Plant Together, Die Together

Finally, the first piece of my thesis project is done. It's been a long road. Stop motion animation to come.

What I did at Bass Coast 2015

In an attempt to reawaken my past love of blogging (aka using it as motivation to make stuff), I need to get up to date. Finally, here is documentation of what I did at Bass Coast Music Festival, an embarrassingly, almost 6 months ago. Oopsy.

MAIN STAGE 2015
Main stage this past summer was composed of three different installations: giant wooden tentacles that also spread over other parts of the festival grounds, an ornate DJ booth, and something like 12 000 streamers. I was in charge of the streamers. It was the vision of Bass Coast creator, Liz Thomson, and I made it happen. It was a pretty intimidating, challenging, and tedious project but it was very worth it. It turned out so amazing. They ended up very much looking like a giant breathing sea anemone. The ''tentacles'' all blew in the wind in unison and gave the audience and people on stage a pretty immersive experience plus it doubled as a huge moving, fragmented projection screen. There were 15 lines of streamers on the stage gradating from a wall of 16 feet streamers in the back to 9 foot ones in the front. Then over the crowd were 24 lines of 9 foot streamers. I had the help of lots of really great volunteers and the lovely Liv Lund, who was an invaluable help despite her ankle injury. The following photos I stole from official event photographers' documentation because I knew my photos wouldn't make it look as epic.

 

Photo Cred: Zipporah Naomi Lomax

Photo Cred: Ashlee Zebrah

Photo Cred: Nickolas Collinet

Photo Cred: ?

From the website obviously.

Here's a youtube video of part of Justin Martin's set if you want to see them move:

 
Some set up shots:

THE END, Installation

I also got an art grant to bring my ceramic birds that I made in Mexico to Bass Coast. They hung out in my suitcase for all of tree planting, survived a plane ride, a flood in my tent, and traveling in my car. During the installation, surprisingly, only one got stolen and one broken. It was really hard to document so you have to use these photos and the documentation of my project in Mexico City and combine them in your brain to get the idea of it. See here if you want to know more about it. Liv helped me set up and came up with the brilliant idea of making the twig lamp shade.

STUFF ON STICKS:
New festival tradition. I made friends for the pickle: rainbow unicorn, turd and Green Peaks Party Bear.

Then I raved...

Felted Rainbow Unicorn (not yet on a stick)

Felting got a bit out of control with the rainbow unicorn. What you can't see very well is that it actually has pieces of iridescent rainbow felt.

A Felted Dancing Pickle on a Stick

I unexpectantly became very obsessed with stuff on sticks at Bass Coast this Aug. What was really revealed is that I've actually been fascinated with stuff on sticks at electronic music festivals since I started going to festivals five years ago. This interest was definitely spiked by the extreme joy and comfort my friend Jacqueline experiences when she dances with some sort of staff-like object in her hand. It all came together for me at The Librarian's set at Bass Coast with the goofy banana on a stick. I had to hold it, so I did. Then it was the ghetto skull on a stick. And that was it, I had to have my own thing on a stick. I came across a felted rainbow unicorn ducked taped to a cane - there was something I could actually do. If it wasn't for my fateful t-shirt trade, I probably would have just made the unicorn, but my dear friend Annah - upon witnessing the glory of my new t-shirt - suggested I felt a pickle, which turned out to be much funnier. And so the idea was born.

The following is what little documentation I have from the original pickle (the one that got stolen, see Yes, I Have a Boner - the documentary):

The pickle before he got his legs with a baby cucumber.

Just hours before getting stolen upon arrival at Shambhala.

Very sad. The sign didn't work.

The NEW Pickle reincarnation:

The solution to the unfinished business feeling I had about my stolen pickle (I never even got to take it to the dance floor) was clearly just to make another pickle. I made it on route to Winnipeg in time for Rainbow Trout festival.

Felted Dancing Pickle on a Stick II at Rainbow Trout.

I saw a girl at Rainbow Trout wearing my t-shirt. 

Turns out the t-shirt is not as original as it seems.
Completely shocking.

The pickle was a total hit at Rainbow trout. It was the only thing on a stick and everyone loved it. Back in Winnipeg, I was locking up my bike and a guy rode by and yelled 'pickle' at me. Apparently I was the pickle girl.

To conclude the pickle saga, here are a bunch of poorly taken photographs of friends with pickle:

As a lyrical genius of a man said in my documentary: ''A felted dancing pickle on a stick? How ridiculously crazy great is that?!''.