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so um i think we’ll get started uh my name is shauna mccabe and i’m the director of the art gallery of guelph

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um which is hosting the event tonight and uh which is a talk with zachary logan

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who’s with me on screen here i’d like to welcome you all and offer atlantic knowledgement to

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start this acknowledgment or statement is important for cultural institutions

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as it recognizes the ongoing impacts of colonization not only have cultural institutions

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utilize deeply colonial methods of representation but because of their authority these narratives have been accepted as

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truths that we now work actively to change where i am tonight i’m at the art gallery of guelph

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um we’re situated on treaty land that is steeped in rich indigenous history and home to many

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first nations inuit m.a.t people today as we gather here tonight uh we would

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like to acknowledge that the art gallery of guelph resides on the ancestral lands of the atawanderin people

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and more recently the treaty lands and territory of the mississaugas of the credit we recognize the significance of the

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dish with one spoon covenant to this land and offer our respect to our anishinaabe and metis neighbors

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as we strive to strengthen our relationships with them and typically uh atlantic knowledgement

1:20

recognizes the traditional ownership of the lands on which an event is held

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and as we’re gathered virtually tonight connected and yet physically dispersed across borders it’s also a good moment

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to rely reflect on the significance of place wherever we are and how the traditional lands that we reside in and move through

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and form our lives we respect the significance of treaties that continue to affirm the sovereignty of indigenous nations

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and recognize our responsibility for the stewardship of the lands on which we live work and create

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thank you all for joining us i’m very pleased to welcome zachary logan who is in regina this evening and also

2:00

very pleased to welcome you all to the gallery actually we open to the public um today and so you were actually able

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to come and see the exhibition uh the disappearing sky in person

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um we also have two other exhibitions when we breathe we breathe together which is hosted by the collective

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decolonize this place as well as new age warriors um featuring the work of artist katherine blackburn

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who is also based in saskatchewan actually um for those unfamiliar with um the

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exhibitions zachary’s work is actually um on view with another artist in the disappearing

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sky the exhibition also features the work of baker lake artist ruth coloriak

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and so both one of the reasons i wanted to put them together is because they um are both known for

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kind of their distinct visual language that uses flora flowers often flowers but kind of flora

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and foliage and they approach these very differently so ruth

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we have drawings and textiles these are from the art gallery of gulf collection

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and in in these she is using embroidery and pencil drawing to capture patterns of

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tundra ground cover so the short lived plants and flowers found in the north

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whereas zachary’s work on paper really verge on tapestries so we still have that connection to textiles

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and are for him a way of addressing the link between a queer identity memory and place in both cases

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the ground under foot takes on allegorical dimensions and tonight we’ll speak with zachary

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about the evolution of this imagery from for him from his focus on the male figure and his own

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body to the work he is engaged in today that you’ll see in in the installation views we are also

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working on a conversation with ruth clariock which we hope to share at a later date a

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couple of um details we are using zoom tonight um and the talk is uh will be recorded it is actually

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recording right now just checking and um there will be an opportunity for questions so you can

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actually put those in the chat and we’d appreciate that um and just so

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you have a glimpse of the exhibition first before zach goes into his his uh discussion of the

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evolution of his work um maybe we can move forwards that we have some installation views just for you to get a

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sense of the installation and how things are paired so here we have a work by ruth as well as

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a small work by zachary again another pairing the textile by by

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ruth kolariak as well as the drawing by zach

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um and these two major pieces and they’re actually in our clair story space probably the longest work the biggest

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work by zachary and you can sort of see what i mean by

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kind of tapestry-like as well as the drawing on the wall that is extended

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up the wall on the wall surface itself

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and this pairing you’ll see a close-up image of the small textile um on the right as well as zach’s work

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here so we will return to these um after uh

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zach talks about his work um so i will turn it over to you now

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zachary thank you shauna and thank you for inviting me to do this talk um and for working on this um

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wonderful exhibition with me um so i i thought it was

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probably smart to to go back quite a ways and talk a little bit about

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the history of my work from you know basically from my master’s or a little bit before

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as it pertains to the work that i’m doing now um and i should start off by saying that my work is always my body is always the

6:07

catalyst for whatever it is that i’m doing visually um and and usually it’s it’s either an art

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historical or a literary source that i’m using to sort of undercut especially in the earlier work um

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undercut notions of accepted maleness and images of of the male body

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um so undercutting them in a sense putting them in a realm that is has been historically in in western

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culture in in in western art history for um dedicated for the uh for the female body so sort of

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returning um a male gaze and a queer male gaze onto the male body objectifying the male

6:47

body um so you know with this image as famous image of um angst uh odellesque

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um which has some very sort of uh strange history in terms of um the way that he

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um transformed the body uh did things like adding in um extra vertebrae and you know to to

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sort of heighten i guess in his um

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in a way the the sensuality and the of the form of the body um but making it a complete

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impossibility so i i guess in um taking this pose

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i i try to take the pose that the body um is is taking um and of course it was

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an impossibility because if you look at the leg that’s coming over the knee it’s actually not attached to her body

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at all so it’s very strange when you sort of start to take things apart um and i was i was only really able to

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do that um when i started to when i was able to actually see the work

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in person so we’re going to rewind a little bit um as we go forward with an image from my uh undergraduate work so

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um or or actually in between my undergrad so i was working with um someone who i consider a dear friend now

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she was an educator of mine allison norlin and she um this was a series of works

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that we had developed together so in my undergrad allison taught me and um post undergrad um we paired up

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together for an exhibition at the mendel art gallery which is now the rainy modern and they had this wonderful program um

8:31

called artists by artists where they would pair an emerging artist with an established artist and create a body of work

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together or you know however the artists wanted to to work at it so essentially allison sort of curated my

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work and at the time i was really interested in um homoerotic and queer

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illustrations a historical illustration primarily from you know anywhere from the 1930s to the

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1980s and and a major figure there would be uh tom of finland

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and so i you know in in this series of works and and and works that came before i was

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always using images of uh of other men so from whatever ubiquitous sources i could find the

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internet uh pornographic images or old daguerreotypes tin types of men together

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um but in in in an effort to create these um these sort of queer worlds and and re uh

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vision um art historical and uh literary uh sources so of course this

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is the famous scene from uh from gulliver’s travels where um the the lilliputz locutions are are covering

9:40

his or tying him down covering his body and of course i i’m reimagining that as a um as an image

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of um of like an erotic image

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so uh fast forward to to my masters and and post masters um it also was allison norland who had

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suggested um you know i was using these images of other uh other men’s bodies

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and i don’t think that they necessarily had an issue with um with that sort of objectification and

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that used the use of images but they made a suggestion um allison in particular that i might

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want to turn that um that lens upon myself upon my own body um and it was a really a really smart

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suggestion and i’m i’m very happy that um i sort of let go of my um

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my desire not to uh not to jump into that because i think it it what it did was it’s um

