"shores"

Our neighbours Herb and Fannie were over for a visit this afternoon.  I showed Herb the burlap flake that I made.  He introduced me another vernacular word "shore", or "to shore".   "Shores" are the posts, supports of the flake structure, or any building structures.  It is also used as a verb, "shore" up the longer (a long pole used to make the platform of a flake).  Herb said he would show me how to put the shores up to the longer.  I will go to see him in the next few days.

Fishing Flake sculpture

I picked the most windy day to look for branches and sticks for my flake.  I found some long poles from the field.  They were part of a fence.  Brought in two pieces - not sure what I am going to do with them yet.  I do like the size of them, but how do I address the technical part of the installation:  especially the safety issue.

It feels so good to work with burlap and wax again.  Not sure whether this is working or not.

Installation "A Sense of Place"

I tested everything before I left the apartment yesterday:  MP3 Player, fully charged, file saved on USB.  And what happened when I got to 100 McCaul:  the speakers would not play, the MP3 player died.  They gave me another set of speakers (individual powered), and loaned me an IPod.  George found me a plinth so I didn't have to carry mine over from 205 Richmond

Yael brought in a guest artist to take part in the critique.  Not knowing about the background of the project, he said he could sense this is about something precious (the small sculpture inside the case, artifact), about time.  The 2 channel projection worked well.  Next challenge: multi channel audio???

3D Scanned Fishing Flake

Darryl from 3D Rapid Prototyping couldn't scan the first wood flake that I made because of the size.  After I made the smaller version, I took it down to Darryl again.  It took him a few tries to get it done.  I picked up the "printed" flake this afternoon and spent a couple of hours removing the support material.  The "printed" flake looks and feels quite differently:  not real, alien, flesh like, bleached....

I am very interested in the images that appear on the stl and Rhino files - a "virtual" fishing flake...

Story of the fishing flake

If this "fishing flake" could talk, it would tell us that "a little girl was asked by her mother to go down to the gully to get water ....".  I have looked at this archival photo many times and used it in different presentations, and I have never noticed there was a person standing under the flake until yesterday when Bob forwarded this email to me.

This is very fascinating to see how the stories unfold.... across the ocean...


This is also the power of photograph.  The photograph evokes memories in people I do not know.  The memories of the image bring back to those who live(d) in Pouch Cove are very different from my own.  Mine is constructed and is imagined.  For the people in Pouch Cove, they can identify boats, stages, flakes, houses, people, and how they have changed over time.  

From: Sharon Lewison
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 3:37 PM
To: info@pouchcoveheritage.org
Subject: identification of a photo

To Whom It May Concern:

I have looked with interest in the photos on your site.  

The last photograph is of a fish flake.  If you look really closely you will see that underneath there is a little girl aged 7 or 8 carrying a metal jug. 

She is Veronica Shea; she was told by her mother Julia Shea (nee Constantine), to go and fetch some water in the gully or creek.  Julia was married to John Shea whose family has been in Pouch Cove since the 1790s.

When Veronica got to the road-bridge over the gully she looked up she saw a man with a camera.  He was a stranger and she wondered what he was doing there.

Veronica was born in Pouch Cove in February 1929 in the Shea house near the gully.  

The photograph was taken by a professional photographer whose name I cannot remember, sorry.  It appeared in an encyclopaedia which I think was entitled “Lands and Peoples”.  If I can find my reference to the photographer I will pass it on to you.

Veronica Shea is no longer alive; I am her daughter and I thank your for putting such interesting photos on your site,

Sharon Lewison

London England

Audio narratives

When I mentioned to bhYael about doing an audio piece for the Documentation Practices' end of term project.  She suggested that I should look into directional speakers.

http://mycitylab.eu/blog/2011/04/locustream-promenade
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/directional-loudspeakers.html

This set up only allows the person who is standing under this system to hear the audio, people who are standing outside the range can not hear it.  I talked to numerous people and couldn't find a place where I can rent the system.  At the same time, I was still thinking about using motion sensor to activate the audio piece.  Symon Oliver was going to show me the program that he used.  When I mentioned to Symon that I would like to have voices coming out from different speakers, he said I could do a 2 channel audio in any audio editing program.  Since the narratives are more important to me, I really should spend time on the "contents", rather than presentation.

