"There's No Place Like Home"

On March 13, 2020, Toronto entered what was to be the first of a series of lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The world seemed to be on fire, and was shutting down one region at a time, one country at a time, like a wave sweeping across the globe. Like uncountable others, I felt paralyzed by anxiety, shock, and grief. The idea of leaving the house was terrifying, and yet our small house felt like a claustrophobic trap. I remember vividly what I wanted at the time: to be surrounded by growing green things. I wanted vines dripping down my walls, moss covering the floor, trees growing in the middle of rooms.

In an attempt to do what we could for our mental health, my husband and I looked at a map of the area surrounding our home in east Toronto. We looked for green spaces, and especially those with creeks or rivers running through them. Not having a car, the months that would follow were mostly restricted to the radius of walking distance, so we started with the ravines nearby. Taylor Creek became a frequent destination, and we watched eagerly as signs of that first Spring started to push up through the ground. Occasionally, we rented a car for the day, and would explore further afield. We allowed ourselves to feel healed by being surrounded by the songs of birds, and the magic of seeing deer, foxes, snakes, rabbits, and so many squirrels. Not oblivious to the fact that the world was crumbling, but as a way of keeping our heads above water in spite of all that was happening.

As Spring exploded with blossoms, and turned to Summer’s lush overgrown greenery, these urban wilderness spaces felt spiritual to me. We walked a lot, and we talked a lot. At first, we talked about what was happening, and about the curiosities in the natural world we walked through. Gradually the conversation turned to what we wanted the next couple of decades of our life to look like. There’s nothing like a completely cleared calendar to inspire thoughts of what you’d like to change as you eventually begin to fill that calendar back up in the future.

And as we walked and talked, I photographed. Unlike my usual habit of looking almost exclusively through a macro lens and documenting textures, patterns, and colours that I would extract later, this time I used a wide lens. I wanted to capture the feeling of being surrounded by these spaces, with trees arching overhead like a protective architecture. And as I began to create the artwork from these scenes, I thought ahead to the coming winter. By then, it seemed inevitable that the lockdowns would continue through the colder and darker months, and I wanted to create a buffer against what that would feel like. I envisioned these pieces on my own living room walls, taking up so much space that they would seem like the setting itself, rather than an object on the wall. I layered in underwater bubbles, and fireflies (or fairies), lily pads, flowers, crystals, and magic.

And then I gave each one a chair. One of our chairs from home, one of the chairs we’d spent months occupying. I photographed these chairs with sunlight streaming through the leaves, so that each one felt like a safe, warm, happy place to sit. I love chairs, and have been collecting them since I was about 16 years old. At one time, we had 22 chairs – some had to stay in the garage, since our house is only 650 square feet. The first studio mates I had were an upholsterer and a woman who did chair caning and weaving.. a whole studio stacked high with chairs of all sorts. By including these chairs in the pieces, I wanted to create a domestic space in the midst of the lush wilderness. It also feels like including a bit of myself.

The more I pictured the finished versions of these pieces, the more I wanted to create a space where reality was blurred between the artwork on the walls and the 3-dimentional space of the room those walls contained. A place full of living plants and blossoms, with branches overhead. And with my chairs, and the rug from our living room. Tea cups and trays, unused in a year of not having any company over to visit. So I created this in the Studio 102 Gallery.

In the process of envisioning and creating this work and installation, we also decided it was time to leave the city, and head for new adventures. We put our adorable wee house up for sale, and bought a place about 3 ½ hours NE of Toronto. A place on 42 acres of land. Our new project, where we plan to build a handful of small cabins in the woods, and create a collaborative, multi-year art installation where we can host artist residencies, retreats, and Airbnb guests wanting to immerse themselves in the magic of the place. Where our lives will become a bit of an experiment in sustainable living.

And just like that, work that was deeply rooted in considering notions of “home” has become my “farewell to Toronto” solo show and installation; the bridge between this gallery space of 170 square feet in Toronto, and everything I’ve created while living here, and the 42-acre adventure that awaits.