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it made the work a lot closer you know i had to really consider what it was how it was i was um positioning my body

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and what i was saying became a lot more psychologically close and i think also

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perhaps more interesting because it was my own body so um right out of my masters i had a

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really great opportunity to show my work in paris um and this was the first time that i

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had you know ever seen a large uh body of the historical works that i was

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that i was using for source materials so up until this point um i had gone to new york once um

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before my um during before my masters um or sorry during my undergrad and

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um i’d seen quite a bit there but uh the work that i was really looking at um at this time was neoclassical

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and um and romantic works and so um i when i went to paris

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um i should also mention that um this exhibition uh almost got shut down um so that the the nudity um and i think

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it had something to do with the fact that it was a contemporary body because there are nudes everywhere in paris um

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it almost got shut down by the police and they they they basically the the gallery refused

11:58

to to change anything to take anything out of the window um so that was rather interesting to me

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um and the works uh so this is another shot from inside the exhibition so again this is my

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this is all my master’s work so uh you know as i said earlier undercutting

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notions of accepted um images of of of male bodies um also so that includes um

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uh one of the interests i had in the depiction of the male body what it was in relation to

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um catholic images of saint and christ figures which have this strange

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um strange um

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uh mix of sex and torture as a sort of image of transcendence um

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and that that really uh interested me and so sorry fast forward here to actually

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seeing the work and the the physical scale of the of the work um was just confounding to me

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so the fact that i had just been looking at these images through um through text um prompted me to

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want to actually go back and and research the work in person because that physical experience was so

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important to me and that connection between um being the viewer um and the creator

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um really really hit home to me so i devised a plan to go back to

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uh sorry to go back to paris that following summer and i did a residency um that was

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supported by the um saskatchewan arts board um where i just went to the louvre

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every day and i researched the works in the grand hall and i started to to to zero in on

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particular moments of intimacy in these larger depictions of death and destruction and

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colonization and torture where there were these intimate moments of

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of male bonding touching uh hands clasping

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hands touching faces or even even kissing touching neck so very very intimate

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moments within these much larger massive depictions

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um which were the political tools of their age that’s what paintings were that’s what

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how you know david survived as a as a painter um sorry and what i did was then i came

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back to my um saskatoon studio uh which is where i was living at the time and i took those

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uh smaller drawings which ended up um i don’t have any images of those but they were called the helping hands and basically i

14:44

i composed those and created this larger composition and that was really the point it was to work on this scale that sort

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of epic scale um and create a painting

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you know based on the physical research of being in front of those objects um consequently this was this painting

15:03

took me close to a year and it was the last painting that i did for a very very long time and this is at the point where i moved

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primarily to um to drawing as a medium because of its um immediacy

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and and that um connection between um sort of my my conception of a work

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and my physical presence and the the immediacy

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so i should also say that residencies are often become a primary source for my for my research

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and become an extension of my studio practice so this is an image of a residency that i did that was quite

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formative that was the following year um at a place called liberty tennessee

15:48

so it was it was just over um over the mountain we’ll say from short mountain which is

15:54

it which is an important historical uh queer site it’s short mountain is one of the um queer

16:01

fairy communes that began in the 1960s and so the gentleman who owned this home

16:07

when they they passed they um donated the this um this place and the land

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um so that it would be a a residency for queer writers and uh creators and so i

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was invited to come and do this project and at that same time i was working um trying to

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work um out a a major project that was an invitational uh project by um the artist

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evergone who was curating a show at the um at the fofa

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and it was called domestic queens and so it was really about men living together and most domestic

16:43

partnerships in in you know in in whatever sort of

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relationship um between two men so i actually um sorry and at the time i was

16:56

when i was in um tennessee it was so i mean it the landscape is so vastly

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different from the landscape in saskatchewan which i’m which i’m used to where i’ve always lived um

17:07

you know i described the uh the insects as the sort of like um drag queen versions of the insects

17:14

that exist in saskatchewan so it’s a very uh very visually different and very

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visually stimulating to me but also at that time i was becoming very very homesick and thinking about

17:25

home and land and and body and at this point i was also trying to really

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um really change or transform a bit the way that i was using my body and and

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also just the images that i was making in relationship to to the body and again thinking about bodies in space

17:44

um so for this this project um this this drawing rather um which is called

17:50

vignette um was a very important piece i think in that transformation because it’s the

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first time where i where where the idea of landscape and the actual landscape seeps into the imagery um

18:04

in a in a very sort of um massive way i guess so the space that i

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had for this for this piece for this drawing was about a 30-foot vitrine

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um at the fofa galleries really beautiful space and so i wanted to feel as much of it of

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course as possible and for it i just i decided i wanted to do something very romantic

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and i i constructed a sort of um family portrait so it’s myself and my

18:31

husband and our two cats um and and the the space that we’re in this sort of

18:36

preelapsian garden i guess is is a um a construction of

18:44

uh plants and animals from both ten both my time in tennessee and in and in saskatchewan um and

18:51

and again for this piece uh art historical um i’m i’m looking to art historical

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sources for um for the way for the manner in which i am drawing so

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uh a lot of times in um historically in the history of of saskatchewan landscape

19:11

art um a lot of the depictions of landscape

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um that are sort of more well known are sort of abstractions of the land uh in terms of

19:24

sky and land and from it from a far distance so i really wanted to to sort of come

19:30

close in and be um microscopic in my depiction um of everything and sort of lending

19:37

everything a uh i guess a visual democracy so the the mouse and the insects and the

19:44

flowers are depicted with the exact same importance as my body and my husband’s

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um so again my work is still at this point um continuing to sort of transform and

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uh bodies are multiplying and becoming more acrobatic this is a series from an

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exhibition called trauma and other stories which was really about the idea of um

20:08

how insult affects the queer body and transforms that uh body and mind and so these were depictions of from um

20:15

that were uh taken from images of of people the damned basically tumbling

20:22

into hell um but i sort of neutralized them uh with a single color and and and

20:30

um again used my own body and one of them i did 31 depictions that was the that

20:36

was the age i was when i when i completed the drawing um and from the same series this is a

20:43

drawing where it came out of an actual studio visit um and and thinking about

20:49

different things that people had said to me but this was a particular experience that i had with a um queer artist and curator that had

20:56

come to my studio and and it said zachary your work is just way too gay tone it down you need to so that i found

21:04

was a very um strange and and i felt almost um an internalized

21:12

homophobic statement uh from him and i anyway it really it stayed with me and i started doing these series of works that

21:18

were in red pencil um and red i’m of course associating with with corrections so

21:24

these works were are built up um over a single phrase or word so so it was the it was when he said to

21:32

me don’t be gay or sorry you’re too gay you’re too gay the work is too um the work itself is too gay so i just

21:40

repeated the um the phrase don’t be gay don’t be gay don’t be gay to build up the

