Convenience Gallery: Day 37

What do I do with Convenience Drawing? I'm heartbroken to see it go. Soon, another work will take its place, and this one will only be a memory. I am sad so sad. So really, what remains? Does it make sense to retain the material? Then it's sculpture. Does it work to peel off the vinyl oh so carefully, saving it for another site? Even Santa's elves would have difficulty with that kind of craftsmanship; It would drive me bonkers. So, what to do? Think about the next work. Still, I'm just wondering, how cold and cruel is that? Disregarding this work like a bundle of garbage? For that is what the remains of my installations become, balls of used tape and vinyl, ripped and torn, thrown out with yesterday's news. They join all of the scraps and remnants from the installation process, all of the bits of material that were cut away to reveal the final work. I pick and choose what to notice, what is included in the artwork and what isn't. What I want to leave people with is this: when they walk past this site in the future, those who saw Convenience Drawing will be able to remember what was there, remember the space created with the lines, and recollect an experience that is no more. Gone. Vanished. Poof. It's not like wall painting, which is covered up with another layer of paint, and the work is forever sandwiched between microns. Super thin painting. Mine is truly gone. Zipped off and thrown away.

I asked myself on Day 13: When is the work complete? What is completion for an installation? When it's removed? I have given life to a work before it is installed by documenting its development. Will documenting the denouement of the piece provide a sense of completion, of nothing left to be said, rather than the abrupt finality of removal? I'm not sure. Once a piece goes up, I'm on to the next site, thinking about what to do next. Sometimes, obsessing over a work that is installed is like crying over spilled milk. It's done, out there for all the world to see, completely exposed. There's no going back.

Perhaps I can donate the material to the gallery. They can do what they would like with it. That, however, seems like passing the potato. Or TNT. "Here, I don't want this. You have it." I guess the question to be answered is, where is the work? What part of the work is the work? What would it be like if for the de-installation I removed the building and the vinyl stayed intact? It's like going back to the days of my drawing research with the Light Drawing Installation, seeing those lines floating in mid air. A pile of rubble and the lines hovering, attached to the air molecules. That would be really cool.

Now I'm sitting here waiting for the sun to set. I've been waiting for this opportunity for the whole installation period, a perfect, winter sunset, and the sky turning to that shade of blue that makes my heart melt. I one day scurried down here thinking I would make it for the right time and colour, but by the time I got here it was too late. Sun set and sky dark. Another day, I was in Brampton, and on a few other days I was just lazy and didn't want to drive all the way down here to stand in the cold and wait for the sky to change. Like Monet. He was committed. But today is perfect, just like I asked for, and the sky is blue with fluffy clouds, and it's not too cold outside. I have my camera ready on my tripod, and so I just wait for the sky to change.

Photo: Drawing Research: Photo Documentation of Convenience Drawing, 2006

Convenience Gallery: Day 13

I took these photographs the other night when Leslie and I visited the gallery. I was so astonished at how great the piece looks at night. I want to take photos of the work throughout the day in all different kinds of lighting conditions - kind of like Bernd and Hilla Becher and their collections. I will be collecting light instead of buildings. So I guess it would be more like Monet (not very avant garde at all). And, now that I think of it, I remember seeing a very generic poster in a restaurant of lots of doors, a collection of doors, arranged side-by-side, up and down, all pretty and colourful, like the doors of a seaside town in Spain or Mexico. Pretty, beautiful doors. Sheesh, if I were to cancel any idea I have based on if it's been done before, I don't think I'd ever get around to doing anything at all.

I'm also present to a new problem: how do I complete an installation? Ordinarily, I just wait until it's time to take it down, hope that enough people see it, and take pictures while it's up. That's such a sad process, kind of like seeing a vase full of flowers slowly die. Eventually, they just have to be thrown out. How can I complete the process of the installation, so that there is nothing left to be said? I have made a promise on this very website, to track the development of the artwork from conception to completion. Well, when is completion? I never thought of that.

Photo: Drawing Research: Photo Documentation (Installation of Convenience Drawing), 2006

Convenience Gallery: Day 10

Photo: Drawing Research: Photo Documentation (Convenience Drawing), 2006

Convenience Gallery: Day 8

Today went brilliantly: without a hitch. I love days like that.

Photo: Drawing Research: Photo Documentation (Installation of Convenience Drawing), 2006

Convenience Gallery: Day 5

I have a few minutes to write my description and title of the work to send to Scott for the announcement going out online next week. The title: Convenience Drawing: One plane of horizontal stripes drawn in perspective and arced to the right (or, where does it lead?), 2006. I love long titles. They confound typesetters and publication designers. Ha ha. OK. Now, for the text about the work. Let's see if I can be eloquent (ahem):

"Convenience Drawing: One plane of horizontal stripes drawn in perspective and arced to the right (or, where does it lead?) continues Peterson's drawing research, her investigation into how we create and perceive space. For this site, Peterson writes: "I want the space inside the window to feel like it's bending to the right, so extremely that people will want to push through the glass to see something on the right edge of the window. That will have people pressed up to the glass, so wanting to get into the space behind the glass, that it's uncomfortable." Peterson traces the complete development of Convenience Drawing, from nothing to something, on a companion website, www.drawingresearch.com, including diagrams, texts and photo-concepts of the finished work. Peterson is also this year's Lynn Donoghue Memorial Artist-in-Residence at Spadina Museum, and her installation, Portal, is on display at the museum until January."

That works. Now I've got to work out the dimensions for the strips so I can go buy the vinyl I need. I've made a diagram (of course) with the measurements for ease of use. It seems like so much vinyl, 33.75 feet, but then again, the window is quite large. I'm in for a treat. Thankfully I'll be putting the vinyl on the inside of the window rather than the outside. I hate vinyl installation in the cold.

Photo: Drawing Research: Diagram showing vinyl strip measurements for Convenience Drawing, 2006

Convenience Gallery: Day 4

We've been discussing the colour of the drawing now. It will be coloured vinyl adhered directly to the glass this time, and I've done different colours. Scott suggested to match the grey on the front slab just below the window. That looks great. The other colour I have tested in the image is white. White looks beautiful. And with both white and grey, at night when the window is backlit, the stripes will be darker because they are opaque. They will both look dark grey - whether the colour of the vinyl is white or grey. My concern with white is that it will be too light, and will not be visible during the day. Just thought of an experiment: to put a white sheet of paper against the glass downstairs and see what it looks like against the backdrop of Flavio's sculpture. His work is all white, and should produce lighter versions of the shadows that a white wall set two feet back from the glass would. So that's how I'll see if white works. I'll go now. I'm back after testing the white. I think it's too light, not that it won't be seen from the street: it will. I think it's too light in comparison to the bar in the middle of the window. It will advance in relationship to the back wall. Actually, if I follow my colour theory, I should pick middle grey to mimic atmospheric perspective. The darkest tones and highest contrast advance to the foreground and the lightest tones and least contrast recede to the background. The background is white, therefore the black bar is foreground, and my road, well, it traverses between each. Middle grey should work just fine. Warm grey would be best, but I think that colour ends up looking like poo. So, grey it is. White looks good in the photo, so I've attached them all here for perusal. It's funny, because I think that the black is the clearest of the three in terms of the illusion and how it looks in the photograph, but for the final work, I don't think that the black will be as effective. I think that the grey will look the best.



But wait! I haven't even investigated the use of a colour yet. It's all achromatic so far. Somehow, I can't visualize a colour. There is so much red in the building, both in the convenience sign and the red brick, and a bright colour will interfere too much with the red. No, I think grey is best for this one. Now I have to start working out the measurements for the vinyl strips. I'll cut them on Saturday. I should drop by the art store today and get the vinyl. Hopefully they'll have enough and I won't have to order it in from elsewhere. Ooh, the excitement.

Photo: Drawing Research: Photo-concept: Three versions of the Convenience Gallery Drawing (black, grey and white), 2006

Convenience Gallery: Day 3

OK. Now I know what I want to do. Or at least I know the feeling I want the drawing to evoke. I want the space inside the window to feel like it's bending to the right, so extremely that people will want to push through the glass to see something on the right edge of the window. I want people to be pressed up to the glass, so wanting to get into the space behind the glass, that they're uncomfortable. So, I will need to manipulate the interior of the gallery - the space behind the glass - visually so that it bends to the right and forward. It should draw the viewer in and push them off to the right side (infuriatingly). So now I have a few problems: 1) how am I going to draw that feeling two dimensionally, and 2) how am I going to be able to transfer that drawing spatially to the gallery, which right now has no back wall, and is unlikely I will have a back wall. Ugh. I need a break. I'm getting a headache. OK. Back from my break and I'm working on the photograph that I took back in September of the building (I love the colour of the sky and the light). I've added the frosting on the windows and a wall in the main window to the height of the vertical above the doorway, to where the frosting is on the left side. Now this is my backdrop for my drawing. I still don't know how it's going to work, and what surfaces I'm going to use for the drawing. But I know that it will look right to have the wall in the window to the height of the window frosting rather than to the ceiling. That would be best, I think. Why is my work so exact and perfect? Psychoanalysts will hypothesize.



There. Now I've made an image I can work with. The road. It's funny, because at first I did a version that didn't have curves in it, and it looked too sterile, like it was about nothing but lines. This version has a story. It's a road (to where? from where?). Now I've just got to figure out how to make that come true in reality. I don't know yet. I have to talk to Scott to get some ideas from him about surfaces for the back wall. Also, where will the lines be located? On the glass? On the back wall? Both? Will I build a false incline, from the bottom edge of the window to the back top edge of the back wall and put the drawing on the incline (probably not: too literal). All of these questions need to be answered. I will call Scott now.


Drawing Research: Photo-concept of the Convenience Gallery Drawing, 2006

Convenience Gallery: Day 2

Crap! I've got two hours left today for working, and all morning I have been working on my kristenpeterson.ca website. Not helping with Convenience Gallery, am I. So, I've gone back over my notes from yesterday and will work on a drawing of the Piero della Francesca idea. But first, I'm going to upload the images of the building from the shots I took yesterday out in the cold.



Photo: Drawing Research: Photos of Convenience Gallery, inside and out, 2006

Convenience Gallery: Day 1

I am struck by how, here at Convenience Gallery, this space is not pulling me in any particular direction yet. It doesn't feel charged in any particular way. Having come from Spadina museum, which is supercharged, I have not yet found a way into the space here at convenience gallery. I wonder what to do next? I am no longer able to insert stripes willy nilly into a space to create space. It seems now too arbitrary. Too obscene. Too hegemonic. Thou shalt create stripes, the Lord sayeth, and now the Lord taketh away. Those days are gone. (Alas, whatever shall I do now?). How am I to proceed? Well, I have started here with a kernel of a beginning. A little diagram that Scott drew for me showing the measurements of the Convenience Gallery window. I wish you could see it. It is so cute. I love when people draw me diagrams. I remember the one my husband drew for me (the second diagram he drew for me ever... the first with his phone number I still have somewhere). It had the directions for finding his parents' house on it. It had a little car on it, showing me driving to meet him, and a little house for the destination. It also had roads, and lampposts, and an N with an arrow attached to it pointing North. Then, in the corner, in big block letters was written "NOT TO SCALE!" Needless to say, I fell in love with him that day. (I wonder if that was his intention?) At any rate, Scott's diagram is my point of entry. If I could create the interest of people for wondering what is inside this space from the outside, that would be interesting. Or, present a diagram of what is inside, or not. This is making no sense. How do I create an idea, a feeling that I bring into existence through concept? I have made my own version of Scott's diagram, and it is by no means as lovely as his, but I like it nonetheless. It is spare. I present it to you on this page. Oh, and I've converted his fractions to decimal, simply because I lost patience searching for how to type fractions into my computer version. The authenticity is eroded by laziness. Now I'm off topic.

Figure 1: Drawing Research: My version of Scott's hand drawn diagram of the Convenience Gallery window measurements



OK. So, what do I do here? I'm feeling the pressure of time, of knowing that I have to produce something in a week, and I really don't like deadlines of any sort. I should probably go outside soon, and once again look at the window from the street. This will be the vantage point for the work, and here I am inside (where it's warm) wondering about the work. Really, if I were a committed artist, I would be out there, across the street, being with the building and the site from where the work will be viewed. Like Farley Mowat. Or Tom Thompson. That's commitment. I'm a weenie. So then, now I will make my way outside (brr). OK. Just came back inside after having spent about two minutes out there. Took three pictures from across the street. And it occurred to me: how am I going to cause people to pause and reflect when all they're probably thinking about it getting home. Or, getting to their destination wherever it may be. Out of the cold. Out of the chill. Ooh, my laptop is nice and warm on my legs, like a little campfire. I did take some nice photos inside this space of the checkerboard floor. I could create a checkerboard pattern in the window, an homage to Piero della Francesca. There would be precedence. Or, making a deep painting that extends perspectivally outwards from eye level on the street. That means it would angle upwards and into the space. I could create the idea of warmth. A roaring fire. It's so unpleasantly cold out there. A warm Piero della Francesca. It's too bad that I need architectural forms, linearity to show perspective. Oh, but wait! Palm trees grown in a row would be just fine. They would recede. Still, a lone palm is more romantic. This is insane. OK. I could create a drawing, half on the back wall of the space, and half on the front. And now I'm having ideas of making a wall, a door that is slightly ajar with blackout fabric behind it so it looks like it is dark and there is a space behind the door that is undetermined. And maybe I could put a drawing on top of the door and overtop of the window on a diagonal like I thought of before. FUCK. There is so much I could do, it's starting to make my head hurt. What is the right thing to do? What does the space call for? I like the idea of creating a backdrop, a fake door with the blackout space behind it. But really, that's just crazy talk. Also, I'm lazy, and I don't want to be building anything too expensive or involved, because it's only going to be up for one month, and it's a lot of work. And, knowing how I do things, I always have to build something twice: once to figure out how not to do it, and a second time to do it right. I think that every artwork I've ever made I've done two times. It's the law.