Sidney Kelsie

Edmonton folk artist is gone but not forgotten.

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It’s not often I walk into an art exhibition and embarrass myself by smiling too much. But that’s what happened when I went to see the late Sidney Kelsie’s folk-art show, Right in Your Own Backyard, at the Art Gallery of Alberta until Aug. 1.

One of the Edmonton artist’s rare text-based paintings sets the tone: “Don’t take life so seriously – you’ll never get out of it alive.” At the bottom of the work, two polka-dotted lollypops, or maybe tips of antennae, peep out at viewers. 

Kelsie’s works offer all manner of strange creatures: a yellow armadillo bares his teeth, a turtle seems crossed with a unicorn and a startled alien emerges from his spaceship. Nearly all these plywood cut-outs overflow with colourful spots and speckles. One suspended grouping spins playfully in the air.

This joyful work belies the sadness of Kelsie’s youth. Born in 1928 in Nova Scotia, he was unable to attend school and remained semi-literate. In those days, schools were segregated. But some school districts didn’t even provide that option for Black children like Kelsie. At 16, he asked someone to forge his age on an application form and joined the Canadian Merchant Navy, which handled wartime shipping. 

“He couldn’t get out of Nova Scotia fast enough because of all the abuse he endured,” says his daughter, Debbie. But the decision led to more trauma. After enduring the horrors of the Second World War, he suffered from life-long night terrors.

Kelsie’s eventual move to Alberta in the 1950s led to the happiest phase of his life. That’s where he met Louise, his beloved wife of 38 years. He worked as a housepainter but retired early due to injuries sustained in his youth. 

“He was driving my mother crazy,” recalls Debbie. “My mom said, ‘You need to find something to do to pass the time.’” Using his supplies of house paint, Kelsie began to decorate their walls with green circles. Then he turned their kitchen cabinets into a colourful installation. With little left unadorned – including Debbie’s old sewing machine, rendered useless by a coat of paint – Kelsie moved his hobby outdoors.

But Kelsie’s creative outpouring ended as quickly as it had started. In 1994, his wife died prematurely of an aneurysm. The loss of the woman who had acted as this quiet, self-effacing man’s link to the outside world left him bereft with no desire to paint. He cleared out the yard, leaving only one little hen in a flowerbed.

This show, two decades after his death in 2000, came about when Lindsey Sharman, the gallery’s curator, and Danielle Siemens, the collections manager and co-curator, unbeknownst to each other, came across Kelsie’s work. Neither knew anything about him and they found little information online. His art had largely disappeared. 

Fascinated, the duo began to search in earnest, posting online and putting up posters around the community where Kelsie had lived. People brought in almost 100 works and continue to contact them, allowing the gallery to document more of his pieces.

It took immense effort to organize this show. But the curators say the joy Kelsie’s art radiates, as well as the opportunity to engage with the community, made it worthwhile. They believe folk art allows galleries to break down barriers. 

“Anybody has the capacity to be an artist,” says Sharman. “It doesn’t take a BFA or a PhD. Although we celebrate anybody who wants to put in that kind of work, there are lots of different ways to be an artist.” ■

Sidney Kelsie: Right in Your Own Backyard at the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton from March 25 to Aug. 1, 2022.

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