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uh the image of the portrait um and concurrently i was working on

21:51

another series called disappearances so this was for my second uh exhibition in paris

21:56

and and really the body is now starting to just be completely you know covered over and and sort of

22:02

consumed um and of course this image comes from um from images i’ve i have seen

22:08

and stories that i’ve been told by by people who have witnessed the mariposa in mexico of course this wonderful

22:15

incredible uh phenomenon of monarch butterflies traveling from

22:21

massive distances to a particular site in mexico where they at a certain point

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can cover a tree so heavily that that an entire

22:32

limb of a branch could fall off because of the weight of these uh of these uh insects so um so i yeah

22:40

so i at this point i’m also just extending the self-portrait to the dramatic and thinking about you know how many

22:47

perhaps how many butterflies would it take for my arm to just tear off um

22:54

and uh continuing in that vein i the following year did a residency in

23:01

vienna that was also really formative um and i started uh researching um

23:08

certain works uh that i was seeing um two two characters i guess historical

23:15

characters that became very important to me within that research were the wild man and and the green man um

23:22

and sorry and the the the one major artist who

23:29

um i also was researching while i was there um because there are so many uh of his works um

23:36

he was a court painter for um for the habsburgs when he was alive as arkham aldo who to me i i knew about

23:43

his work previously but i hadn’t seen the work in person um and so upon seeing it i was deeply affected by

23:50

his paintings because first of all they don’t really they’re you know from the 1600s but they or

23:56

1500s but they don’t um they feel very contemporary they feel very um

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very relevant and uh so in my research while i was there um i

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ended up doing a project called uh wilderness tips um and i did my my own sort of um iteration of

24:16

um uh of the style in which arkham boldo worked in which he

24:22

sort of compiled um different elements um uh of plant and animal and inanimate

24:29

object um to create um portraits which he became very famous for

24:34

um so these were self-portraits of silhouettes of of of my body built up so this is the um

24:41

this is the wild man and the green man

24:48

and another character that’s um that i encountered as well as is the character

24:53

of the the character leshy who is a um eastern european uh character similar to

25:01

the to the wild man and the green men um and for me i should also say again that

25:06

both of these characters are uh interesting to me because of their location in the psyche and their

25:13

um and sort of their their uh location as outsiders so they’re for me

25:20

they they are in a contemporary sense very queer but they’re also about about land and about ecology and

25:27

this this character in particular um because lashi is a um is a little even more ambiguous

25:34

in his relationship to humans um is he is a protector of the forest

25:40

from humans so for example if you were to cut down a tree you know leshi would

25:46

harm you uh for that act so in a way he’s like a ecological

25:51

um uh character or character who’s concerned with the ecology of the

25:56

forest so i found him to be also for this character to also be very interesting

26:02

um and so then this is actually an image of a very recent work from my current

26:08

exhibition that is still on in london um called tales from the bone garden so it’s another iteration

26:15

um of the wild man um that is more closely linked to an artist named

26:21

martin schoengauer who did um mostly uh i believe they are etchings of of this

26:28

sort of furry man um and then and then you know like that

26:34

there’s a continual transformation and and sort of um relationship

26:40

shift to these um to these animals and and the landscape around me so for

26:46

instance on um the one um self-portrait with all of the of the birds perching

26:53

that was from a series called um feeding series so this is wild man five

26:58

from feeding series and in it there’s just this sort of switch in in um in

27:06

in the um action so instead of going to a uh going to a park to feed birds um

27:13

i’m the one being fed by the birds so they all have insects or um berries or whatnot in their mouth and

27:22

they’re coming to feed me so it’s just this like um shift in in relationship um

27:27

and then uh you know also i use the wild man to talk about um

27:34

adornment and concealment as well and i i’m usually integrating plant and animal

27:39

life uh into my hair into my beard sort of creating these sort of crowns cornucopias out of my head

27:47

and face

27:53

and then another major project which sort of leads into my um my interest in in tapestry but still

28:00

in relationship to to the body and to the poor self-portrait are the unicorn tapestries which um

28:07

again i was able to see um during a residency uh in 2015 at iscp

28:14

and i was able to spend a lot of time with these works um and i became very very um interested in

28:20

the in the imagery excuse me and the overlapping uh narratives about um you know romantic

28:27

love and um and and different um aspects of the story and in a way i

28:35

i guess became the um inhabiter of the character of the unicorn um

28:42

sorry but also uh it’s um i was really interested in

28:48

the idea of of the mill floor that sort of flattening um that flattening of space

28:55

um with the use of plant life um and also thinking about trying to create an in

29:02

between space a liminal space a sort of queer space that relates to um to my existence on the prairies um

29:09

and that’s where um that’s where the the use of of flora and in particular um weeds but

29:17

plants from all over the world that i’ve collected in in um through the through the

29:24

use of photography so um wherever i go i photograph plant life i’m not usually

29:29

photographing uh monuments or buildings or anything like that and and i have this store of thousands of

29:36

photographs of plants um and in a way it’s also an account of me being there

29:42

at that moment so it really is a representation of a memory when i’m reproducing it um so these

29:49

the in these uh works which i which i uh call the eunuch tapestries of play on

29:55

the unicorn tapestries um i’m sort of constructing a space

30:00

in which the the foreground is really where where the action and where the most importance i think

30:07

narratively is happening so i’m i’m sort of depicting um

30:16

ditches of which line the roads

30:21

in saskatchewan and pretty much all over canada but in particular in saskatchewan um that are uh pushed to the side

30:27

because of the advent of uh of farming so people often come to saskatchewan and they

30:34

and they think it’s this vast untouched uh landscape but but actually 100 of it is is used for

30:41

human consumption and and primarily for farming but also in um in the north uh mining

30:49

and um and logging and um so it’s it is used primarily for the con

30:56

for human consumption and these weeds that are that are deemed unnecessary are sort of um swept to the side and

31:03

they sort of exist in these areas along the sides of the road these in ditches so

31:09

these representations that i’m um creating here in in the unit tapestries

31:15

are representations of those of those histories and they become very very magical there

31:21

um so here’s just a couple of images of the many thousands that i that i’ve

31:27

collected um and then i sort of construct them um

31:34

like in a very similar way to um dutch painters would

31:39

um would put together flowers um and they’re they’re completely fictive so they have

31:44

this sense of realism and naturalism to them but like the dutch still life they are completely

31:50

fictive these flowers that that were often depicted in these still lives would never have bloomed together at the

31:56

same time so this so they’re a complete fiction um but what i’m doing is trying to

32:02

create this sort of liminal metaphoric queer space um

32:07

in which these um these plants sort of survive and thrive

32:16

and i’m also with this work really trying to think about um the viewers body so how their

32:24

how they’re being affected by the by the drawing and also thinking about the drawing is more

32:30

than just um something that’s two-dimensional on the wall something that’s becoming more

