TWYLA FRANCOIS: ANIMAL CRUELTY INVESTIGATOR AND ARTIST EXPLAINS THAT PAINTING “WAS REALLY JUST AS A WAY OF COPING WITH WHAT I WAS SEEING IN THE FIELD ON INVESTIGATIONS. NOW, I USE ART MORE AS AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL TO HELP OTHERS SEE NON-HUMAN ANIMALS AS FEELING, THINKING BEINGS WITH THEIR OWN IDENTITIES” …… A REVIEWER’S INTERVIEW WITH PEOPLE IN THE ARTS

JAMES STRECKER: If you were asked for 50 words for an encyclopedia to summarize what you do, or have done, in the arts, what would you say?

TWYLA FRANCOIS: Animal cruelty investigator and painter uses art and investigative evidence to challenge our basic beliefs about farmed animals and foster a sense of compassion, respect and justice for all animals.

JS:  What important beliefs do you express in or through your work?

TF: Through all of my work – investigative and artistic – I hope to convey the worth of farmed animals and alter the way we see them. For example, in a series of paintings called “The Recasting Series”, I feature people lovingly holding chickens and other farmed animals in the same way they would companion animals. As social beings, when we’re faced with an ambiguous situation (which, I believe, is often the case with farmed animals) we look to others to determine how we should react. Seeing someone showing the same level of affection for a chicken as they would for a dog or cat allows people to more clearly recognize that farmed animals are just as capable of experiencing joy and pain and therefore should be afforded the same level of protection.

JS: Name two people, living or dead, whom you admire a great deal and tell us why for each one.

TF: My mother, who taught me that all beings deserve the right to life, and everyone who actively fights for animal rights and welfare in a society that has difficulty accepting this message.

JS: How have you changed since you began to do creative work?

TF: When I began painting, it was really just as a way of coping with what I was seeing in the field on investigations. Now, I use art more as an educational tool to help others see non-human animals as feeling, thinking beings with their own identities.

JS:  What are your biggest challenges as a creative person?

TF: My biggest challenges are transferring the images in my head to canvas, and walking the fine line between creating art that is compelling enough to draw viewers in and help them understand the concept being conveyed while not overwhelming them with graphic imagery.

JS:  Please describe at least one major turning point in your life.

TF: In 2004, I was rushed to hospital for an emergency surgery where stage IV tumours were found in my abdomen. I had to have a second surgery and six months of chemotherapy. Faced with the very real prospect of dying, I was forced to re-examine my life and decide whether I had done anything to make the world a better place. I co-founded a small, non-profit animal rights organization, became a vegan and completely changed my life. I’ve been an investigator — and more recently an artist dedicated to ending animal suffering– since.

JS: What are the hardest things for an outsider to understand about what you do?

TF: Abuse of farmed animals has been so normalized in our society that people don’t realize (or want to realize) the extent of it. This understanding becomes even more difficult with animal products like dairy and eggs because people don’t connect pain with production. What consumers don’t know is that the suffering of these animals may be of even longer duration than those killed for meat. For example, “broiler” chickens raised for meat live less than two months while chickens used for eggs are forced to live a life of intensive confinement and exhaustive production for nearly two years. In the case of dairy, in order to produce milk a “dairy” cow must be kept nearly continually pregnant. Her life is an unending cycle of sexual exploitation (by invasive artificial insemination), deprivation, and heartache, having calf after calf taken from her just hours after birth. The bond between a mother and her calf is strong and both mother and baby cry for days after their forced separation.

JS: How and why did you begin to do creative work in the first place?

TF: I really only began painting shortly after becoming an investigator and did it as a means to cope with what I was seeing in the field. The imagery seared on one’s brain after an investigation can be haunting and difficult to shake. Painting allowed me literally paint the images out and put them onto the canvas, freeing my mind up to then return to the field.

JS: What haven’t you attempted as yet that you would like to do and please tell us why?

TF: There are a number of different techniques I’d like to explore. For example, overlays. I have a concept that I would like to paint that would show a protective mother hen with a chick and an egg. I would then have a light overlay of the hen’s “parts”–legs, breasts, and wings (i.e. things chicken consumers would recognize) in their anatomically correct positions. The goal would be to help connect consumers with the once-living, feeling being.

JS: What are your most meaningful achievements?

TF: To me, the most meaningful achievement I’ve been a part of has been the mass exposure of what conditions are like for farmed animals. When I started conducting investigations industrial animal agriculture had really only been in practice since the 1990s, leaving many Canadians with the impression that the cruelties they saw in American media reports or online simply couldn’t, and didn’t, happen here. It was a challenge just to get the media interested enough to show my footage. Those first few exposés really changed the landscape of understanding for Canadians. They could no longer claim it wasn’t happening in their own backyard.

