Calgary Journal Online

Stephan Sauer is perched on a bench edge surrounded by the chaos of his belongings. The destroyed base of a city streetlight flanks his left.

He is reflected from behind by the impenetrable cold glass and hard metal of a bank. A small sum of money pins his busking permit to the green lining of his violin case.

The glaring sun highlights the contradiction of poverty and wealth, substance and destruction on a late spring afternoon in busy Kensington road. “My life is totally crazy,” Sauer says, breaking from dragging his bow across the barely-tuned strings of his violin.

Sauer is a busker; a student; a painter; a free spirit; a lost soul. He has a family but rarely sees them; he is hungry for learning but can’t afford school; he travels but only as far as the spare change he makes playing his violin can take him.

Born in Leduc, Sauer says he has little memory of the town he lived in until he was three. “I remember crossing Canada to Thunder Bay in a U-haul,” he says, alluding to the first of many times he’s moved or been moved.

Stephen played violin as a child. At the time, his father was a working minister and the family was intact. Now, his family is spread thin. “Most of my family… is scattered across United States. “They’re probably in 10 or 15 different states,” he explains in answer to whether he’s close to his relations.

“My father was sent up here as a Lutheran pastor when he finished seminary.” But when his father retired twelve year ago, Sauer explains, “He became a bit of a hermit and lived out of his cabin at the lake.” Stephen hasn’t seen his dad for more than two years and doesn’t have his phone number anymore, because, he says, his dad would be annoyed. “It’s hard to get in touch with him.”

Stephen says he lives “up in the north part of the city,” but doesn’t specify beyond loose coordinates. He hesitates to answer a question about whether he is nomadic. “I don’t know. I like moving around but I’m not really young anymore.”

It isn’t clear why Sauer came to Calgary rather than staying in any of several other cities he’s lived in. “I was in Toronto and saw the buskers there and they looked like they were making a living,” he explains. “I was an unhappy commercial painter at that point. I had a tax return coming and, when [it] came, I just headed out to the woods.” Beyond that, he doesn’t explain how the woods became the big city.

After another move, Sauer briefly belonged to a church choir in Winnipeg. “I couldn’t sing on key,” he admits. He says he’d like voice lessons but seems unaware that his inability to sing on key also affects his violin playing.

Busking is his only work, it seems but it doesn’t make him much of a wage. He says he makes as much as $100 a day on some weekends but that, “There can be times where I’m making two dollars an hour. I’m happy to do it but I’m going to have to supplement my busking income with art sales.”

“If I could make a living in Calgary selling artwork, I might call this place home,” he says, as he reaches for a sandwich bag full of printed cards. He says the card art is reprints of work he did. “I haven’t done it for a while but fortunately the stuff that I have done in the last couple of years I’ve hung on to.”

Given the cards, it would be easy to assume Sauer has had some art instruction, but no; “I dropped out of Concordia University. I was a part-time major in Physics.” He mentions money again. I’d like to save up money and do physics, chemistry and possibly English and take a light course load – three or four courses, no more than that – so I have time for my hobbies.”

Busker Stephen Sauer has moved around fequently and has his violin has been his only form of income at times. He’s been all over Canada, from Toronto to Winnipeg to Calgary. Sauer hopes to supplement his income eventually by selling his own artwork.

photo by: Julie C Vincent

When a homeless man comes by to speak to Stephen, essentially taking over the conversation, the subject quickly turns to politics and a disjointed discussion of the cost of busking permits the “mad laws,” in Canada. “Most of the problem for me is intoxicated, quite likely homeless people,” says Sauer. “If I were on city council, I would start a movement that you need a residence to live in or you’re banned from buying alcohol at the liquor stores. If you don’t have a home you’re drinking on the street, and that’s not right.”

When the man points out that Stephen is “an accomplished violinist,” and probably won’t ever be on the streets, Sauer dismisses the complement. It’s not clear whether the dismissal is modesty or an awareness that the street indeed beckons.

Much of Stephen Sauer’s life is discernable only by reading between the lines. It is appropriate that his instrument of choice is stringed, strident and difficult to dominate.

He talks about the “utter madness” that goes on in his life but doesn’t identify anything specifically mad. “I don’t know,” he says, “Probably a lot of things.” He doesn’t elaborate beyond admitting that he, like many, is behind on bills before he changes the subject to the life he would have with a mythical wife and children. The subject of his mad life comes up again but he’s not going there. “It’s weird,” he says, again without further explanation.