I

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

accumulation/ablation

by

Diane Edith Colwell

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF ART

CALGARY, ALBERTA

SEPTEMBER, 2010

©Diane Edith Colwell 2010 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition

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ABSTRACT

This support paper accompanies the thesis exhibition "accumulation/ablation" held at The Nickle Arts Museum from August 13 to September 17, 2010. The paper is structured into three chapters with the first section providing the background and the theoretical and cultural influences that have contributed to and inspired my work. Here I examine my research involving the socio-political concerns of landscape, nature and experience and the critical dialogue on art and photography. In the second chapter I survey some of my previous work and address issues relating to representation and reproduction. The final chapter and conclusion discuss the thesis exhibition and how the artworks refer to each other in regards to the real, the reproduction and illusion. The installation is comprised of three related and complementary bodies of work that incorporate photographs, mixed-media images, found objects, artefacts, documents and books. IV

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Clyde McConnell whose support and guidance throughout my program was greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank my committee members for their support and professional expertise: Christine

Sowiak, Peter Deacon and Doug Brown assisted me with their pertinent dialogues and questions. I gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance from the Faculty of Graduate

Studies, the Faculty of Fine Arts, the Alberta Art Foundation and the Calgary Board of

Education.

Many other faculty members have also contributed to my MFA program and I would like to acknowledge the contributions of Linda Carreiro, Paul Woodrow and Eric

Cameron for their dedication, expertise and commitment in guiding my course and studio work. I also wish to thank Arthur Nishimura, Geoffrey Simmons, Bill Laing, Jean-Rene

LeBlanc, John Stocking and Linda MacCannell for their friendly and constructive help and encouragement.

I am grateful to the excellent and friendly support staff, including; Samira Jaffer,

Sheila Harland, Rick Caulkins, Nathan Tremblay, Jim Williams, Julia Ross-Roustan,

Anthony Reimer, The Nickle Arts Museum staff and The Banff Centre faculty. I appreciate the contributions and camaraderie from my fellow graduate students.

Many friends and family have supported me with their skills and wisdom these past two years and have contributed a great deal to my progress. I would especially like to thank Ialeen, Bob, Diane, Doug and James Colwell, Maurice de St. Jorre, John Will,

Shaun Fluker, Chris Cran, Noel Begin, Emilie van der Hoorn, Melissa Malkas and my friends at Stride Gallery who have kept me grounded in the community. V

TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPROVAL PAGE II

ABSTRACT Ill

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IV

TABLE OF CONTENTS V

CHAPTER ONE: SOURCES OF INSPIRATION, THEORY AND HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS IN MY WORK 1 Introduction 1 Relationships Between Art Theory and My Work 3 The Human/Nature Dichotomy in Relation to Direct Experience 5 Cultural Construction of Landscape and Nature 8 Imagination, Beauty and The Sublime 9 Environmentalism and Spirituality 13 History of Canadian Art: Romanticism, Pictorialism and Realism 17 Contemporary Artists Who Respond to Nature and Environment 20 CHAPTER TWO: PREVIOUS BODIES OF WORK, IDEAS AND COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS 23 The Containment and Packaging of Nature (Resourcism) 23 Research in Archives and Collections in Relation to My Work 26 Straight Photography and "The Real" 27 Painting and Photography: The Manipulated Polaroid Photographs & Reproduction..31

CHAPTER THREE: MY WORK IN THE MFA EXHIBITION 36 "accumulation/ablation" (2010) 36 "Illusions of a Mediated Experience of Time, Place and Self (2010) 37 "backyard: a quotidian chronicle" (July 2008 - August 2010) 38 "Mountains and Memory: The Real and The Reproduction" (2010) 40 Conclusion 42

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPY 43

APPENDIX A 47 Diane Colwell "Mountains and Memory: The Real and The Reproduction", (2010); Legend: Identification list and diagrams of items and locations in left plinth: 47

APPENDIX B 49 Diane Colwell "Mountains and Memory: The Real and The Reproduction", (2010); Legend: Identification list and diagrams of items and locations in right plinth: 49 1

CHAPTER ONE: SOURCES OF INSPIRATION, THEORY AND HISTORICAL

PRECEDENTS IN MY WORK

Introduction

I investigate ways of understanding the world through different systems of visual response and interpretation along with concerns among disciplines of science, environmentalism and law. My work explores and tries to reveal the affinities and common processes that various disciplines may share in theory, research methodology and documentation, specifically the working methods of artists, scientists, explorers and mountaineers. Through research into their histories I seek relationships to my own experiences as an artist and a mountaineer.

The historical idealized and romantic views of nature may no longer be possible, but there is still a need to find a balance in our co-existence with nature and a sustainable relationship with it. When the environment is perceived in an objectified manner as a resource intended for mankind's use what are the implications? Can a search for meaning, truth and beauty through the artist collaborative process of discovery, response and creation aid in our appreciation of the conservation of our selves?

My research also involves critical investigations of the contemporary, conceptual and formal aspects inherent in photography. My work explores ideas of representation through time, memory, myth and reality. Some of the questions that guide this aspect of my research are: What is photography's responsibility now, compared to the role of photography in the past, in regards to its role and effect in portraying reality or a moment 2 of truth? With the advent of new digital media and powerful technologies has the responsibility and interpretation of photography shifted to new ways of constructing and understanding reality?

The Canadian Arctic and the Rocky Mountains can be considered as frontiers not only in how they operate as colonial property or as something to be conquered, but also in the realm of myth and identity. Wilderness can be experienced as a vast and remote milieu and/or as an "idea" that can function as a spiritual source in our imaginations. In my art practice I investigate the connections to the landscape and nature on a collaborative and experiential level, engaging the ideas and meanings of beauty and The

Sublime. My work involves mapping, borders, ownership and possession; these investigations facilitate my long-standing concerns with the conservation of the environmental, political and geographic borders and the legal aspects of resource use.

Within these fields I use a visual language based on narrative; grids and series are utilized indicating the ideas of place, personal identity, memory and relationships. I pursue and respond to these ideas structured within dualities including; life/death, human/nature, wilderness/development, exhaustion/renewal and beauty/The Sublime.

My mountaineering background has influenced and directed my aims as an artist in dealing with nature, the landscape and the environment. Previous bodies of work have dealt with the ideas of the containment, packaging and consuming of nature. For this research rather than implementing an indirect "looking out at" or ironic commentary I wanted to investigate the ideas of a direct, first hand and intuitive experience within the environment and with other people. 3

For my MFA program I wanted to use this time to concentrate on responding to my subjects in a theory-based, critical and contemporary manner. One of the more relevant and intriguing research directions that has arisen for me these past two years concerns the ideas of "The Real" and "The Reproduction" and how these concepts impact on representation, realism and photography in contemporary art. Another ongoing concern I have involves research on beauty and The Sublime and the importance of aesthetics in contemporary art.

Relationships Between Art Theory and My Work

I find that art theory provides a constant guide and locus for my own autobiographical concerns and experiences. I am inspired by other readings and influences from a variety of sources (art, philosophy, music, literature, the environmental movement, science and law). I find the combination of experiencing art, reading, thinking, writing and discussing to be a rewarding and inspirational process integral to my art practice. This recent program of study has added to my awareness and knowledge of the historical progression of art, art theory and philosophy; it has given me a clearer understanding of my previous artistic directions and also suggested new inquiries for additional layers of research. I am drawn to the ideas and theories that already have some connection and relevance to my own research and find that my appreciation for academic inquiry within my art practice is enriched and broadened. One example of this aid in understanding my artwork is an idea that Gilles Deleuze presents in Francis Bacon: The

Logic of Sensation when he writes about Expressionist painting and how it is concerned 4 with the sensations of response and gesture. Another challenging concept is his notion of "bodies without organs" a difficult and complex theory regarding a freedom from restrictions, institutions and boundaries to enable a liberation of one's process of making artwork (Deleuze 1981:33-43).

