Ian Emerson I first met newly hired Heidi Oberheide on the fourth floor of the Education Building of Memorial University where she was teaching an extension course on basic drawing. As a student, I immediately liked the way she taught: giving excellent instruction on techniques without excessively imposing her own ideas on composition and form. I enjoyed the freedom I felt to pursue my own ideas. Whenever she commented on whatever I had done she did it with a smile on her face and was always pointing out the positive features. After that I took a large number of evening extension courses from her including figure drawing and several silk screening courses. I’m not sure how we became friends outside the studio. Perhaps it was after my wife-at-the-time (Carolyn) and I went to a joint exhibition by Heidi, Don Wright and Frank Lapointe in a space they rented for the event on Water Street. In any case Heidi invited us to dinner at her two-story rented house in Burnt Cove on the Southern Shore. Later an old school house in nearby St. Michael’s was renovated as a print shop and Heidi became its “director”. There I attended a lot of workshops and worked under the supervision of both Don and Heidi to produce prints of various types. In the summers of ‘78, ‘79 and ‘80 Heidi organized week-long workshops entitled Art and the Environment. Participants came from all over Canada and stayed in tents or boarded in the local community. I participated both as a “student” and as a biological consultant on local biological habitats. Lead art instructors were renowned artists Bruce Parsons (78,79) and Joyce Wieland (80). These were very active workshops and we had a lot of fun not just doing art, but also playing games and observing nature (seabird colonies, intertidal zone communities and bog communities). Heidi also developed a program, funded by grants, which brought in master print makers who not only produced their own work but also printed the works of local artists I remember in particular. Derek Besant and Sandy Haeseker. Oftentimes Carolyn and I were invited for dinner at Heidi’s when she entertained many of these guest artists. One memorable guest, a prominent Newfoundland print maker, referred to women artists as ‘girl artists’ much to Heidi’s chagrin. Heidi was too polite to object to the expression at the time but we had a long discussion about what she thought was a demeaning term after he left. We often hiked to Doctor’s Cove Beach which was an unspoiled stretch of rocky shoreline near Bauline consisting of a pebble beach, tide pools (which Heidi photographed and used in her art) and a rock cliff which was shaped like an amphitheater with a flat outcrop stage surrounded by a semicircular cliff walls. On the vertical walls were step-shaped indentations, almost like pedestals, carved out by the sea where one could stand. or sit. Heidi photographed the whole workshop participants one year each perched in a separate seat on the wall and produced a painting from it which I now own. On one unforgettable fall day Heidi, Carolyn and I each took turns reading aloud poetry written by EJ Pratt while standing on a prominent pedestal on the cliff wall. Here we also had a session with musicians from Memorial University (Don Wherry and Paul Bendza) who supplied each of us with rudimentary musical instruments. With Don and Paul’s lead we made a lot of free style sounds. I’m not sure how good it was or whether you would even call it music but it was a lot of fun. Sometimes we would stop at Tracy’s Pinch, a summer house halfway to Doctor’s Cove, owned and lived in seasonally by artist Bill Ritchie. In addition to discussing art Heidi liked to play backgammon with him. In the early eighties Heidi went to Banff, met Gaylen Hansen and decided to leave Newfoundland to live with him. Over the 10 or so years that Heidi lived in Newfoundland we visited each other’s houses regularly and when she left she even left me her car to sell for her. A few years later we traveled to their home in a rural area of Washington State called The Palouse. There we experienced how they worked daily in their studio combined with a loving relationship. So overall, Heidi was first and foremost a friend with whom we shared many activities and adventures. Secondly she was a lifetime artist whose work was always evolving in interesting ways. Thirdly she was a teacher who always inspired me to express myself artistically in any way I wanted. Lastly, if not most importantly, she was a woman who left her rich life in Newfoundland for her life with Gaylen whom she admired and clearly loved. Thanks Heidi for the memories that we shared together.
Memories of Heidi, from Catherine Wright Heidi was an important figure in my life, especially when I was a child. She was close to our family and we saw her on a regular basis. When I think of Heidi at that time, I recall: her wonderful tangly hair blowing; her hesitancy; the silver bracelets jangling on her wrist; her scent; her woolly creations; her nutmeg grater with the little drawer and handle that turned; how she liked to keep fit; that her sneezes sounded different and I supposed it was because she was German; that she made fruit crumble in the frying pan instead of the oven; that she was hard working and often serious. I remember the many hours at St Michaels, the presence of visiting and local artists, games of pétanque with the islands as backdrop, community sales and Mrs. T’s quilts, the puffin who swam in the litho sink, Heidi’s house on the point, listening to Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and lots of time outdoors. At Christmas, Heidi would send my brother and me heart-shaped lebkuchen cookies covered in chocolate from Germany! I treasure the little angels she gave, the teddies and ornaments on the tree. I was glad to continue our correspondence, if sporadically, after Heidi moved away. I liked to update her with family news and about my own artistic endeavours. She would send me photos of recent works. Always, she spoke of a healthy active lifestyle – the hours of hiking with Gaylen, their travels, time in the garden, and her art practice to which she was devoted. Her later paintings were full of life and colour. The last image she sent me was entitled Figure in the Garden – a woman in black, standing back on, solitary and still, is in contrast to the profusion of vibrant flowers that envelope her, a seemingly cheerful celebration of life! I hope that she felt such warmth and joy.
Otis Tamasauskas is a master printmaker from Ontario who sent this tribute In Memory of Heidi Oberheide Hearing the sad news that Heidi Oberheide passed away had a profoundly numbing effect on me. I vividly remember Heidi from the mid-1970s as the heart and soul of St. Michael's Printshop. She ran the printshop with remarkable dedication, both administratively and physically. Alongside Don Wright, Heidi was the face of St. Michael's Printshop, and together, they founded a place for artists to create in the medium of printmaking, that brought a significant cultural shift to the St. Michael's community. I fondly recall having dinners at the homes of local fishermen and noticing fine art prints by Frank Lapointe, Don Wright, Gerry Squires, and Bill Ritchie. The locals embraced the intriguing artists who worked in their midst, and Heidi's presence was felt deeply within the community, (the dinners and hospitality were wonderful). In 1977, I was fortunate to be invited to the printshop to print for Heidi and to conduct workshops in intaglio and stone lithography. It was during this time that I realized just how magical Newfoundland and St. Michael's truly were, thanks to Heidi. She spent countless hours showing me around, introducing me to the people and the breathtaking landscapes. Her work reflected this deep connection; she was an independent woman passionately devoted to environmental issues. Collaborating with her on her Tide Pool series was a joy, as it beautifully captured the inner beauty of the sea. After long days of proofing and printing, Heidi would invite Don and me to her home, which overlooked the ocean. There, she would play her favourite L.P. Keith Jarrett’s "The Köln Concert". Those evenings were enchanting and left an indelible mark on my heart. To this day, I still listen to that Keith Jarrett LP, always remembering Heidi Oberheide and the profound moments we shared gazing into the mysterious tide pools.