Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park, Hornby Island, BC
Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Visual Arts, Graduate Field Study Residency, University of Victoria
April 24-28, 2025

>Performance Art Piece and Poem

POST STRUCTURALIST FANTASY 

In the research I found mowed lawns and moved ponds, foreign plants
(but we were everywhere)
I was terra formed myself
I felt terror formed
I felt terribly formed, at that time

I was made of mounds of earth, I was manicured in ways
I was colonized
I was a colonizer – I was also born in the 80s

As I became a sculpture, I posed
but like “3-5,” I had to bend
Push/pull two ends together/apart – me and my Other selves, my child for instance

There was tension
In the sound, I phoned in – the reception was great but few were there

I pulled out all my best things, I was also the heir to fortune
(my fortune is found in friendships)
Kristy’s good fringe

I added and subtracted in negative and positive space – I divided in the ‘shop which is what took the longest, my half tone experiment with dots made up of st. john’s wort flowers for hours…
was spaced out – I was away from my child – it was #vacationmode

They say your child doesn’t have knowledge of free will,
They are not seen as separate from the parent(s),
Until about 6 years old

when I was a-way

She drew a fantasy
She dreamed of ‘mama’
We were royalty
(there was likely good fringe)

“It was a fantasy because there is a mushroom”

The elevation did not high me – I am my own addict

In a helix there are multiple lines, I only saw one, and it went right around into a circle
And it was an illusion of sorts, when you walked down, you were back up, Deutch

I didn’t feel “post” anything – I was in the middle of the loop – recreating in plain sight
If you looked, we were having fun, while we can

Thank you to:
Matty, LJ, Kristy (most notably the good fringe), Daniel, Brit, Lia, Rainy, EYEBEAM and my mom

 

>”Research_Rehearsal” by LES666

>Research Abstract

(DRAFT Text ~ Working ~ May 5, 2025)

“Art provides a means to experience the sacred beyond the prescriptive narrative” – Jeffrey Rubinoff (From: Insights That Evolved with and from the Work of Jeffrey Rubinoff 2008)

Visiting and creating work at the Jeffrey Rubinoff Scultpure Park on Hornby Island, BC was an opportunity to directly connect with abstract parts of my practice relating shape, line, awe and scale. Though my understanding in coming to the park with nestled quaintly in the context of the luxury of wealth and privilege that such a property and legacy would embue. Not having much of that myself and being highly critical of those precursors I still set out to enjoy myself and this moment of dedication if only to be alone and also alongside my class in a beautiful place, mostly outdoors, away from my child focussing on art, which despite what many may think, is not a luxury. The focus for me, feels like a luxury. Though focus for me, is debatable being highly neurodivergent as you can see from my work. Ha!

I had thought that I could potentially bring my child and was adutin my expectations, budget and schedule for me and my community of support that care for my child. Again, the staff of the University had misled me and that was trying. However, it did mean I would be able to get a substantial amount of work done that I would not normally.

I gravitated to the 3-5

In learning more about Jeffrey Rubinoff I was so heartened to not only find out he did his best to be an anti-racist (though his distribution of wealth could fare more of that in its legacy, alas) and not a Zionist, but also his love of painting – line and plane –

I was drawn to his series 3 – like a magnet and I now know why, “I wanted the steel not onl to aesthetically defy gravity but to dance.” (Jeffrey Rubinoff – Art in America, 1984) And he did this through line and plane. His interest in Abstract Expressionism and that art and action were intrinsically linked.

“…Art as a serious and credible source of special insight for the evolution of ideas.” Jeffrey Rubinoff (Through the lens of the endgame 2010)

COR-TEN exposed to the elements have gone from their cold dark grey to a warm burnt ember, their rough surfaces give way to a myriad of patterns and oclous. Most steel ranges from brown to ciemsonto yellow ochre, the colours seemingly applied like dots on a pointillists’s canvas. (Drawing in Space: Jeffrey Rubinoff’s Series 3 (1983) James Fax)

>Sound art piece with sculpture “3-5”

Audio only: https://les666.bandcamp.com/track/how-do-you-choose-the-line-to-bend

“How do you choose the line to bend?” – Improvisational sound piece by LES666
LES666 plays the sculpture “Series 3-5” by Jeffrey Rubinoff w/ a telephone microphone, Bose+1 speaker, H4N, and two hands (with 10 gel nails)

I spent most of my time with this sculpture “Series 3-5” (1983) by Rubinoff. “Series 3 is composed of planar elements, in COR-TEN steel, of prescribed length and thickness. Much of their volume is constructed from ‘negative’ space, lending the pieces a sense of weightlessness. A slight bowing of the sheets imparts a sense of outward pressure.” His interest in sculpting lines and thinking of motion in melody went throughout his work, and here on Hornby, extended to his terraforming the land – it felt very colonial – in a modernist way.

I sat and rang out with the metal, we ‘verbed, we listened to the birds. We both came from a far. We both wondered what was next. We both rusted in place beautifully being derivative. Our awkwardness in our vested forms, a privilege. I was alone, as I generally am when I am creating, however, aloneness away from my child feels strange. I am used to feeling strange. I resonated in place being a human and connecting metalurgically the iron rang in my blood together, magnetic.

Art created by my child LJ while I was away

“You Can Tell It’s A Fantasy Because There’s A Mushroom” by LJ Marshall-Munro
Pencil crayon, crayon, marker, on paper