Art Of Ice Hockey: UMMA and Beyond

The University of Maine Museum of Art held it’s member art show reception, Thursday evening, January 12. I met one of the featured Artists: Siobhan McBride!

Standing in front  of her painting, Siobhan and I at UMMA Reception
Standing in front of her painting, Siobhan and I at UMMA Reception

Siobhan McBride: Four Hour Fortune Cookie

January 13, 2017 – May 6, 2017

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Siobhan McBride (American, born 1980) Captivity, 2015, Gouache on paper on panel, Courtesy of the artist

 

Siobhan McBride works primarily in gouache on paper to render places and scenes that are imbued with incongruities, memories, and psychological tension. McBride comments that the depicted scenes, “are tense with anticipation, or blushing in the aftermath of an unseen event.” They are “descriptions of awkward experiences, passages from books and film fragments, things caught in the corner of my eye, and an attempt to conjure slippery memories.”  McBride creates works that are steeped in mystery–images that hover between the humorous and the eerie. Bold light amplifies an array of realistically rendered objects and environments, and in doing so accentuates the unsettling nature of things obscured within shadows. When viewed from a distance McBride’s constructed images crystalize, but while up-close the surface is a complex abstract accumulation of colored shapes. Siobhan McBride received her MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania.CComoonscape-sized

Paintings of Players

While attending Cornell University’s Architecture, Art and Planning College, I also played Division I Women’s ice hockey! Many times I thought the main purpose of my time in Ithaca was to skate! I had a great coach, Bill Duthie, from Quebec who had several ECAC championship watches from his time as a player for Cornell. His teammate was goalie Ken Dryden, former NHL star for the Montreal Canadiens and former member of the Canadian Parliament. Coach Duthie referred to Ken Dryden often and I was in awe of their hockey abilities! I was trained by the best! The influence of hockey on my art revealed itself by my self portrait playing left defense for the “Big Red”.  (Coach Duthie was a defenseman too, I wanted to be just like him!) I must reveal that when I played ice hockey for Cornell, this was in 1974, two years after Title IX was voted as an Educational Amendment to the Constitution. “Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 (20 U.S.C. .1681 et seq.) prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs receiving Federal financial assistance. Athletics are considered an integral part of an institution’s education program and are therefore covered by this law.” 

This meant that Cornell University had to establish a women’s ice hockey team because they offered men’s ice hockey!!! Yes!!! lucky for me! As I attended Waterville High School, the only winter sport they offered at WHS was gymnastics, no basketball, no ice hockey for girls until Title IX came into effect. Waterville, in the 1970’s was a huge hockey town, that is why I skated on outdoor rinks all through high school and learned to love the sport. And for this reason, I picked Cornell to attend because they had a painting major and women’s ice hockey, my two passions! Below is my self portrait at Cornell:

Self Portrait, Left Defense for "Big Red"

Self Portrait, Left Defense for “Big Red”

Girls Hockey has come a long way since the ’70’s! Now young women can play mites right up through high school in Maine and continue to the collegiate level and to the Olympics! The first year Women’s Ice Hockey was an Olympic sport was in 1998 in Nagano and the USA won the gold medal! My Cornell teammate, Carla “C” Grillo called me that winter and insisted that I travel with her to attend the Olympic games. Unfortunately, I could not go to Japan as I was a single mother, coaching my son’s mite hockey team at the time! But, I did record those historic games and have them on old VCR cassette tapes! If anyone could copy them to a disc or thumb drive let me know! I am getting excited for 2018 winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea and a rematch of the USA and Canadian Women’s Ice Hockey rivalry!

In the mean time for great collegiate ice hockey you could attend the University of Maine’s women’s and men’s games at Alfond Area in Orono! This weekend, 1/27, 28, 29/2017 the Black Bears men play U Mass Friday and Saturday, 7:00 PM. The women play Providence College Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 PM. Below is my painting of the Black Bear Mascot in front of the UMaine Field House.

"Go Black Bears", Oil on Canvas, for University of Maine's 150 Anniversary

“Go Black Bears”, Oil on Canvas, for University of Maine’s 150 Anniversary

Lastly, The Bangor Art Society is holding their Annual Members’ Art Show intake this Saturday, 1/28/17 at the Rock & Art Shop, 36 Central St., Bangor, from noon til 4:00 PM. If interested in becoming a member, people can bring their art and pay membership dues on Saturday!

Keep your head up and shoot for the best painting ever! Look for my next blog “Viewing the World with Rose Colored Glasses”!

Teddi Covell

About Teddi Covell

Teddi-Jann was elected as President of the Bangor Art Society May 2015. In this capacity she complied member’s drawings to form a Bangor Art Society Coloring Book, organized, two members’ art shows and one Paint-out with a wet paint auction, October 2015 & 2016.