Seems the New Year is well and truly upon me, and has reminded me in no uncertain terms that There Are Things To Be Done!
The long silence here is due to many things afoot in the studio and elsewhere of late … not the least of which are preparations for an upcoming exhibition in Toronto, at the Fleishman Gallery (79a Harbord Street, near the U of T)!
This exhibition – called 21st Century Nesting Practices – is the first extension of work from NEST, which I developed during my residency at Harcourt House last year.
I will be showing a selection of new work, including a video installation and photographs, in combination with a selection of gel transfers, drawings, and sculpture from NEST. The video was developed out of a collaborative poem written by me and Catherine Owen over the course of nearly a year, as I was working through the residency. 500 lines, 250 each, written turn-about. The photos are a small selection from the literally hundreds of images I took of nests in predominately urban environments; the parallels between human and animal spaces are many and complex, as is the way both birds and humans claim space for their own.
21st Century Nesting Practices is a more intimate, personal exploration of the ideas I was working with in NEST (hence the different title). This exhibition focuses directly on the memories, psychology, and personal history that inform the notion of the human ‘nest’ and ideas of home for me, how those things can mean so differently (and so much the same) to others, how those ideas change and shift over time. I think presenting this new combination of pieces will teach me about what has to happen to develop the larger body of work completely – what further risks need to be taken, how far and how deep to go in the long run. I’m looking forward to it immensely.
I will be heading to Toronto for a week of installation at the gallery, culminating in the opening of the exhibition on February 1.
Really excited – a more than a little nervous – and putting out good vibes to all the “shipping fairies” in the universe, in the hope that nothing will go missing or be delayed on its way there. We should be just FINE. I hope.
SO! For anyone out there in the Toronto area (or looking for an excuse to come to Toronto for a weekend) – Here’s the exhibition information:
NEST opened last night at Harcourt House. I also presented an artist talk on the work and the residency – which I understand from others was reasonably coherent – I don’t really know, it was a bit of a blur to be honest!
Icarus Car also opened last night in the Front Room gallery at Harcourt – a really great collection of video work – I recommend it highly! Check out Evann Siebens‘ website or Keith Doyle‘s website for more of their work.
It was a long three days installing Monday through Wednesday of this week, but the work went steadily, and generally without any horrendous hitches. I had some fantastic help from friends, so that made the work and any issues we did have much easier in so many ways. All in all, I’m really happy with the show … so exciting to see the work in a proper gallery setting for the first time! One of those truly happy moments – when I was able to look at all the work, installed, and see it look very much like I anticipated it would. Who knew – it worked out the way I’d hoped after all!
For those of you farther afield who might be interested – some photos I took today, of the work in situ:
I had a sample of the chapbook on display as well, and the response has been great so far! So happy to see that project take flight, and have positive feedback about the book on all counts: design, the prints, and of course Catherine’s beautiful poems.
I also had a number of inquiries about sales – both for the book and for work in the exhibition – so I thought I would post a note about all of that here too, so anyone that was interested could follow up on the contact page here … to wit:
The chapbooks are $40.00 CAD each, for the duration of the exhibition (October 18 – November 24 2012). After that, the price goes up (assuming any of the books are left!)
All of the work in the gallery is also for sale.
If you are interested in purchasing a book or some work, contact me DIRECTLY, and we can make arrangements. As an artist-run space, Harcourt House doesn’t deal with any of the commercial aspects of exhibiting art … so, that part of things happens one-on-one with me.
I’m looking forward to taking a day or two off – time to sleep, regroup a bit … catch up on all the glamorous things in life (like laundry!), and look towards the next set of things to be done (some neat new project coming down the pipe … more on that later!). First things first though: my next art-related task is emptying and cleaning the A.I.R. studio! I have NO idea how I’m going to fit everything into my little space (having more than double the studio space for a year has really got me spoiled – and working LARGER than ever before!) But, those are really questions for another day.
Started installing NEST today at Harcourt House. Exciting!
So, far, things are going smoothly … still a fair bit to do over the next couple of days, but overall I’m happy with the progress so far.
