Mixed media sculpture made from a four-sided section of a 4” x 4” x 9” wooden fence post. Resting on top is a grayish-white cow vertebra. The base rests on 4 plastic letter beads spelling “PAIN” above 4 plastic stick pins. One side features an MRI spinal image in side view in shades of blue with white scratches. Another shows a black/white/pale-green-coloured mixed media collage with ink skeleton drawing, text, and paint. 2 grey knitting needles puncture one corner at 30-40-degree angles. Another shows navy painted wood with a pastel on grey paper drawing of a woman looking upwards; catgut stitching runs along the right edge. Another side shows a blue and white-coloured assemblage, including a door with “pain” in black letters; the inner door has the word “mend”; inside is a small white sculpted human torso skeleton with string attaching to the knitting needles.

Title: Bone Weary, Certain Age Collective (Chrystene Ells, Laura Hargrave, Sheila Nourse, Loretta Paoli, Anne Vaasjo)

Artist: Certain Age Collective (Chrystene Ells, Laura Hargrave, Sheila Nourse, Loretta Paoli, Anne Vaasjo)
Date: 2025
Medium/Materials: Sculpture (wood); assemblage (found objects); mixed media (ink, paint, pastel, collage)
Dimensions: 33 cm x 35 cm x 20 cm
Form/Genre: Assemblage

Key Terms/Subject/Tags: Chronic pain; Ageism; Perseverance

Artist Statement:

Ageism is the last ‘allowable’ bigotry and is significantly responsible for the structural nonsense, bad decisions, and indifference that have created medical collapse. As we age, we experience decreased quality of life, life expectancy, and increased financial burden. We are treated by practitioners, at best, with kind paternalism, to, at worst, institutional abuse. (For example, the Covid pandemic revealed abuse and deaths in seniors’ facilities). Ageism is often a forgotten category of marginalization.

Certain Age Collective is a group of five older female artists, aged 61-75, based in two provinces. After lifelong art practices, united by a shared desire for feedback and critical discourse, They have been meeting online for the past five years. All of them also share debilitating chronic back issues. Among the Certain Age Collective, add diabetes, Parkinson’s, cancer, and fibromyalgia. One has Medical PTSD from years of insufficient and inappropriate care.

All of the above impacts their wellbeing and their art practices.

Bone Weary was part of an ongoing long-distance process to create a series of collaborative artworks with the working title, From a Distance. Each person begins a piece that is then sent on to the next person until all five artists have incorporated their responses. Bone Weary began as a 4” x 4” X 9 ½“ fence post section, with an image of Anne Vaasjo’s spine indicating stenosis.

Their shared stake in living with back pain resulted in a powerful, cohesive response.

Cultural Context / Story Behind the Work:

Certain Age Collective is a group of five female Canadian artists, aged 61-75, based in two provinces. Among other things, they all happen to share debilitating chronic back issues. Among them, they also have chronic illnesses, including T1 diabetes, Parkinson’s, cancer, and fibromyalgia. One has Medical PTSD from years of insufficient and inappropriate care. All of the above impacts their wellbeing and their art practices. Bone Weary was not a planned artwork but was created in an experimental sequential collaborative response process akin to the "exquisite corpse" exercise. The initiating artist, Anne Vaasjo, did not communicate concepts or intentions to any other artist; as the piece circulated across the miles from one artist to the next, they did not discuss the piece or their thoughts. This artwork unfolded and evolved naturally as a group response to Vaasjo's initial offering: the cow vertebra and scratched MRI spinal image on a piece of fence post. Each artist’s contribution was informed by her own aesthetics, interpretation, experience, medical condition, and perspective, drawing on years of visual art practice and training in her creative decisions. The final result emerged as a cohesive whole.

Rights for this Image:

This digital image is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. You are free to share it for non-commercial purposes, as long as you credit the artist.

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