Sleeping Beauty enjoys some sunshine at the beach

Sleeping Beauty enjoys some sunshine at the beach

Leisure Art Bikes

The purpose of this project was to bring magic and wonder to the streets.  Instead of the work being stationary and the viewer seeking it out, the sculpture travels and can appear anywhere at any time. 

I have a great love of public art because it reaches a broader audience.  When showing in a gallery, the viewers, by their attendance, are already inclined towards the arts.  On the street, however, even for a moment as you ride past, their day becomes injected with a question, an observation. For children, especially, there is the opportunity to create something other-worldly, something full of fantasy and magic. This has great pull for me.

When I was a young girl, I believed in the power of objects.  If I were to be honest, I still do.  Maybe it’s because I’m so visual in my quest to understand the world, that symbolism holds a very shy place in my heart.  Through the use of this imagery I can connect in a timeless way to a feeling, and the viewer can, in a flash, associate with it. I do a lot of searching for clues in my journey to the finished product: in the items I construct, the articles of clothing I sew, and in the poems and stories I write. Really, each piece, each sculpture is a body of work in its own right, when you consider the scale in which the tale has been produced. These side projects help me identify a character and build their visual story through exploration of colour and texture.

In the spirit of re-writing history, I seek a patina for each bike; the story of its journey would be written in the paint. The viewer should be challenged as to whether the additional metal work is as old as the bike or as new as our present reality. When you view these vehicles, you can perceive the life of the owners, catching a glimpse of a heroine.  Imagine the mystery of a life peddling tinctures, or catching stars in the heavens.

Visual aspects are driven by key words: Beauty, Magic, Truth, Fantasy, Botanical, Psychedelic, Mythological, Symbolism, Glamour, Mystery, and History.  In this vein of thought, I can re-create and manipulate the different women’s archetypes.  By using a vehicle to do this, the viewer can spend a moment filling in the blanks and inserting themselves in the story. Art is like magic; it makes anything possible through imagination.