A day away from the studio and a Lake Louise hike

Christy standing on frozen Lake Louise.

It was a beautiful day for a hike and a group of almost 30 visual artists and musicians from the Banff Centre took a bus about 60km and spent the afternoon hiking around Lake Louise. At this time of year Lake Louise is completely frozen, so many people were enjoying the sunshine, walking around and even playing hockey on the lake.

View from the hike up to the tea house.

 We decided to take a 3.8km (about 2 miles) hike up the mountain. The map promised a tea house at the top and for most of the hike I was motivated by visions of hot cocoa or hot milky tea. The air was incredibly dry, and I drank all of my water before reaching the top of our hike. The snow packed beautifully, and we were surprised to find our hands dry after forming dense, hard snowballs. The water evaporated from our hands almost instantly. The altitude made for much heavy breathing as we made our way up the hill.

Tall trees (maybe spruce?) and a steep fall. It was warm in the sun.

About a half mile from the top a few hikers told us the tea house was closed in the winter. Disappointment rippled through our group, but we were still determined to make it the tea house for the view, even if there was no cocoa or snacks to be had.

Seema, Guillaume, Anna, Maike and a bold bird.

Guillaume brought some dried fruit and nuts which he generously shared and a couple of bold birds were hanging around for scraps and posing for photos. We saw two birds at the top of our climb, and I wondered if they followed us up, wanting to keep the trail mix in sight.

Taking a break with Elida and Maike to enjoy the view. 

After the hike we had snacks and warm drinks at Chateau Lake Louise, the hotel that overlooks the lake. It was lovely and refreshing to spend time outdoors. Looking forward to getting back in the studio for more quails and wallpaper tomorrow!

Testing Gold Leaf

The time is just flying by... We've been here for two weeks already, and we have gotten a ton of work done.

Even though we came with a plan and had done some material testing, many challenges have come up as we've been working on the project. It's okay though because problem-solving is one of our favorite parts about making art. We've been thinking that our wall paper is a little too subtle, maybe it needs a little oomph! Julia suggested adding gold leaf to some of the square spaces in the wallpaper. We picked up some imitation gold leaf from an art supply store in Calgary on Friday and did some testing on scraps of paper. Gold leaf is super delicate, probably the thinnest solid material that I have ever used. It is also so lovely. After testing it on the paper we wanted to gold leaf our bodies. We even put it on a scrap piece of spray foam which instantly transformed that hideous material into something almost gorgeous. That may take a few more tries.

We plan to begin gold leafing wall paper tomorrow and then hanging it on the wall. We also purchased some acid-free linen tape in Calgary which we will use to reinforce the wallpaper so we can tack it up in our studio and later remove it to ship it home. We'll post photos when we get it installed. Check out photos of the imitation gold leaf tests below, and you'll see why we want to gold leaf everything.

The gold leaf will be in some of the square spaces (where the tape is in this photo.)

So delicate! Sheets of imitation gold leaf.

 

Gold leaf on spray foam.

Gold leaf adhesive and tests on paper.

Lovely! Gold leaf on paper.

Quails & Foam & Feathers

We've made progress on our quails!

This past week we worked ever so slowly and patiently on building cardboard armatures and covering them in Great Stuff insulation foam.

That's not true. Actually, we quickly constructed cardboard armatures bound with tape and other studio waste and took them to the sculpture spray booth, which is actually a chilly wind tunnel, and covered them with around 40 cans of foam. It was a a slow, but not so patient process (on my part) that ultimately produced two large blobs loosely based on two of the quails from the Ruby Back Plate with Quails and Chrysanthemums that our project is referencing. 
I've developed more congenial feelings for them since they're out of the spray booth. 

Our quail armatures fresh from the spray booth.

After a little deliberation over feather type and direction, we started hand tearing white and a little cream colored paper to create the feathers for the quails.

Paper feathers and YES! PASTE 

We're using YES! PASTE as our glue to stick the paper feathers to the foam. I'm not entirely sure if the name of this product is fully capitalized, but it is in my heart and this post. 

I've designated this paragraph for discussing the many benefits of  YES! PASTE. Right off the bat, this is the most affirming glue I've encountered. How many products seem to actively want you to believe in yourself and your work? I can only count a few, but this one is by far my favorite. Besides the affirmative label, this paste is archival, dries matte and clear, and has a thick body. We can dip our paper feathers into the tub and stick them directly on the foam. Our lives are constantly made better by YES! PASTE. 

