Lesley Walker-Fitzpatrick

Poppies

         

Caped Magician               Dancer

       

Rosey the Riveter        Leap of Faith

       

Scheherezade                 Gypsy

       

Orange Poppy            Poppy Light

   

Fire

About the Poppy Photos

Poppies are a miraculous flower that give us a powerful pain reliever, they are magnificent to see and yet they have come to represent war. It was first observed after battles of the Napoleonic War that previously barren land would blossom with blood red poppies after a battle. This is because dormant seeds are stirred to life after the tumult of violent conflict. John McCrea’s famous World War One poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ popularized this phenomenon. I photograph these wonderful blooms in order to see beyond the stereotypical view of poppies representing ‘violent addictions’ but instead as a hope for peace.

Biography Lesley Walker-Fitzpatrick

    Performed as Maya, Goddess of Magic with magician Doug Henning. Toured Europe, Mid East and Canada as magician and dancer including the CNE, Canada Day, Ontario Place, Toronto Stock Exchange, and Canadian Armed Forces Tours. Created and performed ‘The Fabric of their Lives’ about WW1.
    Photographic work shown in Toronto, Stratford, Ottawa and Rochester. Worked as a psychiatric researcher at the Hospital for Sick Children.
    Drama and movement artist; researched and presented workshops with anti-war, social justice and environmental themes. Awards include; YMCA Canada Peace Medal, Du Maurier Search For Stars, Ontario Arts Council , Stratford Shakespeare Festival Guthrie Award, open mike poetry competitions and a Dorothy Shoemaker Literary Award.
   Sister and amanuensis to inspiring poet John C. Walker who was quadriplegic and mute.

Links to
Have We Forgotten?: The Hope Project Workshops~ Dance & Movement, Text,  Knitting & Media Arts, Music & Song, Fête, Interviews

Photographer,
Dancer, Educator

 

 

 

Cenotaph & Memorial

 

   

Walter Allward Memorial Stratford

Stratford is blessed to have a war memorial that was created by Walter Allward, the sculptor of the Vimy War Memorial in France. The two mythic figures on the Stratford memorial seem to represent Hope and Despair. One figure looks up towards the sky and the other is in an attitude of despondency with face half covered. It is a powerful emotional statement about the reality of war and seems to me to ever plead World War One’s hope of being ‘the war to end all war’.

Dance to the Cenotaph

Neesa and Lesley worked with a group of students on a collaborative piece of choreography that found inspiration in the Walter Allward War Memorial in Stratford. With the emotional context of despair and hope from this moving sculpture, each person contributed a piece of 
movement to the collective whole. The staging behind the performance of this choreography consisted of columns of photographic prints from the Allward Memorial. On one side were the images of despair and the other side  hope.