Dear editor,
I would like to express my thanks to artist Eric Keast for wanting to install a public art piece in Fort Frances. Mr. Keast wrote to the TOFF in January requesting a letter of support so he could apply for funding to create and install a fish/fishing sculpture with Fort Frances in consideration as the installation site. Though Council denied his request for various reasons (tight deadline of mid-March, last minute info added, lack of policy for public art in Fort Frances) I remain hopeful that there will be other funding and the project will proceed.
I have written to all members of Council expressing my support for this project and encourage citizens to do the same. I have plans to meet with a councillor to discuss creating a public art policy for Fort Frances, which he pushed for in a previous term on Council. If Council requires policies to help make these types of decisions, the proper policies must be created as soon as possible. This will make certain that artists know exactly what information is required of them well ahead of deadlines, facilitate conversation between artists and committees/Council, and ensure Fort Frances does not continue to miss these types of opportunities.
Eric Keast is an Anishinaabe artist with a career spanning decades. He is a painter who builds his own canvases, a sculptor proficient in papier mache, a pottery and ceramics artist who built his own kiln. He works with wood, metal, stone, and beads, displaying his art in galleries and selling it out of the back of his truck. I can think of no finer artist to have his work made a permanent feature of Fort Frances.
Thank you,
Nathalie Donaldson
