Day 29 – the last day

Yes, it’s here – the final day.

I have a lot of cleaning and organizing to do before I leave, but instead I’m just sitting here surfing the net.  I think that’s called ‘denial’.

But the baby decided to give me a little reminder last night that other things are imminent, waking me up with my first Braxton Hicks contraction.  Damn that shit is painful.  I wasn’t really prepared.  So I ended up talking to Sam until 3am and panicking about going into labour today.  I wasn’t so worried about being alone on a remote farm, no, my panic took the form of realizing just how unprepared we are: ‘We have no diapers!  We need to buy a car seat! I haven’t had a chance to have a bikini wax yet!’  You know, the important things…

Ok, time to clear out the studio (sob) and make a final work – hard to do simultaneously, but I’ll give it a shot…

http://vimeo.com/36254855

I had to do it just once right?

Thanks everyone for reading this and helping me stay motivated and (relatively) sane up here in isolation.  The best thing is I feel like I have enough ideas, experiments and unfinished work to see me through the next few months of what will be a much less self-indulgent routine of feeding and diaper changing.

And thank you too, to everyone here at Ross Creek for making this, my first residency, such a great experience.

Back to the real world…

Day 28

Homage to Broodthaers (300 eggs)

 

Second to last day here and things just kind of came together…

Sam came to visit last night and brought this amazing antique oak case I bought at auction last year.

In one of those amazing happy coincidences, the case happened to be the exact size as the plinth available up here.  What are the chances?  With that good omen in place, we filled it up with eggs – of course.  300 to be exact.  I’ve had this in mind for a while and am pretty pleased with how it turned out.  I did think the case might be filled, but I underestimated how big it is.  In the end, however, I think it works better only half filled.

The title is a reference to Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers, particularly his work White Cabinet and White Table from 1965:

You really can’t work with eggs and not have this in the back of your mind.  His work uses eggshells and he claimed to be interested in them as they are “without content other than the air.”  I like the idea of making a work in homage yet using plaster eggs that are decidedly solid.  He also used plaster himself, embedding 50 unsold copies of his poetry book as his first art object.

I also like how retro my work feels as another way of referencing both Broodthaers and the history of surrealism in general.  I couldn’t resist taking a photo before we started as even the cart I used to move the eggs seemed to fit somehow:

Sometimes you know you’re on the right track before you’ve even set up.

Good thing too – only one more day to go…

Day 27

Feeling very inspired by Jesús Soto today – I had forgotten about him until one of those roundabout internet searches took me to one of his installations.  The wall pieces are also great, and I know I’ve seen them before:

All this stuff that possibly subconsciously influences you that you don’t realize; it’s kind of amazing.
Not that my work is kinetic in any way, well, not yet…

(oh, and sorry for crappy photo – too tired for Photoshop tonight)

Day 26

My frozen bedroom window…

       

…a little collage to get myself going this morning:

…and some other things in the studio I hadn’t documented yet:

 

Day 25

Day 25!  And what a weird day.  We, well I, was pretty much snowed in, so was on my own at the farm from about 10am.  The folks at Ross Creek came and dropped off some food (sometimes I do feel like a dog that needs feeding – not a terrible thing), and then it was just me and a snow storm.

I actually got a lot of filming done as the weather finally cooperated.  And when I say ‘cooperated’ I mean I finally had the snowy, stormy weather I’ve been looking for.  I didn’t go crazy though as I’m pretty unstable these days as the belly throws me off-kilter every so often, so I didn’t go as far afield as I would have liked.  The last thing I need is to fall into a snow bank and not be able to get up – and considering getting out of bed has been challenging lately, I didn’t fancy my chances out in the elements.  Oh the indignity of it all…

So I’ve got a ton of editing to do, but that might have to wait until I get home.  I know – home!  It’s not long now, only 4 more days.  So I don’t really want to spend them all in front of my computer.  Plus, my computer is starting to give me warning messages about running out of hard disk space, as if it knows we’re almost finished here.  I need to spend a nerd day sorting through all my files and ditching all the crap that’s been building up.  Again, a job for home when I’m cozy on the couch waiting for baby to come and watching TV (yes, television!  I’ve been without for 25 days…which directly relates to increased productivity of course, but I’m starting to miss just being lazy).

