Oxygen Art Centre

I moved into Oxygen today. The gallery will be my studio until the 14th of January. Then I pack everything up and install the show for the opening on the 15th. I'm all set up, and on the way to my billet's house tonight I will look around for some good Boxing Day dumpsters...




(note the clear bag full of amazing fabric scraps-- brocades, felt, fur-- from the hat factory behind the gallery!!! Nelson has such artsy garbage!)

Glass Works

Every piece in the show is going to be in a glass "vitrine" or bell jar. So I've been collecting, cleaning, and clipping used glass jars since the summer. I clip the lip of the jars off with mosaic clippers and put the jars over a mold in the glass kiln.

This is the glass kiln. It takes about 20 hours to go through the whole program (it goes up to 1400 degrees). Since I don't know what "temperature" of glass each jar is, I have to put them through a "shot gun" program on the kiln that goes through many stages for many types of glass. This improves my success rate. But some of the jars crack if its cold outside and they cool too fast. Some meld onto the mold too much, or constrict under the mold so I have to break the glass to get them off. Others vitrify (turn milky so you can's see through them). None are the same.

Part of the challenge will be to put things inside that are as beautiful as the glass pieces they'll be displayed in.





Special thanks to my parents, Lori Thompson and Jerome Liboiron, for keeping the kiln going all season in my absence!

Introduction & Prototype

This blog is to document the process of a residency and exhibition called: Saltwinning: Equal To or Greater Than, in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada from Dec 26, 2009 to January 20, 2010.

The exhibition will consist of hundreds of tiny, individual salt object/landscapes inside of glass bell jars reminiscent of the mountainous, snowy landscape of the area. The bell jars, their contents, and the salt that will be crystallized on those contents will all be reclaimed from trash. This is a prototype made from New York City and Nelson garbage:



The exhibition will be participatory: At any time, gallery visitors can take any of the art pieces as long as they leave something behind of equal or greater value. The value of the individual pieces will not be implied in any way, meaning that each visitor must determine for his or herself its worth compared to the worth of the thing he or she is exchanging it for. Furthermore, any object that anyone leaves behind can also be exchanged for something of equal or greater value. Finally, everything left in the gallery at the end of the show will be given away or shared within a year. The exhibition will mimic a barter-gift economy based on trash. In this way, not only will waste become something of value, it will also produce value when anything of greater value is left behind.

This blog will document the process of making the pieces, including the challenging task of melting and reforming glass jars, reclaiming salt, scavenging for raw materials on garbage day, making the art objects themselves, and finally recording how people interact with the pieces.