nest video

Arbor Genesis

I found myself sitting in the basement archives of Ottawa U which is under the medical services building at Somerset E. and King Edward, in an attempt to get to know the site better, and as a response to Gruenewald’s questions: Who was here? What happened here? What needs to be conserved? What needs to be created? There are binders to consult in the archives that list possible contents of boxes going back about a hundred years. Not many listings have the word “environment” in them. “ecology” is not listed. I chose one box for the archivist to find for me; it was marked “Environment 1990”. On opening it I came face to face with the first file “SICK BUILDING SYNDROME” in block letters, a 20 page report on how putting ourselves in plastic envelopes within concrete boxes in order to reduce energy consumption is not the road to healthy environmental relationships.

The second thing I came across was this lovely invitation to a tree planting ceremony called Arbor Genesis: “Through the simple act of planting one tree on Convocation day, the 1990-91 Teacher Education graduates begin the creation of a small park of flowering trees for all to enjoy, beside Lamoureux Hall. Please plan on attending this special occasion with your family and friends.” and then there’s a quote from Jean Giono’s The Man Who Planted Trees: “But the transformation took place so gradually that it became part of the pattern without causing any astonishment”

We’ve decided to make a large nest in the tree, which I believe is this little flowering crab, with the left over plant matter from our garden. I’m told that “nido” is nest in Italian, and also means nursery school.  I like this idea of “place”, a first place we all started from.

As far as I can tell, this is the only flowering tree that was planted. What was to be the arbor was planted with maple trees all at the same time at a later date.

wheatfield site

Pierre Gassendi & herman de vries: I walk therefore I am/ambulo ergo sum

Pierre Gassendi was a french philosopher and contemporary of  Rene Decartes, who clashed with him on the possibility of certain knowledge.

According to herman de vries, an eco-artist and scientist who works with randomness and chance, “descarte’s line cogito ergo sum (i think therefore i am) was opposed by his contemporary gassendi (1592-1655) who lived in digne, a town close to roche rousse [the mountain], with the comment ambulo ergo sum (i walk therfore i am).  people walking up the footpath to the sanctuaire de la nature de la roche rousse will find beside the path this gassendi quote cut into the surface of a rock that once fell from a ridge”. (from John K. Grande, 2004, Art Nature Dialogues, p.232) Note; de vries uses no capitals.

Apron/process/re-call

July 16

I was sewing the April 1 pocket onto my apron early this morning- always kind of wondering why I’m doing it. “It’s an act of faith”, is what flits through my mind. Like the thesis, I trust that someday it will get done too. And I realize that I have to trim the corner of the plastic pocket so that it becomes an irregular shape, no longer as squarish as the others. No longer formulaic. And all of a sudden there’ve become overlaps of pocket corner bubbles and embroidered dates overlayed, and it’s getting jumbled up– assuming its OWN shape and telling me what to do. I’m having a relationship with it. I have to leave an opening in the pocket I am finishing sewing in order to insert whatever it is I found at the time which is Mar. 27- and I wonder what it was? that I picked up back then? I think to myself, because I started sewing this plastic bubble a few weeks ago but got tired and only half finished it because I sewed several at that one time, so I’ve forgotten why I made it that size. It’s quite large in comparison to others, and I discover that what I collected was a lovely lichen stained piece of bark.

“Oh it’s so lovely”, I say to it, as I draw it out of the envelope and sew it into the pocket, and still glad I picked it up, still seeing it’s beauty, what drew me to it, and it’s claim on me. It’s   its’?   its…    Its—-   possessive form—- Its claim on me,  it possesses me,   and I remember, as it calls to my mind, our introduction; how I now receive it again, and our shared memory. It re-calls me, as I sew it into the apron.

Also, I notice how, because I have to turn and turn the apron around in order to sew around the plastic pockets, that these bits of flotsam that I’ve picked up, or that have picked me up, the natural substances at least- have started to fall into bits and deteriorate. The transitoriness of what I am doing is evident, that is except for the computer keys and other “man-made” [human-made] plastic substances, which will last forever.

And, getting to the point here- I think of David Jardine (“Unable to Return to the Gods that Made Them” in Under The Tough Old Stars, 2000) yet again, and how he tells it, that the so-called modern man-made materials and particularly “disposables”, are made specifically NOT to be cared about or loved. Neither can they return to the earth when their lifespan is over. I love my apron now, even as it sucks my time and energy, and I have the notion to get some pretty beads and sew them on all over the place. To make it beautiful and complex and “frivolous”. And I think we oughtn’t make things to last, but to be loved.

“Maman” spider procession

BLINK gallery members joined me to make homage to Louise Bourgeois. We had been to see her movie in the spring, The Spider, The Mistress and The Tangerine. Our show was called “Threads”.