BACKGROUND
THE PARK
My relationship with Point Pleasant Park began 12 years ago when a dog came into my life who needed a lot of exercise. For many years I spent two hours a day, mornings and evenings, walking Georgia in the Park. Until she became older, weather conditions had no impact on our visits to Point Pleasant; in rain, wind, snow, sleet and darkness we were at the Park. There isn’t a square meter of the Park that we did not explore, we moved through it in a variety of ways sometimes walking sometimes running, sometimes on the main paths sometimes bushwhacking. We were there so often that we even ended up on the front of an HRM flyer advertising Point Pleasant Park which, I came across at the Stanfield International airport (image below).
Point Pleasant is many things to many people. My personal experience with the Park has involved dogs and the large community of dog owners who use the Park on a daily basis. Much of my time spent exploring the Park was directed by the interests, desires and senses of a dog. Georgia and I found every running stream and standing pool of water, every flat stretch of ground for playing fetch, every heavily travelled canine route sure to have lots of interesting smells. It is my plan to follow Georgia’s nose as I seek out sites to paint in the Park.
PAINTING
As an artist who paints, my main interest concerning painting’s agency today resides in its relationship to narrative. Narrative has an inherent relationship to site, as place and time are the basic aspects of a story. There are many stories inscribed in the landscape of Point Pleasant Park: personal stories, cultural stories and historical stories. It is my goal to coax out some of the stories that are embedded in the Park.
There are also many aspects of the processes and traditions of painting that are intrinsic to my practice. Observational painting is one of these traditions. Most often my practice has me working alone in the studio. This has much to do with a reliance on photography that effectively makes the necessity to be on site and the to have the continued involvement of other people in the making process almost obsolete. The absence of a prolonged experience with a subject, be it a place, object or person, and the absence of the concomitant challenges and difficulties related to practical issues like weather, equipment transportation and the need for daylight have produced what I have determined to be a lack in my work. Every aspect of the process that goes into a painting has an indelible impact on the outcome. It is my desire to introduce the complexity of working on site along with a more tangible public experience into my practice.
PROJECT
I worked in Point Pleasant Park between 15 July and 15 October making one long painting revolving around sites of interest to my dog's nose. The process of choosing sites began with places that were particularly important during my walks with Georgia. I designed a portable easel system that allowed me to work large-scale, on site and transport the supplies and tools I need from Point Pleasant Lodge, which acted as a base.
THE PARK
My relationship with Point Pleasant Park began 12 years ago when a dog came into my life who needed a lot of exercise. For many years I spent two hours a day, mornings and evenings, walking Georgia in the Park. Until she became older, weather conditions had no impact on our visits to Point Pleasant; in rain, wind, snow, sleet and darkness we were at the Park. There isn’t a square meter of the Park that we did not explore, we moved through it in a variety of ways sometimes walking sometimes running, sometimes on the main paths sometimes bushwhacking. We were there so often that we even ended up on the front of an HRM flyer advertising Point Pleasant Park which, I came across at the Stanfield International airport (image below).
Point Pleasant is many things to many people. My personal experience with the Park has involved dogs and the large community of dog owners who use the Park on a daily basis. Much of my time spent exploring the Park was directed by the interests, desires and senses of a dog. Georgia and I found every running stream and standing pool of water, every flat stretch of ground for playing fetch, every heavily travelled canine route sure to have lots of interesting smells. It is my plan to follow Georgia’s nose as I seek out sites to paint in the Park.
PAINTING
As an artist who paints, my main interest concerning painting’s agency today resides in its relationship to narrative. Narrative has an inherent relationship to site, as place and time are the basic aspects of a story. There are many stories inscribed in the landscape of Point Pleasant Park: personal stories, cultural stories and historical stories. It is my goal to coax out some of the stories that are embedded in the Park.
There are also many aspects of the processes and traditions of painting that are intrinsic to my practice. Observational painting is one of these traditions. Most often my practice has me working alone in the studio. This has much to do with a reliance on photography that effectively makes the necessity to be on site and the to have the continued involvement of other people in the making process almost obsolete. The absence of a prolonged experience with a subject, be it a place, object or person, and the absence of the concomitant challenges and difficulties related to practical issues like weather, equipment transportation and the need for daylight have produced what I have determined to be a lack in my work. Every aspect of the process that goes into a painting has an indelible impact on the outcome. It is my desire to introduce the complexity of working on site along with a more tangible public experience into my practice.
