THIS TOWN IS SMALL (an artist run collective)
invited me to do an 18 day residency in Charlottetown
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!
