With the opportunity to display the felted flock in a small, local gallery space so soon after its conclusion there was a good deal of reflecting on how to best capture the nuances that unfolded as the project grew in number. It began as a way to share the story of growing wool but what emerged is a mix of tangible effort and intangible reason for doing whatever it is we feel driven to do.
The tangible effort is the work of keeping livestock and growing wool - winter feeding, shearing, sorting, lambing, grazing. We can do the work in a manner that suits us, and our actions will be generally understood as the necessary work. We expect the work and plan for it thus it is fair to say we are the ones driving the work.
The intangible reasons are the occurrences that link us to nature - the prairie, coexistence, shepherding, death of an animal. These occurrences also remind us that the nature within us is one and the same as the nature we’re dealing with daily. These reasons are less easy to define and make understood. More often than not they happen when nature says they need to, thus it is fair to say Nature is driving them.
To have sustainable agriculture, to live a life based on personal truth, to pursue artistic callings, both tangible effort and intangible reason must bear weight and be present in our process. When we focus only on work and production without honouring any intangible reason life is an intensive, heavy beast. And when we focus only on the intangible reason without emphasis on tangible actions life is only a light weight pipe dream. Creating the felted flock took a huge dollop of both tangible effort and intangible reason. Many times throughout the project I wondered about the amount of time, effort and the reasons, and now at the conclusion of it, I wonder even more.
p.s. The show is open to the public each Saturday in January, 2023 from 1 - 4 pm. The location is the Gallery on Third in the town of Watrous, SK.