Monday, August 27, 2007

Cull pile


















Cull pile
Kim Stewart
mixed media installation
Prince George
2007


I would like to install a piece which I have named 'Cull Pile' after the piles of 'garbage wood' that are left on logging sites for burning. This installation consists of a large pile of cardboad boxes, each bearing the likeness of a Beetle killed tree, branch, bark or needles. I plan to create these likenesses using com­binations of conte, charcoal, pos­sibly some printmaking, collaging techniques (paper, old magazines, also considered tree or pulp related garbage), and bees wax. Each of the elements used in this pile will make reference to the trees, or to a product made from trees, all of which is now considered garbage. I would like the 'pile' to be interactive in that people can pick through it and salvage what they can, just as they would a pile on a logging site. Whatever is left on the pile at the end of the show would be burned, just as a real cull pile is, hopefully in the parking lot, or somewhere close by where people can watch and react. I am hoping to stir a sense of loss for something that is beautiful, but that no longer is seen as useful. I hope people will mourn the fact that I have to burn my art, and that they might transfer those emotions to the loss of the trees. There are a lot of parallels that can be drawn between this installation, and the Pine Beetle killed trees, and I am hoping people will make those con­nections and ask themselves impor­tant questions about this issue.

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