prolonged exposure to oxygen....

Wendy Stefansson. Prolonged Exposure to Oxygen, Day 3, 6:18:04 pm.
Copper leaf on sandstone.  2009

Prolonged exposure to oxygen can change things - even people.

The works in this post are photographs of an ephemeral outdoor installation I created on my mother’s beach in Prince Edward Island. I applied copper leaf to parts of the sandstone rocks, following their natural contours; finding their low points, their concavities.

Over the course of three days, I photographed the coppered rocks as they changed with exposure to the elements: tides, wave action, salt, water, wind and air. The copper quickly lost its brilliance, but in place of light there emerged a rainbow of colours. Light disintegrated into colour,

finding perfection in its brokenness.

Time changes things, but it’s all good. It’s all god.

Wendy Stefansson. Prolonged Exposure to Oxygen, Day 3, 6:18:04 pm.
Copper leaf on sandstone. 2009

Wendy Stefansson.  Prolonged Exposure to Oxygen, Day 2, 7:10:39 pm.
Copper leaf on sandstone. 2009

Wendy Stefansson. Prolonged Exposure to Oxygen, Day 3, 6:18:11 pm.
Copper leaf on sandstone. 2009

exterior decorating

Laura Vickerson. Upholstered Roots. Chateau Mathieu, France. 2009

The fabric of domestic life escapes its usual confines and subverts the natural disorder of things....

Laura Vickerson. Upholstered Root. Chateau Mathieu, France. 2009

See more of Laura Vickerson's work in the following posts: holy waters; and rose petals.

approaches

Lyndal Osborne and John Freeman. Counterpoint. 2009
Val-David, Quebec.
Outdoor installation using the natural woods, PVC tubes, pigmented prints
on polyester film, rebar and foam.

Forty-one synthetic trees are "planted" in a grid within a clearing, within a natural forest.  The false takes up residence within the true. The art within the wild. The approach is concealed.

Lyndal Osborne and John Freeman. Counterpoint. 2009

Peter von Tiesenhausen. Sanctuary. 2012
Outdoor installation at Leighton Art Centre, Calgary, Alberta.
Comprised of 1000 poles harvested from the artist's land in northern Alberta
in the wake of the Mountain Pine Beetle devastation.

One thousand dead trees resurrected in the foothills of the Rockies, forming alleys that lead the eye to the mountains beyond. Or upwards to the sky. Imposing a human perspective on the landscape. Creating an approach to the sacred.

Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Dublin. Martha Schwartz Partners.

Outdoor installation in front of the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin. 2010

Red "trees" mark the approach to a theatre in Dublin. Creating obstacles, forcing indirection. Creating context. Lit at night like torches, lighting the way to the celebration within.

Dale Chihuly. Red Reeds. Glass.
Frederik Meijer Sculpture Gardens, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Spiky reeds of glass -- shards -- growing in a garden. Reaching upward, red slivers piercing the air. Impaling the sky. Approaching the light.






See more works by Peter von Tiesenhausen in the following posts on this blog: singed; burning man; and a book of days.  See more of Lyndal Osborne at spinners; or collecting as art practice.

on Andy Goldsworthy and the making of holes...

Andy Goldsworthy.
Japanese maple leaves stitched together to make a floating chain,
the next day it became a hole supported underneath by a woven briar ring.
Ouchiyama-Mura, Japan.  21-22 November 1987.

Every hole

is an entry point,

a cave,

the crater of a volcano,

a passageway back

to the place of perpetual beginnings.

(Creation followed by destruction followed by creation again

is a geologic truth.)

2013-04-20

Andy Goldsworthy.
Damp sand, hollowed out, soft red stone grond into a powder around each rim.
Compton Bay, Isle of Wight. June 1987.

Andy Goldsworthy.
Seven Holes, 1991.
Greenpeace, London UK.
Clay sourced from ground outside the building, and building debris.

Andy Goldsworthy.
Runnymede Sculpture Farm, Woodside, California.
Clay from the site. Clay works fired on site in a temporary kiln, 6-18 June 1994.

Andy Goldsworthy.
Runnymede clay; Scottish, Janpanese, Californian bracken and ferns held with thorns to the wall.
San Jose Museum of Art, California. February 1995.

For more on Andy Goldsworthy, see this. Or this.