Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 21
October 29, 2007


Artbeat

Klassen photograph featured on stamp

By Teresa Falk

National Correspondent

WINNIPEG

A Canada Post stamp currently in circulation features a photograph taken by Mennonite Church Canada web servant Grant Klassen.

Grant Klassen, MC Canada web servant, displays a Canada Post stamp that features a photograph he took while working for Parks Canada in 1990.

The stamp is one in a series of five displaying different geographical areas of Canada. The series, called “Non-denominated Definitives: Flag,” was issued last November and will only be available until the middle of next month. Klassen’s name is shown in small print on the package of stamps.

The photo of Sirmilik National Park on Baffin Island in Nunavut was taken in 1990 while Klassen was working for Parks Canada as an audio-visual producer. It features a fjord with water in the foreground and a glacier tongue stretching into a valley.

“I went up there for a photo survey,” he says. “As we were flying in a helicopter I took the photographs. The pilot took the passenger door off so I could lean out and take photographs.”

Despite being chosen for a Canada Post stamp, Klassen doesn’t feel his photograph is anything special. “Frankly, I don’t think it’s a very good shot,” he says. “However, I am very honoured. I feel very good about it [being chosen].”

Klassen found out about the stamp last December from a fellow photographer. “One of the other photographers who still works for Parks Canada had been contacted by a stamp collector, who wanted the signatures of each of the five photographers [featured in the series of stamps]. So this photographer ‘Googled’ my name and contacted me,” he says.

Through the stamp, Klassen is sharing part of God’s beautiful creation with Canadians. “That’s one of the things I really liked about working for Parks Canada,” he says. “I was able to take photographs and show different areas of Canada, some of which are phenomenally interesting.”

The Hand extended

Stations of the Cross exhibit donated by local artist to Canadian Mennonite University

By John Longhurst

Canadian Mennonite University

WINNIPEG

Many Protestants are unfamiliar with the Stations of the Cross, a Christian tradition that goes back centuries. But now students and visitors at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) can learn more about this long-time practice of Christian piety as they view and reflect on an artistic rendering of Christ’s final journey by Winnipeg artist Betty Dimock.

Betty Dimock stands next to “Jesus Condemned,” part of the Stations of the Cross exhibit that the Winnipeg artist donated to CMU.

The display, called “The Hand: Jesus’ Way to the Cross,” is a series of 14 prints that illustrate Christ’s journey to the cross through the hands of his accusers, those who helped him along the way, and of Jesus himself. It was dedicated Sept. 12.

Dimock, a printmaker who has studied at the Pratt Institute in New York, the Sorbonne in Paris and also in Italy and Japan, created the display in 1983. She began looking for a permanent home for the exhibit last year, eventually selecting CMU because it would be a way to share the work with young people who could learn from and be inspired by it.

At the dedication service, Gerry Ediger, associate professor of Christian history, noted that the practice of symbolically retracing Christ’s journey to Calvary goes back to the Middle Ages, when reproductions of his final steps began to appear in Europe “as a way for pious Christians to follow in the footsteps of Jesus without travelling to Jerusalem.”

Ediger noted that increasing numbers of Mennonites and other Protestants “are showing a renewed appreciation for the historic sacred symbols of Christianity,” such as the Stations of the Cross. It’s a very appropriate symbol for Mennonites, he suggested, since they have historically viewed themselves as “pilgrim disciples of Jesus, wandering citizens of another kingdom, following in the footsteps of Christ.” Dimock’s representation is particularly apt for Mennonites, he went on to say, since it is “grounded in the symbol of hands, a graphic depiction of reaching out, service and comfort.”

In receiving the gift, CMU president Gerald Gerbrandt praised and thanked Dimock, who has hearing loss, for donating a bursary in memory of her husband, to help students with physical challenges study at CMU. “These two gifts will continue to give for years to come,” he said, adding that he hopes it will “move and affect students to use their hands for good.”

In addition to the display, Dimock has produced a book about the exhibit called The Hand: Jesus’ Way to the Cross. It is available from the CMU bookstore. Sixty percent of the proceeds from the sale of the book go to the Herbert Victor Dimock Memorial Bursary.


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