0:16

so i focused mostly on

0:18

textiles but also worked a lot with

0:22

materiality

0:23

and in my graduate studies i started

0:26

working more and more with

0:28

ready maids and with big

0:31

piles of clothing like i would get a

0:33

bail like 900 pounds of clothes and

0:36

at a time um and so i became

0:40

quite i would say addicted to working

0:42

with things that

0:43

had a past history a past kind of life

0:47

and i would try to reveal the life

0:50

that it had

0:57

so i started working a lot more with

0:59

nature when i moved here because

1:01

the environment the natural land the

1:05

land around us is so prominent and

1:08

um i also became more interested in

1:11

agriculture which of course is not

1:14

just nature but in an industry and

1:17

um so i moved from working with the

1:20

clothes

1:21

and the idea of the of people’s bodies

1:25

to

1:26

animal bodies and also thinking

1:29

of how animals

1:32

are kind of understood

1:36

in agriculture as and

1:40

i was thinking a lot about that

1:43

and

1:47

trying to find a way to bring out

1:50

to bring out the sense of the animal

1:54

um that there ha that there had been a

1:57

life there

1:59

the skin is part of a life but also

2:03

the industrial sense of

2:06

how it becomes a product and to have

2:09

both sides of that

2:15

and also working with the grid so

2:18

i mean i think if we look at farms from

2:21

like an

2:21

airplane we see a grid and then i go

2:24

back to my kind of um

2:26

weaving experience i’m not a weaver but

2:29

i do teach

2:30

basic weaving my weaving experience

2:33

and weaving is all about a grid

2:37

the warp and the weft and the

2:39

intersection

2:40

and also thinking of a grid as

2:45

in terms of kind of mechanical

2:47

reproduction

2:49

and so the mechanization

2:52

of the animals lives so that they can

2:54

produce more

2:55

to feed us um

2:59

feed us through dairy or through meat

3:02

and also the shoes that i am wearing

3:07

you know they they are taking care of us

3:09

in lots of ways

3:12

in terms of borders i think of

3:16

that there’s different kinds of

3:18

dualities going on

3:20

um and the materials that i’m using in

3:24

this work

3:25

are um well cowhides that have been cut

3:29

in straight lines and um

3:32

and opened up and plexiglas slats that

3:36

have been

3:37

um fed through the woven through the

3:40

work

3:40

um at that inter those intersections

3:43

and then turned so it opens it literally

3:46

opens up

3:47

the hides and so i guess i’m

3:51

really for me the borders are those kind

3:54

of

3:55

opposites like between the

3:58

organic hide and the

4:01

the smooth clear

4:05

plexiglas that’s completely industrially

4:08

produced and one which is so

4:12

the hide is has so much uh variation

4:16

within it um and then

4:19

the plexiglas is completely homogenous

4:23

so i’m thinking of those kinds of

4:25

borders but

4:26

also in terms of the title

4:29

seeing and not seeing um

4:32

physically uh when you look at the hides

4:35

you might not even see the plexiglas it

4:38

can appear

4:39

like the hide is just hovering and

4:43

so it’s kind of like the structures

4:47

that we use in order to

4:50

feed ourselves are hidden and

4:54

we can choose to think about it or

4:57

not to think about it

5:04

a lot of my work has been in relation to

5:07

memorials and has

5:09

kind a lot to do with life and death

5:12

and remembering and even light

5:15

so the plexiglas also brings light

5:18

along its edges to the hide which

5:23

is a kind of death right

5:29

i started the leather work in a lot of

5:32

in

5:32

in a way like a lot of people started

5:34

doing leather work

5:36

i started by um i didn’t know how to

5:39

start

5:40

so i i bought a kit and i was starting

5:43

by working

5:44

um not with the hair on hide like the

5:47

hides

5:48

up in the gallery but just a thick

5:51

leather that then you can punch and

5:54

stamp

5:54

and you can lace and so i started with

5:58

that

5:58

i didn’t actually finish my project

6:01

because it didn’t hold that much

6:03

interest for me

6:04

but i did start with that and i was also

6:06

researching

6:07

um what kind of patterns are used

6:11

in leather and in western wear

6:15

and i was seeing a lot of natural

6:19

patterns a lot of foliage and scrolls

6:22

and

6:23

and um i felt um

6:27

personally um suspicious of that

6:30

and that it was um

6:34

marking the leather as natural but yet

6:37

the way that i was acquiring the leather

6:41

was nothing natural about it was an

6:43

industry

6:44

just like any other industry and um

6:48

so i wanted to find a way of working

6:51

with it

6:51

that i thought would bring that out and

6:54

that’s how i ended up working

6:57

with the grid so strongly was to bring

7:01

out that kind

7:02

of mechanization

7:05

and i always try to work so that it’s

7:08

really a focus

7:09

on the material not

7:12

my personal artistic expression

7:16

but just to focus on the material itself

7:21

it’s not that i love cutting straight

7:23

lines

7:24

or or even find it easy right but it’s

7:27

just

7:28

um i think that that

7:31

brings out the um i guess the kind of

7:34

somber

7:35

aspect and also points to weaving

7:45

um i did have the opportunity to show

7:48

this work in

7:49

um in estevan muse at the estevan museum

7:53

and art gallery

7:54

in esteban saskatchewan and

7:58

one of the things one of the people

8:02

who saw the show said to me is she

8:05

thanked me for

8:09

for doing a work that highlighted what

8:11

animals

8:12

give us and uh she just said that in

8:15

passing to me as she was leaving the

8:17

gallery

8:19

and i really um appreciated those

8:22

con that comment and um

8:26

i think that that is a takeaway for

8:30

for me and hopefully for the audience

8:38

too

8:51

you

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