PROJECT
I worked in Point Pleasant Park between 15 July and 15 October making one long painting revolving around sites of interest to my dog's nose. The process of choosing sites began with places that were particularly important during my walks with Georgia. I designed a portable easel system that allowed me to work large-scale, on site and transport the supplies and tools I need from Point Pleasant Lodge, which acted as a base.
THE TOOLS
FURTHER INFORMATION
How Odour Travels in the Wind
You may think that odor travels in a straight line downwind from the source, but in fact it spreads out sideways as it travels downwind, resulting in a conical distribution with the source at the apex. Nevertheless, at any one instant the distribution of odour from above would look more like a snake - one that is solid in some places and thin and wispy in others. The reason is that, as the wind blows over the surface, friction between the two causes eddies to develop. Some are several meters across, causing the snaking effect; others are smaller, causing the snake to spread out or bunch up.
How Odour Travels in the Wind
You may think that odor travels in a straight line downwind from the source, but in fact it spreads out sideways as it travels downwind, resulting in a conical distribution with the source at the apex. Nevertheless, at any one instant the distribution of odour from above would look more like a snake - one that is solid in some places and thin and wispy in others. The reason is that, as the wind blows over the surface, friction between the two causes eddies to develop. Some are several meters across, causing the snaking effect; others are smaller, causing the snake to spread out or bunch up.
Bird's eye view of an odour plume. The average wind direction is shown from top to bottom, but changes in direction lasting a few seconds cause the plume to "snake". Eddies (caused by irregularities on the ground) cause the plume to swirl and break up into pockets.
From P. 236-237 of Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You A Better Friend To Your Pet by John Bradshaw.
From P. 236-237 of Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You A Better Friend To Your Pet by John Bradshaw.
About a Dog's Sense of Smell
The average person has around 5 million cent receptors in his or her nose, which puts us in the lower third of mammals in terms of our smell sensitivity. The average dog has around 220 million receptors in its nose, which potentially makes it sense of smell 44 times more sensitive than ours. Furthermore, evolution has designed the dog's nose to make the maximum use of that multitude of sent receptors. To begin with, the canine has mobile nostrils that help determine the direction of the sent. His wet nose is also incredibly sensitive to wind direction in order to ascertain where a smell is coming from. Even his sniffing patterns are different from those of humans. The dog does not need to fill up his lungs as he continuously brings the odour into his nose in bursts of 3 to 7 sniffs. The dog's nose contains a bony structure inside that humans don't have. Air that is sniffed passes over this bony shelf, which has many odour molecules stick to it. The area above the shelf is not "washed out" when the dog exhales and this allows those scent molecules to remain there and to accumulate. When a dog breaths in normally, the air passes through the nose and continues down into the lungs. sniffing, however, leaves the air resting in the nasal chambers so that the sense can build in intensity. This means that even incredibly faint odors can be detected.
This information comes mainly from P. 183 of How to Speak Dog by Stanley Coren,
The average person has around 5 million cent receptors in his or her nose, which puts us in the lower third of mammals in terms of our smell sensitivity. The average dog has around 220 million receptors in its nose, which potentially makes it sense of smell 44 times more sensitive than ours. Furthermore, evolution has designed the dog's nose to make the maximum use of that multitude of sent receptors. To begin with, the canine has mobile nostrils that help determine the direction of the sent. His wet nose is also incredibly sensitive to wind direction in order to ascertain where a smell is coming from. Even his sniffing patterns are different from those of humans. The dog does not need to fill up his lungs as he continuously brings the odour into his nose in bursts of 3 to 7 sniffs. The dog's nose contains a bony structure inside that humans don't have. Air that is sniffed passes over this bony shelf, which has many odour molecules stick to it. The area above the shelf is not "washed out" when the dog exhales and this allows those scent molecules to remain there and to accumulate. When a dog breaths in normally, the air passes through the nose and continues down into the lungs. sniffing, however, leaves the air resting in the nasal chambers so that the sense can build in intensity. This means that even incredibly faint odors can be detected.
This information comes mainly from P. 183 of How to Speak Dog by Stanley Coren,
INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE FROM "Oh She Paints" - www.ohshepaints.com
Dog Park was produced with the support of HRM’s Open Projects Program and ARTS Nova Scotia
www.halifax.ca/culture
https://artsns.ca
www.halifax.ca/culture
https://artsns.ca