JS: What advice would you give a young person who would like to do what you do?

TF: I think most anyone has the capacity to be an artist – it’s simply a matter of studying details, practicing and mulling over different concepts in your brain until they coalesce into something that you hope others can understand. My sense is that investigations may be a bit more difficult for most people. I recommend that anyone interested in doing investigative work learn and understand the laws covering farm animals. They should recognize that those regulations are never proactively monitored (i.e. Canada does not inspect farms for compliance) and almost never actually enforced even when violations have been brought to the attention of officials. However, if you know the regulations, you can cite them, which often helps convince those charged with enforcing them to actually do their jobs.

JS: Of what value are critics?

TF: Critics are important in society. Without them, social justice issues wouldn’t be in the public eye as they are today. When I personally face criticism of my work, I check to see what might be driving it. Does the person doing the criticizing profit off the lives and deaths of animals, or is their resistance due to their discomfort with the topic? If I feel they have a valid point, I’ll take their comments into account to see how I can more effectively advocate for animals in the future, but I never let them compromise my work to fight for the rights of animals.

JS: What do you ask of your audience?

TF: I’d like my audience to question what they think they know about farmed animals and really see animals for who they are as individuals. If people can recognize that all animals – farmed and companion – are feeling, thinking beings, it makes it harder for them to support the production and consumption of animal products.

JS: What specifically would you change about what goes on in the world and the arts?

TF: This one is easy and my life’s work – eradicating animal cruelty in all its forms: the use of animals for food, clothing, research and testing, and entertainment. The harmful use of animals in art is sadly nothing new but seems to me to be the very lowest form of attention-seeking artists can employ. Abusing animals in the name of art doesn’t show how creative an artist is, just how callous and cruel they are.

JS: If you could relive one experience from your creative life, what would it be and why would you do so?

TF: I would like to go back to when I first started painting. It was a painful time emotionally but it was also a very urgent and pure feeling that wasn’t constricted by any sense of having to follow rules. I’ve never been formally trained but as I’ve continued painting I’ve studied techniques and while they’ve been extremely helpful, they’ve also confined my work somewhat.

JS: Tell us what it feels like to be a figure who is presented somehow in the media. What effect does this presence have on you?

TF: I’ve been fortunate to have a good working relationship with the media who have helped provide exposure of the horrors inherent in animal agriculture through investigative reports and documentaries. They have treated me and my work fairly and provided important coverage of an otherwise hidden issue. I’ll be forever grateful to them for that.

JS: Name two places you would like to visit, one you haven’t been to and one to experience again and briefly tell us why.

TF: I backpacked through Costa Rica in the early 2000s and chose the country because it still had four species of primates in the wild. After climbing what for me was a high mountain, I arrived at the top and sat under a tree which held a juvenile male howler monkey. He was lazily eating some fruit he had picked from the tree, dropping the pit to my feet as he ate. We both stared out together at the same beautiful sunset over the water. It’s difficult to describe but it was such a peaceful, unifying feeling being with him. I would love to return one day or travel to another destination with wild monkeys.

JS: Please tell us about one or more projects that you have been working on, are preparing, or have recently completed. Why do they matter to you and why should they matter to us?

TF: I’m really enjoying working on a Monkey Wrenching painting series. The goal of it is to inspiring others to see how effective they can be in acting for animals. The series features people of all ages rescuing animals and all bear the Monkey Wrenching logo I developed. Some are tongue-in-cheek and subversive like Rosie the Rescuer (my take on Rosie the Riveter), others are classic images in the animal liberation movement (YOUR FACE HERE) but all of them bring me joy to paint.

JS: Let’s talk about the state of the arts in today‘s society, including the forms in which you work. What specifically gives you hope and what specifically do you find depressing?

TF: The rate of growth of animal rights art and vegan artists is incredibly heartening. I’m part of a group called The Art of Compassion that is comprised of incredible vegan artists from around the world. There’s a surprising demand for our work all over the world- we’ve had showings all over Europe as well as Russia, Israel, and soon, China!

What I find depressing is the continued harmful use of animals in art. What’s different now from when I noticed artists first doing it in the ’80s though is the response from the public. A recent show at the Guggenheim which was set to feature three pieces involving animal abuse generated nearly 800,000 signatures on a petition demanding their removal. The Guggenheim cancelled the exhibit but unfortunately cited artist safety as the reason. I’m optimistic that we’ll see a day when galleries and museums recognize that animal abuse is not art.

JS: Finally, what do you yourself find to be the most intriguing and/or surprising thing about you?

TF: Probably my tenaciousness. A fellow activist once called me a bulldog. I wasn’t sure how to take it at the time but now it’s a point of pride. I’m committed to advocating for animals for the long haul.