luminous halo path

This post is about the piece I made for the Elemental festival on Manitoulin Island 2016.
Curator Sophie Anne Edwards invited me to create a piece about the daily walk I've make along my country road.  I've done this walk for 23 years,  sewing myself to this place.

The theme of this year's festival was "walking".  It took place in the village of Kagawong, about a 40 minute drive from my house.  My piece would be installed along the river and to make it easier to transport, I wrapped it.

Friends from Nova Scotia were visiting for the week and helped with the installation.  Above, Margi Hennen assists 4 element's Patricia with the un-wrapping.

The festival offered a rich mix of activities and entertainment around the walking theme.    
We attended Marlene Creates' presentation of the walking she does to help her learn more about her 6 acres of boreal forest in Newfoundland and also her poetry walks.

My daily walk to Cricket Hill is one km - 1250 steps. (one way)

I sewed strong chains of cloth I have collected for 40 years, a luminous halo that represented my life.

Virginia Woolf said:   Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.

The chains are connected to wrapped clover that represents my foot steps.
A life of stepping over and through hurdles and burdens, joys and unexpected visions

Above, Valerie Hearder helps with the installation.

The path has something to do with mortality and summing up and about stitching my self together.

Using the colourful cloth as soul medicine.

Van Gogh believed that colour has power over line.

Line may be the language of reason but colour is sensuality itself.

Every day I sewed a little more, working towards one km of cloth.

Consider cloth.
It is such an important and enduring tactile presence in all our daily lives.
Cloth is what touches our skin, cloth is what we sleep with.
Cloth is tangible, the most intimate and familiar material construction and touching it makes current thought and past emotions visible.
The materiality of cloth is generous, allowing memories of beauty or love to come up to the surface and be a halo or aura that holds each of us.

This project shows faith in the future and faith in myself.

Working with materials reveals me to myself.

I understand my life and my healing through making.

In Eastern cultures the act of joining small pieces together embodies a wish for a long life.

Above, Patricia Mader and Penny Berens help with the installation.

As you walk this path, go slowly.
Match my gait.
Notice your own experience of walking along the river.

Step step step.

My body – spirit steps into the future.

Who knows where?  Answer, the same place.