Creature Chronicle, A: Considering creation: faith and fable, fact and fiction

Betty Spackman is a multi media installation artist, painter, and educator who has worked and exhibited internationally for over 20 years. She has a background in Theatre, Animation, Performance Art and Video Art and won a National Film Award in 1987 for a 5 min. animation” A Bird in the Hand”. Spackman collaborated for many years with Austrian Artist Anja Westerfroelke. Their early video work was shown at ARS Electronica in Austria and Long Beach California with well-known artists such as Bill Viola and Gary Hill. Spackman has taught and spoken at conferences and galleries in Canada, Europe, the US, and Mexico. Her work has often centered on cultural objects and the stories connected to them. Her recent focus is on issues of animal/human relations and the connections between faith and science in regards to issues of creation and post humanism.

“Spackman invites the viewer to consider the complexities of our relation to all of nature and non judgmentally encourages us to contemplate and decode what implications our actions  may have on future generations. As with previous projects the artist has fearlessly tackled  an ambitious idea and the result of her abundant creative output is spectacular.”  

Ellen Van Eijnsbergen, Director/Curator, Burnaby Art Gallery

“A Creature Chronicle is full of surprises, provocative and demanding beyond measure. While often ironic it is always irenic saving us from the temptation to move into apathy and cynicism. She has “painted us” into a landscape where the questions of truth and goodness, as overwhelming as they seem in light of genetic science, are restored to a human scale by beauty which holds the world together in its fragile, “ever ancient and ever new”, hands.” 

David Goa, Cultural Curator

“This book is a rich combination of image and word that invites us to deeper reflection on the matters addressed in the impressive narrative  of the artwork. Spackman leaves us asking whether the tapestry of nature in all its complexity is inherently sacramental – calling us beyond appearances.”

John Franklin, Executive Director

Imago Arts

Preface:   

“Chronic Creatureliness:  

Putting Things in Perspective” 

by Karen Mulder

Foreword:

“Moral Ambiguity” by John Auxier

“Waiting in Wonder” by David Goa

“An Ethics of Mercy” by Brad Jersak

Conversations and Questions

Referenced Art Works*

IMAGE AND SYMBOL REFERENCES

Our Stories: Faith and Fable, Fact and Fiction

Humans being more than Human Beings

Credits and Thank Yous