Also had a quick visit from Catherine Owen this past weekend – she was in town for the launch of her latest book, Trobairitz. The added bonus to Cath’s visit (aside form a stellar reading at the Edmonton Launch of her book!) is that she was able to sign all 50 copies of the limited edition chapbook NEST{types} that we have produced together.
So … the book will be available through me directly, starting October 18th at the Opening Reception of NEST. You can contact me directly here if you’d like a copy too!
The books will be at a special launch-only price of $40 on October 18th.
… and now, I must get back to the talk I need to get into shape before Thursday night! EEP!
I’ve always been a sucker for paper, pens, letterpress … all the delightful things that keep reading and writing an immediate and tactile experience. I’m a bit of a Luddite or a throwback I guess, but there is something utterly irreplaceable and so very delicious about hand writing a letter with a fountain pen … holding and reading a real book, and smelling the fresh ink-and-paper smell when it’s opened for the first time.
So really, it should be no surprise at all for me to discover that I adore bookbinding.
I have had the honour and pleasure to collaborate with poet Catherine Owen for several years now (her blog is here – and well worth a read!); this latest incarnation of our work together is a chapbook, revolving around – you guessed it – nests. Catherine has written some beautiful nest poems over the last year; her wondrous words and my images (based on the nest forms she used in the poems) come together here.
This little volume with be available for purchase October 18th, at the Opening Reception of NEST, my Residency exhibition at Harcourt House. I was going to wait a bit to show the world – but I’m really pleased and excited by the results, so it’s Preview Time!
Some images of the chapbook, NEST {types} :
Seven Limited Edition, hand carved and pulled block prints of Nests will be in the chapbook …… how I spent my Sunday … collating pages before binding the book. Good thing we’ve got a large dining table!… 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. Bound with unbleached linen cord. 50 numbered copies.
I’m happy with the way the entire project turned out – and looking forward to doing more in this vein over the coming years.
This particular project has been both a fitting close and an opening out: I am a little less than a month away from the exhibition of NEST and the end of that year-long process. That reality also marks an entry into the next phase in the project (nope it’s not over yet!!), in which I will develop more visual work, but also turn my attention to writing, and to working with Catherine further to see what evolves in this body of work.
I’ve been working really steadily in the studio the last few weeks, and that doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon. I did take a lovely break this past weekend to attend a good chunk of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival – which was delightful – but even then, I put in several hours in the studio on Thursday and on Friday in advance of going to the evening sessions.
… the view from the hill of the main stage at the Edmonton Folkfest …
It’s the ‘last push’ in preparations before the October Residency exhibition, in which NEST will see the light of day as an organized body of work (well, at least, it’s my sincere hope it will be an organized and coherent body of work … let’s put it that way!) The exhibition opens on October 18th – and while on one hand, that seems like a relatively long time in the future, in actuality, it’s the blink of an eye. It takes so much time to make work … time and energy and thought, and some of that effort is emotional as well, to be honest, and so really can’t be rushed. Nor would I want to rush any of this work – not the process, nor the result in each piece.
Of course, throughout the process of creating this work – well before I actually began making anything, truth to tell – I had much to reflect on and think about: the ideas that spurred the project were (to me at least) fascinating, and remain so to this day. But that’s just the starting point: the intellectual and conceptual fuel as it were. What the project has become is also a deeply personal journey; a combination of archaeology, discovery, and letting go.
I am quite struck with just how autobiographical the work has become – quite directly so. It is not in any way lost on me that my continued interest in the intersections and conflicts between the competing narratives of memory, history, and the social construction of identity has a direct and enduring relationship to my own personal lived experience. Yes, I know, an obvious thing – but the depth of that understanding and grasping the enduring nature of that questioning is something very new. Identity and its relationship to security – to one’s sense of home and the stories and memories that come out of that first nest – can be slippery things indeed.
