Gwaii Haanas Exhibition 2016
In deciding how best to describe my experience in Gwaii Haanas I was struck by the great beauty and also the fragility of the place. The recent earth quake seems to have caused little damage except the alteration to the hot springs which are slowly returning as they did after the earth quake in the 1940's.
Even while being managed and preserved by Man, it would seem that this special place has more to fear from manmade disasters than natural ones, the large human foot print being left on the Biscoff Islands and events like the Simushir disaster, where a fuel-laden cargo ship lost power in gale force winds last winter was very close to wrecking on the west coast of Gwaii Haanas.
One of the challenges of this amazing residency was the amount of material and information I gathered enough for several shows. For the Gwaii Haanas show in January at the Haida Gwaii Museum I have chosen handmade paper made strictly from plant material. The long 6 feet forms are reminiscent of the trees and poles and describe the fragility of place. My papers consist of cedar bark, grass & moss all gathered locally and abaca. One piece has polaroids imbedded within its. In the early 70's I used polaroids for reference as film took so long to get developed. Each paper is accompanied by vessels made of cedar bark, seaweed and an actual palette rock from the museum collection similar to the one I found and donated in the 1970's.
Luminescence
Matt Miles, Rosa Quintano Allo and I also colloborated on a piece for the exhibition called luminescence. It combined Rosa's strong drawing and painting skills, my hand made plant paper and Matt film experience we met once during the year in Vancouver. (See bottom row of photos)
Even while being managed and preserved by Man, it would seem that this special place has more to fear from manmade disasters than natural ones, the large human foot print being left on the Biscoff Islands and events like the Simushir disaster, where a fuel-laden cargo ship lost power in gale force winds last winter was very close to wrecking on the west coast of Gwaii Haanas.
One of the challenges of this amazing residency was the amount of material and information I gathered enough for several shows. For the Gwaii Haanas show in January at the Haida Gwaii Museum I have chosen handmade paper made strictly from plant material. The long 6 feet forms are reminiscent of the trees and poles and describe the fragility of place. My papers consist of cedar bark, grass & moss all gathered locally and abaca. One piece has polaroids imbedded within its. In the early 70's I used polaroids for reference as film took so long to get developed. Each paper is accompanied by vessels made of cedar bark, seaweed and an actual palette rock from the museum collection similar to the one I found and donated in the 1970's.
Luminescence
Matt Miles, Rosa Quintano Allo and I also colloborated on a piece for the exhibition called luminescence. It combined Rosa's strong drawing and painting skills, my hand made plant paper and Matt film experience we met once during the year in Vancouver. (See bottom row of photos)