Today, I have the happy opportunity to share the Boundary|Time|Surface project with the McGill University community.
Very much looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts on the project!
Today: A Talk
Tag: Gros Morne
A Talk September 14th
Now that the dust has settled from the Opening of Boundary|time|Surface, I am happy to say that Dr. John Waldron and I will be presenting a talk on the project, and the ideas behind our collaboration!
This Saturday, September 14, at 2pm – if you’re in the area, please join us at the Art Gallery of St. Albert for our discussion:
“Boundary|Time|Surface:
Art and Geology in Dialogue”
New things coming …
It’s been a head-down, get-things-done time for several months now. Board work, projects in various stages of development requiring attention, travel, … and soon, an exhibition of work.
I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to return to the Boundary|Time|Surface project over the last several months – digging back into the images and video, thinking through the ideas again, making new work.
And soon, the results of that revisiting will be on exhibition at the Art Gallery of St. Albert!
The exhibition opens on September 5 2019, at 6:00 pm. – and continues until November 2 2019.
It has been a really interesting process to look at this body of work with the fresh eyes of time and distance, and to consider the ways in which my perceptions of the place and the thoughts it provoked have both changed, and stayed the same. Interesting too, that many of the concerns I had that were brought to bear on the first iteration of work for gallery presentation have only become more urgent – closer to the bone for me.
Every time I look at the photos and video I took in 2014 during my residency in Gros Morne National Park, I learn something more. About myself and what I value as a human being, as much about the nuances in the place itself. It was good and difficult work to go back into the material, push harder with research and art-making both, and consider the implications of bringing this work (in essence) almost all the way across the country for a second showing.
A good friend and fellow artist asked me once “when do you know the work is finished?” For this body of work … I don’t know that I will ever be “finished” – at the least, not with the ideas inherent in the project. But I am, overall, happy with the results of reading and writing and running down rabbit holes of ideas that has been going on for the past year.
SO – this exhibition with feature a good bit of brand-new work, and those pieces from 2016 that ‘made the cut’ will have new conversations and readings in relation to what I’ve been working on/through. This is also the first time this work (in any iteration) had been shown west of Newfoundland … so even “old” work feels new in this context.
I hope those of you reading this in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada region will join me at the opening (more exciting news on that to follow soon!) … hope to see you there.
Boundary|Time|Surface is Open!
It’s been very quiet here lately … and a bit frantic everywhere else in my life.
Just got back from a week in Newfoundland, installing Boundary|Time|Surface at the Discovery Centre Gallery in Gros Morne National Park! The exhibition will be up for the entire season – until early October 2016. If you have a chance to visit this magical place, please drop in, and let me know what you think!
It was lovely to be back in Woody Point. It’s a gorgeous spot on the planet, and the terrific people out there make it even better. The staff of Parks Canada and all the folks I’ve met in Woody Point and Rocky Harbour are part of what makes Gros Morne so special to me; it’s been more like a family reunion than going to work. Waking up to whales playing in Bonne Bay every morning didn’t hurt either!
It was a hectic, challenging, tiring week – but worth it to see this work up and complete in a way I’ve not had the opportunity to experience until now. It’s a very interesting process/experience, seeing the work all together for the first time; there’s always that element of wondering if what you’d envisioned would really make sense in the space, as an integrated series of pieces that speak to the viewer both individually and as a whole.
Here’s a (very short) video walk-thru of the exhibition (apologies for the slightly shaky footage – handheld on a phone isn’t ideal, I know):
And a few still images of the work as well:
I wanted to take a moment to thank some people for their help in making this exhibition a reality …
John Waldron – my geological partner in life, the universe, and everything, scientific collaborator, resource person, and tech troubleshooter extraordinaire
Jennifer Galliott – artist, entrepreneur, and top notch exhibition install assistant (she makes a mean latte too!)
Rob Hingston – and Parks Canada for having faith in the project, and bringing the exhibition to the Discovery Centre
Bruce Gillam – for his assistance with the lighting, cabling, and making things the best they could be
It’s time to regroup a bit, nurse my colossal jet lag and exhaustion – and start to get organized for the next round of work and travel … more on that in a bit.
Gros Morne 2.0
I had a great few days out in Gros Morne National Park!
It was wonderful to be back there – I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed the place and the people. It was grand to see people we’d got to know, and visit the places that became our home-away-from-home for several weeks last year.
There’s a raw, wild beauty to the landscape that captivated me the first time I saw it – and that hasn’t changed one bit. If anything, each visit deepens my appreciation of all the area has to offer.
I got a lot accomplished too – also a very good thing! This return trip had a purpose behind it beyond being blown away by all the beauty: I needed to shoot some more images and video to compliment the work I did during my residency last summer, and I also wanted to create some molds of bedding surfaces at Green Point.
Happily, the weather cooperated, and so did the cameras … and I’m very happy with the results from the old making too!
I’m really excited to dig through all the images and video and get editing … and get those molds back to the studio to play with them too! Soon enough.
Just a few more days, and I’m back on the Prairie … how quickly the time has passed!
Parrsboro
Well, I made it out to Nova Scotia!
The talk we presented at the Fundy Geological Museum on the Boundary|Time|Surface project went well, and we had a nice group of people in the audience. Good questions and discussion, which is always the best part … the feedback is so much more interesting than just being a ‘talking head’ yammering on about things. (At least it is for me!) My thanks to Tim Fedak, the Director at the Fundy, for organizing this event!
Had a lovely couple of days in Parrsboro, NS too!
It’s a place with a sense of humour ….
