Heather Spears

Heather Spears was born in 1934 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/heather-spears|title=Heather Spears|encyclopedia=Canadian Encyclopedia|date=6 May 2008|first=Colin|last=Boyd|access-date=29 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202070525/https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/heather-spears|archive-date=2 December 2018|url-status=live}} The daughter of Robert and Dorothea Spears, she was born to her father's second wife and had two brothers and a half-sister.{{cite web |url= http://calgaryherald.remembering.ca/obituary/robert-spears-1933-2018-1065673879 |title=Robert Spears|date=26 January 2018|access-date=30 November 2018|work=Calgary Herald}}{{cite web|url=http://www.seniorschoice.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=1341|title=My little sister, Heather Spears – artist and poet|work=The Seniors Choice Newsmagazine of Kelowna|access-date=29 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202024832/http://www.seniorschoice.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=1341|archive-date=2 December 2018|url-status=live}}

She began drawing at the age of 5.{{cite web|url=https://robinlmartinez.com/2015/06/15/tiny-dismantled-parts-an-interview-with-heather-spears/|title=Tiny Dismantled Parts: An Interview with Heather Spears|first=Robin L.|last=Martinez|date=15 June 2015|access-date=29 November 2018|work=robinlmartinez.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202070524/https://robinlmartinez.com/2015/06/15/tiny-dismantled-parts-an-interview-with-heather-spears/|archive-date=2 December 2018|url-status=live}} She received her formal training at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver and the University of British Columbia.{{cite web |url= https://www.artandeducation.net/directory/79020/emily-carr-university-of-art-design|title= Emily Carr University of Art + Design – Notable alumni|publisher=artandeducation.net|access-date=29 November 2018}} After graduating from university, she traveled on an Emily Carr Scholarship to study art in Europe for two years. There she met a fellow Canadian, Leonard "Lenny" Goldenberg, a ceramist. They married and had three sons.

File:Wybrzeże Bornholmu.JPG]]

In 1962, the family moved from Canada to Denmark for a year so Goldenberg could study Danish pottery-making.{{cite web |url=http://www.ceramics-aberystwyth.com/interviews/lgpg1.htm|title=Moira Vincentelli interviewing Lenny Goldenberg|work=ceramics-aberystwyth.com|language=English|access-date=29 November 2018}} They lived on the island of Bornholm, which had a large tourist trade. The family remained in Denmark from a combination of "poverty, put-it-offness and apathy", remaining in the country even after the couple divorced. Spears learned Danish but continued to speak English at home. She studied anatomical drawing at the Panum Institute and Arabic at the University of Copenhagen.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pwwsDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT187 |title=Northern Stars: The Anthology of Canadian Science Fiction|editor-first=David G.|editor-last=Hartwell|editor2-first=Glenn|editor2-last=Grant|year=2017|publisher=Tom Doherty Associates|isbn=9781250162960|page=187}}

After her children grew up, Spears began returning to Canada annually to conduct reading and speaking tours, and teach drawing and head-sculpting workshops.{{cite web|url=https://www.pentictonnow.com/watercooler/news/news/Penticton/Renowned_Canadian_artist_and_writer_Heather_Spears_returning_to_Shatford_Centre/|title=Renowned Canadian artist and writer Heather Spears returning to Shatford Centre|first=Keith|last=Lacey|date=11 June 2018|access-date=29 November 2018|work=Penticton Now|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202070535/https://www.pentictonnow.com/watercooler/news/news/Penticton/Renowned_Canadian_artist_and_writer_Heather_Spears_returning_to_Shatford_Centre/|archive-date=2 December 2018|url-status=live}}

She died in Copenhagen on April 15, 2021.{{cite web|url=http://vancouversunandprovince.remembering.ca/obituary/heather-spears-1082234744|title=Heather Spears|date=8 May 2021|access-date=August 15, 2021|publisher=Vancouver Sun}}{{cite web|url=http://poets.ca/2021/06/24/remembering-heather-spears/|title=Remembering Heather Spears|access-date=15 August 2021|publisher=League of Canadian Poets}}

