Artist's Statement
Point Pleasant Park, Artist's Statement
(all pieces in this show are $2000.00 framed except where specifically marked. The framed dimension is about 28"x36")
It takes four to eight hours to make a landscape in the Park. Sitting somewhere in the wild growth, I shuck the city and acclimatize to the rhythms of nature. The sun is on my skin. There are the sounds of wind through the leaves, and squirrels tell me they see me. Chickadees sometimes land on my drawing board. Crows call. The ocean is blazing and sparkling with sunlight. It’s so bright I can’t look at it. The waves are in constant rhythmic motion. The tide comes in. The sun moves across the sky. I can smell the earth and leaves. There is imperceptible movement; the green process of chlorophyll, the upward twisting of bark and branches.
These natural movements of growth are always there, a background of life, a gently humming wavelength, that is largely unnoticed in city living.
Many people visit the Park. Leased from the Queen for a pound a year, it is a special element of Halifax that is cherished by its inhabitants and shared by joggers, walkers, dogs, children, talkers, baskers, readers, and thinkers. They walk along the civilized paths and roads, that are tamed lines carved through natural disorder.
In 2003 hurricane Juan rolled over the park making open spaces where there had been dense forest, and a tangle of fallen trunks where shaded trees once grew. Now, though, six years later, there is the vision of slow rebirth. Some of the old pines survived and stand tall still, watching over the quick growth of the new generation of small trees coming up amongst the fallen branches. The little trees complete the circle; the green creative growth of life balancing the past destructive forces of the storm.