“Equinoctial Line”
Change and New Directions are Always Possible
Equinoctial Line by Meryl McMaster is one of a group of works from 2015 entitled Wanderings in which the artist deals with her life and culture, her past and her future. The thread going off in the distance behind her suggests the path she has travelled to reach where she now is, while the large spool of thread she is carrying evokes the range of possibilities that lie ahead.
What Meryl is addressing here about her life, and the life of individuals in general, applies equally to peoples, nations, and institutions including universities. Although our identities are to a large degree rooted in past decisions and experiences, such things do not determine our future. Change and new directions are always possible.
How to be true to what is best in our past and at the same time to seize the opportunities and to respond to the challenges which are coming to us out of the future is the task that St. Michael’s now faces. In order to respond adequately to it, the university will need leaders of wisdom, courage and generosity in all areas of its life.
About The Donovan Collection
The Donovan Collection of contemporary Canadian art at the University of St. Michael’s College includes approximately 400 works by 200 artists, almost all of whom are Canadian. The works are in a wide range of media and styles and represent a cross-section of the art exhibited in Toronto from the early 1980s to the present time. The Collection is curated by Fr. Dan Donovan.
Equinoctial Line, 2015,
© Meryl Mcmaster / Courtesy Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain, Montreal.