Last week I put Garden Gnomad on the road: that is, I took it on a garden visit to meet Ruth Tschannen at Cascadia Garden, and I set it up at the Mount Pleasant Community Centre's Earth Day event. Both trips seemed very successful to me. The gardeners were inspiring and the weather was completely suitable for the machine and its work.
The Earth Day at the Mt. Pleasant CC was a quiet event with a few local gardeners coming by to gather up plants and information about gardening. Madame Beespeaker and I hung out at the dry wading pool where she was getting the kids to do some eco-play. They made lovely dandelion honeycomb on the pavement and under water drawings inside of the pool. I had Garden Gnomad make some pretty awesome photo-postcards of kids and families in the honeycomb with randomly generated Vancouver area gardens in the background.
Garden Gnomad is a little slow, but it works! After a few minutes of playing with the computer and flash drive, a picture postcard does come out. The delay is good for conversation! I was pretty inspired to hear about how a number of gardeners are using their allotments (including a traffic round about - called an 'island' by the gardener!) to grow herbs for salves and soaps. A young couple told me that they will be gardening their sister's garden this year as a memorial after her recent death. Everyone is eager to have GG show up for a visit and to document their efforts and pleasures. I can't wait.
But I have to wait, because soon I will leave for an 8 day trip to NY. There I will check out Laura Silver's Soft Core NYC and Wagner's Ring Cycle and Printed Matter and Exit Art and many great art museums and who knows what else.
After the NY trip, I will be in Calgary as an artist in residence at the Glenbow Museum to offer Comforter Art-Action at the Sew City events. It will include a sewing circle at the Canada Social Forum, a panel on arts and social action, sewing circles inside the museum, and a growing installation of comforters inside the museum lobby. I will blog more about that as the time nears. For now, if you are in the Calgary area during May 20-24, please consider participating in a sewing circle -- or bring a blanket to add to the growing stack in the lobby of the Glenbow! Please spread the word!
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