Across the Atlantic

This adventure of sorts has begun in Winnipeg. I arrived 12 days ago and was greet ed by a good friend and the stretched Canadian landscape.
Over the next couple of months I am taking part in several projects. This week I completed the first from my homemade programme, an organic style residency at The Tallest Poppy restaurant (www.thetallestpoppy.com (restaurant site) www.poppythetall.wordpress.com (artist residency site) ). Organized by Hannah Godrey (programme coordinator at Ace Art Inc) this micro residency entails sitting in the restaurant for about 5 hours a day, over the course of a weekend, and making art. As the artist you get free fresh food, to converse with the public and absorb the atmosphere of the poppy.
Situated by a taxidermy cast of a polar bear in the corner of the restaurant I made my work that was planned to be simple, methodical and repetitive. Happily being interrupted by ample servings of black pearl coffee and the arrival of brunch, which is an indulgent four course meal. Floating over the hubbub of people in restaurant I became strangely aware that every piece of music that could be heard softly in the background was a song that I too owned. After a weekend of this happening I felt like this place could be a second home.
My project was to fold many origami frogs. I thought to use origami because I wanted my work to be accessible to a wide group of people and I knew that I could workshop and share the frogs eas ily. Plus the simple concept that a healthy environment has many frogs was an idea that I wanted to install in this special restaurant. My experience at the tallest poppy was rewarding, although sometimes I was on caffeine overloads furiously folding paper and being mesmerised by all the squares of colour surrounding me. Eventually I managed to create a piece of work that had a production line and a final piece. My conclusion to finally folding over 57 frogs was to frame 49 of them in a entymology-style case so the eye can enjoy the repetition of symmetry and colours.
Next week I am going to Ace Art Inc to use their project space. The project space is a studio space next to their gallery that artists can apply to use for research, project development and documentation. What I am going to do exactly is still up in the air because what I thought was quite a small space has turned out to be much larger and so my construction mind is going into over drive. I am definitely going to do a drawing of my time in the space (similar to the one I did previously at the coup de pouce residency at L’H du Siege) and I am definitely going to end up making something out of wood. These seem like facts but I still have a week to change my mind.