Most surveys of modernist art in the Canadian prairie provinces in the 1960s focus on the annual Emma Lake Workshops. These gatherings brought prominent avant-garde artists such as Barnett Newman and Kenneth Noland to Saskatchewan and introduced the controversial American critic Clement Greenberg and his ideas on the development of purity, abstraction, and flatness in painting. Yet not all prairie artists who thought of themselves as modernist followed this path. Many of them have been excluded from published histories.
One such artist is Ron Spickett, the subject of a recent retrospective exhibition curated by Geoffrey Simmins. Simmins\u27s complementary book covers Spickett\u27s early period in Regina, his work as a commercial artist, his study in Mexico, his adoption of other media after 1980, and his study of Buddhism, which led him to become a lay priest and adopt the name Gyo-zo

Dawn, Leslie

English

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University of Nebraska - Lincoln
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Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for
Spring 2011
Review of Spirit Matters: Ron [Gyo-zo] Spickett, Artist,
Poet, Lay-Priest by Geoffrey Simmins
Leslie Dawn
University of Lethbridge
Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly
Part of the American Studies Commons, Cultural History Commons, and the United States
History Commons
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It
has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln.
Dawn, Leslie, "Review of Spirit Matters: Ron [Gyo-zo] Spickett, Artist, Poet, Lay-Priest by Geoffrey Simmins" (2011). Great Plains
Quarterly. 2677.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2677
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BOOK REVIEWS 159 
Spirit Matters: Ron [Gyo-zo] Spickett, Artist, Poet, 
Lay-Priest. By Geoffrey Simmins. Calgary, AB: 
University of Calgary Press, 2009. xxi + 274 pp. 
Photographs, illustrations, color plates, notes, 
bibliography, index. $39.95 paper. 
Most surveys of modernist art in the Canadian 
prairie provinces in the 1960s focus on the 
annual Emma Lake Workshops. These gather-
ings brought prominent avant-garde artists such 
as Barnett Newman and Kenneth Noland to 
Saskatchewan and introduced the controversial 
American critic Clement Greenberg and his 
ideas on the development of purity, abstraction, 
and flatness in painting. Yet not all prairie art-
ists who thought of themselves as modernist 
followed this path. Many of them have been 
excluded from published histories. 
One such artist is Ron Spickett, the subject 
of a recent retrospective exhibition curated by 
Geoffrey Simmins. Simmins's complementary 
book covers Spickett's early period in Regina, his 
work as a commercial artist, his study in Mexico, 
his adoption of other media after 1980, and his 
study of Buddhism, which led him to become a 
lay priest and adopt the name Gyo-zo. 
Spickett's major period of painting was in 
Calgary during the1960s. After experimenting 
with a variety of approaches, he pursued a juste 
milieu style, a middle ground that combined 
both abstraction and figuration. Rejecting 
the reduction to essentials prescribed by 
Greenberg, Spickett maintained that art and 
life should be joined. He chose his range of 
imagery from archetypical Western themes 
and images, such as cowboys, horses, and 
dance hall girls, from which he forged modern 
metaphors for the human condition. Simmins 
has attempted to unravel these images' layers 
of meanings, images that were popular with 
corporate patrons. 
But Spickett had ambitions beyond filling 
boardrooms with art. He dreamed of a public 
art form. Although such commissions were 
rare in Calgary, his ambitions were realized in a 
mural for the lobby of a new court house. It was 
large in scale and joined modernist abstraction 
with populist, recognizable, and local imagery. 
160 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2011 
The two seemingly opposing elements were 
harmonized through his deft use of exquisite 
calligraphic outlines placed over an animated 
abstract ground of colored shapes. 
Simmins's analysis of the mural demon-
strates both the strengths and weaknesses of 
the book. The illustrations are of poor quality 
and not linked to the text. His close collabora-
tion with the artist produced an intimate and 
sympathetic reading, yet also resulted in many 
retrospective rather than contextual interpre-
tations of the works. Showing how Spickett 
synthesized East and West in his art and life, 
Simmins makes the spiritual content of the 
works overshadow their obvious Dionysian and 
corporeal aspects. Such quibbles aside, Spirit 
Matters is a highly spirited effort to bring a 
worthy artist to public attention and retrieve a 
history in danger of being lost. 
LESLIE DAWN 
Department of Art 
University of Lethbridge 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 