Another leaning curve.  I bought the Sound Studio program and started learning it.  Because the voices were overlapping so I needed to bring in more audio clips/files.  It took me many hours to put together a 5 minutes piece.  But I am happy with it.  The stories are still there, but they are told in a different manner.  This is more like Glen Gould's radio documentaries The Solitude Trilogy that inspired my to do audio work in the first place, it has taken a round about way for me to get there. I am very excited about this.

"A Sense of Place"

Got my "book" finished!

Book is a traditional form of communication.  If the installation is an audio piece, what if there is another document that provides images and text to allow the viewers to connect, to reinforce the audio narratives.

Using the online publishing program Blurb, I compiled the book "A Sense of Place".  This book is a selected document juxtaposing text and photographs to communicate to the readers the relationships between place and its people.  It contains transcripts extracted from the interviews, photographs of people, surrounding landscape, archival photos and copies of geographical fishing grounds.  The book is organized around three themes:  landscape, fishing and community.  The size of the book is 7"x 7" with 30 pages.

I am not sure how I am going to use this.  Question that I am asking myself is:  would it make a different if I actually make the book myself (from printing to binding etc.)???

Fishing flake sculpture

I wanted to test out the idea of a minature fishing flake (shrinking memories and disappearing culture) so I made a small wood flake (3.5" x 4.5" x 7").  I took it to Skara and asked Steve to cast this in aluminum. Well, Steve talked me out of spending money on casting.  He said he could do them in small pieces and welded them back together.  If I only wanted to see what it looks like in aluminum or in bronze, I should just paint it and see if this is the material that I wanted to have at the end.

Mexico City - Conference

Storytelling, Memories and Identity Constructions:  November 4 – 9, 2011

It was quite an experience in spite of the confusion.  There were 15 of us.  5 from the States, 2 from Turkey, 1 from Taiwan, 2 from UK, 1 from Italy, 1 from Bulgaria, 1 from Mexico, 1 from Denmark, and myself.  They are mostly from Department of Literature, they are professors and PHD students.  I am the only artist and a MFA student.  The colloquium really helped my presentation here in Mexico.  I wasn’t nervous.  I got some good comments and questions.

What is the difference between site specific art and place specific art

What is my position on art 

Fish Flake (3)

George at the Media Centre was so helpful.  We mounted the projector and speaker on the ceiling.  The USB drive went into the little media machine, the machine connected to the projector, audio into the projector, and out to the speaker.  I had my installation!  The hook-up was straightforward, the difficult part was to balance the 4 sets of branches.  It might work better with two people.  Anyway, I had to work with the projected image on the floor.  Since the flake is smaller than the projected image, the sculpture has to sit inside the frame.  The shadows cast on the floor give another perspective.  I don't mind that at all.  I think the installation is working.   Good feedback from the class tonight.

Suggestions:  blur the edges, have multi projections (more oceans), without projections, multi voices.

It was all worthwhile when Sarah said she had never thought of the ocean being a work place for some people.  This is all I want for the work to allow people to reflect, and to look at things from a different perspective.

Fish Flake (2)

Took a long time to balance the branches.  Something about using the branches for this work, not just because they were used traditionally, but their organic shapes.  Richard Fung made a comment about the shapes of these branches.  They reminded him of my Spirit sculptures.

Tested the projection from above and it worked.

Studio Work

Ted's Flake

Went to High Park and collected some branches for the flake.  I was doing this from memory although I do have the video that I took when Ted was explaining the process to me in the summer.  I am looking forward to going back in December so we can finish the model.

I quite like the little marquette that I built using glue - not really traditional method.  I randomly put the branches across.  Something about the gaps in between the branches that told me to stop.  I was thinking about projection, images can be projected through this gaps onto the floor.

Where do you Belong to?

I have a new title for my project:  Where do you Belong to?

Tom said he would host a special Salon to explore the notion of "belonging" on my behalf.  Here is an excerpt from the invitation that I prepared for Tom's Salon group:

“Where do you belong to?” Herb, my neighbor in Pouch Cove asked me when I first met him. I wasn’t sure how to answer this. Do I belong to the place I was born? Do I belong to the place where I just came from? What raced through my mind were all the places that I had been to, lived and settled. Hong Kong, a place I was born and raised, Canada, a place I chose to come to, Botswana, a place I chose to go to work as a volunteer. I now live in Toronto, but call Pouch Cove “home”.

Dictionary of Newfoundland English Online defines the phrase “where do you belong to” as one of the commonest phrases in the Newfoundland vernacular: one is never from or even born in a place, one always belongs to it.

