This article by Michelle Aldredge discusses Babel’s Bricks, an exhibition in Massachusetts, USA, curated by Corwin Levi in Gallery 51. This group show of 20 artists, myself included, focuses on the human desire to play, to build, and rebuild and as an artist to create work out smaller pieces, building to create something larger.

Photos: Michelle Aldredge & Corwin Levi

A little while ago I was asked to create a piece for an exhibition in Massachusetts. The premise of the show focuses on how small parts are stacked to create a piece of art. Corwin Levi, the curator, put it this way,  “Lines make a drawing, strokes make a painting, pieces make a sculpture, and seconds stacked on seconds make a video.” …and group of whales make a pod!

I created this collection of drawings in response to this show. They represent the total population of our Southern Resident Killer Whale population off Vancouver Island: 78. I continue to be struck by the uniqueness of individuals within a group, and by the idea of “the specimen”. This could keep me busy for a long time!

Southern Resident Killer Whales, ink on paper

Southern Resident Killer Whales, ink on paper

For the past few months I have been doing a lot of thinking about how the pursuit of science and knowledge has a tendency to make specimens out of subjects. I think it must be human nature to desire to own perfectly packaged little parcels of nature; neatly sealed up, clean, clinical and perfect. Like a butterfly on a collectors wall.

Recently I have been working on a series of ten small drawings (approx.. 1.5″ x 2″) of Southern Resident Killer Whale specimens.

Here is a sneak peak:

The other week I took down my Dark Ocean exhibition at Xchanges Gallery.

I am thankful for everyone who came to the opening and to the gallery while I was there. Over three weeks I met many interesting people: travelers, art students, gallery workers, volunteers, fishermen, scientists, artists, poets and thinkers. A gallery space is the perfect setting for starting conversations about art, daily life, science, whales and discovering new ways of looking at the world. I feel energized from the stories people told me about their own encounters with whales and listening to interesting facts that I didn’t know before.

For instance, I learned orcas can use a hunting technique for salmon where they swim in a “<” shape up a channel to funnel the fish into their body-net. Then they take turns switching out from the outside to swimming through the centre to catch a fish. They swop positions back and forth to create a community-cooperative dinner!

I was very interested in how people read my “Pod” installation. The mass of thousands of tiny, black pyramids took shapes in peoples’ minds that I couldn’t have guessed and I was so thrilled to discover! A cloud of krill gathering near the surface, a bait ball of fish, a swarm, an explosion, an info graphic of the ocean’s depths, way points on a chart, etc!

While I have had an incredible month at the gallery, I felt like I was on hold. The time for making was on pause and I now had time to reflect on my work, listen to what other people saw in it and get back into my researching. I was asked many times, “So… what’s next?”. I wasn’t really sure what to say. While I know I will be making art about the ocean my whole life,  I didn’t feel ready to answer the “what”.

As I began taking down the work at the end of the show I realized that now I can get back to experimenting and try to find new art-solutions for the information I have been reading about. Now is the time for testing and trying and making!

For images of the exhibition, click here.

As a child I loved to get library books that looked at the world through cross-sections and comparison scales. A cross section showing the different levels of the ocean ranging from the light-active Photic Zone to the deep Abyssal Zone. Or the ever popular illustration comparing a blue whale to the weight of 40 elephants and the length of three school buses. These images are powerful and effective… but not accurate when expressing the raw majesty of a whale or the absence of human exploration at the bottom of the sea.

USA; Alaska; Cross Sound; Elfin Cove; Humpback Whales – Cedit as Don Paulson Photography

USA, Alaska, Chatham Strait, Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) blow

After our exposure to these images, there can be an underwhelming feeling about seeing the real thing. In fact very little of a whale is often seen from the surface. Sometimes just a tiny, dark blur or a cloud of mist. Last year I saw a mother whale with a young one: a large explosion of mist followed by a small puff of mist. I pointed this pair out to some others on the beach. The people smiled at me and nodded, faking interest and then left at the first opportunity. The very fact that whales often glide by in an understated manner (these whales never make the news), is the very reason that seems to pull me in. It is like an Alfred Hitchcock thriller: where the suspense is built around the not knowing and not seeing. A shadow cast on a whale is all we need to have our attention completely gripped and our imagination activated. It is the same with whales. It is incredibly poetic that the largest creatures on earth often pass mostly unseen except for their breath.

I stumbled across this amazing illustration by Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet while searching early scientific whale drawings. This creature seems so alien and monster-like. It is incredible to realize that Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet was drawing a Sperm Whale! I guess there actually are a lot of similarities; the broad head, the wrinkly skin, the bumps along it’s spine. Basically everything that could be seen from the top of the water is relatively accurate… and everything below the waterline looks like it has been “filled in”. What a great example of imagination paired with reality!