I’m a big believer in synchronicity. Many times, I’ve seen how it contributes to my writing. I plan stories in advance but always leave room for magic to happen. The gifts come—sometimes in the form of an unexpected book quote or a reader’s shared anecdote. While writing the closing chapters of Unrest, my 19th-century feminist adventure novel, I encountered the inspiration of Wes Peel’s cyanotype photomontage Horse Tamer.
Our mutual friend, Angela, invited me to view a series of Wes’s works being featured at the local art gallery. When she noticed me admiring Horse Tamer, she asked if I’d rather be the horse, the trainer, or the girl observing. A few weeks later, she gifted me a print of that piece, which I promptly framed and hung in my office.
At the same time, my character Mariah was at a turning point in her life. What road forward would she take? I reflected on Angela’s question. Horse, trainer, or observer? Then I asked Mariah how she’d answer, and her response guided me through the ending of the story.
I recently had the pleasure of meeting Wes Peel in person for a discussion about the forces of creativity. What follows is our interview with each other. It’s been such a pleasure to extend our conversation.
WES PEEL
Gwen, I really like the map illustration of Bytown at the front of the book. Perhaps it’s the visual artist in me. Describe the creative process of making the map. Did you design it? Is it a digital or analog drawing? In what ways do you think the story benefits from having a map for readers to reference?
GWEN TUINMAN
Part of my research involved visiting Ottawa and walking the distances between locations where scenes take place. I paid close attention to maps and locations when working out my characters’ movements, so it felt natural to include an actual map in the book.
I created a hand-drawn Bytown map based on a historical one from the Library and Archives of Canada. Then I marked significant locations, both real and fictitious. My editor forwarded the drawing to the book cover designer, Talia Abramson, who worked her digital magic to create the version you see in the book.
Including the map spared the story from lengthy descriptions of Bytown’s layout and its position relative to the Ottawa River, which helped the narrative pace. Readers—especially spatial thinkers—can experience the setting in another dimension by referencing mapped locations as they read. Ottawa readers in particular are intrigued to see how historically significant locations connect with modern-day streets and landmarks.
WES PEEL
I like how the prose of this novel is historically grounded without being overly burdened by detail. Having obviously researched a lot of 1830s Ottawa history prior to writing, was it a conscious decision to resist putting in too many historical references that might slow the story down? Were you tempted to add more?
GWEN TUINMAN
Not overwhelming the story with excessive information is a deliberate artistic choice. I aim to show only details that are remarkable to the characters or that could impact their lives. Otherwise, my work would read like nonfiction, and when people buy historical fiction, that’s not what they’re signing up for.
Dense descriptions and language can definitely weigh down a story pace and test reader patience. When the prose has room to breathe, the words take on a pleasing rhythm. Because I understand this about fiction, I never wrestled with whether or not to wedge in details that didn’t serve the story.
WES PEEL
Was Peter Aylen a real person? Historically, what do we know (or not know) of him?
GWEN TUINMAN
Peter Aylen was real—though he was born Peter Vallely. In 1815, he jumped ship in Québec and changed his surname to Aylen. After a single year in the timber trade, he mysteriously amassed great wealth, which he used to buy properties and timber concerns throughout the Ottawa Valley.
By 1835 he had harnessed the anger of 200 disenfranchised Irishmen and formed a gang known as the Shiners. Under Aylen’s direction, they punished anyone who spoke out against them through beatings with oak cudgels and by destroying homes and businesses with fire or explosives. Aylen also opposed the British gentry’s attempts to replicate the political or social organizations they’d enjoyed in England.
By the spring of 1837, the Shiners’ grip on Bytown had weakened, and Aylen sold his Upper Canada properties. He expanded his timber holdings north of the Ottawa River, moved to Aylmer, Québec, and married into a prominent timber family. His three sons became doctors and lawyers. Aylen went on to serve many years in public office—as property assessor, superintendent of roads, and township councilman—all while enriching his bottom line. In 1848, he was awarded the title of Justice of the Peace.
