Rain Half Day...and a road grader!!

It rained until about 12:30 today. Just hard enough to make it miserable to go out in... I planned to meet with the KIAC director Karen Dubois either before 1 p.m. or between 2 and 3 p.m. about making contact with her son who does home construction up here, and has lots of wood and other scraps! I made it to the KIAC offices at about 12:45, but she had ducked out early for lunch. No big deal, I needed to do some running anyway so I walked to the end of the block to Northern Industrial Supply to see what they had in stock and to touch base about ordering materials for the polypropylene pellet installation. Its a lot like going to a Grainger or Nu Way shop/store, some stuff out front and lots more in the back or that can be ordered. I wandered around for a bit to see what was out on the floor, and then talked to a rep for a few minutes about plumbing supplies and possibly a heat gun (which I have back home, but hadn't anticipated needing here...). He said they'd sold a heat gun about 2 years ago, but of course could order one in... I thanked him and told him I'd have a list in the next week or so of pipe, etc. and walked towards the hardware store near the other end of town to check what tools they might have there.

The reason I'm looking for a heat gun is because I want to make these 'rock forms' that mimic the rock forms I found out on the dredge piles (they're around town too) that have striations and veins of different minerals throughout them, but the 'veins' in my 'rocks' would be based on patterns of highway junctions as seen from overhead (hence the working title of these pieces: Junctions). Some of the materials I'd been thinking about making them out of are: cement and asphalt, plastic bottles/bags/road trash, different colors of clay, and possibly mixing latex paint in to one of the above equations. You can get cement here, but asphalt or asphalt patch or anything like it is a lot harder to come by (again I could order it in, but it could take several weeks to get here and I need to start on these asap). There is clay, but I don't feel that materially it makes as much sense at the other options for fusing with the concepts of the work successfully. Much like everywhere else that humans inhabit, and have roads running through, there is plastic trash to be found: 2 liter and other plastic bottles, blister packaging, berry and fruit packaging, plastic bags, etc. Some of this I am producing on my own anyway through purchases and groceries, others are easily findable throughout and beyond town on the roadsides. So I decided to go the plastics route, treating the pieces like little stone roadmaps that are made out of what we leave or that collects on the roadsides. I think I'll try to make a series involving cement and asphalt once I return home.
At the hardware store they do have a heat gun for sale (2 to be accurate)!! I also look around to see if they have respirators, hot glue and gun, and anything else I think I might need to work in the studio later. Unfortunately I didn't bring enough cash with me to pay for everything (I'm trying to limit using my debit or credit card and use what they provided me as a per diem and reimbursements, they also have funds for materials), so I make a mental note of about how much I'll need and head out the door.

By this time Karen should have been back from lunch so I headed towards KIAC again. This time she was in, and her son was there repairing a flat file for them! So I go to meet him and talk about grabbing scraps from his waste cart. He's definitely up for it, no real strings attached, easy enough! While I'm there Karen also informs me that Tara's been keeping some materials for me in a closet in the back of the building, and that they have a four wheel cart that they use for liquor and other things for openings and events (easier to use the cart to go across the street rather than to pull a car over or make 5 trips...). What luck, plus it looks pretty new or at least its taken care of well! I load up the cart and leave out the back door and down the handicap accessible ramp. The cart rolls easily over the muddy/watery/pot hole ridden dirt and gravel streets back to the residency.
I open the work shed outside and begin separating and loading the materials in. Its mostly that foam packaging thats wrapped in grey plastic - looks like expanding foam thats been sprayed inside the bag. there are also a few pieces of white ethe-foam. I cut open the grey bags to use in the rock forms and set aside the foam pieces.

Just about this time my ears lock on to a loud low rumbling/scraping sound coming from the west. When I look down the street I see a road grader plowing the street flat!! Holy crap, again I thought that I'd have to really seek out this kind of machinery up here and there it is not 2 blocks from me!! So I hastily throw the rest of the material into the shed as well as the cart and run inside to get my camera ready to shoot video of the grader!!

