Art history offered intriguing 'buffet'
Bachelor of Fine Arts graduate Felicity Hamer pursued her ardour for music and photography for years, but then found a new passion in the art history program at Concordia.
“Art history is like detective work,” she says. “I like examining artwork and trying to understand something of the artists’ time … where they’re coming from, what their influences were, and why they created things the way that they did.”
Anyone trying to understand where Hamer’s coming from will find a nomadic path – figuratively and literally. After concentrating on photography at Dawson College, she enrolled at Concordia in the photography program in 1999. She recommitted to school a dozen years later in the art history program and, at 33 and pregnant with her first child, received her BFA.
She was also chosen to deliver the valedictory speech on June 20 at the convocation ceremonies for the Faculty of Fine Arts.
Hamer initially left Concordia when the United Steel Workers of Montreal – the alternative-country band for which she sang lead vocals and played the accordion – began to achieve success. Over the next eight years, the band recorded three albums and toured extensively across Canada, the United States and Europe.
Eventually deciding it was time to buckle down and get her bachelor’s degree, she headed back to school in the fall of 2010. (She couldn’t give up music altogether. She remained with the United Steel Workers of Montreal until it disbanded late last year, and is currently the lead vocalist of Filly and The Flops.)
Hamer found she liked art history because of the wide variety of topics it incorporates – everything from architecture to geography, and from social studies to Renaissance art. “I have a very hard time staying focused, but art history actually managed to keep to my attention,” she says with a laugh. “It’s like a buffet: you can’t get bored because it’s such a huge field.”
The passion of the instructors for their topics also engaged her. Catherine MacKenzie, the professor with whom Hamer took a course on Renaissance art, particularly inspired her to continue her studies. “She took an interest in what I was writing, and made me feel confident that I was on the right path,” Hamer says.
Hamer has been so taken by the field that she has applied for the master’s program. She starts it in January 2013, with a two-year Faculty of Fine Arts fellowship, a position as a teaching assistant, and an infant.
Still intrigued by photography – particularly spirit photography (the idea of capturing the spirit of a live – or dead – subject), her thesis will explore the concept of photography as a safeguard against loss.
One thing she doesn’t have to worry about is a loss of personal spirit; she has that in spades.
Related links:
• Read about more 2012 Great Grads in the Faculty of Fine Arts
• Department of Art History
• United Steel Workers of Montreal – Little Girl (video)
• United Steel Workers of Montreal – Emile Bertrand (video)
• Filly and The Flops – Right or Wrong (video)