Whether we admit it to ourselves and the rest of the world or not, the archetypal nest is a home for the heart. We all seek that emotional space that we understand to be stable – permanent, even – in the face of ‘life’, which is really simply shorthand for continual process and all the change that it embodies. It is an old truism that ‘home’ is not a place per se – that as individuals, we contain it or hold it somehow within mind and memory. So it is at once visceral and primal – and utterly abstract. We have need of the refuge it supplies on every level of survival imaginable … . Because the enormity of that need can seem overwhelming at times, we externalize it: invest objects with emotional and symbolic import, hang on to the grand narratives of childhood and family like fetishes that provide access to that other, first world in which we lived in that nest, felt secure enough to venture forth and (at least) peek over the edge to the world below the tree.
But what if those objects are for the most part gone? What if those childhood narratives have been called into question – unverifiable, or suspect in some way? What if that sense of security (of any sort: emotional, physical …) within the primal nest held no guarantee; what if it was a contingent thing, qualified or tenuous in some way(s)? How do these other possibilities disrupt the understanding of the nest as refuge and haven, home for the heart and body … and what effect does this have on the way we construct our-self-story through the filters of memory, and in relation to the assumptions inherent in the social discourse of race and class and gender?
Much to learn and ponder here … and this writing is a start.
I leave you tonight with and image of some recent work, and a quote from an amazing singer:
A test print from some lino cuts I’ve been doing lately …
“…you must understand that I have never really known how to describe the work as anything other than an inspired reaction to the love of and a desire to communicate an arrow from the heart.” – Lisa Gerrard
… sometimes the work is an arrow to the heart as well.
Ok – finally a minute to catch my breath a little, and catch up on other parts of life – including some writing here!
The Summer Solstice marked several related annual arts events at Harcourt House, including the openings for the Members’ show, the Naked Show, and the Artist-in-Residence Open Studio. Even a barbecue on the front lawn, for good measure! It’s a lovely event, and it brings together a wide range of artists and arts-supporters for the evening. It was a busy evening, in the end – we had about 250 people through the Annex Building alone, and I had many many visitors to my studio over the course of the night. I gave several demonstrations of gel-transfer printmaking, and had some fantastic conversations with people about the work I’m doing for the Residency, and about art in general.
… outside the Annex …
We were blessed with good weather in the lead-up, and for the event, so that helped things fall onto place relatively easily. Good thing too – since my fellow nest-installers and I spent a day and a half swinging from the high end of ladders in preparation for the visitors!
I had decided months back that one of the things I wanted to do during my time as AIR was to produce some work specifically for the Open Studio event; a subset of the work for the Residency as a whole. I thought it would be a great way to set a milestone for myself a little over half way into the year. Also a perfect opportunity to push my practice, and think of my work in a specifically public context: what it meant to make work that would be outside a gallery setting, that would be on/in somewhat unconventional places, and that would be viewed not only by people attending the event, but also passersby on the street after the fact.
This set of circumstances raised all sorts of new challenges for me – not the least of which was setting myself the task of working with new materials, in explicitly new ways: fun with industrial plastics, and three-dimensional work! Do I sound like a glutton for punishment? maybe a little … but the most general goal I had set for myself in the Residency was to really expand my practice and work in new ways and larger scale than I ever had before … . At any rate, it was a great process – an excellent learning experience, and a whole lot of fun, start to finish. The poor fellow at the plastics company I was dealing with must have thought I was crazy … and (not terribly surprising, this) he’d never worked with an artist before, so there were some moments we had over the phone in which we had to figure out how to speak each other’s language … but we did get it sorted, and he was very helpful in providing solid advice about the best choices in materials for what I wanted to do. But I digress …
I had set out to create a set of nest sculptures that would be eye-catching, both in scale and colour. And I wanted to install the work on or near both the Harcourt House Annex building (where my studio is), and on the main building (the home of the office and Gallery for Harcourt). I also wanted to draw from the research I had done on birds’ nests at the beginning of the Residency, and construct sets or groups of nests that were each based loosely on particular nest-building patterns found in nature. Keeping in mind that these structures were basically abstractions of the forms found on nature, I wanted to allow each type/shape to develop it’s own personality in relation to the materials … and of course, part of the process was learning about both the potential and the limits of the materials I had chosen. Making this work became a real dialogue, in that sense – the push and pull between the idea and the execution, the potential and the limits. Great lessons in process and attentiveness.
