Emerging… an evolving art project
In the early months of 2022, I took a therapeutic arts practitioner training program through the Canadian International Art Institute.
We were encouraged to collect found objects to use in the studio. I had recently cleaned up my studio and got rid of several “collections” of driftwood, shells and various other found art materials that mostly took up space, and were never used for artmaking, so I was a bit reluctant to start a new collection. It was required for the program, however, so I decided that I would find something very small to collect, in order to not re-create my storage issue. I chose aluminum pop-can tabs that were nice and small. Bubly brand sparkling water, which I have in my fridge, has some beautiful colored ones.
Around the same time, my friend Joanne inherited a collection of costume jewelry that she offered me to use in my studio. I accepted the gift without knowing what I would do with it. I like to be challenged by materials sometimes, and to expand my creative horizons. So, my collection began with the Bubly cans and the donated costume jewelry, which I soon dissected for components. I collected more tabs and more beads for a year before I did anything with them.
When I got sick with COVID in January 2023, I had lots of time on my hands and just enough energy to sit and craft. So I started playing with the tabs I had collected and used the beads and wire to connect the tabs in a small circular design that reminded me of colorful little flowers. It was winter, and I was sick, and the flowers made me smile.
The first ones took some time to figure out, but once I had made a few, I could focus more on the color combinations and different bead combinations instead. It became a therapeutic practice. The repetition was soothing, and combining the unique colors of each piece was fun and satisfying to me, so I kept making more of them for about a month until I was over my COVID.
I showed them to some of my friends and they started encouraging me by collecting more tabs. Rachel found black tabs from Canada Dry Ginger Ale cans, which were quite dramatic. I found some bigger tabs from cat food and sardine tins, and made some bigger flowers with those.
I thought they were interesting, so I took them outside to the woods and took some photos of the COVID flowers popping up in the spring snow.
I showed these photos to some of the people I work with at the arts centre and they were excited and started to collect large numbers of tabs for me during their evening receptions.
I started to wonder WHY I was making these things. People started asking questions like: What are they? What are they for? I had quite a few and it seemed like I was amassing too many to not have some kind of purpose or function.
Last summer, I was lucky enough to spend a month on Vancouver Island, so I brought them with me to see if I could find a purpose for them. …
I took them out to the beach one day and created a spiral shape on the shore. It was satisfying to create the larger spiral pattern, but the details of the individual pieces were lost in the design at that scale. I needed to change my strategy and get closer to the pieces and start experimenting with some different angles to try to capture both the details in the individual pieces, as well as the overall designs and patterns as a collective.
This was really fun and while it may have looked a bit odd to passersby on the beach (but that is what we do for art!), I think I managed to capture the designs in a more spontaneous and organic way than my original approach.
They started to resemble sea creatures washing up on the shoreline. This was an exciting idea, I thought, and played around with the idea of a colony of sea creatures mysteriously appearing on the beach one day.
I shared some photos with Joanne (the friend who gave me the costume jewelry), and she made an interesting comment, which I asked her to elaborate on. This is what she came up with:
Emerging: The sea slips back … revealing a reimagined coral reef, creatures of many colours. New life born or forgotten detritus.
(Thank you, Joanne McG, for the concept and writing.)
I loved this idea so much and it inspired another photo shoot on another beach where I tried to capture this concept better than before. I also made some short videos that managed to capture the movement of the ocean better than the stills.
I tried another canyon water location to continue my experiments. And one final beach photo shoot on the textured sand just for fun. …
There were 50 finished pieces at this time, and the sea creatures’ adventures were put on hold for a while. But the colony continued to grow, as more ideas and possibilities emerged from this evolving project. The installations were temporary, with just enough time to place them and take photos and a few quick videos before the tide came in or out, or people showed up along the beach.
The saltwater and sand may have worn off some of the initial “sparkle” of the pieces, but they are still in great shape, so I am able to dust them off and continue building the collection, finding new contexts and “art intervention” opportunities in which to activate natural spaces — as well as perhaps a place to display the photos of their adventures so far … like this publication!
Winter 2023 rolled around and I found a bit more time to add to the collection (there were now 77 pieces!) and explore the idea of building larger “flowers” from the smaller ones, referencing fractal patterns, and creating a bit more impact from a further distance.
We shall see what emerges …
So far in 2024, I have made some Tetradecahedrons (14-sided polyhedrons, which reminded me of colourful mushrooms when photographed in the forest behind my house), and I am done for now!