Spears published her first book of poetry, Asylum Poems and Others, in 1958. Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye called it "[a] most disconcerting and haunting little book".{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=PPZF8OZflu8C&pg=PA204 |pages=204–205|title= Northrop Frye on Canada|volume=12|year=2003|publisher= University of Toronto Press|isbn=9780802037107}} Her poems are generally classified as "non-genre".{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/spears_heather|title=Spears, Heather|date=12 August 2018|access-date=30 November 2018|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202070500/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/spears_heather|archive-date=2 December 2018|url-status=live}} She often combined poetry and art, as in her books Drawings from the Newborn, The Panum Poems, and Required Reading, which present both poems and line drawings,{{cite web|url=http://pentictonartgallery.com/artists/2017/1/25/heather-spears|title=Heather Spears|date=25 January 2017|access-date=29 November 2018|publisher=Penticton Art Gallery|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202070448/http://pentictonartgallery.com/artists/2017/1/25/heather-spears|archive-date=2 December 2018|url-status=live}} and Line by Line, which depicts drawings of Canadian poets along with sample poems. Her poem "The Danish Portraits" lyricizes the thoughts of a painter on his relationship to his portrait subjects.

Spears wrote a science fiction trilogy about conjoined twins, and a crime fiction novel.

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|quote=Premature babies have never been drawn before. In the time of the Masters, when they were studying human subjects these babies weren't around. Their movements are different, their shape is different—everything about them is different—so you can't use your knowledge of the human anatomy that you learned at school. |source=–Heather Spears

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To support her children as a single parent in Bornholm, Spears sold oil paintings and drawings, and also taught. She catered to the summer tourist trade by sketching individual and family portraits. At first she had difficulty drawing babies' faces, so she honed her skill by sketching infants in a local hospital at night. She became fascinated by premature infants, a subject she had not learned about in her anatomy classes, and produced many pencil and chalk drawings of preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit.{{cite journal|url=http://www.cmaj.ca/content/161/7/866|title=Artist brings a touch of humanity to the ICU|first=Nancy|last=Robb|date=5 October 1999|access-date=29 November 2018|journal=Canadian Medical Association Journal|volume=161|issue=7|page=866|pmid=10530315|pmc=1230670|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202030245/http://www.cmaj.ca/content/161/7/866|archive-date=2 December 2018|url-status=live}} She also studied infant muscle structure and began modeling babies' heads in clay. Later she traveled to maternity and neonatal intensive care wards in hospitals in North America, England, Sweden, and the Middle East, to sketch women in childbirth and critically ill newborns.{{cite web|url=https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/14702444.Childbirth_sketches_will_provoke_thought_and_emotions_in_new_exhibition/|title=Canadian artist Heather Spears is exhibiting intimate portraits of childbirth at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford|first=Pete|last=Hughes|date=24 August 2016|access-date=29 November 2018|work=Oxford Mail|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202112642/https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/14702444.Childbirth_sketches_will_provoke_thought_and_emotions_in_new_exhibition/|archive-date=2 December 2018|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/5-illusions-reveal-how-portraits-can-lie/|title=5 Illusions Reveal How Portraits Can Lie|first1=Susana|last1=Martinez-Conde|first2=Stephen L.|last2=Macknik|date=1 July 2014|access-date=30 November 2018|work=Scientific American|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191016163924/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/5-illusions-reveal-how-portraits-can-lie/|archive-date=16 October 2019|url-status=live}}

Spears began accepting private commissions from parents to draw their stillborns and babies who had died after birth. She was invited to serve as artist-in-residence at the Dalhousie University medical school in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1998. During her time there, she produced about 50 drawings of babies and older children at the IWK Health Centre. In 2016, she mounted an exhibition at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford called "Drawing the First Breath", showcasing sketches of more than 100 childbirths and 25 neonatal infants that she had drawn over the previous three decades. Spears also taught head-sculpting and exhibited her sculptures.{{cite web|url=https://wellcomecollection.org/works/k57t5k8w|title=Human head sculpted in clay, completed model|first=Heather|last=Spears|publisher=Wellcome Collection|access-date=30 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202070527/https://wellcomecollection.org/works/k57t5k8w|archive-date=2 December 2018|url-status=live}}

