Sculptor Ruth Abernethy casts Canadian icons in bronze
If you've been by the CBC Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, it's likely you've sat with Ruth Abernethy's most famous work. Her bronze cast of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould sits on a bench overlooking Front Street, inviting passersby to pose as if in conversation.
Abernethy hoped the public would interact with the sculpture. "I think it's very Canadian to want to be face-to-face with people in our society who matter," she told Day 6 host Brent Bambury. "The idea of separation and plinths and grand statues doesn't really fit the Canadian fabric."
Sculpting Canadian icons
While Abernethy is most-well known for her statue of Gould, she has immortalized many Canadian figures, including actor Al Waxman, jazz musician Oscar Peterson, and even Franklin the Turtle, just to name a few.
Famously discerning of her portraits, Queen Elizabeth commissioned a royal figure, complete with flowing gown and towering throne.
But the details, like ruffles in a skirt or the jewels in a crown, aren't what drives Abernethy. She approaches sculpture more like theatre. When designing the statue of Waxman and picking the location, she wanted to tell a story and understand Waxman's motive (if he had been alive, that is) for being in a park.
"[Waxman's son] Adam, also an actor, turned to me and said, 'Oh! You want me to set the scene,'" Abernethy said. "A set of familiar features is, to me, a given in portraiture — but it isn't actually enough. It isn't satisfying enough. I want to meet this character."
Abernethy has no shortage of stories from creating these bronze casts. On Canada Day, she will return to Ottawa for the grand re-opening of the National Arts Centre. It's there that Oscar Peterson, leaning against a baby grand piano with a bow tie, sits near the entrance. That bust created quite the commotion in Peterson's home when she presented a model to his widow, Kelly.
"The dogs came in and started this immediate, deafening clamour. They were terrified, but they couldn't take their eyes off it," she recounted. "They wanted to smell it! 'Dad' was there and dad was not noticing them.
"They carried on for over half an hour."
Memorializing controversial figures
A different kind of clamour arose when Abernethy unveiled a statue of former prime minister Sir John A. MacDonald. It's part of a project to recreate the country's prime ministers at Castle Kilbride National Historic Site.
The project stirred controversy in 2013 when the public rejected a plan to host the statues in a Kitchener, Ont. park. Wilfred Laurier University then offered space, only to cancel the plan less than a year later.
I think we would all be shocked at 19th-century dinner conversation.- Sculptor Ruth Abernethy
Some were concerned about placing a bust of the country's first prime minister on traditional Indigenous land.
While Abernethy understands the concerns, she argues that you can't change history. "What I get to hang my hat on with a legacy portrait is actually the bigger narrative of this character at work in a 19th-century society," she said. "The man was elected again and again and again, which makes you think that the people who elected him thought very similarly to his own thoughts.
"I think we would all be shocked at 19th-century dinner conversation."
From bronze to book
Her sculptures are documented in Abernethy's new book, Life and Bronze: A Sculptor's Journal. The book reflects on her most famous pieces, complete with photos and stories. She also highlights smaller works created in her private studio.
Glenn, as she lovingly calls him, remains her most treasured work. To this day, she sees commemorative postcards of the sculpture on people's fridges. But almost invariably, there's something missing.
"The legs always tore off in postage. It was a bit daunting," she says with a laugh.
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