Sunday

18 days 1 Park 3 People

THIS TOWN IS SMALL (an artist run collective)
invited me to do an 18 day residency in Charlottetown
They paired me up with two PEI artists
Norma Jean
Holly (felting her foot)

Provided us with a beautiful studio in the heart of downtown
hints of what we are working on can be seen in these images 
also a good hang out / once in a while party zone
 that's Beka Viau...the brains and brawn behind the classy operations of This Town Is Small

and gave us 18 days to create an installation for a public park

This is one project of 40 for an upcoming  festival called ART IN THE OPEN

The three of us quickly agreed to let go of any notion of concept
We wanted it big, lots of lights, colour, and height!!
So I suggested we start by acquiring a tractor (or two)...a crazy idea...but they went for it.
Towns folk said 'impossible in August' 'will cost you all your arms and legs combined'
But within a mere three days these two blue vintage Ford tractors were all ours to play with
thanks to the open mind and artistically curious Donald (Tractor mechanic)
 Norma Jean wants to do a sound component (including bubble machines!)
We searched among the myriad of possible tractor attachments
and voila...two perfect seed spreaders
two perfect sound spreaders
Holly's project needs includes a lot of raw wool
This brought us out to the most incredible farm that harvests, washes, separates, spins and dyes wool
Holly also needed sweetgrass
 This lead us to Lennox Island (First Nation)
Stewart showed us the way to and the ways of sweet sweet sweetgrass
We followed and listened and learned the correct way to identify, pick, thank and prepare this grass know to be 'grandmothers hair'
LOVE LIFE
LOVE NATURE
LOVE PEOPLE
LOVE ART
Indeed!

LINKS: THIS TOWN IS SMALL     ART IN THE OPEN  August 27, 2011 Charlottetown,PEI

Saturday

Sometimes better than art

at times I see things like this
 (the pile are fishing floats)
and wish this was an installation I had thought up/executed
the simple poetics of industry and labour
fishing, farming
land, sea



Thursday

P to the E to the I

So...been in Charlottetown and ALL over PEI for the past two weeks
AMAZING!
classic weathered lighthouses
 
classic red rock and tuffty green grass
the classic, long, narrow, feels-like-your-in-a-strange-dream-when-driving-across bridge
classic cows
(looking at dog whilst dog looks at cows)
the classic tractor
(more exciting news on tractors coming soon!)
AND
to many to mention classic PEI-ish things (potatoes, lobster, glorious rolling green hills)
All these beautiful, classical, iconic scenes are nothing to scoff at
 August on PEI is truly dreamy
But the people are anything but classic
they are beautiful and strange
just like me....just the way I like em'
(more on my new, magical, kooky freinds coming soon!)
Long Live The Garlic King


Sunday

Tangled

Been tangled up in the weeds for some time now
roadside blindsided
 Caught up in the grasses, thistles and wheat
 but it is hard to leave even the weeds
the unwanted
the ignored
the trampled and forgotten
time spent in this vacant field
alone with plants of names I mostly don't know
is the most valuable time I have squandered in a long long while
i thrive on the thought of regeneration with a vengeance
 i savor the diversity and magnificent details
symmetry and unity found among chaos
and for brief (yet eternal) moments
I forget my aloneness
and the incessence of mosquitoes
the painful incessence of useless thoughts of things lost
he loves me not
 
but there are, eventually, more daisies among the scourage