skip to Main Content
Ongoing Research: Interdisciplinary Water-based Art Show @ MVTM, March 2018

Ongoing research: Interdisciplinary Water-based Art Show @ MVTM, March 2018

Too few words to express how much is underway as I’ve been preparing for this multi-year, water-based art project for a gallery show at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum (community consultation; intuitive site work; research; grant-writing, as well as the building of a functional studio space this Summer — allowing for room to breathe, be inspired, and to produce new work beyond the confines of my tiny Hull apartment).
 
The following images are a recap of the past year in pictures. I am not great at chronology or linear thought, so will allow the archive of this process to flow from this moment in December 2016 backwards in time…

15134700_10154556622896977_3112815942187835086_n

One way to say I love you in Water. Woke up w Outaouais in my eyes. Off for the walking way to express this ongoing crush…

15241331_10154560169946977_5980629243994503246_n

Facing East (Outaouais).

14956646_10154560170916977_7194681706743535008_n

Facing West (Outaouais).

15178132_10154560178916977_3413996870420618585_n15267533_10154560177626977_8933710794263675170_n|

Facing South (Outaouais).

15267929_10154560174851977_4691064471469999594_n

Catching the city for a breath or two.

30249693513_5987acca1a_z

To celebrate 75 years of serious cartography, the Central Intelligence Agency has declassified and put decades of once-secret maps online. From Smithsonian Magazine.

 

screen-shot-2016-12-14-at-8-33-41-pm

A recent article from the Guardian I found by Nick Van Mead, in which Designer Alex Szabo-Haslam has stripped out the street names and highlighted the water features around 11 world cities. Image by Alex Szabo-Haslam/OpenStreetMap

 

15073517_10154701868258454_8394888792560487771_n

Tomorrow, class is cancelled so my students and I can bond over WATER — we’ll draw and dialogue our feelings with an art and water workshop I’m putting together as we speak. As an educator, I feel I have a responsibility to make space to talk about Standing Rock with my students. Water is life. It’s not very complex. Today, I read a picture book, Shi-Shi-Etko, for my grade 4-6 students about Canada’s residential school history (by Nicola I. Campbell, highly recommended for younger audiences), and was reminded that we all play a role in planting seeds of awareness in the communities that surround us. The world is getting smaller. What we do with the reality before us daily causes ripples beyond anything we can imagine.

All respect and love to the folks on the front lines in North Dakota. Thanks to Dylan Miner of JustSeeds for the powerful images. Attn educators: for more info on the book SHI-SHI-ETKO:
http://houseofanansi.com/products/shi-shi-etko#NoDAPL #StandingwithStandingRock #WaterisLife

15107423_10154535659846977_5041241227968177786_n

Prep for the next 100 watery drawings. The mappings will flow me South, down the Gatineau to merge with the expansive Outaouais. These bbs will be based on the majestic River O in the form of cyanotypes featuring aquatic life, watershed maps, and memory lines. Stay tuned..the InterconnectedWatershed continues.

suninyoureyes-web

Oh poetry. There is nothing quite like you. Paper in palm, mind on each word, every pause, all breath…returning being to place where we know no time, expanding heart to life’s contradictions. Today, I read Ballad from Let Us Compare Mythologies to my grade 5/6 class — on the heels of Veterans Day, and to honour Cohen’s work and life — and was reminded of the absolute pleasure, relevance and potency of the poetic word. Good reboot.

20161109_131010-675x1024

Not many words. Just questions. Last night, the sounds of US election and the smell of cedar smoke filled my room as I burned water lines into wooden tiles. Today, Trump is president. And I’m remembering the workshop that took place in Kitigan Zibi last week. What an honour to hear the Youth’s water stories, to offer creative space for their voices and to the Water through drawing and dialogue. Questions. What else is possible except to return to what’s in my face (or what’s not in my face) daily? Do I have the resolve needed to renew focus on dismantling racism, ignorance and apathy in my own backyard (and region)….every day? Easy to forget when not the minority. What’s in front of each one of us varies. For me, it’s art, and teaching. But we’re all in this together. I think that needs to be remembered. Workshop archives here.

