For the past two days Boris and I have working away on my installation at the Gladstone Hotel for the exhibition, If Walls Could Talk. We had three days for install but we managed to get it done in two. It was a tonne of work, and at the beginning I truly had my doubts this piece would come together, but the completed installation looks even better than I’d hoped.
I made sure to document the process from the beginning, starting with Boris up a ladder weaving metal cable back and forth through the existing hooks in the twelve foot ceiling. The cable is the basic infrastructure from which all the wing clusters hang.
The clusters are made up of eight wings cut from card stock in various sizes and shapes. I was using the bottom of the ladder as a staging an assembling area to string the wire, and then cut and fit the wings together one cluster at a time.
Boris did all of the ladder work on my behalf, which I am extremely grateful for because I am afraid of heights and this was a twelve foot ceiling.
Once we get a rhythm going, I was assembling six to eight wing clusters at a time so we could hang a bunch in one go. It was a good way to work because it filled the space faster, and helped me figure out how much more we needed to complete the work.
I cut just over six hundred individual wings to use in the installation, and did not end up needing to include them all. I think the final tally of wings included in the piece is somewhere between four and five hundred. I wanted to make sure I had more than enough to work with because I wouldn’t be able to cut more once I arrived in Toronto. The wings were created using a Silhouette Cameo digital cutter, rather than done by hand. I am not that crazy.
Once the installation was completed we tweaked the lighting. The shadows projected on the wall behind it are pretty dramatic and incredible. It adds a beautiful sense of movement to the piece.
Here is a short video of Flight Path / Taking Flight. I think this may win as the largest piece of artwork I have made to date.
You can see Flight Path / Taking Flight as part of If Walls Could Talk at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. The show opens Thursday March 6th 2014, and my work will be up until March 16th.
Boris and I arrived in Toronto yesterday afternoon and I already feel like I’ve taken in plenty of interesting art. There is so much more street art here than in Vancouver, and it thrills me to see it wherever we go.
Last night I read about Crowded Kingdom, a show of work by a street artist who goes by the name of Anser. We dropped by to see the show at Hashtag Gallery this afternoon as we were out wandering the cold streets. I really loved the show, and wish one of the small pieces in my price range was still available to buy. Almost all of them were sold out.
Some of the faces are drawn with one continuous line, like the one pictured below. The line work is beautiful and intricate. I could probably stare it at for hours.
On another note, I’m curious to see how many other small storefront galleries like Hashtag are thriving and selling work on the streets of Toronto.
It wasn’t my intention to leave this until the end of the month again, but for the previous few weeks I’d been coming up dry on ideas and enthusiasm for the project of shooting one self portrait a month. I didn’t spend much time shooting this because I felt impatient about getting it done. And yet I love what I came up with, and not just because the drawing is dazzling.
The drawings are groupings of triangles which remind me of maple leaves in some ways and a constellation of stars in others. I love the process of doodling these because it is soothing, simple, and meditative but creates a complicated end result. I’m not sure whether combining my image with the drawing makes this more or less so.
My partner Boris is a far superior cook than I, mostly because he has a passion for the activity whereas my passion for food lies more with the eating of it. Over the five or so years we’ve lived together I’ve steadily handed off the bulk of food preparation to his care, and been very glad of it. I enjoy his good cooking, while he enjoys a clean home and clothes.
This past December I came to the realization that I found the activities of cooking or baking to be extremely stressful. The reason why is because I did these things so rarely I was out of practice and had lost my confidence in working with food.
I am surrounded by people who are excellent chefs, and I am lucky to share many good meals made by friends, so I suddenly felt pretty shameful about the sad level my food skills had sunk to.
Immediately I made the decision to turn things around. I have been cooking and baking much more often over the past two months, including trying recipes for things I’ve always wanted to make but hadn’t previously tried. (I’m looking at you Lemon Loaf and Okonomiyaki).
