Midday Matinee
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956) With Vine Tomatoes
Oil tar ink varnish fabric and audio components on plywood
Me and my sisters in front of the TV circa 1968
Movie Still Creature From The Black Lagoon 1954
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) with Fishing Bobber and Hook (TV detail) (Collection of the City of Ottawa)
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) with Fishing Bobber and Hook Wood-cut Print AP
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) with Fishing Bobber and Hook, Screen Print
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) with Vine Tomatoes ( TV detail )
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) With Vine Tomatoes
Wood-cut Print AP
Growing up in Nova Scotia I remember a television program called Midday Matinee. This was during the late sixties early seventies (I was born in 65). Midday Matinee usually featured old movies from the fifties and early sixties. My Father would occasionally suggest a film to see. These, invariably, were black and white Sci-Fi movies he had seen many times. We would watch together and he would talk me through the scary parts and explain the science, however far fetched. His enthusiasm for these films had me convinced they were award-winning cinema. The movie would end, my Father would go back to work and I would be left to contemplate what I had witnessed. My Father was a radar technician in the Canadian Armed Forces. During this time we were stationed at Canadian Forces Base Greenwood, Nova Scotia. His work involved flying over the North Atlantic Ocean tracking Russian submarine movements during the Cold War. I realize the irony that most of the movies that we had watched were laden with Atomic and Cold War metaphors. Resourceful, my Father could fix anything, especially electronics. It was not uncommon for him to have the TV or Hi-Fi taken completely apart to replace a transistor or a tube. If we needed, a fence built, or a shed erected, he did it. He was also skilled auto-mechanic. He rewired more toasters, steam irons and hair dryers than I can recall. He always had a fully stocked, meticulously organized workshop in our basement, with every tool you could imagine. My Father enthusiastically indulged every project I could dream up, no matter how complicated or ridiculous. Undoubtedly, this do it yourself philosophy was responsible, in some part, for my own creative drive.
This Project will consist of a series of 12 diptych installations. Half of the installation will be a plywood TV modeled after the television I had during my youth. The screen shaped panel from the TV will be used to do a wood cut of a scene from an old Sci-Fi film. The panel will be printed then set back in the plywood TV. For the second half of the diptych, above the TV will be a painting of an object associated with my Father; a power drill, a hockey stick, a fishing lure, a TV tube, etc. These objects in a cinematic twist will be incorporated into the wood cut TV screen. The block prints taken from the woodcut panels will also be used to produce screen prints reminiscent of classic movie posters, however, skewed. Each of the TV’s will also have sound component.
This project is funded by
Upcoming Exhibition
St. Francis Xavier University Art Gallery January 2012