We had a little time (not enough!) to explore the town, and meet some lovely people. It’s quite exciting to see what the creative community is doing there – and just how much is going on. Had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Krista Wells and having a lovely poke around the Art Lab cooperative space that she and some other artists have set up on Main Street. DIY projects like this are really exciting, all the more so because they grow organically out of the community itself. I also had a lovely chat with Alan Johnson from Parrsboro Creative, another local initiative with offices just down for Art Lab on Main Street. Parrsboro Creative is tapping the energy and renewal that the arts can bring to communities everywhere, linking interested people to a wide range of learning opportunities, and spearheading an artist relocation program. This is a town that has it’s art on, big time.
Just down Main Street from Art Lab, we discovered these little gems:
We also had the good fortune to discover Main & Station/Nonesuch Cafe, a gorgeous space housed in a retrofitted heritage post office. Judith and Harvey have created a truly cross-disciplinary environment, with so much to offer: a cafe, bookstore, and gallery; a place to listen to learn through talks and workshops, residency opportunities … it’s quite amazing.
Parrsboro is also a deeply beautiful place; the Bay of Fundy was as breathtaking and powerful as ever.
Have had a brief stop in Halifax … and next up is Newfoundland! Leaving tomorrow for Deer Lake, and from there to Gros Morne!
The adventure continues!
Sideways …
I am experiencing the unexpected – the result of opportunities taking me in directions I couldn’t have anticipated.
Life’s taken me sideways, and it’s turning out to be quite the ride!
Little did I know that when I completed Boundary|Time|Surface last summer in Gros Morne National Park, that the fall of 2014 and the first months of 2015 would find me presenting a series of talks on the project … to geologists.
So far, my geologist-art-collaborator and I have given talks on the project for the ATLAS Graduate Students Association at the University of Alberta, at the Atlantic Geosciences Society conference in Sackville NB, and the Edmonton Geological Society AGM.
(We thought it particularly apt that the ATLAS talk was on Hallowe’en … )
And now … we will be doing a poster and multi-media presentation as part of the Education and Outreach Symposia at the European Geosciences Union conference in Vienna, Austria, on April 17th.
It has been a terribly hectic time preparing for this trip (the proverbial ‘getting one’s duck in a row’ has been more like herding kittens on some days), and it hasn’t really felt real until now: we’re on the ground, settled in the hotel, and have attended the first day of sessions at the conference.
Admittedly, This still doesn’t quite feel real to me – jet lag will do that! But I have been having some excellent Viennese coffee to get me through, and taking the odd nap to deal with the waves of fatigue when they’d hit.
It’s going be a remarkable 10 days – opportunities to see some of the city, spend some time in galleries and museums, walk and explore.
It’s my first time in Vienna, and I’m already quite certain that I will barely have time to scratch the surface of what the place will have to offer. It’s beautiful in that complicated, accretive way of places long populated: the long history of politics, money, and social indicators of taste are everywhere in the architecture, in the graffiti, in the efficient movement of people from place to place.
Even the site of the conference itself speaks to this complexity: it is being held in a complex adjacent to UNO City … Home of the United Nations.
It will be interesting to see how Boundary|Time|Surface is received; I am looking forward to getting some feedback on this work from an international audience – a few of whom will also be practicing artists. In any case, it’s going to be an adventure.
Sometimes, sideways is a good direction.
Upcoming Talk …. Art meets Geology!
Hallowe’en is coming up soon … so that means it’s a perfect time for …
… an artist’s talk!
I will be presenting a talk with John Waldron on October 31; we will be discussing Boundary|Time|Surface, the project we worked on this summer in Gros Morne National Park. Details below …
Should be fun!
I’m really looking forward to this – it’s the first opportunity I’ve had to show images and video from the project locally.
Interview on Arts East
For those of you who might be interested in some of the story behind Boundary|Time|Surface, the sculptural installation I did this summer in Newfoundland:
I recently did an interview with Michelle Brunet from Arts East on the project and on my practice in more general terms. It’s just been posted on the Arts East blog, and you can find it HERE>.
I am working on pulling together a static page for this project, and if all goes well, it will see the light of day in the next few days. I’ll let you know when it’s live.
In the mean time – a few more images from Newfoundland, and Boundary|Time|Surface. I miss this magical place already.
On the Road, and an interview …
It’s been a tremendous, and tremendously busy time the last couple of weeks. Said my (hopefully temporary) goodbyes to Gros Morne and the lovely people of Woody Point NL, spent a very fast couple of days in Halifax, and then was off to my next adventure – the Red Rabbit Intertidal Intensive – on the Bay of Fundy, at Thomas Cove.
Much more on that amazing experience shortly, in a future post.
Then back to Halifax for a couple of days … and now I am in the no-place that is the airport, waiting for my flight back west to Edmonton. It feels like a very long time since I’ve been in my Prairie home. I expect I will be dealing with a good bit of ‘culture shock’ for at least a few days after my landing; essentially, I have been living in rural/semi-wilderness environments for the last six weeks. Not looking forward to the noise and the traffic, and crossing the street as an extreme sport. It will be good to sleep in my own bed again, and wake up to those enormous Alberta skies again, though.
But in the mean time, I wanted to say one more “‘bye for now!” to Newfoundland, and pass on a nice little interview I did, that was just posted to Creative Gros Morne. 
It was lovely to read Evie’s article – it brought me back to sitting in the Residency house and chatting with her, to what Bonne Bay looked like that morning … And to the head cold I had! I’m amazed Evangeline got anything coherent from me at all! Still – good memories of a remarkable experience.
