Owens Art Gallery

Last month the Owens Art Gallery launched a new section of their website, detailing all of the publications produced or available from the gallery. 

Mount Alison University’s sole imprint, the Owens’ publishing program has been active since the 1960s.

Available titles include works by or about Anna Torma, Derek Sullivan, Leah Garnett, Rita McKeough,Erik Edson, Ray Fenwick, Daniel Barrow, Andrea Morton, Garry Neill Kennedy, David Hoffos, Diane Borsato, Thaddeus Holownia, George Bures Miller, Jim Dine, Alex Coville, and myself. 

Alongside numerous monographs, the Owens has also published group exhibition catalogues, including the fascinating Warps, Heddles, Shuttles and Sheds: The Art and History of Weaving at Mount Allison University, which I reviewed here, and The Closer Things Are, here. For the latter, I collaborated with Micah Lexier on newspaper interventions that were published locally on the day the exhibition opened in the various towns it traveled to. 

The online catalogue was made  possible thanks to the work of J.E.A. Crake ArtsWork Publications Archive and Distribution Assistant Caitlin Gallant (2025), and 2023 Bourne Internship Community Engagement and Access Assistants Ranz Bontogon (2024) and Sophie Giese (2023).

View the publications here:

https://owensartgallery.com/publications/

This afternoon, the gallery launches a new publication by Thaddeus Holownia and Harry Thurston, 

 at 4:00 pm. Of A Feather is the their third collaborative book project, featuring twenty-one photographs of birds by Holownia, and poetry by Thurston. 

The Rubber Stamp Project: Daniel Barrow

Daniel Barrow, 2001, for

[Various Artists]
The Rubber Stamp Project
Sackville, Canada: Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre, 2003
[68 pp.], 24 x 10 cm., soft cover
Edition size unknown

(see previous posts)

The Rubber Stamp Project

[Various Artists]
The Rubber Stamp Project
Sackville, Canada: Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre, 2003
[68 pp.], 24 x 10 cm., soft cover
Edition size unknown

The Rubber Stamp Project began in 1996 when then-Director of Struts Gallery Gregory Elgstrand began commissioning artists to create works which could be stamped onto all outgoing mail from the centre for three months. The only stipulation was that the work had to fit on the back of a standard #10 envelope.

The series began with a somewhat incendiary text by Michael Fernandes that tackled the context directly: THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST RUN CENTRE IS TO BRING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT. It was soon followed by a similarly forthright work by Barbara Sternberg that read BUSINESS IS BUSINESS, CULTURE IS NOT BUSINESS.

While many of the initial works were text-based, artists such as The Royal Art Lodge, Jon Claytor, Daniel Barrow, Shary Boyle, Erik Edson and others contributed illustrative work to the series.

It's unclear when the project ended, but this hand-stamped (right down to the funding body acknowledgement) volume collects 8 years worth of stamps, by 31 different artists, including Cliff Eyland, Shawna Dempsey & Lori Millan, John Murchie, Annie Dunning, Jason Logan, Lucie Chan, Andrea Mortson, Anthea Black, Jen Budney and others.

It's available from the publisher, here, for $10 CDN. The following dozen or so posts will feature stamps from the book.

Daniel Barrow || Dark Watercolours

Daniel Barrow
Dark Watercolours
Sackville, Canada: Owens Art Gallery, 2015
[12] pp., 23 x 15 cm., staple-bound
Edition size unknown

Featuring an interview with Barrows by Amanda Fauteaux, this publication was produced on the occasion of an exhibition of the same name, hosted by the Owens Art Gallery at Mount Allison University, Struts Gallery and the Faucet Media Arts Centre. The exhibition featured a projected installation titled Demon Lovers, Balsa wood airplanes, a series of plaster feet which functioned as easels (see above), a row of chalk drawings and printed toilet paper.