TO: Agency of Unrealized Projects
I want to do the laundry; or rather I want to finish the laundry. It is a project that poses vague theoretical and aesthetic questions, but to explore possible ways to put an end to this task could forever change the trajectory of my art practice, and my life. Upon folding the last bath towel, I could proclaim that I finished the laundry, or in other words I finished painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. My identity would be re-invented, were the laundry not always in the way – needing to be sorted, folded, ironed or put away. If the laundry was done…
For many years my studio was in the laundry room and as such the work often emerged to the hum of the drier, and the sound of my children sleeping through the baby monitor. The studio activities often mirrored the laundry activities and still do. They are mundane activities and rely on the sculptural principle of multiples, which are altered, combined and arranged. The investigations tend to oscillate between a curiosity of the methods and materials of object making and the desire to articulate a response to my surroundings.
Current Investigations: I have been working primarily with materials that are composed of plastic – various sizes and colours of cable ties and clothing tags as well as found plastic.
These works began as an attempt to use up material that I had accumulated in my studio, which happened to be mostly plastic - a consumable material is part of almost every environment – water bottle islands float in the world’s oceans and most urban spaces have trees to which grocery bags are permanently embedded. So in response, I have been attempting to gently interfere or augment natural and domestic environments with my constructed objects. I have mediated/altered the growth of plants, trees and small bushes in my back yard. Another dimension is focused how a very ordinary things, like a plastic tie and a tree root, can be transformed by being manipulated, tied or woven together.
This project evolved to include two concurrent explorations during a Dionysia 2010 residency and exhibition in Bíldudalur, a small village in Iceland’s West fjords. – "The story of Shell and Ties” and “Provisional Reparations” - The former was about leaving a trace of me as an artist in Iceland, as this was the first time I was 'home' as an artist. A shell with small white cable ties became a surrogate for me and was documented in several locations - on a mountain, a beach and at a historical site. The latter project was/is for me, an attempt to articulate my frustrations or concern for recent events in Iceland. The economy collapsed, the government collapsed and a volcano threatened dire results for Iceland and the rest of the world. So rather inadequately, I tried to clean up, help, and fix things with my 'Provisional Reparations'. I mended fences, playground equipment and footbridges as well as cleaning the plastic waste from the shoreline of the village. The results of these two projects culminated in an installation presented in the village gallery.
On my return to Canada, I continued to expand on these two projects. I documented cable ties in landscape on a drive from Saskatoon to Regina and also made some provisional reparations on a dying tree in a West Toronto park.
TO: Agency of Unrealized Projects
I want to do the laundry; or rather I want to finish the laundry. It is a project that poses vague theoretical and aesthetic questions, but to explore possible ways to put an end to this task could forever change the trajectory of my art practice, and my life. Upon folding the last bath towel, I could proclaim that I finished the laundry, or in other words I finished painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. My identity would be re-invented, were the laundry not always in the way – needing to be sorted, folded, ironed or put away. If the laundry was done…
For many years my studio was in the laundry room and as such the work often emerged to the hum of the drier, and the sound of my children sleeping through the baby monitor. The studio activities often mirrored the laundry activities and still do. They are mundane activities and rely on the sculptural principle of multiples, which are altered, combined and arranged. The investigations tend to oscillate between a curiosity of the methods and materials of object making and the desire to articulate a response to my surroundings.
Current Investigations: I have been working primarily with materials that are composed of plastic – various sizes and colours of cable ties and clothing tags as well as found plastic.
These works began as an attempt to use up material that I had accumulated in my studio, which happened to be mostly plastic - a consumable material is part of almost every environment – water bottle islands float in the world’s oceans and most urban spaces have trees to which grocery bags are permanently embedded. So in response, I have been attempting to gently interfere or augment natural and domestic environments with my constructed objects. I have mediated/altered the growth of plants, trees and small bushes in my back yard. Another dimension is focused how a very ordinary things, like a plastic tie and a tree root, can be transformed by being manipulated, tied or woven together.
This project evolved to include two concurrent explorations during a Dionysia 2010 residency and exhibition in Bíldudalur, a small village in Iceland’s West fjords. – "The story of Shell and Ties” and “Provisional Reparations” - The former was about leaving a trace of me as an artist in Iceland, as this was the first time I was 'home' as an artist. A shell with small white cable ties became a surrogate for me and was documented in several locations - on a mountain, a beach and at a historical site. The latter project was/is for me, an attempt to articulate my frustrations or concern for recent events in Iceland. The economy collapsed, the government collapsed and a volcano threatened dire results for Iceland and the rest of the world. So rather inadequately, I tried to clean up, help, and fix things with my 'Provisional Reparations'. I mended fences, playground equipment and footbridges as well as cleaning the plastic waste from the shoreline of the village. The results of these two projects culminated in an installation presented in the village gallery.
On my return to Canada, I continued to expand on these two projects. I documented cable ties in landscape on a drive from Saskatoon to Regina and also made some provisional reparations on a dying tree in a West Toronto park.