I also made an attempt to teach myself After Effects today, but realized that 8.30pm is not a good time to start.  I’ll save that for home too, though I might have another crack at it tomorrow as it’s so tantalizingly similar to all the other programs I use that I feel comprehension can’t be that far away.  Unfortunately, I’m just too tired right now (and Final Cut keeps crashing), so this video – which desperately needs some visual tweaking – will have to be posted here as is until I can work on it some more later…

http://vimeo.com/36052973

Day 24

More sky obsession today:

No Photoshopping, that’s just exactly what it looked like.  I think I’m becoming a little sad about the thought of leaving the countryside and going back to the city – where there is no big sky.

I did do some other things today with thread and eggs, but I didn’t think about photographing them until it got dark out and they just became impossible to capture properly.  Thread and white eggs on white walls under fluorescent lights have got to be one of the most frustrating combinations of things to document.  Yet again I think that life would be much simpler if I was a painter (open studio Sunday was another one of those times – everyone ‘gets’ painting).
Why do I do this to myself?

But I will try again tomorrow…

On a side note, I’ve also been making egg sculpture multiples for Eyelevel Gallery‘s upcoming exhibition: ERI 5: THE RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

I’m doing an edition of 5 and they’ll each be housed in a clear acrylic box.

And speaking of Eyelevel, I’ve also submitted a work to Black Rabbit, for their exhibition ‘Light and Darkness’ – an auction fundraiser for White Rabbit, a week-long summer arts residency in Upper Economy, Nova Scotia.  The show opens February 3rd with the auction on February 24th.  You can bid on my photo ‘Total Loss’:

This piece is part of series I’m still working on, photographing all the shipwreck sites in Nova Scotia caused by an ‘Error of Judgement’ in the official shipping records.  ‘Total Loss’ was taken at Main-a-Dieu in Cape Breton.  There’s 35 sites in total, and so far I’ve photographed 18.  It’s a little challenging without a car, but I hope to finish by the end of the year.

Day 23

Day 22

Well, this has been a weird day.  We had an event for Chinese New Year at Ross Creek, so my studio was effectively open to the public.  It was all fine – I’ve been around long enough not to let it bug me when people don’t ‘get’ art (either mine, or anyone else’s – it’s almost more frustrating when it’s not yours for some reason).  The worst part of the day was when someone thought I was nearly 10 years older than I am – now that was upsetting…

But actually, most people seemed genuinely interested and respectful, even if at this stage I don’t feel particularly articulate – a combination of being on my own for the last 3 weeks and being in the midst of questioning what I’m doing with my main project.  It is very difficult to speak with enthusiasm and conviction about a project that you aren’t sure you are convinced of yourself.

Once again, however, I’m reminded of how kids just accept everything to do with contemporary art without judgement.  Of course eggs on the floor are art, why wouldn’t they be?  Nothing phases them, and they’re too young to be jaded and worried that they don’t understand what art is – they just accept it on its own terms. I had forgotten about that (it’s been over 10 years since I worked with children in a gallery), and it made me happy to think that soon I’ll have my own little art critic to take exploring.

One other funny thing I forgot about is how mentioning the Middle East can be a real conversation stopper.  If pushed about what my ‘vision’ and ‘meaning’ were behind the eggs (yes, both questions were asked), I did start to talk about making a prayer rug and my slipping connection to my Persian grandmother, hence the fragility of the eggs as a symbol of loss.  That usually shut them up.  And it is one of those things about art that is about ‘otherness’ – no one feels they have the right to critique it.  Might be why a lot of work about ‘identity’ is just so truly awful.  Note to self…

One late night piece today (it’s impossible to make art while strangers are watching – at least for me):

Day 21

  

Quite enjoying this one actually.  They are suspended from the ceiling (yes, I climbed a ladder – call the pregnancy police!):

I’m imagining a gallery filled with them – rows and rows of suspended eggs…
One day.

Ok, back to the ‘main project’ which is causing me much grief.  2 big problems today.

1. I need 80 more eggs. I can do 5 at a time, so that’s 16 more casts.  Actually, that doesn’t sound too daunting…

But – problem 2…

2. Now I’ve finally laid it out from the top, it doesn’t look like a freakin prayer rug!

Ignore the fact (if you can) that it looks like a dog’s breakfast arranged by a 3 year old.

Yes it could be laid out better (you try bending up and down and scrambling on the floor with what feels like a bowling ball about to fall between your legs), but this is as much as I could do before frustration took over.

So I tried something else:

Obviously the eggs still need sanding, and there’s a few other technical issues (like containing them and ensuring the layout is more uniform), but at least I feel like I’m getting somewhere with this.

Sort of.  I actually feel like my little ‘interventions’ and works with the eggs away from the carpet context are stronger pieces.  But maybe that’s what this was all about in the end?

Only 8 days left to figure it all out.  Yikes.

Day 20