WES PEEL
The character of Biddy feels disturbingly real and unlikeable; she oozes misplaced confidence and rationalized malice. How did you channel inspiration to write from her perspective?
GWEN TUINMAN
After I formulated Biddy’s role in the story and developed her psychological profile, I chose a vintage photograph that reflected her back to me. The person in that photograph became an “actor” I imbued with her voice and personality. While I’m writing, she was on a stage in my mind—saying lines, making choices, and delivering actions that cause her sister Mariah such agony.
Over my life, I’ve known less-than-ideal people. In a past relationship, I experienced domestic abuse in the form of gaslighting, isolation, erosion of confidence and self-worth, withholding of finances, and other undermining strategies. While I didn’t consciously set out to draw on that past experience to choose Biddy’s words and actions, I realized after finishing the book that aspects of her were eerily familiar.
WES PEEL
Many of the characters, especially Mariah and Thomas, are in tune with their physical senses, making the story feel real. Tell us more about the recurring physical elements of smoke, blood, poteen whiskey, or the smell of damp winter clothes.
GWEN TUINMAN
As living creatures, we experience the world through our senses. Every sensory detail we encounter sparks warning, memories and associations according to on our own lived experience. In 1836, when Unrest is set, Mariah and Thomas, would’ve been more keenly aware of their environment since there was no overwhelm of manmade smells and sounds etcetera.
Smoke, blood, whiskey, and damp clothes suggest destruction, violence, rebellion, and poverty. When readers encounter these details on the page, they know they’re entering a gritty and dangerous historical setting.
How characters react to sensory detail also reveals much about them. Mariah’s senses are often heightened by fear, while Thomas’s are stirred by curiosity and wonder. The body odours of timbermen skyrocket Mariah’s anxieties, but for Thomas the same smell in a tavern suggests camaraderie and he’s drawn in. For Mariah, whiskey represents temptation and male aggression; for Thomas, it’s a rite of passage and a chance to bond with other men.
GWEN TUINMAN
First off, Wes, please tell us about your art form, cyanotype montage. What drew you into this kind of self-expression?
WES PEEL
I learned the cyanotype process in a photography class at university. I distinctly remember being captivated by its deep blue colour that was so different than the black and white film prints I was making at the time. I was also fascinated by the cyanotype’s history and simplicity. It’s one of the first 19C photography processes invented and involves brushing light-sensitive liquid onto a surface (like paper or fabric), exposing it to the sun or UV light, and washing it in water. I loved the look of the brush marks on the edges of the paper, blending photography and painting together, like the Pictorialist photography aesthetic of the 19C.
The collage and montage aspect of my work came later when I started teaching high school photography. I wanted to develop an introductory unit for my students, a historical process that did not require a camera. Someone had recently donated a massive number of National Geographic magazines to my school, and they were sitting on shelves in my classroom—rows and rows of those yellow spines—a veritable treasure-trove of images spanning decades. With fervour, we started going through them, cutting and pasting with scissors and glue sticks. It was a messy affair; I didn’t envy the custodians who were assigned my classroom to sweep the floor. We ended up creating theme-based collages and/or fantastical imagery made from multi-sources. Then, I photocopied the students’ collages onto overhead transparencies (in reverse), and we used them like film negatives, placing them on top of cyanotype-prepared paper.
As an artist, I adopted this multi-image, cut-and-paste approach, and this is how the Horse Tamer, was inspired!
GWEN TUINMAN
2.Is there a core theme you explore through your art? Or are there commonalities in the images that generally pull your interest?
