Bancroft Studio Tour

ARDEA PRENTICE / PRINTMAKER

Ask Musclow printmaker, Ardea Prentice what the art she will have on display during the Bancroft and Area Studio Tour during the last two weeks of September is about and she says, “A wild process of magic and mystery. Layers of watercolour find their way onto the cotton canvas through monstrous acts of joy and madness.” And her journey to be able to declare that about making her art is a long and convoluted story.

Born In Trenton and raised in Peterborough—with lots of time spent with her dad in Marmora—she attended Trent University where she studied wildlife conservation biology. But before finishing there, she went for a ten-year visit to Vancouver where she attended theatre school and worked at freelance set and prop building and costume-making for theatre productions. Difficulty attaining union membership drove her to abandon that trade and head out for an extended world tour that included Asia and India and South America.

On her return to Peterborough, she finished the university degree she had started much earlier and landed a research job with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. She became quickly disillusioned with the attitude and acts of the ministry and staff relative to care of the environment; and abandoned that employment. And moved on to the Ecology Park facility for training about environmental concerns and joined the staff in teaching that to children—a mission she thoroughly enjoyed for several years. In 2005, Prentice started a home delivery of organic food business that eventually morphed into a worker-owned co-op that she left in good hands. And picked up and travelled to Thailand to learn Thai massage—an alt method of working with pressure points and stretching. And returned to begin practicing it with clients.

Now: you may ask: where did art become the magic and mystery inducing focus of her life? Well, she points out that the strong left side of her brain had led her to pursue all the activities logged above. But the right side had always been active—with her having made art constantly, beginning with all night sessions making drawings from her imagination in her childhood. And picked up again when she was in Vancouver where she made and painted paper mache constructions. And created watercolours off and on over the years.

In 2003, Prentice underwent a psychotherapy exercise called breathwork: “where conscious control of breathing influences a person’s mental, emotional, or physical state, with a therapeutic effect”—and that finishes with the participant making a drawing to represent their experience/learning. And off she went, making works of art inspired by that experience—and with joy/fun/bliss being her guiding principles. She bought a property in the Musclow area and built a home there where she now makes abstract and symbolic acrylic paintings and watercolour mono prints. She has shown them at the Art Gallery of Bancroft and A Place for the Arts and will be displaying as a guest at 116 Hershell Road off South Baptiste Road in the studio tour in September. Her contact info: ardeadianablade@protonmail.com

(Profile writing and photo by Allan O’Marra)