Writers like Barbara Bolt and Richard Kearney question the limits of representation and they both emphasize the united processes of the artist, the artwork and the viewer. In my previous bodies of work involving loops of images surrounding the gallery space I was aware of the audience's role of activating the artwork through their presence, response and memories; the ideas of time, movement and duration as a cinematic device was explored. The French writer Nicolas Bourriaud in Relational Aesthetics considers the viewer as integral to the artist's intention of aiding in the formation of meaning within a social and interactive setting. Because of the Italian writer Francesca Alfana Miglietti's book Extreme Bodies I became much more aware of my own body and presence while working on the accompanying video for my recent exhibition of photographs mounted together to form a continuous loop or band encircling the gallery entitled,

"circumambient/circumflex/circumfuse/circumscribe/circumscription" (2009). I wanted to incorporate a direct and physical connection with the camera based on my own body movements, perspective and perceptions as opposed to an outward view or gaze. The video resulted in a mediated format that facilitated the continuation and realization of my other formal and conceptual research ideas (time, repetition, stuttering, flow and figures within the landscape).

I am aware of and sympathetic to the premise of landscape as a social, cultural and economic construct. The association of wilderness and Canadian identity within The 5

Group of Seven and the role of Romanticism have also inspired me to explore their sources and intentions. I approach my work in as informed a way as possible, searching and learning from other artists to gain understanding towards making meaningful work.

This research and my process of making art is a path of discovery and demonstrates how important it is to be open to finding other connections and influences through a process of exploration and chance; it includes opportunities to wander, stray, veer and refract. This deviation from the original direction opens up possibilities to imagine and create.

The Human/Nature Dichotomy in Relation to Direct Experience

I am concerned with the idea of the human/nature dichotomy and how humankind has been perceived as being removed and isolated from the natural world; this perception has its origins from preceding generations, often based on Christian biblical writings as in

Genesis 1:26, where man is considered to have dominion over the earth and all living creatures. This viewpoint and attitude that people are removed, different and superior to nature is problematic for the environmental movement and has had a detrimental effect on humankind because it separates us from other animals, the natural world and our connection and place within the universe. Prior to this Christian outlook animistic beliefs were integral to indigenous and primitive peoples and linked us to the natural world.

With most of us now living in cities we are often distanced from natural environments and there is a lack of close interaction within nature and a resulting sense of loss.

A major direction in my research deals with the question of how nature is used by humankind to continue with the objectification and separation of nature from our selves. 6

Within my art I want to reveal our desire and need for a direct and personal experience with our natural environment in order to realize our connections and interdependence with nature; I hope to convey a feeling of wonder and surprise that can change us and make us aware of the need to protect the earth. In the poem "The Summer Day" by

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver, she seems to capture the simple joy and celebration of wandering and being when she writes: "how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields".

Experiencing nature in second-hand ways through photographs, souvenirs, or movies is often a limited and removed activity. An example of this association is when tourists prefer to visit the gift shop to collect reproductions of the landscape scene rather than directly walking around and experiencing the place. As the late American author and critic Susan Sontag writes in On Photography, tourists can be seen as "image junkies" having the compulsion to take photographs as a way of objectifying reality. By turning the act of taking pictures into an activity in and of itself, a sense of power results for the photographer and the real event is distanced, compromised and mediated (Sontag

1973:3-11).

In a body of work entitled "Tourist Views" (1994-1997) I photographed gift shop souvenirs, vintage landscape images of idealized vistas, and taxidermy wildlife museums to comment on the consumable aspect of nature and the removed second-hand experience. These idealized images conformed to a cultural expectation of what was necessary in a landscape scene to merit approval of a place worthy of acknowledgement and intended for mass consumption. My interpretation of these representations intended to signify a sense of loss and distant memory of the importance of direct first-hand 7 experience. These scenes and reproductions can be appreciated as entertaining kitsch on one level yet serve my critique of our transference of cultural expectations and materialism onto the natural world. While in tourist destinations like Banff and Jasper I have seen thousands of people spending their time in town shopping, eating and visiting museums, but relatively few people are out in the mountains hiking and making their own discoveries of the natural environment. My artistic aim is to emphasize the gap between first-hand and second-hand experiences of nature and to make apparent and improve the human/nature dichotomy that I find so problematic.

On my recent spring trip to New York City I finally visited the American Museum of Natural History and was amazed to see the dioramas of North American Mammals.

The scenes were uncannily successful in capturing the detail and sensation of many of the natural locations and animals that I have encountered in Western Canada and the

Canadian Arctic. Yet when reproduced in this re-created manner nature is viewed as isolated, framed and removed from us. While watching the excited crowds file by I thought that for so many of the visitors this will be the closest experience they ever have to many of these real places and creatures. I recently saw the beautiful black and white photographs of these dioramas by the Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto that he took in the 1990s; his response when he first saw them was that he felt like he was on drugs. 8

Cultural Construction of Landscape and Nature

The idea of a constructed and invented landscape is formed by many cultural and ideological perceptions that affect how meaning is produced and how we relate to, analyze and interpret our environment. Idealized landscape beauty and The Sublime afforded the 19th Century Romantics and German Idealists an individual and unique way of experiencing nature. In Wake of the Imagination Richard Kearney comments on the

Romantics' limitations in relating to the real world. He refers to William Wordsworth's metaphor of the romantic imagination being imperilled, utilizing the image of the poet as a solitary recluse withdrawing from the world; romantic fictional images continued to be formed, but were powerless to transform the modern world of political turmoil and social conflict (Kearney 1984:185). This reference reveals the inadequacies of trying to relate to and contribute to a meaningful interpretation of the world with a lack of knowledge and understanding of current events and differing viewpoints.

The English painter John Constable painted idyllic and peaceful landscape scenes with the apparently repressed awareness of the poverty of the labourers who were revolting against the injustices of the times. When making and looking at contemporary landscape art now there is a heightened awareness and undercurrent of the natural and human caused disasters and habitat destruction that is occurring at an accelerated pace

(Henry; Love 2006:7). The curators Karen Henry and Karen Love comment on the

Picturesque as it is considered today in the following quote: "The tyranny of science and industry, security, compromise of individual freedoms and ever-present technology are the frames through which human and nature geography can be contested, threatened, 9 exclusive, marketable and experienced vicariously through a camera lens." (Henry;

Love 2006:9). My work investigates the role of the landscape when considered as a contemporary picturesque response that acknowledges the uneasy context of environmental concerns, yet can still present a longing for or a desire for a connection to nature. I want to discover a relationship and union between beauty, nature and our selves, but to also represent an uncertainty and anxiousness concerning our unsustainable reliance on natural resources and the fragility of the environment.

Simon Schama discusses in Landscape and Memory the indivisible realms of nature and human perception, emphasizing that they are not separate. He finds that landscape is not so much about nature, but is a result of the work of the mind and that scenery is built up from memory, imagination and is culturally determined (Schama

1995:8-18). Ever since agriculture was developed 10,000 years ago societies have isolated and modified nature and ecosystems, sometimes for the better (well planned cities, gardens, parks and protected areas) and often for the worse (resource extraction, salmon farms, suburbs and lawns).