32:35

um sculptural and and and um i guess challenging the viewers well

32:41

that way and then i’ll call of course referring back to the to the tapestries themselves

32:47

in the ways in which i install them so these are this was an a project that

32:55

i did with the leslie lawman museum in 201 2015 um which was really a really

33:01

wonderful project because of course um this museum is in soho and

33:07

the actual unicorn tapestries are are up in the cloisters so that uh connection um to them

33:14

within the city was really interesting and the project is really cool because it it extended it extends their um their

33:21

exhibitions to the exterior of the building and soho was a very busy place and it was

33:26

really nice to come and see these at night and imagine people you know happening upon them and they

33:32

really glowed and they really get that sense of the of the nocturnal imagery which is very

33:40

important to these to the narrative of these works

33:47

and another major project that that really relates to the um to the work in the exhibition and and

33:53

my interest in in tapestries uh and creating uh using space in in in different ways

34:01

is is the work of uh mary delaney so this is an installation of pool 2 after mary delaney that was in a

34:09

really great show at the textiles museum of canada back in 2016

34:14

called gardens reel and imagined and i encountered mary delaney who is

34:21

this remarkable artist uh from the 17th century a a um paper

34:28

uh collages basically or i guess the paper mosaic

34:33

is what she’s considered that she works in but i would call them collages because at

34:39

certain times she actually adds in bits of of of plant material so they really are a collage in the

34:45

fullest sense of that term so i just by chance i was at the british museum uh

34:51

for an exhibition i was in london for an exhibition of my own work and i went to the british museum

34:57

and i just found these in um in a room two two very small botanicals

35:03

and i became completely enthralled by them the rest of the world just sort of melted away

35:08

um and so i then i went back to the um bookshop and found a book about

35:14

delaney’s work and i had no knowledge of her previously so um just a very quick um background on her

35:23

she’s started doing these botanical works at the age of 72 and by the time she

35:28

died at the age of 88 she had done over a thousand of them and they’re very very tiny and some of them have you know upwards of hundreds

35:35

of of individual pieces of paper that create these botanicals and they’re they’re very dimensional um she had to

35:42

hand dye hand cut all of this so for me it was it was it it was there are so many reasons um

35:50

uh my my interest in her practice and her work also the backgrounds these black uh

35:56

backgrounds became very important to this the pool series

36:03

and this is actually uh the same drawing pool 2 that was used for the set design for

36:10

how to transcend how to transcend a happy marriage which was a play

36:15

that was done at the lincoln center so it was really phenomenal to see this work which was

36:22

already a fairly large drawing enlarged to i think it was 22 by 66 feet

36:29

or something like that so it was really quite um wonderful to see that and this is the stage and actually uh marissa

36:35

tolmei starred in the in the production so it was really a lovely project but again it gave me more ideas of

36:42

um continuing transformation of form and and thinking about drawing as drawing

36:48

but also as sculpture and then i just shared this image as

36:53

well it’s called uh levitate uh wreath 3 after mary delaney where

36:59

this sort of language of of both of those series kind of sort of converges so this

37:04

was for an exhibition i did in 2016 in london called reef um and then this project is um

37:12

this was a project that was um invitational um project to

37:19

um uh create a major work that was

37:24

in response to uh tom the centenniary of tom thompson’s death so i was invited by the mcmichael by then

37:30

um chief curator sarah stanners to do a piece that was in response to his death and it

37:36

was a very um interesting project because there are so many is an interesting person to

37:41

to sort of delve into and research in terms of his life and his and the circumstances um

37:46

regarding his death um because there are so many there’s such a mythology

37:52

built around him um and so i i was invited to stay at the um

37:58

at the tom thompson shack which is on the side of the mcmichael and create this work so this is also from the pool series but i but i um

38:05

use the medium of painting um and i use the the same materials that that tom would

38:11

have used so the um the wood panel of course just on on a much larger scale so this is uh has a long

38:19

title and i’ll see if i can remember it actually you know what we don’t have time we’ll keep going

38:25

um so here this is just an image of me working in the studio and i just used for this

38:32

uh for this piece um the the plants particular weeds that

38:38

were being torn up by the uh by the groundsman here at the or there at the mcmichael and i just

38:44

collected all those weeds and i used them um as the uh as the plant life for this

38:50

um and another major project which is still sort of ongoing is a collaborative work uh an exhibition

38:58

uh with the um new york based painter ross blechner who also works a lot with um with with

39:05

flora and with the body um and with abstraction and and the work is vastly different

39:11

from mine but we have a lot of sort of interconnecting and overlapping themes in our work

39:17

so um i thought i would put some images from that exhibition in that ongoing

39:22

project and this leads into the the work that i do in in ceramic so this

39:30

piece here is called fountain one um and it’s an ongoing piece in the sense that every time i show this work

39:37

it has more um more ceramic flowers around the base of it

39:42

so this was a project that i developed uh initially on a residency at the um at acad

39:50

so i was invited by uh then curator of the ikg wayne bearwaltz to um

39:56

to do a substantial ceramic piece i’ve been doing very small things in my studio and i’ve left them as green wear

40:02

and he suggested that i that i sort of dealt into the material and i i must confess i do consider

40:09

ceramic as just sort of an extension of my drawing practice the way that i construct my ceramics is

40:14

very similar to the way in which i work with drawing you know everything is observational from hand or you know from

40:22

from memory it’s all hand building um and the construction of this piece and the

40:27

um the uh visual reference behind it is related to

40:32

um the experience of oscar wilde’s grave so when i was in paris i went to the grave

40:38

of oscar wilde and upon approaching it i thought it was covered with moss um like many of the other graves around

40:46

it but actually when you get up close to it it’s actually lipstick so it’s people have been put on lipstick and they’ve kissed the stone many many

40:53

many many times so that this monument this this fountain that i was building i was

41:01

thinking about that time passing um and that so every time that i show this piece it’s almost like

41:08

um time passes so there needs to be more of these but also it’s it it also has a um

41:16

a body reference so for me this ceramic which i leave vitrified is the color and the texture and the

41:23

feeling of of bone so that’s another

41:29

another reason for the for the color um so the this is just

41:35

a couple of more examples of um the ceramic work um in which there are uh at times also

41:46

um depictions of the body literally um and i’ve also in in very recent work

41:54

started to incorporate my own hair as the root system or blooming system of

42:01

these of these flowers sorry

42:09

and then i’ve also created these um frames i guess ovals if you will um and

42:16

the the inclusion of of hair of my own hair is is also in relationship to my my

42:24

interest in victorian aesthetic and victorians used hair as well

42:29

sculpturally there are many remarkable works um with the use of hair and so these

42:36

these two works are essentially frames constructed and and adorned to

42:43

to then contain my hair

42:49

and then we come to um works that are in the exhibition um this is from are we

42:56

doing okay shauna time-wise all right okay so um this

43:02

uh piece which is called el mezzo del camen de nostro vita um came out of an invitation by

