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artist's statement by Donald Lawrence |
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In 2006 Will Garrett-Petts and I worked together on a project for
the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. In “The Lab,” the Gallery’s
experimental projects space, we each recollected one of Oak Bay’s
islands. Through a poem and video Will recalled childhood memories
of Mary Tod island – the island off Turkey head that he and other
locals knew colloquially as Jimmy Chicken Island. During the seven
weeks of our exhibition Witness Marks: The Exotic Close to Home I
used The Lab as a residency and working studio. During off hours I’d
paddle out to Fiddle Reef, working to conduct a personal survey of
the islet that is otherwise a small blip on nautical charts. In such
a back-and-forth manner between Fiddle Reef and The Lab I drew large
scale maps — of the reef at various states of the tide — prior to
creating a sculptural of the site.
Like the preliminary conceptual drawing, the sculpture
represented present day Fiddle Reef at the same time as imagining a
return of the former lighthouse to the site as a façade-like
construction alongside the existing aid to navigation. This
sculpture is culled together from an array of found materials: |
“Fiddle Reef
Map,” large drawn map of Fiddle Reef, 2006 |
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“Fiddle Reef Remembered,” installation view
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 2006
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pieces of rubber boots, rain capes and such that carry a reference
to weather at the same time as mimicking the wet blackness of the
rocks; whole and disassembled furnishings that were gathered from
garage sales and that speak to the domestic side of the “Exotic
Close to Home” equation, and such other miscellaneous items as a
small, crude toy boat. Collectively these assembled items are
somewhere between a very careful representation of the site and the
random abandon of a flea market. |
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“Fiddle Reef
Journal,” measured drawing of lighthouse site, 2006, 2009 |
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| With my older brother Hamish My sister
Alysoun’s daughter and husband Smith,
Bay of Fundy, 1972 |
Drumbeg, Gabriola Island, c. 2000
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As part of this project we invited members of the public to
contribute their own island stories. Resultant contributions in the
form of hand-drawn “story maps,” drawings, and physical artifacts
accumulated in the exhibition space, largely indistinguishable from
many of the things that Will and I brought to the space. Viewers,
participants actually, as the public were invited to contribute
their own stories of islands (by way of drawings, maps, and physical
artifacts that accumulated in the space), offered many
characterizations of my island construction. One such viewer noted
that “it looks like a jellyfish” (for the manner in which left over
thread ends hung down from its entirely stitched-together
components) and another noted that “it looks like a raft.” Such a
comment prefigures my present projects.
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The last work produced during the project in the AGGV’s Lab was a
watercolour sketch that depicts the reincarnated lighthouse as a
“Lighthouse Kit” that can be carried by kayak.
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From this, two
projects have emerged that I am currently working with.
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above: measured drawing of raft (salvaged dock from
Paul Lake), 2008. below: reconstructing raft (salvaged dock
from Paul Lake), 2010 |
In the first of these current projects a dock salvaged from a
lake near Kamloops may serve as a floating platform for a fully
assembled Lighthouse Kit. In this incarnation the Lighthouse may be
transported — towed by kayak — to Fiddle Reef or more freely at
other locations, becoming in effect a more universal, “Everyman’s”
Portable Lighthouse. |
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The second of these current projects is a potential realization
of a Lighthouse Kit as a temporary installation on site at Fiddle
Reef — effectively a realization of Fiddle Reef Remembered as
originally imagined. Towards this I am working on further models
that may be used as a proposal for such a project. |
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“Fiddle Reef Remembered,” preliminary drawing for
model, 2009 |
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The interests of mapping and public engagement are
intrinsic to several interdisciplinary research projects that I have
undertaken at Thompson Rivers University in collaboration with
colleagues and students in such programs as English, Geography and
Sociology. The Fiddle Reef project in fact represents one of the
first times that such interdisciplinary research (by way, for
example, of engaging the public in activities of mapping personal
experience) has impacted my own artistic production in a significant
way.
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the summer of 2010, the Portable Lighthouse took shape on its raft
in the yard of Donald Lawrence's cabin on Gabriola Island. The photo
shows the standing-up frame - a life-size lighthouse more than 30
feet tall - with its lantern/ beacon lit. The raft includes such
useful extra features as oars and a folding deck
chair. "In this state," the artist commented, "it looks equally
unwieldy and good - take your pick." He has yet to install some
smaller fittings and the fabric covering. Before he left the
island to carry on with other projects at home and in Australia,
Donald collapsed the frame, and left the lighthouse to await the
next stage, when it will be re-erected, "finished", launched, and
towed behind a kayak.
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