Imagination, Beauty and The Sublime

The beautiful is human in scale — the sublime out of scale and threatening. -Edmund Burke

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them. Beauty is in the mind of the beholder. -David Hume 10

/ think that our minds respond to things beyond this world. Take beauty; it's a very mysterious thing, isn't it? I think it's a response in our minds to perfection. -Agnes Martin

Like many visual artists in Canada my experience of nature and landscape has used the famed "Group of Seven" as a point of reference; I appreciate their notions of our identity, myths and sense of nationhood revealed within the landscape. On one level I embrace the Group's aesthetic of the positive celebration of beauty and the sublime possibilities of nature and wilderness, but on another level I also want to comment on the incongruities and cultural biases of our times. I acknowledge a contemporary position of art, as the necessity of artists to respond to our time, by adopting more of a critical outlook in light of current social, political and environmental concerns.

Within my work I incorporate an autobiographical perspective to express emotional and physical relationships with the land and with other people; I draw from my experiences to communicate the freedom of beauty and pleasure available to me in the natural world. As the Scottish philosopher David Hume observed, naturally beautiful things are experienced by most people as beautiful because of our similar faculties in appreciation.

The British philosopher Mary Warnock remarks upon the difficulty of transcribing and representing The Sublime; attempts are made by artists and writers to portray the sensations, but the representations are inadequate. The Sublime denotes a grand and overwhelming emotional experience that we can only partly comprehend:

"The creative imagination has, as one of its functions, the exciting in us a sense of the sublime precisely in that it excites in us ideas which we realize cannot be 11

represented by any visible or other sensible forms - ideas which cannot be restricted or brought down to size by any image-making power of the imagination" (Warnock 1976:56).

Often we try to come to terms with this feeling of the sublime in a multitude of personal situations; one common shared event is when we observe the stars and try to comprehend the vastness of the universe and our place within it. I sometimes experience this sensation of the sublime when climbing in particularly remote wilderness areas accentuated with the added intensity of this physical activity and emotional engagement. When considered together with the very real consequences of possible accidents, encounters with predators and possibly death my more primal perceptions are heightened.

When considering the meaning of imagination, Immanuel Kant saw it as a harmonious activity, as an experience restricted to the arts and a "universal communicability postulated by the judgement of taste" (Kant 1952:89). He saw that all humans have the capacity to experience pleasure through the creative imagination. The

English poet William Blake hailed the creative imagination as "the spiritual fountainhead divine, that liveth forever".

Kearney writes about beauty as having an inner finality of form or pattern with rules and order that are self-imposed making beauty more applicable to the Romantic,

Symbolist and "Art for Art's Sake" movements. He considered The Sublime as reaching new forms of order, as an outrage and even surpassing our understanding of imagination itself. He likens the sensations evoked to a pleasure experienced, as something akin to challenge, defiance, risk, excess and even shock (Kearney 1984:175). 12

As the American art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto writes in his essay

"Beauty for Ashes" he recognizes the Dadaists' distaste for humankind after the devastating loss of life in World War I. Their response was to produce a style of "anti- beauty"; a kind of art that society deserved that was infantile, nonsensical, raucous and buffoonish. Danto recognizes that art does not always need to be constrained by aesthetic considerations and he believes that this was probably the major conceptual art discovery of the 20th century — beauty was not a necessary condition for art. Danto asks the following questions regarding the integral role of beauty in life and art:

"Is a return to beauty, then, an acknowledgement of art's limitations when it comes to effecting social change? Or have artists come to a sense of desolation to which they themselves have contributed — mere ashes, given the lingering hope for beauty? Is a returning to beauty as a kind of aesthetic amnesty? Have Dada and contemporary artists sacrificed precisely that which gives art its deepest meaning?"

Just like the rumours of the death of painting back in the 1980s, and with the advent of post-modernism and conceptual art, beauty came to be seen as a passe and unacceptable component in art.

The American art critic Dave Hickey came to beauty's rescue in "The Invisible

Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty". He argued that beauty is not a thing, but rather involves the rhetoric of how things look and what evokes pleasure. He observes that part of the problem in today's art world of ideas and installation-based work is that beautiful art sells just as it has for centuries in the "corrupt old market". He cites Charles Baudelaire's remark that "the beautiful is always strange", interpreting it as "that it is always strangely familiar". This twist in association refers to everyone's innate ability to recognize the beautiful even when it occurs in unusual and astonishing forms. Another example of this 13 leap in a new understanding and tolerance for what is considered to be beautiful is

Hickey's analysis regarding the controversy over the public exhibition of American artist

Robert Mapplethorpe's erotic photographs, which for some people are considered to be actually pornographic (Hickey 1993:15-24).

Environmentalism and Spirituality

Awareness is now widespread globally of how the environment is being impacted, apparently from climate change; the accelerated changes and associated problems have garnered mainstream focus for attention and action. In response to the hypothesis of global warming, that it is caused by humankind's actions, the political process tends to be slow and reactionary rather than focused on prevention and restraint. With the recent dramatic impact of extreme weather patterns and pollution climate change is directly affecting our lives and the health of the planet. Organizations like Greenpeace, The Sierra

Club, Earth First! and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society take vital grassroots actions that signal the need and desire for everyone to make changes toward the awareness of and protection of the earth. For myself and some other contemporary artists, we also address these issues as a point of departure for our work.

Historically and even during the Group of Seven's era nature was seen as a vast and never-ending resource that needed to be tamed, conquered and consumed. The Canadian artist Edward Burtynsky has portrayed the scale of humankind's impact on the planet in his photographs of the mammoth factories and industries that China fuels from our

Canadian shipped coal and used electronic parts; he dramatically portrays massive 14 shipyards and open pit mines from all over the world. These photographs of scenes of despair and scarring have been criticized as unethically portraying these manifestly disturbing subjects as beautiful. The filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal documented him working on his projects in the feature length film "Manufactured Landscapes" (2006); his recent work consists of aerial photographs of the controversial Alberta tar sands and the

Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Earlier advocates and artists aligned with the conservation movement had a pivotal role to play in contributing to our awareness of the need to protect the environment.

American writers and environmental activists including; Henry David Thoreau, Ralph

Waldo Emerson, John Muir, Wallace Stegner, Wendell Berry and Ansel Adams effected political pressure to secure protection to unique areas (Yellowstone and Yosemite

National Parks). The mountain photographs of Canadian photographer Byron Harmon also helped to instigate protection of important ecological areas and connected wildlife corridors. Through their art and writings they present a love and reverence for nature, wilderness and our connection to it; this veneration for the sacredness of nature is the source of our ability to protect the earth and return to a more sustainable model.

The Canadian environmental writer Neil Evernden is associated with the ecological phenomenology movement and is a proponent of the necessity for both the physical and metaphysical redemption of the environmental. He points out in The Natural Alien:

Humankind and Environment that a century ago, when the explorers and surveyors were visiting the frontier of the Rocky Mountains for the first time, they perceived them not as we do today (ideal, spectacular and magnificent vistas), but saw them as frightening and harsh worlds to be endured and overcome. There were more encounters with bears, 15 cougars and bugs; the bushwhacking, trail cutting and hardships required for access into the Rocky, Purcell and Selkirk Mountains were daunting. Today's easy access to natural areas, with the support of interpretive trails and guidebooks, has spawned an ever- expanding culture of tourism, much of it amounting to nature as entertainment with the added necessity of the obligatory photographs to document or even act as a substitute for the experience. Evernden contends that these new attitudes and processes of considering nature have altered how we experience the landscape.

Evernden's analysis of how people's use of nature, as a means of consuming resources and our perceived separation from nature, has created a stimulus to the environmental movement. He observes that the ideas of Romanticism, in which a sentimental and Utopian desire to return to an idealized state of nature was celebrated, contributed to our current problems with preservation and conservation. Evernden's critique of the environmental movement argues that the Romantics saw that the relationship between man, nature and our cultural methods of perceiving the world made it difficult for us to directly experience nature in a first hand manner (Evernden 1985:17-

21).

