rdaner
Senior Member
I recently read about one of these places north east of Toronto. I see a connection between conversion of old industrial spaces such as Distillery and Don Valley Brickworks and the conversion of old agricultural spaces from the same period. The values of a like minded group of people are beginning to take physical form in a significant way.
Forget the dream home, let's make art
Artists are using the open spaces of the great outdoors to collaborate with each other and the natural world
CORI HOWARD
From Monday's Globe and Mail
June 23, 2008 at 9:23 AM EDT
GIBSONS, B.C. — Up a long, gravel road in the shadow of Mount Elphinstone sits a cute little green clapboard house surrounded by five acres of forest. Apart from the house, the old red barn, the garage-turned-artist's-studio and a newly built guest cottage, there isn't much on the property except fields and trees and a distant, breathtaking view of the ocean and the Coast Mountains.
But the new owners have a big dream for their property, and it has nothing to do with your average rural-recreational renovation. For Chad Herschler and Sandy Buck, this land is not a wide-open space waiting to be filled with their dream home. Rather, it is an empty canvas waiting to be filled with art. Their big idea, their lifelong dream, is this - an art farm.
"Most artists are urbanites living in an urban environment," says Mr. Herschler, an actor and writer. "Our goal is to open up this land to them to see how it influences their art - and what that produces. We believe art can play a major role in helping our world adapt to the rigours of climate change. But this can happen in all sorts of mysterious ways. We want to help facilitate that."
The recently married couple, who are expecting their first child this summer, say they discovered on their second date that they both wanted to move away from their urban roots to create a space where artists could collaborate with each other and with the natural world.
But don't mistake their art farm, named Deer Crossing, for an artists' colony. It is not just a beautiful environment in which to create art. It is not a communal arrangement between multiple artists. It is a brand new and ever-evolving vision that, unbeknownst to Mr. Herschler and Ms. Buck, taps into a growing international movement.
Art farms have sprouted up all over the United States and Europe, and in China, where the internationally renowned Belgian artist Wim Delvoye raises and tattoos pigs. Mr. Delvoye calls the pigs "live biological paintings" and says his art farm is an attempt to personalize an industrial product.
When they bought the property just over a year ago, neither Mr. Herschler nor Ms. Buck had heard of the other art farms. But according to Mr. Herschler, it's a trend that seems obvious.
"For the same reasons, there's an international movement back to small, local and organic farms. Farming has become industrialized and the arts - from highbrow to lowbrow - have become commercialized. In both cases, there's a disconnect from the planet, from the natural, crazy, unpredictable world we share. The local and organic food movement came out of a desire to reconnect people with the source and mystery of their food. The international art farming movement, perhaps, comes out of a desire to reconnect people, artists and arts lovers with the source and mystery of their art."
At Deer Crossing, Ms. Buck and Mr. Herschler are busy renovating buildings and clearing space for campsites in anticipation of their official launch this August, just weeks before Ms. Buck is due to give birth to their baby. The launch will be their introduction to the local community. Several local artists have been invited for a one-day, installation-performance piece on the property, and that day will be a chance for the couple to showcase their property and ideas.
One of their first workshops will be led by Leslie Feist's puppeteer, Clea Minaker (a woman the singer refers to as her "visual vice president"), who will lead a group in creating puppets using recycled material.
Deer Crossing will also be hosting a private workshop for The Otesha Group, an environmental organization from Ontario that does theatrical bike tours across Canada to raise awareness about sustainability.
Diego Samper, a local artist who specializes in bamboo and canvas structures, will soon begin creating a tent and performance space for the launch.
Ms. Buck and Mr. Herschler are still madly working out the rest of the details, all while simultaneously finding a doula to help with the birth, getting to know their neighbours and, for Ms. Buck, working part-time as a youth worker.
It's amazing there's any time for them to create their own art. But marking the beginning of the property is a cedar-bough art installation that Ms. Buck calls the Twelve-Month Calendar. It resembles a giant lean-to, or an unlit bonfire, with cedar branches twisting up to the sky.
Ms. Buck has designed another cedar-bough sculpture along the driveway, its circular formation almost masking its source as wood.
"I was inspired by the growth," she says, "by how fast everything grows, especially the blackberry bushes. They're an awesome form of nature. So wild and savage. I'm trying to harness that into art, but I'm not sure yet where I'm going with it.