Review of \u3ci\u3eSpirit Matters: Ron [Gyo-zo] Spickett, Artist, Poet,
Lay-Priest\u3c/i\u3e by Geoffrey Simmins

DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska

University of Nebraska - LincolnDigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - LincolnGreat Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center forSpring 2011Review of Spirit Matters: Ron [Gyo-zo] Spickett, Artist,Poet, Lay-Priest by Geoffrey SimminsLeslie DawnUniversity of LethbridgeFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterlyPart of the American Studies Commons, Cultural History Commons, and the United StatesHistory CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Ithas been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln.Dawn, Leslie, "Review of Spirit Matters: Ron [Gyo-zo] Spickett, Artist, Poet, Lay-Priest by Geoffrey Simmins" (2011). Great PlainsQuarterly. 2677.http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2677                                   BOOK REVIEWS 159 Spirit Matters: Ron [Gyo-zo] Spickett, Artist, Poet, Lay-Priest. By Geoffrey Simmins. Calgary, AB: University of Calgary Press, 2009. xxi + 274 pp. Photographs, illustrations, color plates, notes, bibliography, index. $39.95 paper. Most surveys of modernist art in the Canadian prairie provinces in the 1960s focus on the annual Emma Lake Workshops. These gather-ings brought prominent avant-garde artists such as Barnett Newman and Kenneth Noland to Saskatchewan and introduced the controversial American critic Clement Greenberg and his ideas on the development of purity, abstraction, and flatness in painting. Yet not all prairie art-ists who thought of themselves as modernist followed this path. Many of them have been excluded from published histories. One such artist is Ron Spickett, the subject of a recent retrospective exhibition curated by Geoffrey Simmins. Simmins's complementary book covers Spickett's early period in Regina, his work as a commercial artist, his study in Mexico, his adoption of other media after 1980, and his study of Buddhism, which led him to become a lay priest and adopt the name Gyo-zo. Spickett's major period of painting was in Calgary during the1960s. After experimenting with a variety of approaches, he pursued a juste milieu style, a middle ground that combined both abstraction and figuration. Rejecting the reduction to essentials prescribed by Greenberg, Spickett maintained that art and life should be joined. He chose his range of imagery from archetypical Western themes and images, such as cowboys, horses, and dance hall girls, from which he forged modern metaphors for the human condition. Simmins has attempted to unravel these images' layers of meanings, images that were popular with corporate patrons. But Spickett had ambitions beyond filling boardrooms with art. He dreamed of a public art form. Although such commissions were rare in Calgary, his ambitions were realized in a mural for the lobby of a new court house. It was large in scale and joined modernist abstraction with populist, recognizable, and local imagery. 160 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2011 The two seemingly opposing elements were harmonized through his deft use of exquisite calligraphic outlines placed over an animated abstract ground of colored shapes. Simmins's analysis of the mural demon-strates both the strengths and weaknesses of the book. The illustrations are of poor quality and not linked to the text. His close collabora-tion with the artist produced an intimate and sympathetic reading, yet also resulted in many retrospective rather than contextual interpre-tations of the works. Showing how Spickett synthesized East and West in his art and life, Simmins makes the spiritual content of the works overshadow their obvious Dionysian and corporeal aspects. Such quibbles aside, Spirit Matters is a highly spirited effort to bring a worthy artist to public attention and retrieve a history in danger of being lost. LESLIE DAWN Department of Art University of Lethbridge                                                     

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Review of \u3ci\u3eSpirit Matters: Ron [Gyo-zo] Spickett, Artist, Poet, Lay-Priest\u3c/i\u3e by Geoffrey Simmins

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