2022-2023 was an exciting winter for me, a lot of events happening almost on top of each other. This edition of Flying Canoe Volant brought me to some new collaborations, and the realization of some long held dreams.
The Airship was a big project, a collab with GABS, another local Edmonton light based artist allowed me to work on a dreamed of upgrade to my Canoe Chandeliers. Last year after the event my brother Robin and I were looking at all the things we’d set up. That may have been his first time looking at everything set up in a while, so he was pretty excited about some of the work. We came up with the idea of an Airship Canoe, with flapping paddles for propulsion and flame (effect bulbs) for lift. Later that year I talked to GABS about collaborating on a crew, and she developed an amazing soft sculpture cast of birds and rodents. Apparently they were not on good terms with each other, so the title of the installation is “Squabbles” and features captured birds on a Squirrel lead ship. The birds may have been accused of stealing the squirrels nuts, but I imagine they would have an alternate explaination.
I also put together a new set of fabric lanterns, now called the Fab4 (cause there are 4 of them) and got to involve Marissa Mars in painting them. She came in for a day and sprayed the set with my stencils- I love seeing other artists us my stencil set because it always turns out so different than what I do with them.
I also got to make some cut up canoe installations. This is part of a bigger project that I hope to see develop, but that’s top secret. Anyway, first step has happened and they were super fun.