How and when do people find a place that they belong to? Can we not belong to one place so that we can belong to many places? What makes a place a place to belong to?

High Park

Pouch Cove seems so far away, and yet, it is also right here ... inside me.

Met my friend Tom this morning and talked about my work.  Tom suggested that I should leave the audio/video for a while and do other things, perhaps, just to take some time to reflect what I have done so far.  So I took a walk down to High Park.  On my way back, I saw a painter setting up to paint.  Our eyes met and I stopped to talk to her.  She told me about the small water colour that she just started, I told her about my encaustic work.  Just before I was going to continue with my walk, she asked if I knew anything about memory drawing.  A coincidence ... memory???  She told me about how one puts together fragments of memories to make something new, what people choose to remember.  How can this be - meeting someone in the park and talked about memory.  I've been thinking a lot about my recordings in the last few days after presenting my project, after talking to Yael.  "What I am trying to say with my video/audio?"  "This is not supposed to be another outport story, is it?"  "Why is this searching important to me?" "Are there answers to my questions?"

Tracing the time...

I can probably try to do this in Pouch Cove.  But something about the rocks at Cape St. Francis:  back to the tip of the peninsula, end of the road ...

Shoe Cove Beach

August 20, 2011

Can't believe it is time to leave.  In less than 48 hours I'll be back to Toronto.  I really feel that I have only touched upon the surface of what I want to do.  I still have so much to learn from the people here.

Did a hike to Shoe Cove Beach.  Always found something new, something that I did not notice before.  Here is another evidence of a past - how many boats were tied around this metal hook?  Did the people stop here for a "boil up"at the beach, or did they seek shelter from the open sea...

Making of a fishing flake

Went down to see Ted about making the model of a fishing flake now the food fishery is over.  To my surprise he already started working on it.  He showed me what he has done and kept saying "I don't know when we are going to do this, I don't have time now...".  I told him we can continue with this in December when I come back.  At the mean time, I should collect more branches.  So that was my assignment - collecting branches.

End of another food fishery season

I was down by the cove bank this morning and saw a car driving pass the community stage.  The car stopped, a gentleman leaned out from the window, looked over the deserted slipway for a minute or so and drove up.  When he saw me, he stopped the car.  It turned out he was one of the gentlemen I talked to last week.  He said, "it was all over."  The food fishery ended yesterday.  The way he uttered those words gave a sense of "disappointment", or "loss", his eyes were looking pass me into the distance.   I will always remember that.

A new sign indicating the launch is not safe to use is up again.  The launch is managed by DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) and there are talks that they will close the launch instead of repairing it.  I can't imagine Pouch Cove without this slipway where stories, memories become alive during the recreational fishery.

Another day by the cove bank

Three men were bringing their boat in this morning when I was down by the cove bank.  They are from Shoe Cove (the community of Shoe Cove was amalgamated and incorporated into the Town of Pouch Cove in 1987, people still identity themselves that they are from Shoe Cove).  One man was telling me how fishermen used to find the fishing grounds by lining up landmarks:  steeple of the church, the roof of a house, etc.  I was recording this and thought it would be an ideal voice over to go with the stills of the drawings of the fishing grounds that I got from David B.  I was very disappointed when I found out later that I managed to mix up the on and off sequence of the video - another lesson to learn...

Down to the Cape

August 8, 2011

Went down to the Cape in the afternoon.  Did a short hike with Helen and her family to Sleepy Point.  We hiked along the sea cliffs and were greeted by a field of dead stunted trees which have long been bleached white from constant exposure to winds.  They are in all different shapes and forms, twisted and gnarled, as if they want to tell us something.   They are living sculptures.

I am feeling sad that we will be leaving soon.  There is so much that I still want to do - finding out more about the Cape, making a model of fishing stage, talking to more people ...

Phillip Hiscock on recreational fishery

August 9, 2011

Went to see Phillip and discussed my project with him.  I really appreciated what he said about food fishery.  He said, "I recently saw someone's blog saying how she is able to stock up the fish for the winter ...  the food fishery is in fact RE-CREATION(al) the old tradition.  This is what people did, fishing was their livelihood.  They got their fish, salted them for the winter."