In addition to her infant portraits, Spears sketched dancers, musicians, athletes, and lecturers. She also did courtroom drawings. Among the cases she documented are the Reena Virk murder trial and the Midwifery Trial.{{cite web|url=https://www.helenpittgallery.org/exhibitions/past/archived-events/heather-spears-drawings-from-the-midwifery-trial/|title=Heather Spears: Drawings from the Midwifery Trial|year=1986|access-date=December 1, 2018|publisher=UNIT/PITT Projects|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202024724/https://www.helenpittgallery.org/exhibitions/past/archived-events/heather-spears-drawings-from-the-midwifery-trial/|archive-date=December 2, 2018|url-status=live}}

In spring 1989, during the First Intifada, Spears spent six weeks in the Palestinian National Authority to draw children injured in the conflict.{{cite web|url=https://www.wrmea.org/1990-may/a-personal-crusade-children-of-the-intifada.html|title=A Personal Crusade: Children of the Intifada|first=Pat McDonnell|last=Twair|date=May 1990|work=Washington Report on Middle East Affairs|access-date=December 1, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202030315/https://www.wrmea.org/1990-may/a-personal-crusade-children-of-the-intifada.html|archive-date=December 2, 2018|url-status=live}} She funded her trip with $1,000 in grants from the Canadian Council of Churches and a peace fund in Denmark. Spears produced 300 pencil and chalk drawings of wounded children in hospitals, surgeries, refugee camps, West Bank villages, and military courts. A diplomat helped her take the drawings out of the country. She published 75 of the drawings in a paperback book titled Drawn from the Fire – Children of the Intifada, which includes an Arabic-language explanation of how each child was wounded. Spears gave slide presentations of the drawings before schools and peace groups to initiate discussion of the Arab–Israeli conflict; however, her public school lectures were often cancelled after complaints by parents that her presentation lacks "balance".

Spears owned the Galleri Upper Canada in Copenhagen.

Spears held memberships in the League of Canadian Poets, Writers' Union of Canada, and SF Canada; the Society of Authors; and Tegnernes Forbund, the Danish Graphic Artist's Federation.

Spears won three Pat Lowther Awards – for her 1986 poetry collection How to Read Faces, her 1988 poetry collection The Word for Sand, and her 2000 book of drawings Required Reading: A witness in words and drawings to the Reena Virk Trials, 1998–2000.{{cite web|url=http://poets.ca/lowther/|title=Pat Lowther Memorial Award|publisher=League of Canadian Poets|access-date=1 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181222080319/http://poets.ca/lowther/|archive-date=22 December 2018|url-status=live}} The Word for Sand was also the winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=GXt6DwAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA1988 |title=The Governor General's Literary Awards of Canada: A Bibliography|first=Andrew David|last=Irvine|year=2018|publisher= University of Ottawa Press|isbn= 9780776627410|page=1988}} In 2016, Spears received a Naji Naaman Literary Prize (honour prize for complete work).{{cite web|url=http://najinaaman.org/page251.html|title=Naji Naaman's Literary Prizes 2016|year=2016|publisher=Naji Naaman|access-date=29 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160718161631/http://www.najinaaman.org/page251.html|archive-date=18 July 2016|url-status=live}}

Spears was divorced from Leonard Goldenberg (born 1937), a native of Montreal, with whom she had three sons. One of their sons, Daniel Goldenberg (born 1960 in Canada), is a self-taught artist living and working in Copenhagen.{{cite web|url=https://via.ritzau.dk/pressemeddelelse/daniel-goldenberg-lost-morning?publisherId=5884057&releaseId=5884098|title=Daniel Goldenberg – Lost Morning|first=Bredgade|last=Kunsthandel|date=25 April 2016|access-date=30 November 2018|language=Danish|work=Ritzau|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202070507/https://via.ritzau.dk/pressemeddelelse/daniel-goldenberg-lost-morning?publisherId=5884057&releaseId=5884098|archive-date=2 December 2018|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=http://www.danielgoldenberg.dk/cv.html|title=CV|publisher=danielgoldenberg.dk|access-date=30 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180828201850/http://danielgoldenberg.dk/cv.html|archive-date=28 August 2018|url-status=live}}

