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Art and nature come full circle Monday Sept. 18
I promised you an update on public artist Laurie McGugan's millennial project Circle Of Trees. Laurie had the opening on a frigid Friday night down by Woodbine Park in Toronto.
The wind was beating in off the lake, buffeting the trees and art lovers alike. It was so windy Laurie's
installation was actually moving. No small feat for a bronze tree. An exquisitely cast, completely beautiful, bronze, sugar maple tree.
The other interesting point to ponder is that everyone assumed that the bronze tree would outlive the natural order. This wasn't a depressing observation for the group. Rather it was an exuberant one. I brought painter
Adriana VanDrunen along for the opening. She too thought the tree was fabulous but left me a voice mail later reaffirming my thoughts about how cavalierly we all thought art would outlast nature.
My earlier interview with artist Laurie McGugan on the process of public art: First of all Laurie, what is the correct nomenclature for what you do. Do you call yourself an artist? A public artist? And how important do you thing public art is to Canadians? I call myself an artist as it covers more territory. I have used 'public artist' which is still a broad term. I think public art is very important to Canadian culture. This is not to say that we are immersed in it, but it is important in that it creates a dialogue about art in the public domain. It is part of the environment and the everyday life of a lot of people. Its artwork that comes out and meets you on the sidewalk.
Yes, I think Canadians appreciate it. All opinions count in public art which is the great thing about it. If the artwork is strong I think it brings people around to understanding it over time. Is purely an urban phenomenon? That is an interesting question. I immediately get this image of Inukshuck trail markers in the Arctic. There are lots of examples of public art in the non-urban environment however I think the nature of the 'public' part of the public art changes. Perhaps the public that 'goes to see' public art projects wherever they may be are not unlike the people that go to art galleries regularly. It is not something the public would generally come upon by chance. I don't know, if a tree falls in the woods, did it make a sound? You're working on an installation piece in Toronto in the Beaches area. Could you tell us something about it? The piece is called "Circle of Trees - a Time Piece" and is a Millennium project for the City of Toronto. It is an installation of seven mature maple trees of about 30' in height in a circle of approximately 56' in diameter. One of the trees is cast in bronze. It remains the same while the others live their lives. In front will be a boulder with a plaque illustrating what the piece looked like when first planted. This will act as a reference point when, say someone comes to the piece in 50 or 100 years. (See links below for more details) Where did you come up with the idea? The idea was one that I had developed a number of years earlier. I had a model of it and when the millennium approached and monies were becoming available for projects, I turned to this piece and realized that it was all about time. Underneath the hoopla of the millennium angst in all its forms, the millennium, I felt was essentially a marking of time. And that is what this piece is. We've seen the moose in Toronto being defaced. How do you protect your art from vandalism?
And now the all important money. How do you access funding for this sort of thing? How many levels of government do you have to appease?
If you had a crystal ball, could you foretell the future for public art in Canada and the rest of the world? I think that it will grow steadily. There are programmes that exist in most major cities that lay the foundation for art to be part of all new development. Moose roaming the streets puts the subject of public art into daily conversation and it if it's not about the money, it's about the 'talk'. Thanks a lot for the time Laurie.
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 This site is updated each weekday by Cathleen Bond ... bookmark this page and come back for the latest news, reviews and gossip on the Canadian arts scene. And don't hesitate to dive into the discussion forums on the left hand side of this page! RECENT FEATURES: >> Circle of Trees: Art and nature come full circle >> Atwood: The critics and The Blind Assassin >> Public Art: Who decides what art will fill our civic spaces and expand our imagination? >> Public Art: Who decides what art will fill our civic spaces and expand our imagination? >> Mags & Zines: A review of the best in Canadian arts publications. >> Digital Art: Clickable Cancon, a quick tour of the latest in digital art. >>
Cancon Quiz >> Iron Road: The Arts & Culture forum follows the creation of a new Canadian opera >> Interview: Carole McDowell tells us how she and artist Helen Lucas made the transition from gallery walls to the www gallery. >> Public Library in Peril How should libraries be transformed to meet future needs of Canadians? >> Culture
at the Crossroads >> Web
Wizard
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McGugan chose a young tree to stand at the centre of a larger circle of trees of the same genus. While the bronze tree would remain inert, a true replica
of the tree in the year 2000; the circle of sugar maples around it would grow, changing with time and the landscape. It was interesting to eavesdrop
on observations of the installation. Here's a sampling of what I heard: "It looks more hardy than the real thing." "Just think about it ... 100 years from now this little bronze tree will be here when everything else is gone." "It's great that Laurie made this testimonial to nature."
Well first of all, Laurie didn't make the tree, nature did. She saw the need to mark the turn of the clock and made a cast of a real tree. To be honest, it never even occurred to me that she would have used a real tree. I thought it was fake. We all did. At the end of the day we assumed that Laurie could fake nature better than the real thing. Laurie was smart enough to leave the
perfection of creation to Gaia.
Laurie has a series of etchings, photographs and prints that follow her creative process with Circle of Trees. I loved the actual roots of the tree. Simply sanded and adorned with tiny fronds of bronze it seemed the perfect metaphor for McGugan's melding of art and nature. The exhibit was accompanied by a well filmed video which documented the
installation process. Usually these vids are enormous yawns, but with the right voice over Laurie could probably sell the thing to Bravo or WTN. It was
that good. Congratulations Laurie on a thought-provoking millennial project.
Do you think Canadians really appreciate it? Or is it something they need to be educated about?
It has to be through design. I am scared to explain this really because I don't want to give anyone any ideas, but basically, with the Circle of Trees, one solution was in what tree I chose as the the one to cast into bronze. I interviewed over 100 trees for the job. I had to pass up many a beautiful specimen because, frankly, they were too easy to climb. I chose strictly on the way the tree grew as a deterrent to one form of vandalism. I strongly believe that in public art, if the vandalism aspect is not part of the design, the piece will not be successful. I think the most exciting pieces of public art invite interaction, so it is a sort of marriage between the idea and the reality of it's situation. There are other ways such as involving the community to have ownership over the work and that can help. Bottom line, however, is that if someone wants to destroy something, they will. If your artwork is coming out onto that sidewalk, it might get mugged.
Money. There are many different scenarios on that. This project was unique and was an exception to almost all normal processes. It was an exception as a millennium project and all the short time lines that existed around the grants and completion times. Normally public art evolves through competitions and money that already exists through Percentage for Art type programmes. The Circle of Trees was an idea that I brought to the City of Toronto on my own. There was a year of aquiring approvals on all levels, from the neighbourhood to the City Council. I applied for Millennium project funds from The Canada Council Millennium Fund, Ontario 2000 and the Toronto Millennium Fund. In the end there was a partnership between myself and the City through Department of Parks and Recreation who were building the new Woodbine Park where my piece resides.
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