This multipart artwork- in the public space of a new residential development - is located on the site of a former iron foundry. The work consists of a gate, text on banners, bronze relief panels. Foundry is a symbolic expression of the beginnings of early industry at this site and the city of Vancouver.
Commissioned by Polygon Corp and City of Vancouver.
Site: 361 West 1st Ave, 2010 Olympic Village site, Vancouver, Canada
Steel and bronze I-beam gate, 18 patina bronze panels cast from old fishing boat hardware, 3 perforated stainless steel panels with screened images, text
2010, completed
Abacus - the jade beads and sculptural framework - form an interactive threshold, marker of time past and of the flow of life at historic “Shanghai Alley” in Vancouver’s Chinatown.
Commissioned by Pinnacle Int’l with the City of Vancouver. Engineering by George Noble; Jade hand carved by Deborah Wilson
Site: Entrance to Shanghai Alley, 210 Keefer St., Vancouver, Canada
BC jade stones, bronze caps, stainless steel, concrete, steel, cast calligraphy
2005, completed
The abacus and jade are integral parts of Chinatown’s history. Because I was born and lived here, they are also part of my past and present. Traditionally, jade is said to emanate chi, a power conducive to good health and luck. It was, and is, treasured for that silent effluxion as well fo the calm beauty of the stone. The abacus is known to the Chinese as suan phan (counting board). It is a mechanical aid once commonly - and still sometimes- used in chinatown shops. Calculations are made by moving the beads up and down, right to left. Those beads would not be jade…probably wood.
Vancouver’s Chinatown is becoming urbanized and integrated into the fabric of the city as a whole, but for the many visitors who came from outside its few closely contained blocks not long ago, it was a place of unfamiliar habits, cultural traditions, sights and sounds: incomprehensible language, strange food and merchandise, clicking abacus beads and mahjong tiles, the softer sounds of feet on the wooden cobbles that surfaced Shanghai Alley, and evening music of a single stringed instrument echoing from behind closed wooden doors along the passageway that stretched from the point of this sculpture to Pender Street. This was the setting and soundscape of my childhood behind the shop of my grandfather, the respected jeweller and goldsmith, Dong Jam Lung.
-Gwen Boyle, October 29, 2005
This work marks the site of one of 49 salmon rich streams that once flowed through Vancouver to the sea. Time is symbolized by an "erratic" - a boulder formed by magma and sea water - and its “twin” cast in bronze.
Commissioned by Westbank Corp. at the Palisades.
Site: 1200 Alberni St., Vancouver, Canada
Black slate, pillow basalt boulder, bronze, water, text cast in concrete
1996, completed
This work is about the slough that existed here at this site. It is about the waters of the ponds and estuaries celebrated by natural historians for their thriving microorganisms, particularly the diatom: complex, beautiful and vital to the global carbon cycle, food web and aquatic ecosystems.
Commissioned by Cressey Ltd and City of Richmond.
Site: 7700 Alderbridge/Westminster, Richmond, Canada
Sand carved glass sculpture, sculpted concrete, LED lights, carved text, slate, water
2010, completed
This work was inspired by Devonian fossils of the Burgess Shale found in the Canadian Rockies, source of the Fraser River. Included are: the names of lost streams of the Fraser, period quotes of regional settlement, a rain catcher and images of the sturgeon- native to the Fraser and one of the few remaining species of ancient fish.
Commissioned by the City of Richmond. Site: Laing Park, Richmond, BC, Canada
Glacial erratic boulders, bands and a platform of blue slate, concrete, slate, water
1998, completed
2000
Solo installation
Ceperly House, The Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, Canada
Sulphur, lead, beeswax, graphite, salt, magnetite, audio
1994
Solo installation
Or Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
Glass beams suspended from stainless steel wire, c-clamps,looped audio tape of harmonic resonance, alnico magnets
Arc is a magnetic sculpture which was installed on the tundra at approximately 7 degrees from the North Geomagnetic Pole during a twelve year peak period of intense solar flare activity. Predictably it responded by hunting and seeking the concentrated magnetic field lines. Unpredictably, it responded with electronic sounds, which I later found out be similar to those transmitted back by Voyager in its orbit around Mars. This Arctic installation was dismantled Canada Day, July 1, 1989.
The sound from the magnetic bow was taped on site by J. Vistig of Kaarvonen Films, and later filtered, mixed and re-recorded by Robert McNevin.
-Or Gallery Exhibition catalogue
1994
Solo installation
Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, Canada
Looped audio tape of harmonic resonance, laminated glass bar, wires, designed steel clamps, hand carved hydrostone, crushed glass
This public work is located on what was once a shoreline, now a main city boulevard. Beneath its asphalt and paving stones are layers of shells, bones and unwritten history. This deeply researched site-specific work incorporates words that reflect the north shore of False Creek from time immemorial through European settlement, and onwards. Also included are historic text and poetry of Earl Birney.
Commissioned by Concorde Pacific and the City of Vancouver.
Site: Pacific Boulevard, between Homer and Drake streets, Vancouver, Canada
99 blocks of polished black granite, carved text
1993, completed
Text, as it reads walking East:
The shore is the line between the sea and the land, and the shore is the midline in the life of a city
beneath these paving stones
shoreline/ tide swept/ mussels/ beached/ bleached / shells/ xiwapesqs/ salmon weir/ fragments/ oolichan oil/ tide flats/ eel grass/ marsh duck/ black bird/ sun blaze/ tidepool in a clamshell/ spring/ echo echoing/ morning rain/ forest floor/ cool canopy/ green/ ancient pathways/ time marks/ cambrian/ boom/ steel line/ rumble #374/ trains’n’trestle/ spring board/ crosscut/ timber/ beehive burner/ smoke/ summer haze/ rough’n’tumble/ salty dog/ whoa/ look/ stone shadows/ skyliner/ slick streets/ seagulls sleep/ foghorn calls/ another moon/ another path/ hello
Proposed walk-in sundial, with form based on Inuit mythology and world view.
Commissioned by Inuvuk Board of Trade, NWT.
Quarter sized sculpture exhibited at Expo 86, Vancouver, Canada
1986
This is an interactive sundial based on Ptolemy’s annalema. It invites visitors to Skaha beach to put themselves between the sun and the earth and cast their shadows to tell time. The warmth of natural materials and sense of play are an integral part of this work.
Commissioned by the City of Penticton.
Site: Skaha Lake, Penticton, Canada
Wood, power posts, carved aluminum, text, sun, viewer participation
1984 completed; restored by City of Penticton in 2008
In commemoration of Canada's centennial, this large public work depicts the history of early regional settlers and the geology of the city framed by its clay banks and two rivers, the Nechako and the mighty Fraser.
Open competition selection; Commissioned by the City of Prince George. Project designer, sculpture Gwen Boyle; mural artist, Naomi Patterson; mosaic, Gino Lenarduzzi; engineer Swan Wooster Engineering; Contractor Smith Bros& Wilson.
Site: Community Foundation Park, Prince George, Canada.
Portland cement, 40,000 pieces of venetian glass, text, gold nugget, water (summer), fire (winter)
1967, completed; outer wall with seating removed in 2007
“The City of Prince George chose to mark a place in time as centennial year with a fountain, designed along contemporary lines yet recalling the past for the future. Within this monolithic concrete structure is a mural, a cast concrete bowl encompassing a fountain, reflecting pool and in winter a natural gas flame. The general concept is the expression, in sculptured form, of Prince George’s geologic location… Also, there was the practicality of a semi-shelter so this civic facility could be better enjoyed.”
-excerpt from City of Prince George exhibition booklet