Another issue in our contemporary relationship to nature may be the dominance of vision over the other senses. The American literary critic M.N. Abrams comments on this over-emphasis on vision, asserting that we have "...lapsed into a fixed and narrowed mode of single vision, by means of the physical eye alone, which sees reality as a multitude of isolated individuals in a dehumanized world." (Abrams 1971:341).

The American cultural historian and ecotheologian Thomas Berry was considered to be the spiritual founder of the environmental movement. He shares with Evernden and 16 the Norwegian writer, activist and mountain climber Arne Naess the ideas of "deep ecology"; this is a movement that promotes the idea of oneness and interconnection with all life phases and transformations. Berry's early training first as a Catholic priest and then a Buddhist monk led to his belief in a story of humankind that has a connection to and interdependence with not just the planet, but also the universe. He believes that a spiritual quest is possible and necessary for an enlightened relationship with our self and with others as well. With the themes of exhaustion and renewal, sustainability and the power of our connection to nature (a sense of wonder and awe), he sees us as still trying to find our proper place within the shared universe. We need to merge our critical and imaginative powers to meet this ecological crisis and to return to our original understanding of our divine and metaphysical dimension. The American transcendentalist

Henry David Thoreau wrote of this state in his journal on August 30, 1856: "It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such. It is the bog in our brains and bowels, the primitive vigor of Nature in us, that inspires that dream".

The late Canadian-American painter Agnes Martin wrote about her sense of the beauty, perfection and joy found in the world. She created minimal abstract paintings of delicate and ordered pencil lines and grids on subdued colour fields; these images seem to share a similar spiritual sensation as the American painter Mark Rothko created in his work.

The Canadian author and anthropologist Wade Davies writes in The Wayfinders:

Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World that indigenous cultures are important to us now in teaching us how to attain a more sustainable way of life. He is alarmed not just that species are disappearing, but that fifty percent of languages will soon be gone 17 along with a resultant loss of cultural knowledge and traditions. He admits that it is humans who are responsible for the environmental harm done on the planet, but he also argues that it is people who are essential to create meaning in our world through our culture, arts and customs. He advocates a return to a heightened sensitivity to the earth akin to that possessed by earlier cultures. He illustrates his ideas with examples of the ancient Polynesian and Inuit peoples' extraordinary navigational skills and the early Arab peoples' ability to detect the distant odour of water in the desert (Davies 2009:3-35)

History of Canadian Art: Romanticism, Pictorialism and Realism

The history of Canadian art is important to my work, particularly in the genre of landscape. Tracking landscape art's genesis and development is relevant in the analysis of the beliefs and values of the current era's social, political and national concerns. I investigate how artists have dealt with nature and the landscape as a critique on its specific uses by humankind for its own expression and consumption (representations of beauty and The Sublime, possession, exploitation and tourism).

The first Canadian art originated from the First Nations peoples including the Inuit of the

North, the Haida along the West Coast and the Plains Indian Tribes across the prairies.

Their cultures had developed a skilled, sophisticated and highly attuned spiritual aesthetic that encompassed the natural environment and included humankind. Yet historically the art and people were marginalized and their lands appropriated by the French and British colonizers. The Europeans imposed their homeland culture on the indigenous peoples including, traditions, art and aesthetics (O'Brian; White 2007:28). 18

The damage done to the aboriginal people through the appropriation of their ancestral lands and the repression of their culture has had devastating emotional social affects for many. In recent years positive efforts have been made toward the reparation of these wrongs and have been facilitated by mentorship programs for aboriginal artists at

The Banff Centre and recent formal government apologies (relating to residential schools and to the relocations of Arctic people to satisfy policies pertaining to Canada's national sovereignty). Contemporary Canadian art includes a multitude of successful and talented

First Nations artists like the architect Douglas Cardinal and visual artists Rebecca

Bellmore and Brian Jungen. Their powerful and insightful work is often based on their own cultural histories and deals with social/land/political issues that translate into relevant and meaningful work.

Nineteenth century artists in Canada (British and French settlers) continued to represent the countryside in a Romantic and picturesque fashion. These newly transported artists furthered the view of landscape as a symbolic and psychic realm similar to the work of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, the German painter Caspar

David Friedrich and the British artists William Blake and William Turner. Their landscapes were sentimental and idealized representations of beauty and The Sublime.

There are many historic and contemporary contradictions surrounding the idea of

The Landscape and its role as both representation and presented space and as signified and signifier as discussed by the art historian W.J.T. Mitchell. Both Mitchell and Simon

Schama connect landscape as power and culture and as an ideological construct that is a product of our social beliefs (O'Brian; White 2007:29-31). 19

The Group of Seven, Tom Thomson and Emily Can attained iconic status in

Canadian art history and are considered a source of National pride. Artists were searching for their own voice and breaking the ties with European art; an autonomous identity was accomplished in a seemingly new approach through images of the Canadian north or of pristine wilderness. In Roald Nasgaard's essay "The Mystic North" he analyzes the evidence that the Group of Seven was greatly inspired and motivated by Northern

European and Scandinavian art that some of the members had seen in an exhibition in

Buffalo. A massive campaign was launched, largely by the National Gallery of Canada, to promote the Group's aesthetic (fighting against the Royal Canadian Academy's more traditional focus) and by elite, wealthy patrons of a largely white, male and Protestant background. With a fortified and nationally sanctioned promotion of the Group, their vision of wilderness associated with Canadian identity became a national art style. But the problem was that it left out so much — Quebec, First Nation peoples and other ethnic cultures, not to mention other social, economic, industrial and political fault lines were not included (O'Brian; White 2007:32^13).

The Canadian writers Margaret Atwood and Northrop Frye have dealt with the

Canadian landscape and wilderness as intertwined with our psychic identity. In Atwood's novel Surfacing (1972) the protagonist has returned with her friends to her childhood cabin where she searches for her missing father. In this rustic setting within the wilderness she is portrayed as a competent outdoorswoman and leader of her group.

While diving in the lake she has an intense and emotional experience where she begins to revert to an almost animal and primal state as she struggles to deal with the controlling and domineering men from her past. 20

Around the time of its 1967 Centennial Canada was participating and contributing on the international scene and this coincided with the arrival of post­ modernism. Canadian culture was being influenced by writers like the Canadian scholar

Marshal McLuhan, Sontag and Roland Barthes with their views on new technologies, photography, mass media and global awareness. This led to a questioning of how valid the traditional landscape tropes were in responding to a conceptual and contemporary world with all of its conflicts and increasingly urban, multi-cultural and cosmopolitan population. Many Canadian artists began re-inventing and unravelling the landscape myth, and in doing so they exposed the limitations of the Group's underlying vision of the Canadian landscape.

Contemporary Artists Who Respond to Nature and Environment

During the sixties and seventies the art movement "Earth Art" coincided with the ecological movement and consisted predominantly of sculpture and performance outside of the "white cube" of the gallery. It was comprised of artists who desired to understand the mysterious, temporal and elemental experience of the phenomena of nature directly within the environment. Due to the ephemeral qualities of events and experiences these works were often documented and preserved by video or photographic form; these means of documentation of the performance are sometimes successful as art works on their own, but are often insufficient to capture the impressions of the original event.

My fieldwork has been inspired by artists who work in varied contexts that deal with the notion of impermanence and decay. Dealing with time and nature, the American 21 artist Robert Smithson embraced the idea of entropy for his sculptures and thus hoped that his "Spiral Jetty" (1970) earthwork would be allowed to erode back into Great Salt

Lake. The Haida First Nations people have always envisioned their totem poles and houses as being left alone to decay and return back into the ground on the sites where they were constructed. Because of the collaborative and partnership aspect of their work I appreciate the work of the artist Joseph Beuys (his installation of 7000 oak trees with stone columns) and the artist partners Christo and Jeanne-Claude (their work of wrapped islands and coastlines). My mountaineering background also involves a reliance and trust on partners. I respond to the work of British walking artist Hamish Fulton who has been successful in translating his hiking and climbing excursions into visual art and writing interpretations.

