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

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

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

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