carlyn yandle
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public art exposed: a peek behind the scenes at new show

8/29/2014

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It's one thing to dream up an idea for the back end of the elevated Canada Line track and quite another to see that dream come together in a mammoth aluminum sculpture.
PictureMetal fabrication at the Select Steel shop, Delta. Carlyn Yandle photo
So when I got my first glimpse of the progress of Cluster at the metal fabricators this week, the piercing clang and whine of the shop suddenly seemed to give way to the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Whoa.

It was exactly as I had imagined it, except for the immensity. That something so voluminous could come out of a bundle of bubble tea straws was sort of short-circuiting my brain.

Well?, their faces seemed to ask.

"It's... very... big," I said, immediately thankful their earplugs spared them from hearing the bleeding obvious. 

PictureCluster concept sketch (image by Carlyn Yandle)
Of course, no one sees these moments of shock, nor all the anxiety, revelation, frustration, obsession typical of the emotional swings that go into the creation of public artwork. When Cluster is hoisted into position next month, its narrative will be in the eye of the beholder, its entirety read in an instant.

But a new Richmond Art Gallery exhibit (opening next Friday evening, Sept. 5) is pulling back the curtain on the process behind five public artworks that dot the city, in its City As Site show, curated by RAG director Rachel Lafo. Here is where visitors will see evidence of the beginning of the ideas that were pitched, developed, reworked, and finally translated into forms for public placement. Combined with that focus is a survey of all artwork in the local public sphere that is defining Richmond as not just another clutter of condos but a specific space in a particular time.

PictureMetal fabricator Jordan Thys at work. (Carlyn Yandle photo)
For me, laying bare some of my half-baked early concepts and awkward sketches that led to the development of Cluster (as well as the Crossover crosswalk design) is slightly uncomfortable but this is a warts-and-all display. Not shown is the high level of trust that must exist for any collaborative project to succeed: trust in one's own ideas, the physical properties of the materials, the skill and temperment of  fabricators, the foresight of structural engineers, and the patience of the commissioning bodies. Public art projects come with the headache-y package of  issues of insurance, permits, budgets, timelines and many unforseeables. In short, it's much more than a good idea.

Embedded in those physical projects is the intangible quality of faith. Cluster isn't done yet, but I have faith that it will soon be a thing in the manufactured landscape that will spark conversation, which will connect people and by extension contribute toward a unique, vibrant community and cultural hub.

Fingers crossed anyway.



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Desperately seeking lost painting

8/22/2014

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PictureGrey Lace, 2014, by Carlyn Yandle. Acrylic on canvas, 40" x 67"
This week I am testing the usefulness of social media in locating a painting.

Grey Lace is not my first commission, but a favourite, done over two months this past winter. It is an abstract field in muted tones with shards of red and aqua that references a particular handmade doily, on a ground of many layers of glaze.  (See video of the making of this painting here.) 

It was designed for a living room in Budapest (renowned for handmade lace) but left behind in the International departure lounge at Vancouver International Airport on Aug. 3.

The owner of the lost painting is, understandably, more than a little sheepish. The Lost and Found office clerk knows him by name now due to his frequent transcontinental phone calls. Has it shown up? Any word?

The 40" x 67" acrylic-on-canvas was prepared for carry-on travel, sandwiched in acid-free paper and rolled onto a tube, then wrapped in protective plastic and taped securely on all seams. It was set down in the meal-purchase area in the evening hours before the family of four's 13-hour journey and forgotten in the group's carry-on luggage. 

PicturePhoto: thriftshopperforpeace.wordpress.com
There are a million stories about personal items left behind at airports, never to be found again. My mother once left her jacket in one of the grey bins in security but it was gone without a trace even before her flight left. This is the risk of circulating in an international travel hub that saw almost 18 million passengers pass through in 2013 and more than 9 million passengers  in the first six months of this year alone.

About 250,000 items were surrendered at Canada’s eight major airports in 2011, with most of it ending up in the trash due to the extreme volume stuff and severe space restrictions at the nation's biggest airport, Pearson. It's a better scenario here at YVR where the airport chapel accepts the seized and the unclaimed and sells it at its Fridays-only chaplaincy thrift store, open noon to 5 p.m. at 4871 Miller Rd. on Sea Island. (Promotional video below).

But we're in the opposite position: trying to claim something that can't be found. I'm heading out to the store anyway on faint hope that the tube is standing in a corner somewhere. Or maybe, just maybe — and this may be where the social media miracle comes in — it was purchased and is hanging on a wall somewhere. Maybe I can work out something with that buyer.

It's a nicer thought than the picture that keeps popping up in my head: Grey Lace In Landfill.

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Memorable designs discovered on road trip

8/14/2014

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PictureCarlyn Yandle photo
We were a bit of a spectacle, using survivalist technology outside our tent wedged between the humming, air-conditioned RVs,  but we were aching to use our car-camping trip to finally test the BioLite.

And it was good. (See 26-second YouTube review, below.)