… and black ‘weaver’ nests in the stairwell …
The general idea around this set of sculptures is as follows:
21st Century Nesting Practices is a collection of sculptures that consider the connection and relationship between materials, structures, and notions of stability and security. Although birds are selective in their use of nesting materials, they are also highly adaptable and resourceful creatures. Nest-builders will often use whatever material is available, including bits of plastic – a material that has become synonymous not only with 21st century life (particularly in the more economically secure West), but also with environmental degradation and pollution. These whimsical, fantastical – and totally impractical – nests point to human use of natural resources and about what we consider appropriate levels of material comfort and security. Nests installed in various locations in and around Harcourt House and the Harcourt Annex are loosely based on the nesting structures created by African Weavers, Common Sparrows, Bohemian Waxwings, and Herons.
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In the end, I was quite happy with the range of work – some nests were quite whimsical and simply fun, while others had a simple sort of elegance to them that I found striking in a completely different way. Each taught me a great deal about the use of negative space and grouping in sculpture, and about the dynamics between form, scale, and colour. And …there were other, equally valuable lessons in the whole process – making the work, installing it, the open house … all of it:
– the rewards of really seeing and paying attention
– how to remain flexible and adaptable in making work
– that some of the best results can come from unexpected places, and how important a sense of play can be
The dearth of posts here of late has been due in large part to being a bit (ok, a lot) snowed with work … the usual “I need to clone myself” thing I get into on occasion. In this particular instance, it’s been a combination of being out of the studio due to travel, coupled with several projects coming due all at once. It’s been a very busy, hectic spring any which way I look at it … Catalysts coming out and the launch here and trip to Toronto for that, the talk to the Dirt City, Dream City group of artists, the Curiosities exhibition work, dropping work at my Calgary gallery for a group show that opens at the end of June, grant writing, ongoing work for the Residency … and of course there’s always so much more that goes on ‘behind the scenes’ – reading, research, and (gee, who know??) life-related things like spending a bit of time with family and friends, the more prosaic things like laundry and (very) occasional sleep.
Once a year, Harcourt House Artist Run Centre invites its diverse membership to exhibit in this non-juried, salon-style exhibition, which always boasts a fabulously eclectic range of art and disciplines. Photography, painting, sculpture, drawing, mixed and new media; this is the gallery where you can see it all, and show your support by purchasing that perfect piece of original artwork. Opening night: Open Studios Free Model Session Unveiling of the 2012 Annex Mural plan 2011/2012 Artist in Residence Gel Transfer Demo AIR “Meet and Greet” A special surprise on the Annex… Its a bird, its a plane, its… its…. Front Yard BBQ and Beer Gardens: Cash only, 6:30 – 10pm In the Annex Building: Annual Naked Show Exhibition In the Harcourt House Gallery: Annual Membership Exhibition
I will be throwing my studio doors open for the evening, and inviting people in to see the work so far; I’ll be doing a demonstration of gel-transfer printmaking, and I have some new mixed media assemblage work in the Member’s Show in the main gallery at Harcourt House as well.
I have been working rather furiously on one component of the NEST project that will be launched on the 21st … photos to come, once the work is up and the event on the 21st takes place!
It’s been an exciting time – tiring, but worth every second of lost sleep.
Midnight brought the first real Spring rain to my corner of the world. This seems utterly fitting: rain that means new growing things, melting of the last snows, the washing clean of everything to start over. This is new, and old at once. Old in the way that each wheel’s turn reminds us that it has been this way for a very long time – and we are a part of that (if we choose to pay attention). New in the shape and character of this particular rain: its nature contradicts experience of this place, raises questions, reminds of other times and places.
Prairie born and raised – and now marking my first half-century on this day – I know what Spring Rain is in this place (or should be): coming out of nowhere, cloudburst, pummelling and drenching everything … and gone before I had time to get out the rain gear, leaving everything chilled and soaked to the bone and wondering what just happened.