The University of British Columbia is the repository for the Heather Spears archive.{{cite web|url=http://blogs.ubc.ca/libnews/files/2010/06/Spears_Heather.pdf|title=Heather Spears fonds|first=Sarah|last=Romkey|date=November 2007|access-date=29 November 2018|publisher=University of British Columbia|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130416020342/http://blogs.ubc.ca/libnews/files/2010/06/Spears_Heather.pdf|archive-date=16 April 2013|url-status=live}}

• {{cite book|title=Asylum Poems and Others|year=1958|publisher=Emblem Books }}
• {{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/danishportraits0000spea|url-access=registration|title=The Danish Portraits|year=1967|publisher=Ryerson Press}}
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jbhLuAEACAAJ|title=From the Inside|year=1972|publisher=Fiddlehead Poetry Books|isbn=9780919197046}}
• How to Read Faces (1986)
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O9QfAQAAIAAJ|title=The Word for Sand|year=1988|publisher=Wolsak and Wynn|isbn=9780919897106|edition=4th}}
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HQU7AAAACAAJ|title=Human Acts|year=1991|publisher=Wolsak and Wynn|isbn=9780919897243}}
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qkzVZu5w66UC |title=The Panum Poems: Drawings and Stories|year=1996|publisher=Ekstasis Editions|isbn=9780921215936}}
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sYCVAAAACAAJ |title=Poems Selected and New |year=1998|publisher=Wolsak and Wynn|isbn=9780919897618}}

• {{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/moonfall0000spea |url-access=registration |title=Moonfall|year=1991|publisher=Beach Holme Publishers|isbn=9780888783066}}
• The Children of Atwar (1993)
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RdMfAQAAIAAJI|title=The Taming|year=1996|publisher=Tesseract Books|isbn=9781895836233}}
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EPjBJksR8cMC |title=The Flourish: Murder in the Family|year=2003|publisher=Ekstasis Editions|isbn=9781894800365}} (republished in England as A Muted Voice, 2009){{cite web|url=https://ikblc.ubc.ca/heather-spears-reena-virk-trials/|title=Heather Spears – Reena Virk Trials|date=1 June 2010|access-date=1 December 2018|publisher=University of British Columbia|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202024836/https://ikblc.ubc.ca/heather-spears-reena-virk-trials/|archive-date=2 December 2018|url-status=live}}

• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OPYEPQAACAAJ|title=Drawings from the Newborn: Poems and Drawings of Infants in Crisis|year=1986|publisher=Ben-Simon Publications|isbn=9780914539025}}
• Drawn from the Fire, Children of the Intifada (1989)
• Massacre, Drawings from Jerusalem (1990)
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ksMfAQAAIAAJ |title=Required Reading: A witness in words and drawings to the Reena Virk Trials, 1998–2000|year=2000|publisher=Wolsak and Wynn|isbn=9780919897700}}
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vop_iyij_ukC |title=Line by Line: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Poets|year=2002|publisher=Ekstasis Editions|isbn=9781896860503}}
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HTYAPgAACAAJ |title=The Creative Eye: An artist's guide to unlocking the mysteries of visual perception|year=2007|publisher=Arcturus|isbn=9780572033156}} (illustrated edition pub. 2012)
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZtILAQAAMAAJ |title=I Can Still Draw|year=2008|publisher=Wolsak & Wynn|isbn=9781894987271}}

{{reflist|30em}}

• [http://www.heatherspears.com/biography.htm Homepage]
• {{ISFDB name|id=Heather_Spears|name=Heather Spears}}
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5MIVv7n-OE "Drawn from the Fire – Children of the Intifada" by Heather Spears (video)]

{{Governor General's English poetry|state=collapsed}}

{{Pat Lowther Award}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Spears, Heather}}

Category:1934 births

Category:2021 deaths

Category:20th-century Canadian novelists

Category:20th-century Canadian poets

Category:21st-century Canadian novelists

Category:Canadian women novelists

Category:Canadian women poets

Category:Canadian science fiction writers

Category:Governor General's Award–winning poets

Category:Canadian women science fiction and fantasy writers

Category:Poets from Vancouver

Category:Emily Carr University of Art and Design alumni

Category:20th-century Canadian women writers

Category:21st-century Canadian women writers

Category:Novelists from Vancouver