Emerging… an evolving art project
In the early months of 2022, I took a therapeutic arts practitioner training program through the Canadian International Art Institute.
We were encouraged to collect found objects to use in the studio. I had recently cleaned up my studio and got rid of several “collections” of driftwood, shells and various other found art materials that mostly took up space, and were never used for artmaking, so I was a bit reluctant to start a new collection. It was required for the program, however, so I decided that I would find something very small to collect, in order to not re-create my storage issue. I chose aluminum pop-can tabs that were nice and small. Bubly brand sparkling water, which I have in my fridge, has some beautiful colored ones.
Around the same time, my friend Joanne inherited a collection of costume jewelry that she offered me to use in my studio. I accepted the gift without knowing what I would do with it. I like to be challenged by materials sometimes, and to expand my creative horizons. So, my collection began with the Bubly cans and the donated costume jewelry, which I soon dissected for components. I collected more tabs and more beads for a year before I did anything with them.
When I got sick with COVID in January 2023, I had lots of time on my hands and just enough energy to sit and craft. So I started playing with the tabs I had collected and used the beads and wire to connect the tabs in a small circular design that reminded me of colorful little flowers. It was winter, and I was sick, and the flowers made me smile.
The first ones took some time to figure out, but once I had made a few, I could focus more on the color combinations and different bead combinations instead. It became a therapeutic practice. The repetition was soothing, and combining the unique colors of each piece was fun and satisfying to me, so I kept making more of them for about a month until I was over my COVID.
I showed them to some of my friends and they started encouraging me by collecting more tabs. Rachel found black tabs from Canada Dry Ginger Ale cans, which were quite dramatic. I found some bigger tabs from cat food and sardine tins, and made some bigger flowers with those.
I thought they were interesting, so I took them outside to the woods and took some photos of the COVID flowers popping up in the spring snow.
I showed these photos to some of the people I work with at the arts centre and they were excited and started to collect large numbers of tabs for me during their evening receptions.
I started to wonder WHY I was making these things. People started asking questions like: What are they? What are they for? I had quite a few and it seemed like I was amassing too many to not have some kind of purpose or function.
Last summer, I was lucky enough to spend a month on Vancouver Island, so I brought them with me to see if I could find a purpose for them. …
I took them out to the beach one day and created a spiral shape on the shore. It was satisfying to create the larger spiral pattern, but the details of the individual pieces were lost in the design at that scale. I needed to change my strategy and get closer to the pieces and start experimenting with some different angles to try to capture both the details in the individual pieces, as well as the overall designs and patterns as a collective.
This was really fun and while it may have looked a bit odd to passersby on the beach (but that is what we do for art!), I think I managed to capture the designs in a more spontaneous and organic way than my original approach.
They started to resemble sea creatures washing up on the shoreline. This was an exciting idea, I thought, and played around with the idea of a colony of sea creatures mysteriously appearing on the beach one day.
I shared some photos with Joanne (the friend who gave me the costume jewelry), and she made an interesting comment, which I asked her to elaborate on. This is what she came up with:
Emerging: The sea slips back … revealing a reimagined coral reef, creatures of many colours. New life born or forgotten detritus.
(Thank you, Joanne McG, for the concept and writing.)
I loved this idea so much and it inspired another photo shoot on another beach where I tried to capture this concept better than before. I also made some short videos that managed to capture the movement of the ocean better than the stills.
I tried another canyon water location to continue my experiments. And one final beach photo shoot on the textured sand just for fun. …
There were 50 finished pieces at this time, and the sea creatures’ adventures were put on hold for a while. But the colony continued to grow, as more ideas and possibilities emerged from this evolving project. The installations were temporary, with just enough time to place them and take photos and a few quick videos before the tide came in or out, or people showed up along the beach.
The saltwater and sand may have worn off some of the initial “sparkle” of the pieces, but they are still in great shape, so I am able to dust them off and continue building the collection, finding new contexts and “art intervention” opportunities in which to activate natural spaces — as well as perhaps a place to display the photos of their adventures so far … like this publication!
Winter 2023 rolled around and I found a bit more time to add to the collection (there were now 77 pieces!) and explore the idea of building larger “flowers” from the smaller ones, referencing fractal patterns, and creating a bit more impact from a further distance.
We shall see what emerges …
So far in 2024, I have made some Tetradecahedrons (14-sided polyhedrons, which reminded me of colourful mushrooms when photographed in the forest behind my house), and I am done for now!
