Let me tell you what I did yesterday. I visited a beautiful property where an artist lives and has created a community. This was the weekend following the annual Harvest rave festival and the grounds were still throbbing with that energy. A young man who was just finishing a day’s work taking down stage components told me that the artist does not necessarily interact with the community that visits.  But I think he interacts with the closer knit community to whom he offers use of his property. 

This property is called the Screaming Heads. It is located in a tiny town in mid-north ontario. Many visitors walk the grounds where the artist, Peter Camani, has created and erected concrete art, some like giants’ body parts come out of the soil,  some set on top of a boulder, some in a quasi magical fairy ring. One grouping forced me to take the perspective of a bird and I thought it was the shape of an eye. There is reverence for life, beauty and majesty. 

There are no artist statements except words scratched on the base of the monuments. Simple words:  peace, earth, life and love, a few names and dates. And there are the invitations: to a community of farmers who produce some of the loveliest and largest organic gardens I have seen; to visitors who walk around in a state of open discovery with small amazed children; to the organizers and the participants in the annual Harvest rave; maybe to the giant flat concrete heads with a great open mouth who invite passage into what silence? 

I am sister to this artist, impressed by the manner in which he simply has created an ecosystem utopia. I am sister to this artist because his accomplishments echo all my dreams: A gallery in nature, artist curated in harmony with the land. But I am awed by the way in which this does seem to function as an ecosystem, the community’s diversity in age and level of involvement and in its capacity to organically self-renew! Of course I see nothing of the thoughts and steps and processes that took place over time to forge this castle. And I do not know the kindly lord of the castle but I can tell that many needs are satisfied by this organic gem.

My visit was quite short, only 3 hours maybe, meandering through only some of the trails and some of the art. I saw many apple trees and thought of my love of using apples to cook, bake, preserve and brew. I felt old land magic and the light amazement of visiting children. I identified food and helping plants and noted how sheltered from frost much of the gardens were. I did not look much at the castle because I felt that doing so would be a little voyeuristic. But with a glance at the giant window mouth of the castle I thought, there could be more plants up there.

I am humbled.

I feel I recognise you, the artist behind this beauty, as my brother. You have done, in a rather grand way, what I have been doing in a small way. The house I live in, this busy space, with its unique wood usage, different shapes, displays of art, is in some small way the same as the Screaming Heads property: an artist curated space. My outdoor interventions have been timid but burgeoning in my mind for several years, in a state of sketches or partially complete pieces.

I thank you, brother artist, for trusting the visitor to take away what they will, for your inspiration and the offering of the land you keep.

 

Once upon a time a tiny pebble rolled out of the sea. It rolled on the sand and collected grains of sand. It rolled and rolled away from the sea, through woodland and riverbeds, savana and on the way collected and shed. 

It is not a pebble but a thought

an action 

a power 

 

 

(Edit: after some research on the web I found an interview with Peter Camani. It confirms that what I thought was an eye is indeed an eye and tells more from the artist’s perspective : https://erichdeleeuw.com/Peters-Camani-s-Field-of-Art )