43:09

a museum in milan called studio museum francesco messina and they are a studio or sorry a museum

43:18

that um formerly this building was a um was a cathedral

43:23

and in the second world war the back end of it was bombed out and they the catholic church deconsecrated

43:29

it and it was actually set for demolition and this artist uh figurative um sculptor at the

43:35

time he purchased the sites fixed it turned it into his foundry lived in it and then when he passed away

43:42

he donated it to the city of milan and about 10 years ago the curator there

43:48

started to invite contemporary artists to work from the collection within the collection um and respond to the space

43:56

so this drawing um which uh the title is of um the first lines from

44:02

uh dante’s inferno and it essentially translates to um in the middle part of my life i

44:08

walked into um into this forest and it and it it begins that sort of passage

44:14

that he takes into uh into the through the gates of hell so the subtitle of this piece is called the gate and i was really interested

44:22

in the in the patinas of the sculpture so that so the um the palette of this work

44:30

is in reference to the um the sculpt the figurative sculptures but also i was thinking about uh about

44:37

what this space used to be the idea of it as this sort of vaulting cathedral space and i wanted to create something

44:43

that sort of filled that space and talked to that sense of uh ascension or descension or

44:49

or um a sense of up and down but also playing with the idea of viewing landscape from

44:56

multiple viewpoints so looking up you know through like li imagine yourself lying on the grass and

45:02

looking up through trees or looking down into the grass that sort of minute uh landscapes or

45:10

you know looking through into a jungle or looking out of a jungle so all of those sort of vantage points all at once

45:17

and and in a sense create this this gate but that is of multiple uh viewpoints

45:32

and up until right now i’m i’m currently working on a piece that will be uh quite a bit larger than this but this

45:38

is the largest drawing that i’ve done to date and it and it is 33 feet long

45:44

and in constructing it i had i i only had uh so much space in my studio um i had

45:50

to build it in or i had to draw in three separate sections and then sew it together when i was in

45:56

in milan so it’s it’s it is sewn together with every uh time i show the piece

46:06

and then related uh a related project um this was a invitational uh project to be a

46:12

collateral project of the venezuelan island uh in 2019

46:18

um called um esta selva selbagia which which again is is about

46:25

different you know this piece is constructed around the idea of uh different the landscape from

46:32

different vantage points but because i knew this with peace was four uh particularly for

46:38

uh constructed for venice i focused on the plant life that’s in

46:44

the waters in the canals and actually for this piece i also this the visual disruption of the

46:51

of the reds and the and the pinks and the uh purples and oranges is actually depiction of my um

46:59

of the auras that i get uh the sorts of form and uh movement when i have a migraine

47:06

so i have these auras that i get uh when i get a migraine um that usually start off the migraine

47:13

and i have this love-hate relationship with them because they’re utterly beautiful but they’re always associated with pain

47:19

so but that was that’s the um essentially the the um

47:26

the uh construction of this space is that sort of disruption um and then that this sort of calm

47:34

um sort of watery uh plant life underneath

47:40

and this this piece is in the exhibition this is esta selva savage number three so i’ve done

47:46

three iterations of this uh but i was also in i was interested in

47:51

that the idea of this of this obstruction but also the way in which

47:56

it it moves and sort of transforms and is this sort of um

48:02

very personal um physiological um thing that happens to

48:09

me and i sort of wanted to sort of um depict that as best i could

48:14

um and then this piece is also in in the um in the exhibition and the

48:20

disappearing sky and it’s called bruising one and this was done at the at the beginning uh beginning to middle of the pandemic

48:28

during the the lockdown of course i like everyone was affected by it and my work was sort of uh transformed and

48:34

affected by it as well and this really is about the depiction of the passing of time in a way

48:40

and it’s this the idea of a bruise which goes from black um to blue to purples to blues back into

48:48

back into sort of regular skin tone and i use these um dead flowers that i was collecting on

48:54

my way uh to and from my studio um in the back alleys here in regina so it’s again

49:00

these works are completely autobiographical they’re completely entirely of my body but they’re also um

49:08

bland and i guess as a as a political statement i would say i don’t see a separation between land and body

49:14

body is land we are just one aspect of the landscape

49:21

and this was this is a nerdy picture of me just next to the installation right after i uh

49:26

finished it um at the um art gallery of guelph um so when you when you go if you can go

49:34

if you are in guelph um this is um sort of climbing uh climbing the wall and again it it

49:42

i think is in reference to that same sort of forms i guess that i that i

49:48

experience um [Music] and more work from the exhibition

50:06

and these works also i should say have been primarily other than the two works that were done

50:12

previous have all been um mid 2020 to early 2021 so that it’s

50:19

very very new uh work as well

50:24

and that is the end of my presentation the first part

50:31

it’s one of the things a lot to get through i’m sorry um if anybody has any questions please

50:37

put them in the chat but we’ll just uh start um sean has a question um can you please talk

50:45

more about how harry harry hayes radical fairies movement influenced your work were you able to go to the fairy

50:51

gatherings on short mountain your plant images definitely have a very

50:56

uh or fantasy sensibility well i do i do actually have a great story about uh i did go to the to the

51:03

commune on short mountain um i was there for a month and a half and i did unfortunately i only ended up

51:09

getting um to the commune once i spent a full day there and it was

51:15

really great but i did have a lot of interaction with the fairies who would just come all the time and visit uh where i was

51:23

um but when i was there um i kept going on about um obsessing over um queen anne’s lace

51:30

which grows so abundantly and so thickly in in the um in the forest in the in the in the brush

51:37

there um that they i don’t know if you know this but when you go to fairy comm you know at least when you go

51:42

when i went to that one they said well you you leave your regular name behind and you’re given a

51:48

fairy name and that’s what you’re known uh that’s what you’re known by when you are on the commune so

51:53

um because of my obsession and i wouldn’t stop talking about queen anne’s lace they named me lacey so lacey is my is my fairy name

52:02

and i did a drawing there um that was based on on that name and the and

52:08

the flower but um yeah i mean i i that particular

52:13

residency in tennessee uh was was very transformative and um i didn’t know

52:21

a lot of the history uh of short mountain before i went

52:26

um but i do know you know quite a bit more now um and yeah i i i would say there’s a

52:32

bit of a fairy queer sensibility to the work and to the flowers i don’t know if i answered the question but

52:39

i have a question from james uh sean says thanks lacey james

52:46

has a practice of self-mythologizing helped you realize hidden truths about yourself or alternatively helped others

52:52

discover truths about themselves through the mythologies in your work oh my yeah i mean definitely i mean i

52:58

can’t speak to to what what others uh have experienced of my work but absolutely

53:04

for myself for sure and i i guess i was trying to articulate that very thing

53:10

um at the beginning when i said like it was so formative uh and transformative for me

