Sable Island People

Susan Tooke, Artist

(July 2007)

The horses represent the spirit of the island, running in the surf, manes wild.”

In 2006 Halifax artist Susan Tooke painted the illustrations for a children’s picture book about the Sable Island horses, Free as the Wind – Saving the Horses of Sable Island. The book, with text by Jamie Bastedo, was published by Red Deer Press in spring 2007.

The story is based on an real event in Canadian history – a children’s writing campaign that helped to reverse a government decision to remove the horses from Sable Island. The book’s main human characters – the boy Lucas Beauregard and his family – are fictitious. The main horse character, an old stallion named “Gem”, and his travels back-and-forth between Sable and the mainland, are also fictitious.

The story idea originated with Dennis Johnson (then a Red Deer publisher). He came up with the concept after reading about Sable Island years ago, and was encouraged by several documentary programs about the island. Dennis felt this would be a wonderful children's book as it would introduce them to a part of Canadian history they could readily appreciate, and would also show that children, such as themselves, could participate and make a change. Although there are many writers in Nova Scotia who would have been worthy of the story, Dennis contacted Yellowknife resident Jamie Bastedo to write it. Jamie has been a Red Deer author for many years. Peter Carver, the children’s editor for Red Deer Press, was assigned the task of finding an artist. He contacted author Jane Buss of the Nova Scotia Writers’ Federation as they have worked together and known each other for years. Jane recommended Susan to illustrate Free as the Wind.

Susan Tooke (Tooke rhymes with “book”) was born in New Jersey. She attended art college at Virginia Commonwealth University, School of the Arts, Richmond, Virginia, where she studied printmaking, painting, sculpture and textiles, and got a teaching certificate. Having completed undergraduate studies, Susan taught art at Camden Middle School, Newark, New Jersey. That was followed by graduate studies in animation, photography and film. Susan began painting full time in 1980. Her father’s side of the family is Canadian, and in 1979 while visiting her sister in Canada, Susan met her future (and now former) husband, and moved to Canada. She has lived in Halifax since 1981.

Susan’s media include paint, photography and digital imaging. Based on her style of painting, Susan was recommended to the Chemainus Mural Society in Vancouver British Columbia. This resulted in her first mural in 1989. Chemainus is so well known for murals that Susan’s work increased in profile and other mural projects were commissioned. These include pieces in Seattle, Lake Tahoe, Dothan (Alabama), Magnolia (Arkansas), and Amherst (Nova Scotia).

In the mid-1990s, Susan taught herself to use a computer. She got a residency at Saint Mary’s University, and used the computer to learn Photoshop. Among subsequent projects was one in which, using old photos of generations of women in her family, Susan developed a montage of images and a soundtrack of interviews, and collaborated with choreographer Véronique MacKenzie-Bourne to produce a multi-media piece titled Generations/Conversations. This was shown in a group exhibition of portraiture (Face Value: Nova Scotia Portraiture) at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in June 1996. Susan’s other works include installations and dioramas for Parks Canada, on subjects such as garrison life at the Citadel in Halifax, the Acadian deportations at Grand Pré, and the cod fishery and sealing in Newfoundland.

Book illustrating for Susan began with a Halifax neighbour, Joanne Taylor. Their daughters were good friends and Joanne created a story for them. Susan made the illustrations. The manuscript was sent to Tundra Books (Toronto) but was not published (at least, not yet). However, the publishers kept Susan in mind, and this led to a commission to illustrate the children’s book A Seaside Alphabet. The focus of A Seaside Alphabet is the Atlantic coastline between Maine and Newfoundland, and with this book Susan began what has become her approach to research for her illustration projects (see book list below). She visited and photographed many of the locations mentioned in A Seaside Alphabet.

Later Joanne and Susan collaborated on a project that was published by Tundra, Full Moon Rising, about a Nova Scotian farm family and the year underneath the full moons. In 2003, for her work on Full Moon Rising Susan was given both the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Book Illustration from the Halifax Regional Municipality, and the Lillian Sheppard Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration in Atlantic Canada.

Free as the Wind

Susan began this project with the call from Peter Carver in October 2005. When Peter mentioned that the picture book was to be about the horses of Sable Island, she immediately said yes, even though she had not yet read the text. Susan had some previous knowledge of Sable Island. Her former husband was a newscaster in the 1980s when Sable, at the centre of offshore energy development and mineral rights negotiations, was often in the news. Also, Susan was aware of the island through the works of various artists such as Anne Meredith Barry. However, until she began work on the book, Susan was not aware of the biological diversity, the wide range of research programs, and the many roles of the Sable Island Station. Regarding the latter, Susan had heard of the “weather station” and assumed that its only function was to collect weather data.

Although Susan’s preferred approach is to visit and experience the locations she illustrates, the Sable project presented unique problems. Given the logistical difficulties and the high cost of visiting the island, and a tight schedule for the project, Susan was unable to travel to Sable. Thus she had to find some other way to explore and understand the island’s environment. Prior to Free as the Wind, Susan and Zoe did not know each other, but Susan visited the Green Horse website, and June Buss suggested she contact Zoe via Joyce Barkhouse who has been corresponding with Zoe and Sable Island for many years. And soon after, Zoe heard from Joyce regarding artist Susan Tooke and the children’s book. 

