And then after just a few days of calculated work we had completed an eight foot tall, eight foot wide scaffold billboard of the Great Lakes. It can be disassembled and rebuilt in about forty minutes, is light enough for the two of us to carry wherever we dream. It's not the object that captivates us, but rather its disposability and portability that holds power over us. Set up in a tiny Banff Centre gallery space, the object, entitled 'Beacon', seemed clean, had intriguing shadows, but was somehow too sterile. It needed to go on an adventure.
Thank God for the friend making capacity of Banff; we were able to enlist Sarah Knelman to video document and Carol Sawyer to generate an achingly complete photo essay of our trek. We put on our TH&B moving shirts and gloves and with some light effort were able to chaperone the structure to a picturesque bend in the Bow River. I was most impressed with the sound of the woods, our breathing, the slowly approaching river.
It was a tiny journey, that led to an impressive denouement. As expected, the sign was dwarfed by the magnitude of the mountains, and quite literally swallowed by the Bow River. In the process, the structure was destroyed; because of this, we felt as if we had completed an absurdly tiny yet essential unit of work. The next day the cardboard was in the recycle bin, all save the Great Lakes, which were burned in a fire during a drunken blur with our fellow residency artists. I played banjo. Ivan watched the flames with a mad glee.
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