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Visual Arts by Anne Severson ARLENE STAMP MARY IS HERE Runs until May 22, 2000 Glenbow Museum Arlene Stamp’s painting practice is now complemented with sound and a multimedia installation in her latest work, Mary Is Here. It is Stamp’s way to search for the personal identity of an "ordinary woman" through her mother, Mary. The 1944 black-and-white photograph bears a legend printed in pencil: "Mary is here." Surrounded by a group of nine men in front of a bomber plane, Mary is part of the final checking crew at the London, Ontario production site. As a six-year-old, Stamp drew an arrow to point out her mother – otherwise we might not have noticed. Entering the four-room installation, this wall-sized photograph provides a point of departure for Stamp’s personal investigation into the changing identity of the 20th century woman, while looking through the memories of her mother. As a creative individual, Mary lived through the early part of the 20th century when women generally didn’t work outside the home. The domestic sphere was her palette. The living room recreates Mary’s 1920s childhood environment, as does the 1930s kitchen. As Mary moves into adulthood and Stamp is born, there is a 1940/50s bedroom and 1950/60s TV room. The rooms are furnished by Stamp from the Glenbow’s Cultural History collections. The period is defined with public and private media such as the radio, TV, films, magazines, pocket books, photo albums and even home movies. The installation is further enriched and personalized with the Glenbow’s Mary Smith Collection of objects, papers, photographs and her painted portrait. The focus for this context, this experimental way of connecting time, is the set of nine audio handset stations of Mary telling her own stories. Stamp began this body of work with a set of audiotapes she made in 1995 when her 80-year old mother was dying. In response to the artist’s request for stories about Mary’s own mother, Stamp is moved when "my mother reveals some of her most painful memories in what ends up seeming like a cry for forgiveness." These stories, The Mum Tapes, have formed the basis of her work since then. Stamp uses the rich Glenbow collections to examine recorded personal experiences, how women’s lives have changed over the past 100 years, and to inject these highly personal experiences into the public record. The artist questions how we as a culture document ordinary people. Evidence collected in public museums such as the Glenbow relate how objects and mementoes can become a public memory. Stamp has also created an associated Web site project at www.glenbow.org under "web site exhibits." Photographs will accompany excerpts from The Mum Tapes. Mary is Here is the third exhibition in the Glenbow’s on-going Connections to Collections series curated by Kirstin Evenden.

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