It's fantastic, apparently once the road get in bad enough condition (and providing that they're wet enough), they simply pull a grader or two out and do overlapping passes to fill in the potholes and smooth everything back out again on the major roads in town. Its also relatively easy to get the shots I want/need because as the grader makes passes it leaves a long mound in its wake which cars have to skirt or switch sides of the road to get around. So I basically have the road behind and in front of the grader to myself. Having experienced something similar in Haines Junction I already know what and where to get my shots - shooting it headlong and after it passes (coming and going), as well as tight shots of the blade and the machine in general passing through the frame. Until I get the swing of the drivers pattern I mostly run to catch the machine or get ahead of it to shoot. Once I have the pattern down I can usually get a variety of the shots mentioned by staying in one place and either swiveling the camera and adjusting its level at different times as the machine passes, or by stepping out of its path and then behind the machine.

A still frame from one of the video captures I did of the road grader.

 Even though the grader is doing most of the work I start to work up a sweat taking the shots or because I'm shooting so low to the ground (to focus on the activity of the blade and dirt). This of course make the mosquitos swarm, so I have to put on bug dope, which tends to repel them. I shoot for about an hour to hour and half total, having a chat with the driver near the end. I tell who I am and what I'm doing and he informs me that they'll be doing this again tomorrow for most of the day. So I pack it up and head for home to drop off my camera and get the cash I need for the hardware store. I find out that they're open till 5:30 (its 5:20 as of now...) and book it in their direction, getting in the door with 2 minutes to spare. Fortunately I know what I want, grab the items I need, and pay within about 3 minutes of being there.

I once again head for home to download the video and pics from the day, finish off some curry with rice, and jump into the studio to try out that new heat gun and to figure out these rock forms.
Using the heat gun I melt a found 2 liter bottle just enough to shape it into a rough ovoid shape, pushing the cap and stem into the bottle itself to disguise them. I begin applying plastic bags of different colors to see how the colors and different plastics interact, and to figure out textures and veining. For the most part the white and clear plastics simply mask or ghost one another building up milky layers. The darker colors really just cancel everything else out beneath it, unless the plastic gets thin enough, then it show some of the color directly beneath it. I'm able to get a form heated together in about 20 minutes, but still don't know how to get the veining that I want. As the plastic layers and melts it creates veining that is completely random, and while its aesthetically nice, it doesn't afford for the accuracy that I'm looking for. Some ideas I have of how to achieve this are: trace the junction patterns onto plastic and cut it out and then apply it over the form using the heat gun so it withers as it adheres, or I could layer my material so that my second to last layer contrasts with the top layer - cut out the pattern in the top layer, and then reapply a last 'clear' plastic layer over the form to seal everything in. I've also thought about using latex paint, but again it makes a lot less sense conceptually...something to figure out in the coming days.

A real rock with my Junction sketch next to it

I'm just about ready to take a break and Andrew knocks on my studio door to tell me that one of the staff from KIAC is playing at Bombay Peggy's and that some of the rest of the staff will be there. this sounds great, a short diversion to let my mind stew over the options for the veining. We head down to Peggy's (its about 5 blocks west of us) and the place is packed to the gills!!! We head through and out the back door and wait for them to take their first break. When they do everyone goes outside to have a smoke, so we slip in and get drinks from the bar (Chilkoot Lager for me, and a ginger ale for Andrew - he doesn't really drink). The Chilkoot's alright, but I still haven't found a really great beer up here... The band comes back up (Matt the drummer is the KIAC staff member) a play a couple more sets. They're kind of like a Canadian version of Bright Eyes, but less whiney and sarcastic with looping guitar tracks and an emphasis on harmony - they're pretty good actually!! During the sets Andrew and I chat with folks and introduce each other to different people we've met or that he's interviewed (or scheduled to interview) for his radio piece. I drink a few more pints and get to feeling nice and mellow, maybe more relaxed and welcome (it was a bit of a cold reception walking in to Peggy's since everyone there that was local obviously knew each other, and we just arrived in town comparatively).
After the show ended I spent some time talking with some of the young art folks (recent graduates of SOVA and other schools), really just being stupid and silly until I got tired and decided to head for home. Sleep sounds great right about now...