The situation had me reflecting upon the empowering nature of making things by hand. I should never be afraid to try something new, or have the expectation for perfection. I understand this intimately when it comes to art and craft processes, but it also applies to working with food. Thank goodness for the Christmas baking epiphany because now I am empowered to enjoy the creation of food as much as I love the consumption of it.
For the last few weeks I’ve been trying to fast track the production of a paper installation made up of a ridiculous amount of individual pieces of paper. I’ve been using the digital cutter to do most of the cutting for me, but it hasn’t been a smooth process because the machine has a tendency towards paper butchery at random intervals. It’s a moody little beast, but to be fair, I have asked it to cut a couple hundred (or so) pieces of paper over the last few weeks.
My final count, for now, is about six hundred paper wings in white, silver, beige, and black paper. It should work out to about sixty clusters of these wings, which will hopefully fill up the space nicely where these will hang. There is a lot of guess work going on here because I’ve only seen photos and videos of the space these are destined for.
Yesterday I took one of the black wings and used it as a surface to doodle a meditative drawing. I love the way this looks and it made me wish I could so this with all them. But I’m not that crazy…
My friend Vivienne has an uncanny ability to find hearts and messages of love around our neighbourhood of Commercial Drive, and she often shares these on Instagram. It got me thinking about leaving more hearts for her to find, which in turn led to an idea for a collaboration we could do together.
I created a couple of heart stencils, three by hand and one using the digital cutter, and bought two cans of spray paint. I was curious to see how well my elaborate heart paper cut work would translate when painted on the sidewalk. We wanted to do this in time for Valentine’s Day, and bring a little more love into the world.
Vivienne and I went out twice last week and added hearts to parts of Strathcona and The Drive. Some of these have already washed away in the rain, because that’s how it goes with street art. It’s not meant to be permanent and the work is at the mercy of the elements. I think a few of the hearts will stick around for awhile, and at some point I hope we’ll go out again and add more.
We decided to title the project #HeartingTheNeighbourhood. If you come across our hearts around town please share them on Instagram and use the tag so we can see.
Instagram is my daily source of both motivation and inspiration. I try to share at least one photo there every day as part of my creative routine, and I really enjoy seeing what other artists, all over the world, are working on too.
This is a short list of some of my favourite artists that I follow on Instagram. Click the links to view their work and follow them on Instagram.
swoonhq: The official account of street artist Swoon. She shares installations and street art, and it is amazing.
travislouis: Travis Louie is an illustrator who creates fantastical portraits of monsters and mythical creatures.
artistcrystalwagner: Crystal Wagner shares paper-based installations, drawings, and sculptural artwork.
qta3: Surreal collage by a Japanese art director who doesn’t use his real name.
osatosh: Beautiful and delicate illustrations by Satoshi OTA.
How about you? Do you have favourite artists you follow on Instagram?
I have a few undocumented paper sculptures that pre-date this one, but because this cube is small I can do it more quickly than the others. These are photos I lit with a desk lamp and photographed with my iPhone. Simple. Quick. Done
The cube is a work in progress for a larger series of small paper sculptures I want to make for an upcoming show. I see them as a collection of paper cut objects, piled one on top of another, and casting interesting shadows.
This first one is a prototype that turned out a bit wonky because my measurements were a bit off. I used a digital cutter to create the form and cut the design by hand. I think these are the first paper cut sculptures I’ve made with black paper instead of white, and am curious to see how they work as a grouping of pieces.
I’m excited to welcome Valerie and Arnt Arntzen as the featured speakers for Hot Talks at Hot Art Wet City in February. They are a creative married couple of working artists, and have been part of the Vancouver art scene in significant ways for the last twenty years.
Valerie and Arnt Arntzen are a couple who have been together for 35 years and have worked in the creative field since the early 80s. They are both mad collectors of found objects: from helicopter wings to bedsprings. Collaborating is an essential part of their relationship as husband and wife as well as artists.