53:16

to turn the lens on myself first of all because i had to start thinking um

53:23

about the ways in which i was using my own body and it also helped me to learn a lot

53:28

about the use of another person’s body so um yeah i mean it’s it’s just easier i’m

53:35

always here so i can always be my own model but but no i’ve definitely i think learned a

53:41

lot and i like that uh that term that you use that sort of self-mythologizing of myself

53:48

i i i might use that again but yeah for sure yeah james says please

53:56

do um do you want to just go through we have some more install shots that are and uh sure yeah as well as um just i

54:03

think we can look at kind of this question of um you know uh you’ve been working on

54:09

situating your work particularly recently in site-specific contexts and in relationship to other like

54:15

historical objects but in this case we’ve got you know a living inuit artist who’s

54:21

worked this in our collection so it’s very different thing and one of the things i always think about um two-person or three-person

54:27

exhibitions is you know at their best they really illuminate aspects of of each other each artist’s work in

54:34

relationship to the other so if we go back to you know what the images we looked at

54:39

at the very beginning and now we have a few more this is the small work that you just saw on the wall of zacharies

54:45

this is the the textile um tapestry embroidery on felt called

54:51

tundra so again with ruth’s work it is very much about ground cover so the the surfaces of the land and different

54:57

colors of plants that that develop um

55:02

and then if you want to move forward so here are those two works again

55:08

[Music] and this is the small work on the wall

55:13

so she actually does add figures into the textiles as well and lots of different kind of dynamic

55:20

also one of the things that um uh to remember and you never mention the word pastel

55:26

oh my goodness you know one of the things that you know when we talk about

55:32

the drawing and and well the materials of both so we’ve got thread on the one hand here and then in

55:37

zachary’s work there’s pastel but also pencil so um and using those basically to

55:44

create those these patterns that we’re seeing in the different work

55:49

yeah well it in in relationship to this uh particular instance and this

55:55

connection between my work and ruth’s work i i to be honest i was

56:00

i i know now uh now that i’m familiar with her work that i have seen it i’m pretty sure i saw it

56:06

recently actually at the wag in winnipeg but i was um unfamiliar uh with her work

56:13

before you showed me uh several of them when we were discussing this um this project um and

56:21

and yeah it’s a very different thing to to work from the the collection or work from objects

56:27

of people who have um who have passed versus someone who is alive who is working

56:33

um and who may be doing a similar thing or or something that has an overlap

56:40

but for me it’s uh in part it’s the um with ruth’s work it’s it’s uh the skill

56:48

um the connection between um the body and the materials that that’s very

56:53

interesting to me and also the depiction of of the land the landscape so

56:59

uh the the ways in which she’s sort of um using color and patterning

57:07

to create dimensionality and flatness is something that i’m interested in and i’m striving for right

57:12

now in the work that i’m doing so it was just it just felt so um perfect once the once i saw the work and

57:20

the works that were in the collection that were it was just such a beautiful occurrence

57:26

i think we went through very many permutations of what what this could look like what could be

57:32

partnered with so this is it worked out well right and i do really like the idea like

57:38

i i was um uh in in relationship to the project that i

57:44

had done in milan i really wanted to do to to do more more of that

57:49

and also the um the work that i’ve done and the collaborative works but also the

57:55

the two-person exhibition that i did with ross i always find that i agree with what you were saying about

58:01

um you know two-person show where a group show helps to illuminate things about um both artists or all of the artists

58:09

work because of the relationship that’s created i think we have a lot more pairing there

58:15

do you want to yes let’s just so this is this one yeah did i go here

58:20

no yeah yeah i think there’s kind of a close-up of that yeah so

58:28

you get a close-up of the textile again okay we have a couple questions here one

58:34

is from megan thanks so much for your thorough and enriching hardest talk it was really lovely to see the evolution of your

58:40

artwork i’m interested in your artistic choice to use black backgrounds and paper in your pool series

58:46

well it appears to be a direct visual translation inspired by mary delaney’s botanical

58:52

collages does the void-like darkness relate somehow to a queer liminality or instead does

59:00

the black background allow for floating compositional inventiveness which could directly

59:06

extend to queer world making good question good question very good question very good question and yeah

59:13

and yes i think that in terms of the the um use of the of the black and the even

59:19

just the the title pool i guess suggests suggests water suggests

59:25

depth suggests like a um sort of multi-sensory experience um

59:32

i i think often a lot often times about um nocturnal imagery as well because of

59:40

uh because of what happens in uh human uh eyes when when our eyes adjust to the

59:47

darkness we don’t see everything we don’t have great night vision so there’s a lot of sort of possibility in

59:53

that um in that sort of darkness or that sort of in-between space so i think that is

59:59

part of what um i was so affected by when it came to delaney’s

1:00:05

work now not all of her works have this black background but i would say about 90 to

1:00:11

95 do and i know it was a wave in which she used she used it compositionally to

1:00:17

illuminate um the singular botanical pieces that she was making so

1:00:24

that every sort of crisp line and every um and every color was sort of

1:00:30

um really beautifully um presented on that black surface but for me it became a lot more about

1:00:38

not just that you know i wanted to i wanted to populate it with many flowers and also something that i

1:00:45

don’t often talk about but is is important to the work is how we how we sort of utilize or use

1:00:52

flowers in a metaphoric in a emotive uh emotional way in you know like for

1:00:59

example gifting them at a funeral it’s a very strange thing to do because you are

1:01:05

you’re taking these flowers which were just recently killed just recently cut and then you’re

1:01:10

handing them to someone as sort of a um a remembrance or an acknowledgement of sorrow but there’s

1:01:17

something incredibly beautiful about it too uh and and and i i love the practice so

1:01:23

so the idea of these floating flowers and this up these uprooted

1:01:29

flowers some of them have roots some of them are cut so some of them suggest intention some of them well

1:01:37

probably all of them suggesting intention or some some form of like human intervention um and they become

1:01:44

little bodies each one of them i think as well floating in this sort of um in this

1:01:49

uh compositional space and then they sort of you know the way that depending as well on how they’re

1:01:55

installed can suggest a pool in a different kind of way as well so if they if they pull onto the floor and come out

1:02:02

onto the ground um the way that you know i install them from time to time

1:02:07

it’s sort of the meanings potentially slightly shift but yeah that idea of of blackness and

1:02:14

of knight and of of this sort of vacuum is definitely a a nod to queer space

1:02:23

absolutely thanks megan you want to move forward in the images

1:02:30

yes that gives you another sense of perspective in the space

1:02:37

yeah and then i think we have another set yes yeah so this is the final set

1:02:43

these are the two images you encounter first when you walk into the gallery right now

1:02:49

in the entrance area by ruth and these are drawings and whereas the other pieces we

1:02:55

have of hers of textiles so you can see she’s capturing that kind of the ground cover again in the

