Last Wednesday, the Baron had the opportunity to gather with the University of New Brunswick Saint John’s campus and community art enthusiasts to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Lorenzo Society. This event featured a pop-up exhibition in which students in the ENGL 3716: Reading and Writing Community course shared their responses to works from The Cormorant. 

The Cormorant was a magazine that featured fiction, book reviews, and art by local authors. It was published at the University of New Brunswick Saint John from 1983 to 1998 with support from the Purple Wednesday Society and the Lorenzo Society. Both societies were founded by William Prouty, who sought to strengthen the arts scene in Saint John.  

Samridhi Girdhar/The Baron

As everyone crowded into what used to be a little gallery, Dr. Gemma Marr, coordinator of the Lorenzo Society, opened the event by explaining its importance and history. She explained that the Lorenzo Society was “created by a group of people who wanted to bridge the gap between the community and campus. They loved art so much, and they wanted to make as much of it as they possibly could, in any way that they could, that would be accessible to as many people as possible because Lorenzo society events are, for the most part, free and they are open to everyone.” 

Dr. Marr then turned it over to Lexi MacDonald, one of the students, who shared that “Dr. Gemma Marr took on a course that is bound by creativity and creative output, which is something many people can’t do. Throughout the course, she encouraged the creativity of each individual to be the driving force in our achievement.” Lexi then talked about the amazing opportunities the students had, to not only read and respond to literary works from various Canadian authors, but also to meet many of those writers, which gave them the ability to “connect with the text in a way most never get”. To end the opening, Lexi described the event as “a celebration of the conversation art has with us when we direct our senses to it and invest ourselves in it.”  

Samridhi Girdhar/The Baron

While exploring the exhibit, we had the chance to speak to some of the co-curators, the students of ENGL 3716, and ask them some questions about their pieces and how they found the course. For the project, they chose an issue of The Cormorant that spoke to them and 1-2 pieces within their issue to review, research, and respond to. Then, they created either a zine or a podcast, along with a visual art project that reflected how they interpreted and interacted with their Cormorant pieces.  

One fourth-year philosophy student chose her Cormorant piece, by Jeneca Klausen, because she saw herself in the painting, where a woman seems lost and as though she is searching for something. Another student chose “An Unlikely Time, An Unlikely Place”, a transcript of a CBC documentary radio program. They chose this to focus on the booming Saint John art scene in the 1930s and 40s, where the artists came to the city to connect, share, and create together. One third-year student even included collaged print copies of the Baron in their response to demonstrate that the poem, “Seeking Playmate”, sounds like an ad and looks like it was ripped out of a newspaper.  

Samridhi Girdhar/The Baron

One fourth-year English student took the poems “Boxed In” and “The underside of the wharf” and created a pop-up art piece with a spooky house and a mysterious hand reaching out from under the water to portray the two eerie and chilling poems. Another student took their piece by Peggy Smith, which “depicts musicians in a simplistic, refined ‘line-art’ style”, and added “another layer to the palimpsest of local artistry” by recreating the illustration with crochet.  

In response to the overall course, the common theme among the students was that it gave them the chance to be creative and hands-on, which enhanced their learning experience. One student even said that the course gave them a better sense of the artistic community in Saint John. From creating zines, podcasts, and visual art to meeting Canadian artists, ENGL 3716 gave students the ability to foster new literary connections and develop their artistic abilities.