Left speechless and heartsick by world events. Exhausted by hate, lies, and willful ignorance which seems de rigueur.
I need to write about these things – speak what I need to speak – but thus far, I find myself stumbling over words, at odds with logic and sentences and written or verbal expression. Words do, indeed, fail.
So, it is to images I turn, and in that way of things that brings one what is needed in the moment, I came across the gloriously violent images of Luke Shadbolt, reblogged from eMORPHES here.
My thanks to Luke Shadbolt and eMORPHES for the painful beauty that says so much in the closing days of a difficult year.
My first full day in Nova Scotia – overnighted at the airport hotel, and will be heading to Day 1 of my residency at Main & Station in Parrsboro shortly!
Excited to get there, get settled, and get to work … .
Planning and researching, in order to make work that bridges disciplines and methods of articulating ideas: through sound, in sculpture, talking with and about scientific explorations, drawing as a meditation and as a performance … and all of this engaged to one degree or another with the public realm.
Both in and of the community. Rooted in landscape as place and as source of natural phenomena.
All kinds of conversations here, but they are at base conversationsbetween things and people.
And coincidentally, what should come to my inbox, but an article about Christo’s piers, and all the complicated things about this kind of work.
I was particularly struck by Hoy’s observations on the idealism of the work – particularly as it pertains to the recent Brexit, mobility, and migration (bodies in space) – and how this idealism comes up against the reality of work in public space, and that asks for public engagement directly.
(as a sidenote: I also find it interesting that Hoy mentions her Canadian roots, and the relative isolation of our huge country in relation to borders, boundaries, and movement … more food for thought here … does this explain my fascination with edges/boundaries, and with breaking them down or exposing them? is that a “terribly Canadian” thing I do?).
Hoy notes:
I doubt Brexit was on the minds of any of the thousands of people experiencing Christo’s magnanimous installation that Thursday. We were all too busy frolicking across the water, marveling at the scenery, and snapping selfies. And I’m sure any such symbolism was the furthest thing from the artist’s intentions—he and his late wife Jeanne-Claude first hatched the idea for the piers in the 1970s. “All the artwork Jeanne-Claude and I do is work of joy and beauty. They don’t serve anything except to be a work of art,” he said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in April.
and that
By a coincidence of timing, Christo’s Floating Piers became a symbol of how art can (quite literally) bring people together, but also how these connections are fraught. Soon, the piers will disappear and life on Lake Iseo will go back to normal. The EU will go back to normal, too, though we already know it won’t quite be the same.
At the risk of stating the obvious: context, scale, location … and fame … are markers that thoroughly differentiate my plans from this work entirely!
That being said: what has struck a chord for me is Hoy’s insights about both the impulse behind the work, and the potential for its lasting impact. I make work to speak about things in ways that (for me) defy the use of words exclusively; there are ideas I try to embody in the act of making and in the presentation of finished work that I hope people respond to viscerally.
A building, and a tearing down, simultaneously. Not without complications. A process that changes everyone involved and (hopefully) allows us all to see and experience things in the world – and ourselves – a little differently.
Idealistic, yes. Unabashedly so – there’s more than enough in this world, including Brexit, to make us jaded and cynical.
I have been thinking about a series of related concepts/ideas in the last little while … having the luxury of a little time to allow things to percolate through my brain, see where they take me. The swirl of idea(l)s has caught me up in the last 48 hours, and has insinuated itself in the nooks and crannies of the concepts I am beginning toward with for a new project …
I will perhaps post updates here as my thinking evolves and revolves …
Bodies in space.
from Maria Takeuchi, on Vimeo: https://player.vimeo.com/video/121436114
The way a single movement occurs in time, changes space, changes everything forever.
The fine line and inextricable link between order an chaos.
What can be built can collapse at any time.
2016 AICP Sponsor Reel – Dir Cut, from Method Studios on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/169599296
The Lorenz Attractor.
The difference between being active and reactive, in all things.
… that I came across today. A quote, actually, from Martin Creed, that sums up some of the ideas that have been rolling around in my head for a while now.
On a more literal level, working some of this out through the creation of the original Boundary|Time|Surface installation in 2014, and in other ways in the work that arose from it and that is now on exhibition in Newfoundland.
At any rate, Creed said:
“I started thinking about the difficulty of drawing lines on a map, making country borders, which is exactly the same as drawing on a piece of paper. Any definite border is against nature and against life.”
Things bleed into one another; that is the reality of it all. Eventually, all the myriad ways of dividing up the world (and ourselves) break down and erode. The edges get fuzzy, or float away.
These compartments we build are convenient, but they are illusions.
View from cliff topView facing the cliff at Green Point
Thanks Martin, I needed that today.