1:03:01

background and then we have two of your works i

1:03:07

think as well is this the one no there’s a couple more

1:03:14

okay so just these two i wanted to sort of just look at that you know um one of the when when i was i was

1:03:20

directing the textile museum when that exhibition bliss gardens real imagined was installed and i had

1:03:26

recommended that work for the installation and in relationship to um you know this piece and um what’s the

1:03:34

final or the yeah the other the the pieces that are also old right that have the element that’s

1:03:39

rolled in them um like the pool work how it sort of flows onto the floor um just thinking about you know it does

1:03:47

give it this sense of um you know depth and form by doing that and and

1:03:52

um even in ruth’s drawing we have that sense of like depth as well and i’m wondering if you want to touch on

1:03:59

have you mentioned this idea of three-dimensionality um that you’re trying to achieve in a

1:04:04

two-dimensional form so do you want to talk about that a bit more sure i also i guess i should say that you

1:04:11

know one of the one of the uh things that appeals to me um the most about drawing

1:04:16

is is that uh how that connection for me to the body that physical connection you know i can be

1:04:23

working on like for instance the um nel mesoder camen drawing um

1:04:28

when i was doing that drawing i was on a pretty heavy time restraint and uh but this happens

1:04:36

you know quite often but in particular it happened with that piece where i would be working on the surface

1:04:41

so much for so long that my fingers my fingertips are all bleeding so i have to actually

1:04:46

force myself to stop and let a callus grow over but you know there’s my dna is all throughout those those drawings

1:04:54

but just that just to just to illustrate that sort of that connection to the body and the

1:04:59

material like there’s nothing between me and the pastel um and and for me that

1:05:05

sort of um that connection to the body is the connection to the brain to the

1:05:11

idea as it’s sort of uh transposing onto the drawing or onto the paper

1:05:17

so the paper becomes a skin a second skin a second body so it’s very very i don’t

1:05:23

know i feel like i i feel very um like these drawings are incredibly physical objects even though

1:05:30

when people look at them they you know that their first

1:05:35

inclination well hopefully is not to go up and and and touch them

1:05:41

maybe the way they might go up and touch say uh one of uh francesco messina’s

1:05:47

sculptures right the the with the patinas on them of course they they know what the materials and they

1:05:52

know what what might happen um with this it’s a little less so it’s that it’s um

1:05:57

connection to my own body but also wanting to think about and and um

1:06:05

affects the body of of the viewer as well so that just that extra bit of physicality to the drawing

1:06:11

i think just you know way transforms it a little bit and and makes it more um

1:06:20

one more able to imagine themselves enveloped by it so i’m really interested in scale

1:06:26

shift too so i’m interested in very small scale works of course in this exhibition

1:06:32

most of the work is much much larger so that idea of of imagining walking into

1:06:40

the drawing is something that i you know i’m interested in as well but also these are this one

1:06:48

the slide that’s up right now this drawing is called groundwater so i’m also thinking about

1:06:55

about actual physical changes you know of of the land

1:07:03

so um yeah i i think that that’s um in terms

1:07:10

of the of the sculptural qualities of these works um and having them you know like the one

1:07:18

uh nel mezzo del camino de nostro vita which is stretched out onto the floor

1:07:23

um and the subtitle of it is the gate so i really am

1:07:28

wanting one to think about walking into it without actually walking

1:07:33

yes um on that note on materials and how sensitive they are

1:07:39

um dorothy is asked i’m curious as to how you deal with storing your artwork

1:07:46

yes well it’s actually not as odious as one might imagine

1:07:53

and that’s because um i am able to roll them and store them quite

1:07:59

safely uh using um a paper called glassine or some people call it glycine it’s um

1:08:06

it’s a protective paper that’s archival and and it’s often i think i encountered it the first

1:08:12

time uh in photography but it’s it’s used to you know to be placed between

1:08:17

uh photographs or other other uh paper objects and so i just started

1:08:22

buying it in bulk in very large uh rolls and i cover the entire surface

1:08:28

of my pastel and then i roll them up actually rather tightly not too tight but just tight enough and

1:08:35

then i put them in sonotubes and that’s how i ship them all over the world um and they

1:08:41

they generally have very little if if any um need for touch-ups or

1:08:48

uh or or fixing just i’ve sort of it’s it’s become something that i’m

1:08:55

quite good at by now um but that’s that’s that’s primarily how i store

1:09:00

uh my works as well and a lot of people uh and and i and i get it too you know

1:09:06

before i knew before i worked with pastel um i had no idea but pastel is

1:09:12

rather um resilient um it’s it’s quite hardy and i don’t fix any of my drawings so

1:09:18

it’s a large small any of them because fixing them really kills um the surface for the way that i work

1:09:26

with pastel um the surfaces are rather velvety and and rich and um uh

1:09:35

have a particularity to their to their surface when you see them in person and that is incredibly important to me

1:09:41

so fixing them would crystallize them and it just sort of makes them i don’t know another word to use to

1:09:47

describe it crunchy um and so the glass scene though is my

1:09:53

saving grace really and and the pvc tubing one thing i will say is you really do need to see them in

1:09:59

person as well just to see that texture on the surface and how soft you know the pastel is um

1:10:07

but also to see the mark making like whether it’s the drawings or the pastel surface or the you know the drawing on

1:10:14

the wall you know just to kind of get a sense of of the marks themselves that you use to

1:10:19

create these compositions also in relation to uh i will i’ll just add to that in relation to ruth’s work

1:10:27

um the the incredibly delicate use of the thread to create

1:10:33

each individual um each individual leaf and each individual line

1:10:38

in those leaves is is um is breathtaking so as yeah and needs to be i mean you

1:10:45

can see it in a good detail but again to see it in person and have that that slight hint of shadow and those

1:10:52

lines that are created by the texture of the um material itself is

1:10:58

outstanding paige asks what was the thought process behind the work unraveling onto a plinth

1:11:05

rather than onto a floor ah well if i think it was um

1:11:13

it was two twofold it was for its own uh for its own protection because it is a

1:11:18

um a smaller work um i find that the the longer work the the more sort of dramatic work um

1:11:26

you sort of see that immediately but also i um i liked the location of

1:11:31

this piece higher up on the wall so i wanted the role so it that’s that is so it’s a you know

1:11:39

it basically is a um a question of the room if it were in a different space

1:11:44

uh hung in a different iteration it might not have that plinth um however

1:11:50

i do like that it does have the plant i think it works quite nice

1:11:55

i’m also very sorry no go ahead go ahead i’m just going to say i’m really happy to see my work

1:12:02

um hung in in many different ways so uh the way that you know that now

1:12:08

mezzo is hung in in uh milan um

1:12:13

is vastly different to the way that it’s been hung in many other iterations including at the art gallery

1:12:19

of guelph so i always just let the work be be sort of um curated in a way by the space

1:12:26

in which it’s in you sort of have to respond to the space you can’t be you can’t be too tied to one way of

