VALUES

My position is just that the questions that are asked in terms of gallery going and viewing and so on, I am carefully not wanting to ask.

Uhm hmm.

Because I'm as opinionated as the next person.

Uhm hm.

I'm enjoying the erasing of a lot of these judgments about the notion of improvement, or about what is a good or a bad statement about art. It doesn't enter into this. It's just the values of people.

Well, as the artist you end up being the conduit for ideas and information. It's going back and forth but you're not really trying to mold it in any particular way.

Well I'm thinking I'm not, but I could inadvertently be molding things.

Sure you are I bet. But you are making that conscious effort not to.

Mom is still insisting that Dee did one.

No, I don't think so

And that the water came straight down.

I wouldn't surprise me if it did. She did a lot of painting but she wasn't--even in my eyes--very artistic.

Oh.

But she loved doing it and she did a lot of it.

I have a comment of Mom's from before. She said that missing one wasn't as good because the water flowed down. Where did that one go?

So, yours is going to be hung and you're going to be a famous artist. So you can quit all those jobs and go on painting.

I was going to say do you want me to have it framed properly before it goes?

We never did consider it that sort of a work of art though--a work to be shown.

It's the idea that the painters are doing what they love to do.

Yeah.

It has to do with history. It has to do with your love of paint. It has to do with family relationships and memories.

This one is the one that intrigues me the most and ah, we need to again decide which direction. I mean we can illuminate you know, something that has been screened. And I think that because of this intricacy that probably the best way to go is to choose to screen it and allow whatever colour of light to pick it up.

It just picks up what has been engraved.

Yeah.

Is the difference. So it depends. It's going to give you a completely different look.

I know. I understand that. I'm also interested in the fact that you like this one and I would be ready to give you this one and say, "Could we do a routered outline and the screen--on the "table" as you call it. I guess you meant the machine.

Yeah, it definitely works but once you add the router lines it'll really really change it that's why my eye drew me to this one so much.

Yeah.

This is how we work with these outlines.

Uhm hm.

Are we going to make all of these signs different?

Yes, yes. because the idea is that people are copying these ad infinitum. Supposedly there was the earliest set of five copies and then there is to be a set of five more copies to kick off the project you might say. Then I have a bunch here in this binder. Because the project is going to exist in the art world more or less there are a lot of artists who have an idea of what they want to do. It will also be linked to the community at large--like Corinne has done this. And Steve had some ideas. The people who copied the earliest one had a narrower idea of what to do with the images. There was sentiment and nostalgia behind their idea of preserving this landscape.

Right.

But the ideas that people are generating now for these are nothing like what motivated the people to copy it in the first place.

So the only reason I picked that is because on something like this there's no distinct images. Like to look at this and this I don't see what advantage it would be to...

Well, there are reasons.

Yeah, I guess I need to understand what you're trying to...

I'm interested in what people want to do with it and ah, I'm interested in the fact that you would like to do something with this. To involve as many personal choices as possible is part of my goal here.

Yeah, well I'm just looking at what our technology can do for you.

O.K. That I realize.

Obviously I see distinct lines here and that's our business. We choose to highlight certain areas. Like I could have chosen not to highlight the back of his chair there. I could show you what we can do with the lines.

My favorite so far is this one. This last one, Because she does seem to make it her own in a way that the others don't. But I don't know...

I have a comment of Mom's from before. She said that missing one wasn't as good because the water flowed down.

The family that grew up with this picture on their wall at home valued it enough that they wanted reproductions for their own homes. If you have a family of seven kids, how many pictures would you have there? You must have had six or seven.

For me I valued it because every time I look at that picture it takes me right back to that wall it hung on at home. You know. It takes me back to my home life when I was a kid. Sentimental, I guess.

Did you notice that in the context of the other five how each of them took on a new look when it was with...

They all look completely different if you look at them together.

So this is what interests me. To recontextualize work. I will look for a space to show these in. I'm organizing the show so that visitors will have input.

I almost wish you didn't know I'm going to use these paintings in a show. You could just innocently do what you wanted to do then.

O.K. because when I find a picture and I'm gonna sit down an' try and copy this picture or paint it because that picture fascinates me. I don't always make it like the picture. I put some different things in it or I leave some things out or something. I don't know if that's...

That's really interesting. And you'll have other family members saying, "Now this one is the best copy. It's the most like the original."

Yeah.

So yours is valid.

VALUES/COPYING

So if you were to take that picture...

If I was to take that picture home.

The original.

The original.

The cracked and broken one.

And I want to make my version of it--if I don't like those three spruce trees, say, standing there the way they are--and If I want to change that does that spoil the value of that picture for your sake?

No.

For what you wanted to do?

It makes it more interesting.

Yeah, because...

Because maybe you don't like those three spruce trees.

How come all you guys painted the same trees and rocks?

She asked me to paint it. I didn't like part of it so I doctored it up.

So?

That's one, two, three, four, five, six, now.

The rocks are different in mine because I didn't like the rocks either. I didn't know that we...

You didn't know that it was going to be a critical art show.

No.

But that's the pleasure of it.

What were you saying about Dee a few minutes ago?

Well, I don't know. I just said that she made the poorest copy of the picture that I've seen.

Oh.

Well, except for this one that's here. I don't think..it's not a very good copy.

I liked that one.

But it's not like the original.

Oh, I see.

It's a good picture but it's not like the original.

And so an exact copy is a little more like documentation but when you take it in the context of the other five then it becomes an interesting exhibit.

Uh, huh.

Because we'll have different values represented. Then there's the whole value system of wishing to preserve family history. Saving something that meant a lot to you. So you get past, present and future values here that will be implied. Perhaps those who see this show will be thinking back to their lives. So it grows and grows like rootlets. They may not agree with the idea of copying or preserving memories. If they disagree it means only a different kind of comment.

So we don't mind what they say. Positive or negative. It's all good.

Uhm hm.

So you do what you want?

I think the popularity of this picture is because it was in the times when it was the only picture that Grandma had. Everybody remembered it, not because it's such a great picture or anything but because...

[Interrupts] Because it was the only nice thing that was in the parlor--that is on the walls.

It's so dry and broken.

It was done on cardboard and not on canvas.

That's right.

She's got her spruce trees too thin. Ah, as according to the original. I mean if she wanted it to be like the original it's little bit thinner.

It depends on what she wanted. I mean, well, they're attractive.

Yeah, it looks like what she wanted to do. The sky is nice.

Yeah. She's got a very nice sky. She did good water too. I think water's hard to do.

I haven't tried it.

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