Phillip suggested this book:  Mary Hufford, One space, many places

An evening by the cove bank

August 1, 2011

Walked down to the cove bank this evening to see if there were any activities.  A gentleman (Mr. Harold Vater) with a binocular started talking to us.  He said there were six boats out in the sea and someone came in earlier with some big fish.  More people stopped by and soon there were seven of us chatting away.  Every few minutes, one of them would be using the binocular to check on those boats.  They would probably stay by the cove bank until the last boat came in.

..a day in the cove

Well, not a typical day in the cove ... met Jean Claude Roy painting down by the launch, talked to Mr. Moores who was waiting a fishing boat to come back, met the people who went around the Cape to fish, and talked to them while they were cleaning fish, went home with some cod fillet.

I wanted to see if Ted was around and if he was ready to build the model with me.  I walked by his house and he wasn't home.  So I carried on and went down to the slipway and hoped to see some people down there (recreational fishery started July 23 and run until August 14).  I guessed the big storm this morning didn't allow people to go out.   However I saw a person with an easel painting away down on the slipway.  I stopped and watched him paint.  Looking at the painting I knew who the painter was.   It was Jean Roy Claude - well known Newfoundland artist who spends time between France and Newfoundland.  I asked him if he would let me video him while he painted.  He was quite ok with that.

A couple of hours later along the bank, I was talking to Mr. Moores when a fishing boat came in.  Mr. Moores commented that he would not have gone out today, "the wind will take the boat away when they turn off the engine", said Mr. Moores.  During the cod food fishery, it is so common to see the older men hang around the bank, they watch the boats go out and wait until the boats come back.

I went down to the slipway and talked to the people from the fishing boat.  They agreed for me to video them when they cleaned the fish.  Darrel told me he would go out everyday to fish if he could in the next three weeks.  Darrel said, "...when I was a young fellow, fish was a livelihood.  Fish stages .... are everywhere."

I couldn't help imagining the fishermen in the past stood and looked out to the cove from the same spot that Jean Roy Claude was at this afternoon -  would the fishermen see the same colours that Jean Roy Claude saw, or would they only contemplate what the day would bring them?

Christina B.

July 22, 2011

Christina and her family moved to Pouch Cove five years ago because of work.  Christina and her daughter took a drive around town during the storm.  I will be using some of her video footage later on.  We not only talked about Igor, but also her outlook in life.  Christina and her husband are very involved with the community.  They take part/volunteer in various community events.  Christina ran for council not long after they arrived and won.  She probably became one of the first CFA who sat in the council.  She stayed for one term and chose not to run again because of family reasons.

Building a fishing stage and a flake

I have been talking to Ted Sullivan in the last few days about making a scale model of a fishing stage and a flake.  He didn't say no to me when I first asked him.  He said we could do this one evening after supper.  He suggested that we should do the flake first and he did a drawing on a piece of cardboard.  The second time he showed me the type of branches/sticks that we will use.  The third time he showed me how to make a cut on a piece of wood so that another piece of wood can rest on top of it.  Hopefully when I see him next time we will be making the flake.

I have learnt not to rush things.  My priority is not their priority...

Cape St. Francis

July 18, 2011

Spent the afternoon up at the Cape:  the very northern tip of the Avlon peninsula.  The bits and pieces of the old stage that I saw from last year were mostly taken away by Igor.  I still believe there is something magical about being at the edge, the limitation of what we think we can see, and the infinity that lies beyond what we can perceive.

Helen Forsey, a writer from Ontario, spends her time between Ontario and NL.  She is proof-reading her book while she is here.  The book is about the caboose and will be published in the fall.

I remember David Bragg told me that he spent five years up in Cape St. Francis when his father was a lighthouse-keeper and the family stayed at the lighthouse-keeper house.  He recalled the times that when the waves were so high that his father would wait for a break of the surf and called out for him to jump across to get to the road.  It was a 3 miles walk from the Cape to Pouch Cove.  

Cara E. (Shane Nursery)

July 14, 2011

Cara owns a nursery in Pouch Cove.  She has the business just over 6 years.  This is a seasonal operation so both Cara and her husband have a full time job as well.  Igor completely destroyed her nursery which includes three greenhouses.  All three greenhouses were levelled.  Her own insurance would not cover the damage because it was act of nature.  After more then nine months of perseverance Cara finally received compensation two weeks ago through the Fire and Emergency Services of Newfoundland and Labrador.  She can now rebuild her business for next year's operation.

Cara and I talked for about 45 minutes or so.  Only when we were done then I realized the recorder was stopped at the 7 minutes mark.  I have some video clips and am going to work with what I have for now.  Cara asked me to go back to see her if I need to retape the interview.  Lesson number one in recording: make sure the recorder is fully charged.




