Lake Sasamat-found object assemblage
This is like a little visual poem. The materials speak for what they are: : a brunt piece of wood, old chunk of painted wood, a machined stock of lumber, some old rusty cut nails, a dangle of rusty wire and a marble. The materials have associations and memories in combination with each other and in isolation.
I just love how burnt wood looks with moss. Beyond the visual effect of how the dark black of charcoal wood looks against the green of moss, on another level the combination of colours and materials speaks to a process of renewal from catastrophe. Part of the natural process of the forest is for it to periodically burn. This burning creates new growth as new nutrients go back into the forest soil.
I am constantly trying to emulate or capture the richness of the forests that thrives in and around Vancouver.
I grew up back east in Hamilton Ontario. Hamilton is generally regarded as an industrial wasteland largely because most folks view the city from the Skyway bridge on the drive from Toronto to the United States, which has a pretty horrific view of Hamilton Bay and the two steel plants belching pollution into the air and water. Currently, Hamilton is more part of the rust belt of the declining Southern Ontario industrial machine. But some areas of Hamilton are very lush with the city surrounded by the Niagara escarpment. I grew up on the West Side of Hamilton, which had a number of opportunities for accessing nature. I am often struck how relative to BC’s Coastal forest how the forest of Ontario seems so stunted in scale.
Since moving to the West Coast in the mid 90s I have been constantly wowed by how big the trees are here and how wet and green the forest is. I love the look of green moss against the brown of the tree trucks. I spent numerous hours in Stanley Park taking pictures of this rich and fertile habitat. I am fascinated by the look and the idea of how a tree can fall over and in time it is transformed in the forest. Even in sometimes unrelenting winter rain, Stanley Park is just so green and this sight is makes the rain a bit more bearable at times.