14980751_10154483114836977_925002706971460255_n

A breath of this beauty before the workshop…w/ Gatineau/Te-nagàdino-zìbi.

14680745_10154447792301977_3116253107631359489_n

Witch nest v 2.0. now complete w woodstove. A place to return to these feet, those dreams.

14731120_10154444626766977_8940811902545499186_n

Studio day w buddies, getting sorted before the cold. Thanks Lana, Faraz & John.

14681567_10154418425686977_5225681664142590125_n

Gatineau River video shoot on the raft in Alcove all day. Perfect weather. Got in the river (then sauna). Preparing for the river again. An unfolding film and project led by Natasha Doyon. Whatta moon! Photos don’t even come close. It was so heavy and golden just before 7pm.

14484699_10154391935806977_2060256953913410254_n

From Tributes + Tributaries, a visit to Toronto, and to see my brother: AGO – Tributes + Tributaires; Globe + Mail Article.

13892048_10154188054611977_6720447190092691681_n 13912846_10154188054606977_1814595493869615013_n 14068092_10154236504191977_7463008489537462118_n 14089008_10210553866826613_7019473319406397499_n

@Wakefest Arts fest 2016.

13886932_10154174185556977_4928639607590580770_n

Work flow. Studio warming in blue at 100 mile farm. Stay tuned for artist residencies: contemporary art & the natural world.

13690673_10154154216911977_2555989046215584032_n

Burn off of old canvases = room for new work. InterconnectedWatershed @ wakefest 2016. layered cyano drawings. save the date: august 19.

13417654_10154072043006977_4352635521420906960_n 13450761_10154072043011977_2223028906248335674_n 13494809_10154072043001977_2523658404355441894_n 13508945_10154071490261977_2877508069287408985_n

Sensitizing. #cyanotypes #bodyprints.

13442331_10154048723696977_7675427686719106383_n

Today on the mighty Gatineau/Te-nagàdino-zìbi: carving time out to tend to those quiet places in a world gone mad. Exploring island forest + shore as Orlando news echos in surreal + sobre. Depths of courage to my LGTBQI family. Continue thriving in your freedom spaces. We’re all in the same boat. May love/life prevail (June 2016, a day after the Orlando shootings).

13394009_10154035339431977_1542057276302515487_n

roof: west — in Hull, Quebec.

12115802_10153918846346977_1948559704375739393_n 13010671_10153918846351977_2242044882873170482_n

playing with fire + water @ studio site: watershed, memory lines emerge thanks to charcoal from last week’s burn..

 

screen-shot-2016-12-07-at-12-31-02-pm

« I am not a protester. I am protecting.” Indigenous women at the forefront of the #NoDAPL movement say their fight is not a protest.

 

gail_bourgeois

Ottawa folks. Looking forward to tomorrow’s conversation with Gail Bourgeois: we’ll discuss the role of the rhizome in her work, life and unique philosophy. Her artworks are rich — expressing fluidity, connection, cartography, movement — making visible what is invisible. Please join us if you feel the pull. Presented by the Ottawa Art Gallery, 2 Daly Ave, Ottawa, 6:30-8:30 pm. « Connection is essential to rhizomatic thinking, a methodology that promotes becoming rather than being: process rather than conclusion. » – Gail Bourgeois

 

14291886_10154318938511977_2851319177002420232_n
I relish late nights where I can write and putter. Tonight’s reflections for tomorrow’s panel in Montreal fall on WATER as a figure from which we can think through our relationship with our surroundings. I’m grateful to do this in the context of Joan Jonas’ work, who has always been interested in the force of nature and natural elements, which have been a presence in and a subject of her work since the 1960s. Montreal folks, if you’re feeling the draw, I look forward to this conversation with you all tomorrow..