The Sputnik-esque stove converts the energy of any post-disaster carbon-based material  — paper, leaves, cardboard, grass, wood shards — into a USB-port power source while boiling water in minutes. Yes, you can have your coffee and call home too, thanks to an  ingenious copper conductor-fan system that kicks in when heated and then turbo-charges the tiny fire into a flame as good as if you're cooking with gas.

The brilliance of this design was not lost on residents of Lower Manhattan who were plunged into cold, damp darkness for days after Hurricane Sandy struck in October 2012. 

The young Brooklyn inventors rushed  to the rescue with stoves for stranded people who needed a hot drink, social interaction, a way to call family. Emergency services didn't take too kindly to open fires during the chaos and so the BioLites were banned.

We first spotted the gizmo a month after the area was ravaged, in a New York Times article and made it our Christmas present. Good design endures; now Mountain Equipment Co-op carries it.
PictureCarlyn Yandle photo
And bad design disappears, or makes the bad design lists. That's why you don't see lawn darts anymore. But old, ingenious design isn't always readily apparent until you really feel it, like the moment we walked into a century-old log cabin and suddenly forgot about the blistering South Saskatchewan heat. Thick walls of almost petrified dovetailed wood and mortar were doing the same trick as energy-squandering air conditioners back at the campsite, except without the drone that was keeping us awake at night.

The rough-hewn angled dovetail joinery, used in various forms in traditional building around the world, succeeds in all aspects of good design. This settler cabin used local, renewable materials, and simple tools and easily-learned methods. The undeniable beauty of those checked cross-sections of silvered lumber, enhanced by age and the elements, is made possible through the collective creative process.

PictureCarlyn Yandle photo
Good design answers a need. And during a heatwave, that need is drinking water. We spent much of our trip looking for a place to fill up our water bottles but it seems that in the rural areas at least, most people still buy the 48-pack of single-use water bottles at the ubiquitous Co-op stores. There oughta be a law to provide ample drinking water in public areas, but I digress.

This beauty (right) in the Saskatoon airport departure lounge does the trick. A motion sensor triggers the water to flow while a counter shows how many plastic bottles were not used in the process. 



PictureCarlyn Yandle photo
At least the young trees were getting hydrated; in Moose Jaw, a bagged water system seemed to be winning the war against the elements. The surrounding corten steel framework serves as a rain-friendly grill featuring historically significant images of bison/buffalo, trunk protection as the tree grows, and bike lock-up. What's not to love?

PictureCarlyn Yandle photo
The one deadly design that haunts me still is the private automobile, a lethal projectile from the point of view of the native large grasshoppers, butterflies and dragonflies (and at least one starling and one small rodent). We tried to avoid looking at the critter mash on the grill at the end of each day but we have their blood on our hands. Their little corpses are reminders that the car is not designed with nature in mind. Next time, bike camping, where RVs fear to tread.



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Fleeting acts of self-expression hold special power

8/1/2014

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PictureZen Garden, Buddhist Temple, Japan
The first time I saw a "dry landscape" Zen garden in one of the hundreds of temples in Kyoto, my brain sort of short-circuited.

This was the mid-'80s, and here was a Zen Buddhist priest meticulously raking the gravel against a lurid neon backdrop of sudden affluence and an alarming amount of consumer waste, often un-used and in its original packaging.

Now, of course, we get it. We have been seduced by the easy acquisition of stuff, then oppressed by all our stuff as the economy contracted (and nearly collapsed in the U.S.) We realized the two-car-garage life was not for us and now we spend a lot of time and angst trying to figure out how to part with our stuff.  We have been hoodwinked by marketers who prey on and play up our inadequacies, even inventing a highly lucrative shopping 'holiday', Cyber-Monday.

PictureLeah Biggs photo
There's an entire genre of art that reflects our dis-ease with all the stuff (see 10 visuals here) and painters have had to re-think their practice (of eking out a living) now that 'original' oil paintings sell at Winner's for $39.99, straight from Dafen Village, China.

What is emerging is a conversation about what really matters, which inevitably concludes with 'experiences.' It would be nice to think this shared revelation is rooted in our own free will, but really, the marketers have shot themselves in the collective foot. A rampant, speculative real estate

PictureBeck's fleeting design at a French ski resort uses snowshoes and clotheslines.
market has forced mortgage-choked folks into smaller quarters where there is just no room for more stuff. Car-ownership is being increasingly seen as a hangover from another marketing era and self-expression is no longer synonymous with the home-decor category.  Expression is becoming a participatory practice, enhanced by that one burgeoning consumption category — the ubiquitous personal screen and all its accompanying non-object data packages, games and apps. Mobility-marketing promotes an era of impermanence. Photos are as fleeting as the gravel-raking or the daily rice-flower Kolam drawings of South Indian women (see video, at bottom) or the snowshoe-patterns created by Englishman Simon Beck (left).

PictureCarlyn Yandle photo
Retail therapy is slowly being replaced by escape therapy. We balance rocks and create Calder-esque mobiles of driftwood. We take pictures, we post them on our blogs. We have amassed nothing but memories of that mindful, meditative moment of exploring the surface and mass of natural objects. We share them and are inspired by others' sharing.

Priceless.







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    Cross-posted at
    carlynyandle.substack.com

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