On my spring art visit to New York City, I was impressed by the retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art of the Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovich and in particular her emotional and physical endurance capabilities (walking along the Great

Wall of China to say farewell to her partner Ulay). I relate to and admire her toughness of character and ability to push herself; I am reminded of some of my more demanding and extreme mountaineering expeditions (little food, water and rest).

Another contemporary Canadian artist I enjoy is Marlene Creates who created a simple but powerful piece as she was travelling by motorcycle though Scotland. She slept in the fields and in the morning she photographed the compacted grass containing the memory of her time there. I often find these intimate impressions in the land or snow where animals have rested or slept and have made my own imprints on the ground while climbing when we have needed to bivouac. The British land-artist Richard Long created 22 a similar but more obsessive effect when he walked up and down in the grass to make a trodden and determined path.

Contemporary Canadian artists like Giselle Amantea, Carol Lindoe-Tayler and Liz

Magor have made vivid cultural responses to nature and the landscape. Lindoe-Taylor's series of scientific photographs, documenting tranquilized animals being measured, studied and probed, investigated the issue of humankind's use and control of nature for our own purposes. Amantea created a fake forest of trees and transformed the gallery into a fabricated version of nature. Magor and other Canadian artists like Rodney Graham,

Eric Cameron, Micah Lexier, and Joseph Kohnke have also utilized precise and carefully constructed display cabinets or vitrines to present their work, photographs, books, artefacts and found objects in a reverential and iconic manner. 23

CHAPTER TWO: PREVIOUS BODIES OF WORK, IDEAS AND

COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS

The Containment and Packaging of Nature (ResourcismJ

I enjoy the collaborative process that results from the partnership with other people when investigating the interdisciplinary relationships of art, science, nature and history.

The Arctic Institute of North America, the Geological Survey of Canada and the Canada

Council supported my travels in 1991 on the "Arctic Awareness Program" where I worked as an artist alongside scientists (geologists, biologists and glaciologists) as they conducted their investigations. I recognized that these scientists were working with and using the landscape and nature in a specific and objective manner for their own purposes as they collected data and samples to support their theories. I was intrigued by the instruments the scientists used in measuring glacier ice and water flow and how these devices appeared within my landscape photographs as sculptural objects.

I documented the scientists working in the field with their apparatus, but also reacted to the everyday activities and relationships in the camps. I collaborated with a

Canadian glaciologist graduate student, Bill Dicks, by responding to his field book data entries and photographs. Since the 1950s Trent University in Ontario has been studying climate change on Axel Heiberg Island by making observations and collecting data from samples on a small glacier (Baby Glacier) that reacts more dramatically to weather changes than a larger glacier. The resulting art work took the form of an installation wherein I combined a series photographs structured in a three-tiered diptych grid and also 24 included an installation of a desk with documents, found objects and artefacts. Like the scientists, my work also involves the idea of using or consuming the landscape to further my ideas on our relationship with nature.

The conceptual strategies of a body of work entitled "Map Pins Series", from the

1990s, involved ideas of Earth Art, borders, mapping and containing nature. I outlined plants and natural features with the white pins and then documented the sites with photographs. I found the process itself to be rewarding because of the ritualistic type of activity that had associations of tending, caring and maintaining (as for a garden).

I continued this on-site work a few years later by using an illustrative figure from a government document on land use policy and management done by Shaun Fluker, an

Environmental Law professor at The University of Calgary (one of my climbing partners). In an alpine meadow I replicated the illustrative figure's border shape with white string and then photographed the site in an ordered, grid section manner; I was conscious of containing and structuring the landscape within the string parameter to indicate politically determined borders, as opposed to natural ones. While at this site I also altered other documents and reports by drawing and painting on them; my response considered our combined and different systems of knowledge and interpretation of the land and resources. This performance-based activity was about the personal and experiential effects of the landscape combined with my reactions to a legal interpretation of the land. I wish to contrast my intimate and poetic responses with the land management policy structures and attitudes that involve the ideas associated with the containment and packaging of nature. 25

This "unofficial" collaborative project with Shaun was based on our on-going discussions of shared theories, readings and views on environmentalism and mountaineering. Some of his research into protected area and parks involves the policies of law and writing to effect social and environmental goals. His Master of Laws thesis on ecological integrity and suggested readings (Fluker 2003) were influential in my research on some of the associated problems and implications connected to the human/nature dichotomy (a view where nature is viewed as "Other"). Evernden presents the term

"resourcism" as the way in which humankind uses and objectifies nature for our own materialistic, entertainment or consumer-based purposes. Shaun and I share an awareness of how environmental concerns centre on a strong sense of place, but see the necessity of people living among nature and co-existing with industries and development.

Further to Evernden's and Sontag's ideas on humankind's objectification of nature and how places are visually consumed, the sociologist John Urry argues in Consuming

Places that since the 1970s places are being transformed and as a result are shifting how we view nature and the environment (culturally constructed). The environmental movement has changed our comprehension of nature from something to be controlled or mastered to embracing the concept of an "integral nature", where both society and the physical environment are connected and interdependent (Urry 1925:1-6). The implications of these ideas influence both Shaun's and my research. In the art works from

"Edge of the Meadow" (2009) I included photographs and a plinth filled with dried grasses and flowers; I chose the meadow bordered with the mowed lawn to act as a metaphor or as a microcosm of the universe. My intentions were to show how we interact 26 with nature, control and contain it and are able to co-exist and find pleasure in our modifications of nature (gardens, parks, hybrid roses).

Research in Archives and Collections in Relation to My Work

My ongoing research in archives and libraries at the Whyte Museum of the

Canadian Rockies in Banff, Alberta examines historical records of mountaineers, scientists, surveyors, explorers and artists. I enjoy seeing first-hand the early vintage photographs, hand painted lanternslides and scraps of paper of summit registers from early mountaineers' expeditions and ascents. I create systems of copying, reproducing and combining the various documents and associated materials. I integrate visually interesting and meaningful artefacts, documents and artworks by responding to various factual, statistical, legal and scientific disciplines. In addition I want to comment on my personal, everyday relationships with fellow climbers, collaborators and historic figures that I consider to be inspirational and legendary. I explore the ideas of factual and fictional narratives, working with photographs, video and installation formats; these real or invented associations are meant to engage the viewer's imagination, form new meanings and create a resonance between the historical references, documents, photographs and found objects.

I have collected many artefacts, vintage photographs, stereograph cards, documents and books (including newer and older collector editions) and find their aged and faded quality to be beautiful; I value their physical presence and sense of wonder as historic objects that have been saved, valued and preserved. In a New York gallery a few years 27 ago I saw a landscape panorama that the American photographer and explorer William

Henry Jackson had made with three 20" x 30" contact sheets and was struck by how the image functioned as a three-dimensional sensorial object. This direct experience allowed me to imagine his presence in the landscape at that moment in time and what it must have been like to witness and document these new places. I relate to his prolific work ethic, especially with the awareness of his use of the time-consuming processes of early glass plate photography; he made large format exposures while he was exploring and surveying over rough terrain in the south western states (he made over 80,000 exposures).

