Border Crossings Magazine

F is for Fruit Flies, G is for Goat Girl and K is for Kurmudgeon Finch? Insects, a hybrid and an aviary misspelling are not what come first to mind when compiling a list of animals, but are what readers should expect from the twenty-six creatures comprising Border Crossings’ Winnipeg Alphabestiary book.

Border Crossings commissioned twenty-six enchanting works from some of Winnipeg’s most accomplished artists to create a collection celebrating the magazine’s 25th anniversary. The creatures featured in the alphabestiary collection demonstrate honesty and imagination in their rendering. They include Andrew Valko’s lecherous Leopard, Janet Werner’s painfully lovely Goat Girl, who also graces the cover, Kim Ouellette’s superbly stitched Fruit Flies, Simon Hughes’ elegant Ice Swan and Eleanor Bond’s devoted Pet, among myriad others.

Along with the twenty-six artworks, the book includes a foreword by William Wegman, no stranger to the animal kind, whose written words are as charming as his own drawings.

Border Crossings’ Editor Meeka Walsh, has contributed an introduction, The Many and the Marvellous; an essay, On Being and Becoming: The Animal, The Artist and the Art, and composed a series of animal notes accompanying each of the twenty-six images.

The book also includes extensive biographical notes on all the artists who participated in this celebratory project, drafted by contributor Robert Enright.

From Wanda Koop’s A for Ape to Shaun Morin’s Z for Zebra, the animals that dwell in the pages of the alphabestiary challenge, conjure and inspire. We invite you to explore The Winnipeg Alphabestiary where, to quote Meeka Walsh, “the real and the imagined cohabit”.

Artists A - Z:

Wanda Koop                              Aganetha Dyck                     Shawna McLeod
Erica Eyres                                Doug Melnyk                         Kim Ouellette
Janet Werner                             Tim Schouten                        Simon Hughes
Michael Dumontier                    Marcel Dzama                       Andrew Valko
Drue Langlois                            Daniel Dueck                        Jon Pylypchuk
Eleanor Bond                            Dominique Rey                      Diana Thorneycroft
Neil Farber                                Adrian Williams                      Sarah Anne Johnson
Alison Norlen                             Bonnie Marin                         Cliff Eyland
Melanie Rocan                          Shaun Morin

The Winnipeg Alphabestiary is available at: