May 8, 2012

Two weeks from today, I should be well on my way – per­haps just west of Jasper at this time and approach­ing Mt. Rob­son. That is as far as I’ve ever been in my life­time on the west­ward Yel­low­head high­way towards Prince Rupert. Uncharted ter­ri­tory for me. I’m head­ing out to Haida Gwaii for a res­i­dency in Gwaii Haanas National Park with some won­der­ful peo­ple I have yet to meet in per­son. One of the bless­ings of the inter­net is to be able to con­nect with peo­ple, issues and ideas, and to quickly share the same.

As I build up to leav­ing, which is no small feat – given my fam­ily and career oblig­a­tions, I will share as much of this jour­ney with you as I pos­si­bly can and con­tinue to do so as my con­nec­tiv­ity avails.

I will be trav­el­ling by truck and tak­ing the ferry. This is inten­tional. I want to stay as con­nected with the land and sea as I can. Air is not yet a part of my vision for this trip. The biggest part of this res­i­dency for me so far has been the learn­ing and the glean­ing of infor­ma­tion about the his­tory, the peo­ple and the place that are so warmly wel­com­ing me into their magic. I con­tinue to be truly hon­oured by this. The more that I learn, the more I feel that I need to learn and that there will never be enough time to pos­si­bly soak up what is required of me.

I am re-learning again to rely on my senses as an artist and to be con­fi­dent that these will serve me well, as they so often have, pro­vid­ing insight and con­nec­tion where logic fails to reveal the rea­son behind the ever-present mys­tery of life.

Last night, I dreamt of …

Kiidk’yaas

The Golden Spruce : …but it was a beau­ti­ful mesh of gos­samer, thread-like cop­per wire – as though it were a spirit. A holo­gram of my daugh­ter stood within it. Over­head, the oobleck of tarry oil-sand appeared to be almost on the brink of spilling over this frag­ile ghost of the Golden Spruce – threat­en­ing to darken it’s shin­ing inner light as it stood there, ren­dered in fine angel-hair cop­per and gold –frag­ile in it’s pro­tec­tion of my beloved child.

My sleeping/dreaming self is already cre­at­ing the works and send­ing me mes­sages of cre­ativ­ity and visual metaphor.

I am only the messenger.