Beginning stages of foam with paper feathers

We've spent the last couple of days tearing feathers and applying them to our foam armatures. It's a slow process, but we're really enjoying it. This component of our project has been a nice deviation from the labor intensive process of measuring, masking, and painting wall paper. I think we're both feeling excited by the progress the quails have undergone during the last two days and are looking forward to experiencing them totally covered in paper feathers. 

If you happen to think of us during your day, know we're probably (hopefully merrily) applying little bits of torn paper to large foam forms.

Wallpaper and our first elk sighting

The mountains looked beautiful as the sun was rising on my way to the studio this morning.

Julia removing the

Frog Tape®

It takes us an entire day to complete one of these, that's both of us working together. It's roughly 4'x9'. First we plot it out. We made templates for this to increase our efficiency. Then we trace octagons onto the paper. Usually one of us plots while the other follows close behind tracing octagons. Then we mask it off with Frog Tape® for Delicate Surfaces. Frog Tape® is a brilliant product. Not only does it prevent the paint from bleeding and ruining the design, but it's translucent enough that we can see the pencil lines through the tape. This is important because we need to trim the tape to match the design. This masking is time consuming, but it allows us to paint the octagons quickly and cleanly. Then we can remove the masking from the paper with (almost) no tearing. Thanks makers of Frog Tape®! So far we have three sheets of octagons completed, and we are closing in on a fourth. These will be the backdrop of our installation.We are still trouble-shooting our hanging system, but looking forward to seeing them on the wall.

Our studio in the afternoon sunshine. Moved in another table today so we can work on covering quail with paper tomorrow.

Elk chillin' at the Banff Centre

On our way to dinner today Sasha, another artist in residence told us there were elk behind the building. The female is barely visible behind the grass at the foot of the trees. They were still there about an hour later, walking around as people watched and took photos. The male looks like he's starting to shed his winter coat. If you are wondering why every photo we take has a mountain in it it's because we are surrounded by mountains on all sides. It's an amazingly beautiful place.

Studio Progress

Here's an update on our progress in the studio:

We've been really busy working in the studio this weekend. We've blocked and painted our first two sheets of wallpaper, and learned that each sheet takes at least a day to make. We don't want to talk about how many we still have to make... 

We were really excited to start building the armatures for our large quails. We're proud of our resourcefulness in recycling our studio trash to build armatures that will hold the foam and paper for our quail sculptures. 

Check out the photos of our studio progress and evolving view!

The mountains disappeared during the first snowfall we've seen in Canada.

Masking octagons.

Painting octagons.

Wrangling cardboard.

Skeptical of our tape job. 

Quail admires the view.

Julia: Are you smiling?
Christy: No! I'm playing it straight, like we agreed...
(quail armatures from studio trash)

Still painting octagons.

We Have Octagons

We have learned that everything is made more enjoyable when you have a striking view of mountains. I think everyone could benefit from more mountains in their life.

Today was a long and productive. We finally found a supplier who can accommodate our large spray foam order.  A lesson we've learned: Canadian Home Depots operate differently than those in the US. Share this lesson with your loved ones; you will save them a lot of time and disgruntlement.

On a brighter note, we had a meeting with the sculpture facilitator and learned how to not ignite the building with the off-gas our uncured spray foam will emit. Our future is looking  more secure.

We both gave artist talks with the rest of the resident artists. It was a great to see everyone's work and to get to know people even more. Cool things are happening here.

And...we have octagons!

Tomorrow we are going start tracing and masking off our pattern for the wallpaper element of our installation. We're feeling  relieved to have finished our orientation and artist talks and excitement over spending more time in the studio!

We're in BANFF!

We're in Banff!

We arrived at the Banff Centre Sunday afternoon. The weather has been mild and sunny, which has made exploring our breathtaking landscape much easier than we had anticipated.

The mountainous terrain served as a great backdrop when our shuttle broke down on the trip from Calgary to the Banff Centre. While it is never convenient for motor vehicles to break down, this experience was an excellent introduction to the stunning view of the mountains that surround the Banff Centre. Our travel and  time on the side of the road was made more pleasant by Christy's snacks. Her food preparedness served us well while we waited for a replacement shuttle to arrive.

Today (Monday) we were given our studio keys after an informative orientation and tour of the facilities. We're happy to report that we have a decent view with windows that open!

We are excited to unpack our materials and begin work. We are currently finishing an order from Home Depot before we delve into working in the studio tomorrow morning.