Audio:  A13PCP13a, b (8 min)

a thought....

I picked up some long green grass on a walk yesterday and started arranging them with the image of the wiggling fence in mind.  I did an encaustic piece with the grass.  I am back to fences again in my work.  Perhaps I am looking at containment and preservation, to build a fence is to "contain memory and story of the place".

I have been asking people to express their association with the place and what is important to them about the place.  People (the community) look out for each other, the ocean, fishing are expressed by all of the local people whom I talked to.  A thought comes to mind this morning:  do I really need to build a sculpture here to represent the place when the elements that describe the place already exist?  Why do I need to create a sculpture (on site) that represents the power of the ocean when the ocean is just right there for us to look at and to feel?

People talked about fishing stages, flakes in the interviews.  I would like to get a few locals who can help me build some models of stages and flakes.  I want to pursue this.

Sharon Wall

July 12, 2011

Sharon grew up in Pouch Cove, left and came back to raise her children.  She wanted her children to grow up in the same environment that she grew up - being free.  She loves the ocean although the ocean took one of her sons.  I did a short video "Remembering Pouch Cove: Traditional Knowledge" in March 2011 about the accident and how traditional knowledge helped families find closure.  Sharon also talked about another sealing disaster that happened in 1914 in which her mother's grand father was one of the victims.  This sealing disaster is documented in Cassie Brown's "Death on the Ice:  The great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914".   Sharon also mentioned an incident in Pouch Cove that how two brothers got picked up in Quidi Vidi when the packed ice that they were on broke and carried them out.

Ap V.

July 12, 2011

I have always enjoyed talking with Ap.  Ap lives in the house which used to be a school.  He retired from working with garages in St. John's and now does wood work making traditional garbage box, wishing well, christmas decorations.  Ap made a storage box for us last year.  He also makes wood panels for me to do my encaustic work.   He is not a fisherman but he surely knows the conditions of the water by feeling the winds, by looking at the clouds.  I always say that I will only go out in a boat when Ap says it is ok to go.   Ap has a saw mill up in the wood.  There was some damage during Igor and Ap recounted the ride that usually takes him 10 minutes took him all morning because the trail was completely blocked by trees that toppled down.  He had to use chain-saw to cut down the branches and cleared the path.

Gwen H.

July 11, 2011

Mrs. Gwen was from the north side of town, went to the south side to work in one of the stores in Pouch Cove when she was 16 and married the son of the owners of the store nine years later and became the matriarch of the family.  She closed the store when the government introduced GST in 1991.  The hour long audio covered many aspects of life in Pouch Cove from making hays, churning butter, to fishing, sealing, to going dancing in the SUF hall.  Her face lit up when she recalled some of the stories.



Audio:  A11PCP11a, b (60 min)

The Town of Pouch Cove

Went to see Barbara Tilley (Town Clerk)  this morning.  She showed me some photos that were taken during Hurricane Igor and referred me to Fire and Emergency Services NL that could provide me with statistic of the disaster dealing with number of families who needed help.   Barbara said approximately $20,000  was compensated to residents impacted by Igor and about $300,000 to The Town for repairs of roads and infrastructure.


http://www.gov.nl.ca/fes/

Deanne F.

July 7, 2011

Deanne is a journalist with CBC.  I first met Deanne at the Pouch Cove Open Studios.  Deanne was not in Pouch Cove when Igor hit, so our conversation was mostly around Pouch Cove, about her relationship with her neighbours (that is very important), and how her neighbours supported her when she was raising her family.  Deanne lives in the south side of town (where the Catholic church is) and I realize how little that I know about that area of town.  Deanne is going to introduce me to Mrs. Gwen H., and other people who mean so much to her.  I am looking forward to that.

Deanne shared with me some life changing events that happened to her and her close friends during Igor (although she wasn't here because of health reasons) and the recent severe storm in February this year.  I really appreciated her sharing the stories.

Deanne felt so strongly about her neighbours, how her neighbours looked out for her.  This reminds me of my experience on Fogo Island where the sense of  community centres around neighbours look out for each other.  It is the way of life.

".... a tree that we planted was cut down because our neighbour built a deck and the tree would block the view of the ocean.  We didn't have to do that, but this is a neighbourly thing to do ...."

Audio:  A10PCP10a, b (50 min)