Nuit Blanche Art Hop Ottowa

We (Thea Alvin and her Team) were invited to create an art installation at La Nuit Blanche in Ottowa. This is an all night 'art hop' where the whole city comes alive with creative arts. Film, dance, crafts, exhibitions, theatre and music are all represented and people can saunter through the city eating and drinking and taking in the shows..

After quite a bit of brain storming, we decided that the easiest and most impressive installation we could create at short notice would be a free standing arch made of shopping trollies. The site we were allocated was in the ley of a huge church which in daylight looked a little frightening but by night became the perfect backdrop to our installation.

After asking nicely at every store with carts in a 20 kilometer radius, we did what came naturally and stuffed carts in pairs into the back of the station wagon, stealthily...

 

Dry Stone

A selection of the stone work photographs from my time in Vermont. A large patio with retaining dry-stone wall and fire pit at a residential home; a dry-stone wall along a goat pasture and a large dry-stone pear installation at a museum.

Fall in Vermont

In September 2012 I went to Vermont to work on several projects with master stonemason, Thea Alvin. We used several different materials in the installations we created, from field stone to granite to shopping carts. 

Arch made of shopping carts for the Ottawa Nuit Blanche Sept 2012 and a Cairn made to honour the Coach House in Calais, Vermont.

A path laid for a community centre in Montpelier, Vermont and a stone wolf I carved one evening after dinner.

A wintry wall of round Vermont field stone

From Thea, I learnt the importance of considering where the water will flow through any installation as well as the many ways to instill strength and longevity in a structure.  Most importantly, I learnt how to feel for the best balance between a construction and its surroundings as well as between one stone and the next, not to mention the delicate balances between members of the team..!