David Garcia Jimenez, Instructor and Students, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 90 cm, Courtesy of the Artist.

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Meet Us Halfway!

This project started as a series of kitchen table conversations about the need for a local outlet for art writing, somewhere to expand the life of creative work beyond the representations of social media and the 24-hour news cycle. Over the course of making this journal, we’ve had many such conversations, in many different contexts and we’ve received an outpouring of words and actions of support. Writers from across the region have reached out to us; there is clearly a real hunger for more writing, reading, and publishing about arts and culture.

It’s good to have a plan

something to reference when work is confusing

something to steward into being

that we agree with, and believe in

Over the past 15 years, Mi’kmaw porcupine quill art has been undergoing a revitalization in Epekwitk (1), resulting in a thriving community of quill artists. This article will explore how the spread of the traditional artform has affected artists, the community, and more importantly, autonomy of Mi’kmaq art.

In a town where space is at a premium, the Blue Building luxuriates in long sight lines and negative space. Nested within the rectangular geometry of the gallery, Emmitukwemk: The Visit, by Ursula Johnson, is the first exhibition I have seen that has held its own against the imposing 1400-square-foot room.

A puzzle is evident when you look up close. The perimeters of the shapes are defined and easily traced with the eyes and fingertips. From the side you can see the peaks and valleys, like laying on the crust of the Uyuni Salt Flats and looking to the horizon. Up close enough to smell the wood, the structure reveals simple wooden blocks, fixed near each other. Like a puzzle, the beauty reveals itself only when you step back and the individual pieces fade away, transforming structure to art.

Do you even notice it anymore when you walk down the street or along the shores of Epekwitk/PEI? Or has trash become so omnipresent that you’ve accepted it as one of the inescapable consequences of the so-called Anthropocene?

As a lifelong horror movie fan, I pretty much started at the bottom of the art barrel, at least in terms of respectability. What wallowing in the muck of horror has meant, however, is that I’ve been in an enviable place, in terms of art appreciation, of having nothing to lose. As a fan of a disreputable genre, one that demands its practitioners blur the line between good and bad taste and explore things generally considered best left unexplored, I was more or less left without a rule book.

The following entries offer brief commentary on four local YouTube videos uploaded between 2007 and 2010. What can we learn by studying this vast public archive of PEI-based video work?

“The piece of art I've been working on is attached. Although I was supposed to write about "Criticism" and its importance within any community, as I've already mentioned, my area of expertise is more in the areas of journalism, women's rights, and culture. This essay is more personalized and relates to the human rights issue as well. However, I wrote what my heart was telling me to write, and I'm glad if this is what you were looking for.” - Freshta Hemmati

The Guild has been many things; once a Royal Bank of Canada location that was donated to the artists of Prince Edward Island, the building has evolved along a timeline of memorable events into a place where several generations of artists came of age, together.