WES PEEL
Much of my photography is a series of images, and that’s a recurring theme in my work. For example, in 2006 I exhibited a series of “Roadside Memorials”—those arrangements of personal objects like a cross, stuffed animal, flowers, or bicycle by the road to memorialize someone who died there. I wanted to convey how we drive by these things so quickly in cars that we take them for granted and don’t stop to look at the details. More than just tombstones, they are a deeply personal collection of items to honour the life of a real person. By showing these images in a series, with shots at distance and close-up, I wanted to reveal more of the “truth” of this social phenomenon. I try to move beyond photographic artifice and the mere surface quality of a single image to tell a story by assembling many parts. I suppose this is what you’ve done with Unrest, building a story with the viewpoints of multiple characters.
GWEN TUINMAN
Please share your journey to creating Horse Tamer.
WES PEEL
Horse Tamer is part of a series of large format cyanotypes entitled “Oshawa Assembly” from a 2019 exhibition at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario. The gallery contacted me to create an exhibit that would use images from the Thomas Bouckley Collection, a photographic archive of Oshawa that spans 100+ years. This was exactly in my proverbial wheel-house—creating photographs from multiple sources! So, I got busy and scanned dozens of old photographs, mostly older ones that interested me from the 1920s to 1950s.
The Horse Tamer is three different photographs combined to make one image: a photo of an open field, a schoolgirl outdoors, and a trainer and horse—all from the early 1920s in Oshawa, Ontario. I scanned each photo, “cut-and-pasted” the parts I wanted to combine in Photoshop, and then printed a cyanotype negative on transparency film. It was made in my photography studio where I have darkroom with running water, chemistry, and a UV exposure unit.
By the way, someone told me later that the man in the image holding the rope isn’t trying to “tame” or break in the horse. This is what I originally thought. Apparently, it’s a dressage maneuver whereby the horse is prompted to rear up on its hind legs in a full upright stance called a levade. It requires balance and strength of the horse to hold the position.
GWEN TUINMAN
What inspired you to draw on historical images in this piece?
WES PEEL
That’s a good question. I could’ve used photographs from any era in the Bouckley Collection. A couple of things influenced this decision. First, I had already done a series of cyanotype collages prior to this entitled “Old School” that used 1950s National Geographic magazines. So, I was comfortable working with old images to make new stories. Second, the older images in the Boukley Collection really suited the cyanotype. Combining older, dated looking images with an older, analog process just felt right. And, of course, the blue tones of the cyanotype harmonized everything and brought the different pieces together.
GWEN TUINMAN
There must have been a moment during your reading of Unrest where you recognized the influence of Horse Tamer. How did seeing your work as an influence in someone else’s art this way affect your view of the original story you were telling with the montage?
WES PEEL
Yes, absolutely! I saw the exact moment. So much of Mariah’s journey comes full circle, and it was exciting to see my own art embedded into the fabric of the story.
In this montage, I was trying to make a connection between the tamer, horse, and girl. The original schoolgirl photo was facing the other way, so I flipped it (in Photoshop) to bring her gaze toward the horse and trainer. I liked that she was holding something near her mouth; it created a sensory connection to the horse with a rope and bit in its mouth. It feels as though the girl is tuned into everything the horse is feeling. The original horse and trainer photo was also changed. Part of the horse’s tail and back leg were cut off, so I edited the photo and extended those parts to create a full tail and back leg. If you look closely, you can probably see evidence of this. In my opinion, it made the girl-horse connection stronger, as her hair and the horse tail look similar.
What I didn’t expect was a heightened sense of emotion and wonder. Your story added this layer, and I didn’t see it coming. I worked with this image for so long, editing for hours on my computer and making dozens of test prints. I was immersed in technical things. I forgot about the emotional aspect of the piece and its magical sense of possibility. I didn’t expect to feel like I was standing beside Mariah and witnessing her courageous and life-changing decisions. Rather than being outside a photograph, detached and observing from afar, I was now inside, experiencing and feeling things from her point of view.
Continue reading “When Storytelling and Art Intersect: In Conversation with Author Gwen Tuinman and Cyanotype Photomontage Artist Wes Peel”
