P.E.I. lobster harvester's new art exhibit challenges fishery's traditional gender norms

It’s been a clash of worlds for Prince Edward Island artist JoAnna Howlett, whose first professional solo exhibition explores another important aspect of her life — fishing.

The visual artist and lobster fisher's latest artistic work reflects on "familial legacy, gendered labour, grief and connection." In the process, she’s also fighting against cultural norms and misogyny in P.E.I.'s fishing industry.

As Waves Break, housed in the Hilda Woolnough Gallery at the Arts Guild in Charlottetown, is an expression of Howlett’s experience in lobster fishing and her efforts to forge her own path. 

Her work touches on her grandfather’s belief that women brought bad luck aboard fishing vessels.

“I don't want to speak too negatively about him,” Howlett said. “He had children that would have been very capable fishermen, but they were women, so they were never kind of welcomed into that culture.…

"I'm the first woman in my direct family who's ever fished.”

The fact that she stepped into the industry has left her family with “a lot of pride,” Howlett said.

While not many women fished in decades past, she noted that wives would often help on the boats — something her grandmother had strived to do, but was never afforded the opportunity. 

“It's a conversation that didn't happen until I started fishing, learning how much my grandmother yearned to be in that space," Howlett said.

Howlett is a lifelong artist who entered the fishing industry in the last three years. During that time, she also worked on her exhibition, which offers her perspective of her involvement in the trade.

She said she hopes her art leads people to see fishing in a different light. 

Her own journey in the fishery began when her brother opted out of the industry, prompting her father to wonder who the next generation of family fishers would include.

“I kind of wanted to try it just to see what it was like, to see if I could do it,” Howlett said. 

“There was a big part of me that held that kind of spite for my grandfather. And I thought maybe his urn would rattle a little bit if I got out there and … showed him that I could do this work.”