1:12:33

installing especially with the works that i do um so i love i love seeing them in different contexts

1:12:40

and hung in vastly different ways and even you know the um you’ve hung

1:12:45

them vertically and horizontally you know the same work can appear in different different orientations which

1:12:52

is interesting um my last question has to do with um going back

1:12:58

to um just you know the relationship of the land and the body um one of the things that

1:13:03

interesting when you look at all of the plants you’re working with they’re not cultivated flowers right a lot they’re weeds

1:13:10

basically in many cases i know that’s an interesting view of yours and i i just wondered if you

1:13:15

wanted to talk about um how um you know what you’re thinking about the relationship of that image to

1:13:20

queerness yes absolutely and i actually have um i knew i knew that you were going to ask

1:13:26

me this and i and i have a um a quote so i don’t generally tend to like

1:13:33

reading off quotes but this one is quite succinct and i i like the way that i worded it so i’m just going to read

1:13:38

this out as a response that’s all right yes okay okay so i see parallels in the language

1:13:46

we as a society use to articulate plants with the ways in which we define and restrict

1:13:51

ourselves and those around us socially and sexually why is a weed a weed because it is

1:13:57

deemed so by human interest because that particular plant has no use for human consumption

1:14:02

however the plant itself has within it a rich history of existence outside human expectations

1:14:09

plants are helpful consumable and beautiful or they are harmful invasive and noxious

1:14:15

flowers or weeds similarly to the long history of the resistance to diverse expressions of sexuality

1:14:21

a human binary of right and wrong in my drawings i create dense compositions of plant

1:14:26

life often composed as realistic looking spaces focusing on ditch-like backgrounds but

1:14:33

again they’re they’re as as i said earlier they’re they’re fictive so so it’s that that basically is

1:14:41

is primarily my my reason when it comes to to weeds so they become this um

1:14:50

representation of body in a way right but they’re a representation of this sort of um

1:14:57

history of the language within in which humans use to talk about them and i

1:15:03

always find it quite ironic when humans talk about plants as invasive like excuse me

1:15:11

and in particular the type of the type of of of uh language and

1:15:17

conversation around plants in saskatchewan which is primarily

1:15:23

farming land especially around the areas in regina and saskatoon where i grew up and presently live

1:15:28

so those conversations are rather uh interesting and strange

1:15:35

um there’s one more comment on the plinth saying the plinth uh also contributes to um

1:15:42

a nod to a reference to minimalist

1:15:50

yeah and actually you know the drawing itself is kind of like a a minimal column yeah it’s rather

1:15:57

it’s rather maximal in you know in in terms of its image um and it’s actually i should also say

1:16:02

this one is two pieces of paper that are sewn together so i’ve drawn it in a way where you

1:16:08

can’t unless you’re really up close you can’t see the the sewing marks um but it is

1:16:14

it is sort of uh sewn together and there is definitely a um

1:16:22

in in its construction is very minimal yeah um sorry the question next question

1:16:29

popped up before i could finish it but just a reference to middle of sculpture which is what you suggested as well

1:16:35

um the other thing i guess you know on that note about sewing the sewing is a big part of of small

1:16:41

works but also larger works for you so um really you know i i think i always

1:16:47

use the phrase like verging on tapestry with your work which it really is in so

1:16:52

many ways like the look but also the construction right so um yeah and well when the very

1:16:59

first time that i did sew something together it was i have to admit in the beginning it was

1:17:05

it was just simply the only way that i could construct a piece that big and that was this is the piece uh in the

1:17:11

land and i had no idea how i was going to sew it together and i had just i just happened to be talking to a friend of

1:17:18

mine who was a uh was is friends with the tailor

1:17:24

and she then was talking to her friend and said oh my my friend is doing this massive drawing

1:17:30

that he’s sewing together and um and she said well he better be careful about how he sews it together

1:17:35

there are particular stitches that he could use but and if he doesn’t the drawing will you know it because of

1:17:41

the because of the material and the way it’s stitched it might buckle it might

1:17:46

tear it might so i didn’t know any of that and i was just sort of jumping into it blindly so she

1:17:52

she messaged me back and said this is the way this is the particular taylor stitch you need to do so i

1:17:57

learned a lot but but it also became a reference to to the body itself to you know the

1:18:03

stitching of a scar you know putting putting skin back together but also to

1:18:09

clothing and and so so it’s all there are all these sort of subtle references to to to body and skin and clothing and

1:18:18

and yeah one of the things just in terms of like the materiality of the work when we

1:18:24

unrolled it here it took quite some time to flatten it before you were able to come and sew and

1:18:29

and then draw a component on the wall but and then you know even after you left you know

1:18:35

keeping the the long work the in the in the claire story space sort of weighted down for weeks as long

1:18:41

as we could do it basically yeah but just you know the paper itself has a life of its own

1:18:47

it’s a very it doesn’t it’s it’s paper is strong right it’s stronger than we think and so

1:18:53

you know when you can imagine when you’re sewing two pieces together that they will there’s this just the weight of one upon the

1:18:59

other can tear right so the importance of stitch is critical right

1:19:04

yeah yeah and you see that i mean in subtle ways but you see because the paper isn’t incredibly

1:19:09

heavy but you sort of see that little bit of pull even yeah and i love that visually when you’re in front of it

1:19:16

or or seeing just a bit of the stitching or the or the threads you know hanging out the back that’s all really important and i’d love to at some

1:19:23

point do something where i um you know maybe i don’t draw on both

1:19:28

sides but perhaps i do but something is you know in the center of a room and a lot is revealed

1:19:34

so that’s that’s so my head is sort of moving in that direction and um yeah

1:19:42

i think we have one further comment from bill this is an excellent presentation of the evolution of your work it’s great

1:19:48

to see you and knowing that you are keeping busy and while uh talking about your larger works keep in

1:19:53

mind that i’m available anytime to help you with your installation [Laughter]

1:19:58

so wonderful you have a nice bill on you so well with that i’d like to thank

1:20:05

everyone for their questions um we’re just about at 8 30 so

1:20:10

um i think we can wrap things up but uh and thanks for the great conversation

1:20:17

zach uh you know immense uh appreciation for being here and for for

1:20:23

being part of this experiment over the past few months um yeah i will mention that there’s a

1:20:29

video on the on our website on the webpage for the disappearing sky that um features

1:20:34

zachary as well as wayne barewald in a in a conversation it’s about 15 minutes long about some of

1:20:40

the same work so um do you go to our website and look under current exhibitions the

1:20:46

disappearing sky so yeah sean says wonderful talk zach

1:20:51

thank you and thanks sean well thank you everyone and um we will call it a night

1:20:56

and hopefully see you for the next one we have one at the end of the month february 27th

1:21:02

with decolonize this place on a saturday afternoon at noon and i hope you’ll join us for that

1:21:07

so take care everyone all right we’ll see you all soon bye

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