slippages in the Studio: About my process
The studio is where I begin to map out the workflow. Back in the research phase, I take a lot of photos. Some get printed out and put up on the wall - I find that by doing that I start to narrow my focus. I like to put notes and research materials up on the wall ... to think about, and rearrange.
I research obsessively. I follow tangents. I'll track down the people that wrote the books or journal articles, and ask them all kinds of things - mining for the stories and information they didn't write about. These things are sometimes more interesting, or surprising, or tasty - like the recipe for Saskatoon berry bush pie I got from the glaciologist who explained hydrology to me. He got it from a guide who helped him fix some equipment - who said it was an old family recipe from when his family moved to the prairies from England made (I made the pie - a bit sour-tangy, but interesting flavour).
I draw and paint to process what I'm thinking and reading about.
I lay out the rocks, and pebbles, and bits of bark and moss, and other souvenirs from my trips. And always, I think of the two meanings of souvenir - related to both the object and the memory.
In the case of the glacier, I wanted to decide if and how much agency it had, how it was situated within its ecology, how that ecology was influenced by its physical and chemical properties, as well as the anthropological aspects. I wanted to think about solastalgia (the distress that is experienced when your environment changes, but you are unable to leave), and how that would affect a glacier.
I knew what I wanted to do when I woke up one night, and realized it was about slippages. Of time, and through space, and I asked myself what that would look like. I wanted to write down the language of glaciers, and wondered what that would sound like.
I knew that I wanted to do a graphic score titled slippages ...
I research obsessively. I follow tangents. I'll track down the people that wrote the books or journal articles, and ask them all kinds of things - mining for the stories and information they didn't write about. These things are sometimes more interesting, or surprising, or tasty - like the recipe for Saskatoon berry bush pie I got from the glaciologist who explained hydrology to me. He got it from a guide who helped him fix some equipment - who said it was an old family recipe from when his family moved to the prairies from England made (I made the pie - a bit sour-tangy, but interesting flavour).
I draw and paint to process what I'm thinking and reading about.
I lay out the rocks, and pebbles, and bits of bark and moss, and other souvenirs from my trips. And always, I think of the two meanings of souvenir - related to both the object and the memory.
In the case of the glacier, I wanted to decide if and how much agency it had, how it was situated within its ecology, how that ecology was influenced by its physical and chemical properties, as well as the anthropological aspects. I wanted to think about solastalgia (the distress that is experienced when your environment changes, but you are unable to leave), and how that would affect a glacier.
I knew what I wanted to do when I woke up one night, and realized it was about slippages. Of time, and through space, and I asked myself what that would look like. I wanted to write down the language of glaciers, and wondered what that would sound like.
I knew that I wanted to do a graphic score titled slippages ...
I would like to acknowledge the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies in supporting this project.