Research in and of itself as an artistic pursuit is now seen as an established form and meaningful strategy for making art. This is evident in the increasing academic and institutional acceptance of artistic research that is intended to add to the creation of new knowledge (alternative methodologies, attitudes and patterns of inquiry). In a recent thematic residency for artists at The Banff Centre called "Making Artistic Inquiry

Visible" artists and other creative producers investigated the relationships between their research and artistic practice and how this affects other artists, the academic culture and the non-artist community.

Straight Photography and "The Real"

"Just as a garden is a fiction of a landscape, so photography is a fiction of authenticity.." -Roy Arden 28

For an early series I entitled "back yard" (2000-2005) the eleven inch square medium format photographs were placed in a grid installation; the juxtaposition of these multiple images plays with time and memory, as the viewer perceives the successive images searching for associations and narratives. This work dealt with instances where evidence of people, development and industry were integrated and co-existed within the landscape. I acknowledged and accepted man's harmful impact on the environment, but I also wanted to present an inter-related relationship that could accommodate the human/nature associations and the practical reliance on needing and using resources for our day-to-day lives.

Even though I work a great deal with groups of images and mixed media I'm still attracted by the potential of the single photograph to reveal a captured moment in time; yet photography has an uncanny ability to transcend this captured moment with profound possibilities of memory, imagination, distance and extended time. Great photographs have this capacity as seen in the French photographer Eugene Atget's atmospheric views of the grounds of Versailles and Saint Cloud that have a magical and dream-like quality.

The Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto's black and white photographs of the sea or the wildlife dioramas at the Museum of Natural History in New York City seem to achieve a fluid quality referring to the nature of time, memory and meaning. The French literary theorist Roland Barthes describes in his book Camera Lucida the "punctum" — an enigmatic quality in a photograph that can prick you, draw you in and capture your imagination. He presents some great and memorable photographs along with his responses as to why these images seem to transcend their two-dimensional limitations.

They share in their capacity to make us stop and really look at and examine the intricacies 29 of picture and meaning. The more pedestrian and banal photographs are the ones that exist as mere documents and contain only the "studium" quality where the picture is simply about the subject of what is represented (Barthes 1981:25-30).

In the Canadian writer William Wood's essay for Cabin Photographs he discusses the recent work of Canadian photographer Scott McFarland, in relation to Barthes' ideas and the fictitious images possible today, as well as to the historic specificity of the photograph.

"The name of photography's core meaning will be 'That has been', or 'the intractable' (that which cannot be managed — or really resists being manages). For Barthes, what was unmanageable about photography was its reference to a specific time and a specific site where the exposure was made. In Camera Lucida, the instance of reference is explicitly (and fetishistically) singular and momentary, much as the rewarding pain of the punctum arises suddenly, unpredictably, in a photographic-like flash. The power of the reference and the punctum lie in their promise of unmediated instantaneity, a fantasy, like the fetish, of fulfillment" (Wood 2003:20-21).

In the past decade McFarland, photographer Jeff Wall and many others have been utilizing digital technologies to create multiple exposures of a scene. These compilations are often photographed in different time and lighting situations, then the multiple photographs are stitched together to form one picture. What is "Real" or the truth of the photographic instant image has been hidden and manipulated, replaced by a made and constructed image that bears a certain resemblance to traditional photography, yet plays tricks with time and reality. In the 1980s when the curator Martha Langford wrote:

"Beauty in photography is a function of its specificity, and the specificity of the medium can never be separated from its unique relation to time and circumstance", photographs were perceived as a frozen moment in time and were permissible in law courts as 30 evidence that something had happened at a specific time and place. In the past two decades with photography editing applications the photograph can no longer be believed as an indicator of reality.

Working with the medium format film camera is a different experience for me than taking digital photographs or even 35mm negatives. I slow down, think, plan and consider my surrounding environment and experience. I am aware of the physicality of light rays on the sensitized film and the historic and traditional processes of photography's progression. I often use a Hasselblad camera, a relatively bulky and solid instrument that makes a satisfying sound of mechanical precision when an exposure is made. The film and processing costs also seem to demand a commitment to taking serious photographs compared to the inexpensive ease and speed of digital photography.

For my mountaineering and more documentary snapshots I now use a good digital camera and do realize the enormous potential for my use of this medium in the future.

I still find it rewarding and part of my working process to return to The Banff

Centre to print in the traditional black and white and colour wet process techniques as a means of retaining a printing aesthetic or a sense of craft integral to the working methods.

I enjoy the movement and physical process when printing in the darkroom and there is a direct and tactile contact possible with the materials including the handling of negatives, enlarger, light, paper and chemicals. 31

Painting and Photography: The Manipulated Polaroid Photographs &

Reproduction

The pioneer work with Polaroid photographs by Lucas Samaras, David Hockney and Robert Mapplethorpe, have been an inspiration to me because of the possibilities the medium allows for the artist to express freedom and spontaneity. The Polaroid functions both as a diminutive and intimate two-dimensional object and also displays a three- dimensional world. Samaras' Polaroid manipulations, often self-portraits, resulted in a painterly, liquid-like and surreal quality. Hockney on the other hand, used unaltered

Polaroid photographs constructed into a grid format, utilizing a cubist and fractured technique of recording a landscape scene or a portrait with multiple photographs.

Another strategy I use is a mixed media technique of altering, manipulating and mediating the photograph through painting and drawing directly on the prints. The attraction for me is the immediacy of my tactile response to the forming image where a sense of time, place and feeling is possible in a personal and intimate manner. For many years I have altered and manipulated Polaroid photographs, attempting to integrate the photograph and drawing/painting into a single image. When these images are re- photographed to make a copy-negative and then printed again, the evidence of the pastel pigment is merely indicated, not physically present, creating an illusion of painterly texture. I admire the work of the German painter Gerhard Richter and his beautiful blurred and streaked photographic source paintings and find intriguing his comment, "I use painting as a means to photography". For many decades he has been rigorously exploring the problem of representation and has analyzed the uneasy relationship 32 between photography and painting. His out of focus painting technique subtly disrupts a reference apparent in the work to the Romantic/Sublime tradition in Western Art

(Henry; Love 2006:10).

While manipulating the Polaroid photographs "on site" I respond to both the event and the photographic experience; this process is inspired by a Group of Seven sensibility of working "en plein air". I make high resolution copies of the images with a large format camera or digital scanner. These methods of reproduction and mediation allow me to enlarge and interpret the small original images to photographs of a larger scale and gesture where they enter into a more public space.

One of my challenges with my work is how to deal with the reproduction issue and to justify the inclusion of the variety of forms these manipulated Polaroid photographs may take in scale and medium. The German cultural critic Walter Benjamin argues in

"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" that changes in art technologies including photographs, reproductions and film were radically transforming the traditional notions of art and that these changes would also be reflected in the politics of art. He investigated how the authority of the object was jeopardized by reproductions because of their lack of one element — their existence in time and space. He argued that the presence of the original was the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity. The reproduction was a substitution for a unique existence and resulted in a loss of an image's

"aura" which was considered to be present in other art works before the Modern era

(Benjamin 2003:520-521). Tragically, shortly after this essay was published in 1935, the

Nazis persecuted him and after a failed attempt to flee Europe for the United States he killed himself in 1940. 33

Further to my argument for the meaningful role of the reproduction, Benjamin does acknowledge that the reproduction results in a new form and can involve additional awareness and meaning, when he writes: "The enlargement of a snapshot does not simply render more precise what in any case was visible, though un clear; it reveals entirely new structural formations of the subject." (Benjamin 2003:521). When I reproduce and enlarge the original Polaroid images the hand-drawn marks are transformed and become an energized and full-body gesture with a more visceral expression. The direct and first­ hand responses in the Polaroid image result in nature being presented as fragile and fleeting. Nature gets pushed back, along with a sense of place when the Polaroid images are transformed through reproduction; nature changes into a more symbolic and emotional space like a stage set for the intensified presence of the people portrayed. One example of this is the original image of a delicate Glacier Lily that seems to turn into flames in the enlargement.