{SOURCE: “Martin Creed on Why Art Can’t Ignore the World around It” by Philomela Epps, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-martin-creed-on-why-art-can-t-ignore-the-world-around-it}
I’ve been so immersed in work lately, that it’s good to have a reminder that it is indeed SPRING …
The simple exuberance of those first bright green buds on the trees, the enthusiastic (and sometimes frantic) birdsong from the bushes … makes me want to be outside much, much more than I am currently able.
SO.
A little eye candy for the day’s work, for everyone who needs to be indoors today, instead of enjoying the sunshine.
Beautiful work by Rebecca Louise Law. Would simply love to see this in person!
Enjoy!
(images via thisiscolossal, courtesy Bikini Berlin)
I am smitten with the meditative and performative quality of this type of work. When I make work like this – site based, body based, working with natural materials – I feel most at home in my skin.
One of the hats I wear in my professional life is that of board member for Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC. Our role in the province is to provide information and professional development opportunities to visual artists, and to advocate on behalf of visual artists for programs and policies that improve the socio-economic position of visual artists at various stages in their careers. We are the provincial affiliate for CARFAC National; so that means our members have access to the tools and support that CARFAC can provide as well.
Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC has a new project launching soon – called DRAW MORE INCOME – and I wanted to spread the word a bit about it, because I think it’s particularly important to be having conversations about the economic position of visual artists in Alberta right now – AND about the vital contribution art & culture make to the economy of the province and the country.
So … this is an open invitation to all the visual creatives out there: the artists, the illustrators, the new media artists, the graphic designers, the photographers, the printmakers …
Tell Visual Arts Alberta – CARFAC how you Draw More Income.
What are the difficulties you face in improving your income from your practice?
What strategies and ideas are you trying for making your creative life work better?
Are there NEW methods you are developing or trying out?
What would your practice look like if you were able to draw more income from it?
How would that change your work and personal life?
And – because we all work visually in some way – it would be really great if you’d share a little drawing or sketch or comment that represents your struggles and/or successes! There are picture-frame postcards just waiting for you to work on – and these will be gathered and posted in our community space attached to the office in Edmonton for the next 3 months.
I wanted to pass on a link to some great commentary and insights by Rhonda Kronyk, concerning the myriad changes & recent downtown development here in YEG … and what it means for local people and the agencies who serve them.
We are at a complicated juncture in this city’s short history – and we have choices to make on an ongoing basis about what kind of city we want, and want to live in. There’s some great food for thought here; let’s remember that this city is home to all of us – 365 days a year.
That means diversity is the rule, not the exception …
I have some things I’d like to share with you, that I hope you buy from me, to give as gifts to people in the next while.
First off, I have some lovely hand-bound poetry books that would like to have new homes.
… and the finished product! 10″ x 8.5″, text stock is 80% wheat straw; block prints are on rice paper; 65 lb FSC certified cover stock. 50 numbered copies.
Text by award-winning Vancouver poet Catherine Owen; 7 hand-pulled block print illustrations by me. I carved the blocks, printed the images on rice paper, the text on straw paper, and bound the books. Limited edition of 50.
Seven Limited Edition, hand carved and pulled block prints of Nests will be in the chapbook …
The poems are based on the seven basic building forms that birds use to build nests, and deal with love and the work of living and caring for one another in ways that are insightful, and always threaded through with a keen understanding of human relationships.
$50 each, shipping via Canada Post extra (if needed).
I also have a new series of photo-based work I’ve just put up at Credo on 104th Street in Edmonton AB. These are a selection urban/street based images I’ve been collecting for the last several years: quirky little moments from various cities in Canada.
Manipulated digital images printed on mylar and archival fine art photo paper, framed and ready to hang. These are non-editioned images, so if you want something in a different size, get in touch, and we can talk.
Prices range from $45 – $90, shipping via Canada Post extra (if needed).
But there is a point to me telling you about these things, beyond the possible sale …
Buying from the maker of the goods you choose gives both buyer and seller so much more than just the positive conclusion to a mutually agreeable monetary transaction.
You have the option to get to know the person who made the thing you like a little better – find out the story behind the item you like.
The thing you choose will be unique in some way; it’s not going to be one of several million items produced in a factory. It comes from a different kind of economy, and a different understanding of ‘value.’
You know that the money you spend is going to support the effort of someone trying to make a living from making. From self-employment in creative work. Local workers making local products.
Props to the many Maker’s Markets and Farmer’s Markets her and elsewhere that serve as venues for makers of all types … all those places where people gather to show and sell what they make – and make the cities they make in a little bit more awesome all the time.
(ok – my mini rant is over … and I hope you consider purchasing gifts for people throughout the year from local artists and artisans. It matters!)