But this rain isn’t like that.
This rain is steady, softly insistent and insidious. The stuff of coastal climes, oceanside, northern rain forest. The kind of rain that would have me hunting massive beds of moss in Goldstream Park on Vancouver Island, or walking the shore of Point Pleasant Park or the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. Such a rain should make me wistful – nostalgic even – for these places that I love so much, that are part of the beating in my blood. But today … for some reason, today this rain makes me feel forward not back: quiet anticipation, the slow building of excitement for what will come, in every way.
Already, the shift has begun – the first marker of change: the buds on the May tree outside my house have burst open overnight to reveal the crisp green points of leaves. This first hesitant dusting will open over the next few days, proclaiming colour and promising scent from blossoms still latent, not yet formed.
Building things, growing things, changing: it feels as though these states, the active modes of being, are the shape of my life and work. What has lead to this moment in time … and what will shape the days to come.
And so much coming into being, and so soon:
The Catalysts Launch is this Sunday, April 15… and the books are coming by courier to my door today! Can’t wait to see them, and share that moment with my friend and collaborator Catherine, and then send the work out into the world with her.
This volume contains an essay co-written by yours truly! This event is taking place in Edmonton, AB, Canada. Hope to see you there!
The Poetry Festival is coming soon, and with it the Sketching with Wordsworkshop – which will be great fun to facilitate with Shawna Lemay.
Then Toronto, to Launch Catalysts there May 1 & 2.
I’m working on a little sculptural installation for the Fast & Dirty Collective too, for their show Curiosities, which will travel to various places in Edmonton on the weekend of May 11- 13.
And in between times, the work on NESTcontinues, as does work for on a particular aspect of the project in advance of the Harcourt House Open Studio event on June 21st.
It looks like a to-do list … but what I am really doing is counting blessings today, for all that I am doing, and for all of the magnificent people in my life that inspire me and make it all possible. A remarkable, humbling thing, this life.
I’ve become just as fascinated by the diverse ways in which other artists and designers have approached working with birds’ nests (and the many ideas and resonances these objects provoke) as I have with the reality of the nests themselves. There’s some really amazing and interesting work out there: tree houses, hotels (!), installations, site-specific sculptures, photo essays … the list seems to be endless, and a quick google search brings a plethora of images and projects. Such a vast range of work also speaks to the enduring ability of the nest-as-object to captivate the imagination and provoke responses in people.
One the one hand, I think much of the art and design work dealing with nests speak directly to the tug of desire, of a deep longing in humans for all kinds of safety and security: physical, emotional, and psychological. On the other, there’s a more analytical need: the puzzling at – and the puzzling out of – the brilliant engineering and construction that goes into these structures. I mean really … no hands or opposable thumbs, and just look at what a bird can create for itself and its young. Quite humbling, to me at least.
I thought I’d share a few images of some of the nest projects I’ve found on my travels in the virtual world; some of them archive human and avian relations in a broader, direct sense, while others riff on the imaginative conjurings that nests provoke:
The diversity Beals captures in this collection of images is really quite stunning, as is the tension between their incredible fragility and their endurance as constructed objects. I was instantly struck by the range of materials used by the birds as well … well beyond the ‘usual’ of twigs, leaves, grass, lichen, and moss: spider silk, bits of chicken wire, hairpins, bits of thread and fabric, plastic twist ties, twine, nails … the list is truly a testament to adaptation and resourcefulness.
Chris Jordan is another fantastic photographer who has turned his fine eye (and lens) to avian themes. His photoessay on the plight of albatrosses on Midway Island is thoroughly arresting, and speaks volumes regarding the far-reaching impact of human-made materials on the environment.