Lengthy conversations with Zoe (in person and by email), and access to several thousand digital photographs of the island, combined with visits to the Nova Scotia Archives, enabled Susan to have a relatively broad and in-depth appreciation of Sable. As with her other book projects, Susan prepared for work on Free as the Wind by reading the manuscript, researching the subject, and referring to instructions from the author. Susan developed mind pictures, and then found model people and situations (and model locations for the Halifax scenes). For example, to prepare the scene of the horses on the ship, Susan went to the library at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and researched the transportation of livestock for size and construction of the stalls, above or below deck, and to get some idea of how the hold would look.

Overall, the paintings were done in chronological order, but afterwards Susan went back over each one to adjust tone and details. Due to delays in getting an image of a period mailbox back from the Canadian Postal Museum, the scene of mailing of the letters was last full illustration to be completed. Each of the sixteen illustrations took about the same amount of time to make. Susan explains “The scene of the unloading of the horses was complex, but each one had its challenges, which sometimes didn't occur to me until I had begun them. For example, the mailbox in the schoolyard, where Lucas is mailing letters to the PM, involved quite a bit of research on the part of the Canadian Postal Museum – staff needed to know if it was a rural box, or urban, in a residential neighbourhood or commercial, on a post or free standing, and East Coast mailboxes were different still.”

Susan’s least favourite illustration is the close-up of Lucas writing his letter (pages 22-23). Although she knows it works well for the book, she was having so much fun painting Sable Island that she would have preferred more time with the island. At one point, Susan tried to convince Peter Carver to change the story line so that the entire book could take place on Sable, and she regrets not being able to include more, in particular, the island’s smaller organisms such as beetles, and more flowers.

Susan finished the last painting for Free as the Wind in July of 2006. Red Deer Press printed 3110 copies of the book, and as of June 2007sold 2500 copies had been sold in Canada. Free as the Wind will be released in the USA in September.

In the meantime, the illustration on page 12-13 of Free as the Wind is titled Gem's Capture, and is on tour with the collection of the Canadian Society of Children's Illustrators, Authors and Performers. The CANSAIP collection is a travelling exhibition of paintings made by various artists for children's books, and will tour for several years. In this image, Susan’s son, Scott Riker, was the model for the character Blake, one of the round-up men. Susan had Scott hauling on a rope with the other end tied to the deck in her backyard with instructions to imagine that the deck was a rearing, struggling and frantic wild horse. It is an intense image, with the drama enhanced by a sky of storm clouds and alarmed terns.

Most of Susan’s time is now spent on illustration. She works every day in her studio, including weekends. Other time is given to school visits, promotional events, and travel involved with her research. During May 2007, a launch for Free as the Wind was held at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History in Halifax. Susan and Zoe prepared a presentation about Sable Island and the process of illustrating the book. Susan explained “I have also co-presented with Budge Wilson, Joanne Taylor, and Janet McNaughton. But this was different, because Zoe contributed both as a visual artist, and with her knowledge of Sable Island, gathered from years of researching, and living there.”

While doing the Sable illustrations Susan was also working on a large digital image for Metepenagiag Heritage Park of the Metepenagiag Mi'kmaq Community in New Brunswick. This Enduring Community Photomontage represents the people and nearly 3000 years of continuous habitation at the Ox Bow site where the Little Southwest and Northwest Miramichi Rivers meet. As soon as Susan finished the Sable project, she immediately began the research (site visits, photography) for another children’s book. “I am both writing and illustrating A Nova Scotia Alphabet for Sleeping Bear Press, to follow in their series of alphabet books which includes F is for Fiddlehead: A New Brunswick Alphabet. I’ve been taking writing workshops with Norene Smiley which have been a tremendous help. Also, fellow artist Richard Rudnicki and I are working on a graphic novel right now. This is lots of fun.” 

Needless to say, Susan has spent a lot of time thinking about Sable, about the fascination and the allure of the island. “There are so many ways that Sable has entered our collective psyche. Living in Nova Scotia, there are often stories about the island, and public talks in which various aspects of it are discussed. The idea of islands, and the isolation that comes with them, or their existence as a refuge or sanctuary from society are both present when thinking of Sable. The idea of a bit of sand supporting an amazing variety of life, surrounded by the teeming life of the sea. The picture of a world battered by the ocean, replenished by the ocean. The intrusion of flotsam from the industry of the mainland. The image of Sable as the center of the earth, with life radiating out from it. And the history, both real and fable, connected to shipwrecks, and dispossession and expulsion. So many images and yet, I have never been there.”

Susan still feels connected, “although it is in a strange way, since I've not been to the island. But the Green Horse has made that connection possible. No way would I have used generic horses and guessed at the look of the dunes. It is strange moving on when you are so immersed in a project as I was with Free as the Wind. But you do. And then the book comes out, and you get to tell other people about it.” 

Click on thumbnails for more information

Pending Publication - Books in Production.

Lohnes, M. & S. Tooke. F is for Fiddlehead: A New Brunswick Alphabet. Sleeping Bear Press, Chelsea, Michigan.. 

Grant, S. & S. Tooke. Remember Preston. Nimbus Publishing, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Tooke, S. A Nova Scotia Alphabet. Sleeping Bear Press, Chelsea, Michigan.