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uh

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so i was originally born in the u.s and

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my

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family moved here because of the oil

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business

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oil extraction so uh

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that you know has been interesting for

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me to reflect on over the years because

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um on the one hand you know that brought

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us

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our livelihood and you know it’s brought

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a lot of wealth to this province

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obviously but there’s lots of questions

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around

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what it means to extract these resources

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especially connect to the environment

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so that you know has kind of influenced

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my work

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um all along

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i’ve had an ongoing interest in the way

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industry and kind of mechanical forms

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interface with ecology

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and then following that the kind of

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questions that arise

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around you know what does this mean for

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us what does it mean for our future what

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does it mean for the

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planet so that’s one kind of area i’m

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interested i’m

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also interested in themes related to the

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body

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and i’ve done a lot of work um

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collaborating with

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biomedical researchers medicine in

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different ways to look at the body and

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the kind of interface between art and

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science

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so i think in some pieces these

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two themes overlap and i think in the

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piece that’s in the

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this current show some of these themes

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are beginning to kind of intertwine a

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bit

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in thinking about the piece for the

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finale

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i um a couple of things happened that

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that got me kind of the wheels creative

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wheels turning

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one was i had a show in medicine hat and

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i drove we were driving down for the

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show

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and i remember seeing these huge power

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pylons

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on the prairie and they’re of course all

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over alberta

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but um in that

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environment they really struck me

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because they against the prairie

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landscape they really kind of stood out

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as these powerful kind of

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forms and so that stuck in my mind

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and then at the same time um

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i went to an exhibition i can’t remember

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what museum but

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it i saw this carved wooden sculpture

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religious sculpture from medieval europe

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from germany

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of christ on a donkey and

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it was a you know an object they would

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pull through the streets during

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various festivals and it really struck

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me partly its material but its

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kind of raw quality and the kind of

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honesty of it

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it was i mean it was refined on one

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level but it was kind of raw

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on another level so that was on my mind

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and then finally i have a seven-year-old

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daughter

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and uh she’s got all these toys

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and thinking about the future

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and thinking about the next generation

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and the environment

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and you know some of the toys she was

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playing with i sort of brought all these

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things together

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and i began to create this wooden

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sculpture of a power pylon

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which i hope references lots of things i

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mean i hope it references

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the infrastructure of energy i think it

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it speaks to this kind of maybe a sacred

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object

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and then it also makes reference to it

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to a toy and then finally on the wall

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i have a number of sculptural objects

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that um hopefully kind of fluctuate in

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terms of how they’re read too and i

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think they reference they have a kind of

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body like form

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and they also uh hopefully

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you know somewhat childlike and maybe

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like toys as well

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and i sort of arrange them on the wall

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thinking about how my daughter does play

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with objects

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and was thinking about trying to create

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a relationship between this

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power pylon which is about kind of

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energy infrastructure and then linking

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it to kind of the bigger world we live

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in

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how do we imagine a new

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future it’s very hard right like how do

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you how do you speculate about

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something that could be different when

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you’re kind of in the moment you’re in

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so i thought maybe this power pylon

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could have sort of drawing on it

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that suggested this idea of

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transformation it’s

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it is this energy object but it’s also

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an attempt to think about a future that

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we

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we’re having a difficult time imagining

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so i carve forms that are

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again referencing maybe biological forms

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the body

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plants things in sort of a state of

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transformation

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um and maybe forms from ecology

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and i i think hopefully some of the

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drawing on the

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on the sculpture feels like they’re

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cyclical

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there may be systems that are connecting

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in in themselves

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i think it fluctuates a little bit maybe

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hopefully between

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being some somewhat playful and

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whimsical on one hand

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but then having also a little bit of a

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dark quality um

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in terms of its emotional resonance

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of course the fact we have all this

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energy is terrific i mean we have lights

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and we have

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modern medicine and it brings so many

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wonderful things

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but it’s also very problematic right and

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how is it impacting

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our planet and of course future

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generations

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so that’s i guess in a sense one border

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i’m i’m wondering about that

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that the production of this energy

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creates

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all kinds of boundaries some

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maybe positive lots that are maybe

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problematic

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and i hope i guess that’s one thing i

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hope the piece does is make

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people sort of think about uh those

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questions

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the other boundary um

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or border is again i i sort of alluded

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to

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earlier is trying to imagine the future

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like

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this becomes kind of a boundary right

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like how do we think about

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the world differently how we think about

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ways we can

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live that’s more sustainable and maybe

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creates more equality i hope my piece

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maybe

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creates a moment of reflection and for

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viewers

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and can point to some of the complexity

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we face particularly around say a

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question of the environment where it’s

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not a simple answer

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there’s lots we have to think through

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and lots we have to work through

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and um you know

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discussion and dialogue is the best way

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to do that

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so that’s one of the things i hope can

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come out of the piece

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you

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