A contemporary writer who is still grappling with the original versus the copy dilemma is Rolf Lauter who has analyzed the photographic work of Jeff Wall. He writes about the artwork copy experiencing an "accretion in essence" or a reduction in its ontological value and that the copy acquires a different identity as a result of creative modifications from the artist (Lauter 2001:25-26). Like Benjamin, Lauter seems to be acknowledging the new forms and possibilities (another essence of experience) inherent in the reproduction. My original Polaroid photographs appear to be the closest and most representative to my original experience within the landscape. Perhaps the reproduced

Polaroid images function in a similar way as my series "Tourist Views" (mentioned at the 34 beginning of this paper) where the representations themselves comment on the loss of direct and first-hand experience with nature.

In an earlier exhibition of thirty-eight photographs looped around the gallery

"circumambient/circumflex/circumfuse/cirsumscribe/circumscription/circumnavigate"

(2009) I wanted to create an enclosed and low-light environment. The contextual inclusion of the variety of reproduced images engages the viewer on another level; the narrative structure of multiples enables the viewer to form relationships between them and add meaning to their connections. I included video and sound, and formed linked groupings of mountain landscapes and people to function not in a documentary manner, but to reveal a more poetic and lyrical relationship involving juxtaposition, time and memory. I wanted to set up an overall, integrated zone and inclusive view within all of the elements of the installation (the altered photographs, video and sound) that created a multi-dimensional experience.

My intention is to explore the sensorial experience of time, the fluidity of memory and the photographic image in a more painterly manner. I want to create a time-based textural sensation of stuttering involving an effect of slow motion sliding, slipping blur and a corresponding sound effect. In the series "Motion Pictures" (1997 and 2000) I photographed stills from the projected film and installed them in a loop around the gallery where the work presented a glowing, subdued and atmospheric quality. An early inspiration for my looped photographic installations is the painter Claude Monet and his paintings of water lilies installed at the Musee l'Orangerie; the paintings circle and enclose the viewer in a type of physical experience that seems to engulf the viewer and slow down time. 35

The process of forming cinematic like loops and narratives of still photographs with montage and "panning" techniques is connected to my early work with video transferred from Super 8 movie film. My use of video and sound was developed as a continuation of my photographic ideas on time, stuttering and painterly effects. I was creating cinematic loops of multiple movie still-images and the logical next step was to go to the time-based medium of film and video incorporating sound. 36

CHAPTER THREE: MY WORK IN THE MFA EXHIBITION

"accumulation/ablation" (2010)

The title of this paper and the thesis exhibition "accumulation/ablation" is based on a glaciology term that refers to the processes of addition and loss that a glacier experiences through time. This process is a metaphor for my own ideas, methods and discipline. I am attracted to the balanced state of a glacier, where the annual addition of snow and loss of mass through evaporation or calving, maintains a relatively constant existence. A glacier is a frozen river of ice that is always changing, transforming and flowing from the force of gravity, yet in stable climate conditions remains the same.

Because of a shared relationship to the circular effects of time, space and place (resulting from seasonal temperatures), this physical/natural process is one that gives rise to poetry

— the persistent accumulation of delicate snowflakes being transformed into a mass of ice capable of carving and grinding the mountain's rock. Considering the idea of the circular as a concept in physics is also intriguing where the perception of time, space and place may exist in an ever-moving and relative realm, where the future, present and past are always accessible, as a river of continuous now.

In my metaphor of the glacier I see parallels in some of the ideas of Deleuze in

Bergsonism, where he discusses intuition, memory, duration and the non-linear aspects of time and how the past and the future are always present, moving, changing and fluctuating (Deleuze 1988:13-14). I associate his premise of everything having its own life and his idea of the Nomad, a term that identifies an existence that involves wandering 37 and always being in between or in the middle with no beginning or end. The journey of the glacier, my work and climbing mountains seem to embody this idea of being in between and indicates the importance of living in the moment to fully appreciate experiences.

"Illusions of a Mediated Experience of Time, Place and Self (2010)

This body of work includes sixty-six Polaroid SX-70 photographs with added pastel framed in groupings of three and ink-jet enlargements of seven of the Polaroid photographs. The Polaroid originals are each 4V4 inches high by 3V2 inches wide, and the enlargements are 53V2 inches high by 431/2 inches wide. The large images are mounted on aluminium and their surfaces have been given a glossy laminate. They are mounted in a way that emphasizes their physicality, in contrast to traditional photographic mounting that tends to present photographs as the proverbial "window into space."

The subjects are predominantly of mountain landscapes, nature and of people in wilderness Alpine Club of Canada mountaineering camps, or photographs made during my own solo excursions into mountain backcountry. The original Polaroid images are completed "on site" in a multi-layered and integrated practice of photography and painting.

The scale of the larger photographs exists in a more public space and involves for the viewer perceiving the work as a physical and spatial relationship. These mediations or transformations from the more intimate and private Polaroid images render the texture of the pastel legible; their meaning seems to have been transferred from a sense of place and 38 of nature, to a dream-like state of mind or energized psychological event. The originals and their larger versions function as companions with the larger images acting as a gateway to miniature and tactile worlds of the work done in the field. Both versions enable mutual associations and references of place, myth and storytelling. For most of the

Polaroid photographs it was important to me to maintain the groupings as specific places, events and narratives, but for some I wanted to explore the realm of the imagination, self- identity and symbols.

"backyard: a quotidian chronicle" (July 2008 - August 2010)

These photographs were initially taken with a medium format film camera and the negatives were later scanned to contact sheets — grids of twelve images (40 sheets, each

15 inches high and 10 inches wide compiled in five frames). The compositional effect of the grid alludes to the formalist concerns of structured organization where order and unity is achieved even among disparate images. A tension is created between the stasis of the individual images, the volume of the grid and the time necessary for the viewer to perceive the whole. There is a sensation of a taming and framing with this presentation that chronologically orders my travels, everyday walks and ski trips. This piece represents a photographic journal of some of my experiences over the past two years in the MFA program. This body of work also portrays connections with my socio-political concerns of the containment, packaging and use of nature (similar to Shaun Fluker's approach of the integration of the natural world within our constructed world through law and land policy interpretations). Other artists who I admire that have used the grid 39 structure include, the English photographer and inventor Eadweard Muybridge,

Gerhard Richter, Bernd and Hilla Becher and the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson.

I consider the title of "backyard: a quotidian chronicle" not to refer to one specific place, but to wherever my walks and travels take place. Some of the landscape scenes deal with the grandeur and beauty of nature in an idyllic, classical and romantic way while others intend to comment on people's interactions and evidence of impact within the environment. For the most part this is meant to be a positive acknowledgement concerning our place in the world as part of nature and accepts our presence. With this method of photography my experiences of the landscape and interactions with people is significantly more vivid, meaningful and closer to my experience of making the manipulated Polaroid images. With both of these approaches to creating images there is a calming and meditative effect of experiencing and responding to the moment and also the satisfaction of a productive work ethic. Shooting with a digital camera these past two years is still fairly new to me, but I find that at this point I take far too many photographs in an objectifying and obsessive manner and tend to miss out on the experience itself.