These are such loss-filled, lonely images. I find myself haunted by them … but also heartened by artists such as Jordan and Beals, who use their work to highlight the extent to which the human search for comfort and safety of one sort or another wreaks havoc in other ways. A profound reminder of individual responsibility and collective impact. I encourage you to have a look at what Jordan is doing to actively change the balance on Midway: http://www.midwayjourney.com/
Part sculpture, part performance … Verdonck’s work is looking directly at human-animal relationships (among other things!) I find the disruption created in the urban context quite interesting – it’s not simply the spectacle of the unexpected – although that’s certainly a factor. What struck me in looking at the work was the way in which the physicality of this nest, perched as it was on the exterior of such a clean-lined monolith, spoke to the nest-like aspects of the cubicle farm and the high rise apartment – and perhaps exposed some of the human messiness behind those glass walls. The the comments made by passersby were interesting and quite thoughtful as well. It’s quite a structure, regardless of what one thinks of the artist’s intent here.
This is quite a lovely take on the the idea of the nest-as-refuge: the height, the move to monumental scale and the durability of materials (this is all-metal construction) strikes me as an assertive statement, perhaps a challenge to the reality of a real nest, which is precarious, exposed, subject to damage from the elements.
In short, the ultimate tree house! A delightful foray into imagination that speaks to the ideas of camouflage, hide-and-seek, ‘nesting’ as a familial or conjugal enterprise regardless of species. I just wish there was some way for humans to fly to the entrance!
The exterior of the 'bird's nest' hotel room outside Halad Sweden
There’s more – so much more – work out there … it would wind up being a bit ridiculous to go on.
Suffice to say that each project raises its own set of questions with respect to the way in which the nest-as-object becomes a site upon which (or through which) a variety of human needs are expressed. Some of these are part of the ongoing ponderables associated with the NEST project overall: why the ongoing attachment to non-human structures? How does our response change with changes in the scale of the nest? In the materials? What about location?
What about combinations of those variables: scale – materials – location ?
Such is the nature of the work … and with that, off to the studio!
The specific spark for the body of work I am developing over the course of my Residency at Harcourt House dates back well over a year now, to two conversations I had in quick succession, with two of my favourite poets: Catherine Owen and Jannie Edwards. Turns out, both of them had been re-reading Gaston Bachelard’s amazing work The Poetics of Space … and I had been reading some of Roger-Pol Droit‘s delightful explorations of phenomenology in his books How are Things? and 101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life. I had let Bachelard’s book slip from my awareness a bit, and so after great talks with Cath and Jannie, I dug into The Poetics of Space once more, after a many-years absence. The reward was great and immediate – as it had been the first time I read his words.
Bachelard has this to say about nests:
A nest, like any other image of rest and quiet, is immediately associated with the image of a simple house.
And further:
A nest-house is never young … . For not only do we come back to it, but we dream of coming back to it, the way a bird comes back to its nest, or a lamb to the fold. This sign of return marks an infinite number of daydreams, for the reason that human returning takes place in the great rhythm of human life, a rhythm that reaches back across the years, and through the dream, combats all absence.
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1994,pp.98-99)
So here we are at the intersection of the object, memory, emotion, and space: the confluence of the human beings’ relationship to things. But there’s more to this than meets the eye, if for no other reason than this is a human response to a non-human structure. A certain amount of species-centric thinking here, to be sure, but this is a discussion of human responses and ideas, after all.
And there’s no small set of contradictions in the human response to the bird nest – the ambivalence and ambiguity of which hooked me immediately – and simply required that I do something with it. Because, as Bachelard points out quite clearly, a “nest – and this we understand right away – is a precarious thing, and yet it sets us to daydreaming of security. Why does this obvious precariousness not arrest daydreams of this kind? (pp. 102-103)
Two nests I found within days of each other this past autumn. Hardly representative of the haven and security we seek.
There’s so much in the nest-as-object that screams insecurity, loss (potential or real), absence, ephemerality. And yet … and yet. They are also objects emblematic of ingenuity (be it hard-wired genetically or not), of a certain stick-with-it-ness in the face of any number of possible negative outcomes. Perhaps it is these things to which we respond so strongly. The idea of endurance, and the security that it brings … the longevity of memory that allows room for a return or two; the capacity to “use the available materials” (my thanks here to poet Louise Gluck) to craft a place that says “safe” that says “haven” … against all odds.