"It's a work-in-progress," she says, taking big strides back to her house, hands on her belly. Just like the art farm itself. "It's an amazing dream. And we have a lifetime to build it."
Forget the dream home, let's make art
Artists are using the open spaces of the great outdoors to collaborate with each other and the natural world
CORI HOWARD
From Monday's Globe and Mail
June 23, 2008 at 9:23 AM EDT
GIBSONS, B.C. — Up a long, gravel road in the shadow of Mount Elphinstone sits a cute little green clapboard house surrounded by five acres of forest. Apart from the house, the old red barn, the garage-turned-artist's-studio and a newly built guest cottage, there isn't much on the property except fields and trees and a distant, breathtaking view of the ocean and the Coast Mountains.
But the new owners have a big dream for their property, and it has nothing to do with your average rural-recreational renovation. For Chad Herschler and Sandy Buck, this land is not a wide-open space waiting to be filled with their dream home. Rather, it is an empty canvas waiting to be filled with art. Their big idea, their lifelong dream, is this - an art farm.
"Most artists are urbanites living in an urban environment," says Mr. Herschler, an actor and writer. "Our goal is to open up this land to them to see how it influences their art - and what that produces. We believe art can play a major role in helping our world adapt to the rigours of climate change. But this can happen in all sorts of mysterious ways. We want to help facilitate that."
The recently married couple, who are expecting their first child this summer, say they discovered on their second date that they both wanted to move away from their urban roots to create a space where artists could collaborate with each other and with the natural world.
But don't mistake their art farm, named Deer Crossing, for an artists' colony. It is not just a beautiful environment in which to create art. It is not a communal arrangement between multiple artists. It is a brand new and ever-evolving vision that, unbeknownst to Mr. Herschler and Ms. Buck, taps into a growing international movement.
Art farms have sprouted up all over the United States and Europe, and in China, where the internationally renowned Belgian artist Wim Delvoye raises and tattoos pigs. Mr. Delvoye calls the pigs "live biological paintings" and says his art farm is an attempt to personalize an industrial product.
When they bought the property just over a year ago, neither Mr. Herschler nor Ms. Buck had heard of the other art farms. But according to Mr. Herschler, it's a trend that seems obvious.
"For the same reasons, there's an international movement back to small, local and organic farms. Farming has become industrialized and the arts - from highbrow to lowbrow - have become commercialized. In both cases, there's a disconnect from the planet, from the natural, crazy, unpredictable world we share. The local and organic food movement came out of a desire to reconnect people with the source and mystery of their food. The international art farming movement, perhaps, comes out of a desire to reconnect people, artists and arts lovers with the source and mystery of their art."
At Deer Crossing, Ms. Buck and Mr. Herschler are busy renovating buildings and clearing space for campsites in anticipation of their official launch this August, just weeks before Ms. Buck is due to give birth to their baby. The launch will be their introduction to the local community. Several local artists have been invited for a one-day, installation-performance piece on the property, and that day will be a chance for the couple to showcase their property and ideas.
One of their first workshops will be led by Leslie Feist's puppeteer, Clea Minaker (a woman the singer refers to as her "visual vice president"), who will lead a group in creating puppets using recycled material.
Deer Crossing will also be hosting a private workshop for The Otesha Group, an environmental organization from Ontario that does theatrical bike tours across Canada to raise awareness about sustainability.
Diego Samper, a local artist who specializes in bamboo and canvas structures, will soon begin creating a tent and performance space for the launch.
Ms. Buck and Mr. Herschler are still madly working out the rest of the details, all while simultaneously finding a doula to help with the birth, getting to know their neighbours and, for Ms. Buck, working part-time as a youth worker.
It's amazing there's any time for them to create their own art. But marking the beginning of the property is a cedar-bough art installation that Ms. Buck calls the Twelve-Month Calendar. It resembles a giant lean-to, or an unlit bonfire, with cedar branches twisting up to the sky.
Ms. Buck has designed another cedar-bough sculpture along the driveway, its circular formation almost masking its source as wood.
"I was inspired by the growth," she says, "by how fast everything grows, especially the blackberry bushes. They're an awesome form of nature. So wild and savage. I'm trying to harness that into art, but I'm not sure yet where I'm going with it.
"It's a work-in-progress," she says, taking big strides back to her house, hands on her belly. Just like the art farm itself. "It's an amazing dream. And we have a lifetime to build it."