While walking to take photographs I enter into a mode of looking and a frame of mind with a shifted perspective of slowing down; I am more aware of time, space, self and my movement. I had the pleasure of seeing the Museum of Modern Art retrospective of the work of photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson while in New York this spring. He writes about his method of taking pictures as like a sketchbook activity where intuition and spontaneity govern his responses in his daily life. 40

"Mountains and Memory: The Real and The Reproduction" (2010)

This piece is comprised of two standard museum display cases or plinths with a secured Plexiglas covering. They are just off centre in the exhibition space and contain various real and reproduced objects, photographs, vintage books and documents from my personal collection of mountain memorabilia from over the years. They are from my collection of prized, precious and symbolically loaded "signifiers" for me. There is a celebration of early mountain explorers who have become legends (the Austrian born

Alpine Club of Canada Guide, Conrad Kain) blended in with my fellow climbing partners in the spirit of camaraderie. I feel that they can offer the viewer another level of understanding and meaning to my work because of their accessible and familiar presentation. The mix and inter-relationships between the real and reproduced objects and artefacts creates a dialogue between experience and memory.

On a more critical level this work also makes references to my concerns regarding the packaging, containment and bordering of nature as a commodity to be consumed.

Another interpretation of this work is similar to my plinth "photograph" of dried grass and flowers pressed into the Plexiglas box. These display cases of found objects, photographs, books and documents may be seen as functioning as "photographs" by reproducing a framed, isolated and constructed view. With this classical museum device of presenting information in a prescribed and calculated means I see it operating like photography, as an artificial construction or reproduction of "The Real". It could be seen as merely a visually restricted way to experience the items leaving an unfulfilled desire to actually flip through the books and smell their musty age. 41

We are conditioned to and expect to "interpret" information through display cases where we are presented with a democratized and culturally correct version of a place, event or subject to gain knowledge and understanding efficiently without wasting time and energy. This of course is a useful and appropriate method in gaining knowledge and education, but I still question and argue for the benefits and joys of learning that can also derive from direct and firsthand experience. 42

Conclusion

In my MFA exhibition I intended the three bodies of work to compliment and inform each other; together, I wanted them to engage as companion pieces that refer, interpret and respond. As a continuum and further guide to my previous work and analysis of art history and art theories (time, place, memory, the original and the reproduction), I see this exhibition as a connection to and natural progression of my research based on my experiences. Within the installation I wanted to create a sense of the public/private and personal discovery to direct the viewer and enable them to form associations and meaning from their own experiences and memories.

My research celebrates and critically questions landscape images and representations of nature and how they function in perception and interpretation today and in the past. I wanted to show that they still have the capabilities of enabling us to respond to beauty, The Sublime and a metaphysical awareness of the connections to our selves. However there is also a certain amount of anxiety in our society now that may project onto these landscape views (cultural constructions) that reveals an awareness of our destructive and harmful effects on the earth. Within my research I address the increasingly crucial need for environmental conservation actions; the challenge is to find a balance in living our lives in meaningful ways and changing our relationship to nature and the earth towards a more sustainable model based on protection and reverence. 43

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APPENDIX A

$ D3 nam iffliWiLLJ?

Diane Colwell "Mountains and Memory: The Real and The Reproduction", (2010);

Legend: Identification list and diagrams of items and locations in left plinth:

1. Topographical map (1:50,000 scale) of Bugaboo mountains area, Purcell Mountains BC 2. Topographical map (1:50,000 scale) of Columbia Valley area; Brisco Range, and Purcell Range (Edgewater and Wilmer, BC) 3. Conrad Kain's autobiography, Where The Clouds Can Go, third edition, edited with additional chapters by J. Monroe Thorington, 1979 (previous editions, 1935 & 1954). Jacket photograph, First Ascent of Mount Resplendent, 1913 by Conrad Kain and Byron Harmon (photographer) 4. Eighties climbing gear: locking carabineer, belay device, figure of eight for rappelling 5. The Rocky Mountains of Canada South: American Alpine Club and Alpine Club of Canada Climber's Guide, Glen Boles with Robert Kruszyna and William L. Putnam, 1966,1973, 1979 Book is open to route description and drawing of Mount Louis, Conrad Kain's first ascent, 1913 with Albert MacCarthy (Alpine III 5.6/7) 6. A Climber's Guide to the Interior Ranges of British Columbia, William Lowell Putnam, fourth edition based on the previous editions by J. Monroe Thorington (1937, 1947, 1955, 1963) Book is open to route description of Bugaboo Spire, Conrad Kain's first ascent, 1916 with Albert and Beth MacCarthy and John Vincent (South Ridge AD 5.6) 7. Conrad Kain, Guide in the New World (Banff 1909, Photograph by B. Harmon) 48

8. Vintage folding design camera, ENSIGN 3V4, made by Houghton's, London (my grandfather's) 9. Fibonacci series cluster: Horn coral fossil, sea shell, cone and Mica flecked rock and brass hand lenses (my grandfather's) 10. My photograph of Pigeon Spire, Bugaboos, 1980 (West Ridge PD 5.4) 11. My photograph of our first attempt on Pigeon Spire, Bugaboos, 1980; Bugaboo Spire on left and Brenta Spire in the middle distance (with Michael Matthews, Charles Nabors and unidentified climber) 12. Photograph by Byron Harmon after the first ascent (traverse) of Mount Robson, 1913, Alpine Club of Canada Camp; Conrad Kain (left), Albert MacCarthy (middle) and William J. Foster 13. Photocopy of Conrad Kain, Banff circa 1911 14. Steel railroad spike from Edgewater, BC railroad line 15. Vintage steel rock climbing pitons (used for hammering into tight cracks for protection) 49

APPENDIX B

r. _- —* |

T—rn IID (H3r^

Diane Colwell ''Mountains and Memory: The Real and The Reproduction", (2010);

Legend: Identification list and diagrams of items and locations in right plinth:

1. Two topographical maps (1:50,000 scale) of the Rocky Mountains, Continental Divide area from Alexandra Glaciers in the North, then South to Lyell and Freshfield Ice fields 2. Among the Selkirk Glaciers, William Spotswood Green M.A., F.R.G.S., A.C.; first edition 1890 (displayed copy is a second edition published by Aquila Books, Calgary, 1999) 3. A Climber's Guide to the Rocky Mountains South, by J. Monroe Thorington, 1953 (first published in 1921) 4. Elk Calf and Banff Bear, souvenir ceramic sculptures by Mariko Patterson, 1999 5. Vintage View Master and stereoscope slide disks, Jasper National Park; Canadian Rockies and Lake Louise reflects Victoria Glacier, propped up with sandstone coral 6. Grizzly Bear and Cub in Mountain Snowstorm, hand-crafted Snow Dome by Wendy Allen 7. China ashtray souvenir, made by CN: Western Germany, Mt. Rundle, Banff, Canada 8. Climbs and Exploration in the Canadian Rockies, by Hugh E.M. Stutfield and Norman Collie F.R.S., first edition 1903 (displayed copy is a second edition published by Aquila Books, Calgary, 1998) 9. The Canadian Rockies; New and Old Trails, by A.P. Coleman, PhD., F.R.S., first edition 1911 (displayed copy is a second edition published by Aquila Books, Calgary, 1999) 50

10. Shaun Fluker's 2003 University of Calgary Thesis for the Degree of Master of Laws, The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board: Ecological Integrity and the Law, selected photocopied pages with my artistic response (pages 10 and 13), 2007 11. Vintage stereograph photographs, Mount Sir Donald, the Matter horn of the North American Alps, British Columbia, Canada, published by Keystone View Company, USA 12. Vintage stereograph photographs, Among the Jagged Ice Peaks of the Illecillewaet Glacier, British Columbia, Canada, published by Keystone View Company, USA 13. Re-photographed original photographs, 1995, from Maurice de St. Jorre's personal collection of climbing photographs (Yorkshire, 1960 and Dolomites, 1959) 14. Vintage souvenir miniature postcards from Italy, Visioni Dolomitiche Grande via della Dolomiti, Foto: Edizioni Chedina, Cortina