« For this 9th edition of Dissections, we assembled at Studio 303 in the Belgo building […] It wasn’t speakers’ previous knowledge of, or connections to, Jonas’s work that led to their participation. Rather, it was the links we saw between their diverse practices and the intersecting ideas and sensations evoked in Joan Jonas: From Away — in particular They Come to Us without a Word, the multimedia installation Jonas produced for the 2015 Venice Biennale. »

 

14291768_10154318663976977_3181333282845988598_n

« But as an artist I can look at the bigger picture and act as a linking conduit between many disciplines. Science may be one, but then local indigenous knowledge is often just as significant. What the farmer knows from continual exposure to the processes of the natural world can be every bit as revealing as the latest findings from CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). The farmer, however, may not know about the similar findings of the ecologist and vice versa. So I have often seen what I do as a way of making connections through the dance of mind and body with material substance. » – Chris Drury

535259_10154221140816844_8426330704381792675_n

14237501_10154287886516977_1945241189437376250_n
Jenny Holzer // “Truisms For Survival” (1983-1985)
screen-shot-2016-12-06-at-11-07-01-pm
Sunrise at Lac Bernard. That this happens every day is marvellous. bumps = skeeter bites. Seasonal transition time coaxes reflection. Tonight what’s clear is that it’s been a good summer: accepted an offer to teach part time for the next year at a regional Montessori school; built a studio in the Gatineau Hills (balanced, thanks to my digs in old hull); spent weeks with my dearest friend + her fam on a lake; continued to improve my teaching skills at the Ottawa School of Art + 100 Mile Farm; made a mass of drawings inspired by water…curious to see how the enchanted work evolves (cyanotypes/aquatic life). Feeling grounded and grateful.

13932785_10154222713766977_504047251368034385_n14039885_10154222713761977_6439877543681656309_n

Half of the install is complete! Come see the end result Friday, 6-8pm. Harvest #cyanotypes #aquaticplants. August 19 @ Rutherford’s ~ Wakefest 2016. New Work!

img_3701

Inspired, returning from four days of staffing an off-grid, on-land healing retreat for over 200 women of all ages, beliefs, cultures, identities from across North America put together by my dear teacher ALisa Starkweather. We camped out, ate, danced, sweat, sang, circled, laughed, listened, did council, shared stories. We did workshops on circle practice as activism; safe containers; racial justice and dismantling white supremacy; food justice; sex/money/abundance; ceremony; creative resilience; leadership; climate chaos; herb walks; ancestors; healing from trauma. It was crazy full, rich, deep. What I managed to gather: It’s time to integrate all our parts: shadow, shame, unreasonability, sadness, rage. There’s much power in that love you wanna run from. Love all the parts and bring them out of the shadows. Our communities need us, and they need us now. Grateful for the love, courage, resilience of the human spirit. Tell your stories.

1929329_20197126976_3608_n
First swim of season has inspired tomorrow’s studio day to begin new series of prints inspired by aquatic life. feeling like the body prints series from 2007 will be revived in cyanotypes. self as aquatic plant, obviously. Image: Installation of body prints in ash, herbs and oil. The body print on floor is living installation made with burlap, wheatgrass and trace minerals in the shape of my body. Galerie Sharon Ramsay, Belgo Building, Montreal, Qc. Spring, 2007.

19522140104_e27162b7aa_b
This this. Imagine a variation on freshwater aquatic plants from the Gatineau to the Outaouais to the Mississippi Rivers. Gatineau prints start this week. Stay tuned for nomadic art workshops in the region. Crushing on #cyanotypes #hydrophytes #AnnaAtkins. Full article here.

13043804_10209318049526529_1056495220752673491_n

« me, i’m lying in her. drinking her blue. letting her body surround mine, suspended in wet, only my lips tasting air. windward. me, i’m telling her i love her anyway. i love her more now because. » excerpt from death by water, by leanne simpson.

 

 

1620797_10151971340391977_885470285_n

I miss the old studio. it’s been over a year and a half since i moved on from this place. the rural studio/prospector tent roof collapsed early january, so i’ll need to wait til spring to see if it’s in the cards for me to have space again. seeing this brings energy.

 

12599360_754789834655221_799059615_n

Duke Riley. That’s What She Said (detail), 2016. 40′ x 14′ mural coming soon to the Queens Museum based on the essay, ‘Water and Power’ by Heather Smith.
#queensmuseum #rebeccasolnit #dukeriley #heathersmith #thatswhatshesaid #isis
#hydroquebec #delawareaquaduct #10000DrownedCaribou

 

Back To Top