Calgary Artist Drops 'Watchers' At Flatrock
6/26/01
By RYAN CLEARY
The Telegram-Flatrock
Five statues rise from the edge of a barren board of peninsula here like nails hammered through the end of a stick. The wooden figures, sculpted with a chainsaw and blackened by the flames of a Prairie bonfire, are bolted to the rock, as fixed as lichen. They stare out to sea, searching for whatever it is their creator wanted them to find.
Those who happen upon the figures (There’s been little publicity, the statues aren’t even signed.) turn their heads to search the North Atlantic with them.
"What are we looking for?" Alberta artist Peter von Tiesenhausen has been asked.
I don’t try to tell people what to think. I don’t know what’s right or what’swrong or smart or stupid. I’m just as aware as I can be," von Tiesenhausen said Monday from Demmitt, Alta., a small town about 500 kilometres northwest of Calgary where the statues were carved.
"I want people to think deep thoughts. I want them to be aware of what’s around. That place you live in is so friggin’ magical, just like so many places in Canada."
Von Tiesenhausen isn’t known for his traditional art making. As one Alberta curator put it, "he burns paintings. He carves into them. He transforms outdoor environments into outdoor art spaces through using natural materials."
Von Tiesenhausen drove the five statues to Newfoundland in March in the back of his half-tonne pickup. A lady in Cape Breton saw the figures staring out over the cab and tagged them "the watchers."
Before then, von Tiesenhausen had no name for them. There was no signage on his truck. He did few media interviews.
"I don’t try to lead people into what they are. They are 1,000 different things, which makes them more powerful."
He sculpted the figures three or four years ago and then stood them with their backs to a boat he had also made.Von Tiesenhausen torched the entire scene in the dark of a Prairie night. The figures, though charred, remained standing. The next morning he loaded them in his ’84 Ford pickup. "I thought it would be kind of funny if they were all standing upright in the back."
The figures were initially displayed on a Calgary rooftop. From there, von Tiesenhausen drove them to British Columbia for an exhibition at a Kelowna art gallery.
Last summer, the figures were assembled on a raft in a lake near the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ont. "The raft was submerged so these things looked like they were walking on water."
Von Tiesenhausen drove to Newfoundland in late March. He had originally planned to stand the figures on a pan of ice, setting it adrift off Pouch Cove. At around the same time, however, three boys from the community died in the ice just off shore.
Von Tiesenhausen changed his plans, driving around for days until he came across the Flatrock peninsula that’s known locally as "The Beamer."
Locals helped him haul the statues out on the peninsula, standing them upright like chess pieces on a rugged board. "I wanted them to be exposed to the elements as much as possible. The Beamer is the perfect place for that."
They won’t be there much longer.
Von Tiesenhausen plans to return to Flatrock within days to retrieve his statues for a trip to Greenland. He has permission to lash them to the deck of the Canadian Coast Guard ship Henry Larson, which is heading north for the summer on a scientific exhibition.
"They’ll float around until the fall," said von Tiesenhausen, who’s slated to meet up with his statues in Iqaluit, Nunuvit, in October. They’ll be taken from there across the Labrador Sea, back to the island of Newfoundland.
And then?
"I’ve no idea yet," von Tiesenhausen said.
"I always think that what needs to happen, happens."