Bridget
Fairbank
@bpracticalpottery
In this stark time, we are now culturally primed to connect with nature and nurture the fate of the human condition. This fire season marks Fairbank’s 10th year spotting wildfires in Northern Alberta. She has seen wolves and caribou migrate south because of un-relenting Boreal fires, ash falling like rain and lightening start a single tree top flame extinguished by rain five minutes later. More than 1,500 days perched above the trees, metronomes of time swaying gently in the wind, has pressed upon Fairbank the real and quantifiable importance of the individual.
Please consider the ceramic material’s connection to land and commemoration when viewing this work. Clay is the most long lasting archival material we use. Will the plants represented here take over or will these small layered, abstracted personal expressions be the souvenir of a perished plant? Fairbank proposes a compromise: coexistence by attentive interaction. Rather than translating the specific these tiles are meant to be plant-like, expressive, personal and joyful, a reminder that we are not apart from, but a part of nature. A reminder that growth is possible.
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Arch of Triumph
Giant Hogweed and Autumn Olive
Ceramic, 2020
Hogweed out-competes grasses and other forage species, reducing food sources for wildlife and livestock, and competing with native vegetation for nutrients and light.
Autumn Olive can grow into dense thickets and out-compete native vegetation. It also has nitrogen-fixing roots that can change the nutrient cycle in the soil making it difficult for native species that depend on poor soils to grow.
Left $1450
Right $1450
Low Hanging Fruit: Plum
Ceramic, 2020
A thing or person that can be won, obtained, or persuaded with little effort.
$950 each
$2850 Whole composition
Low Hanging Fruit: Pear
Ceramic, 2020
A white tile is placed here to represent absence. A reminder to cherish the plenty as the shift in clime will change this abundance.
$850
Flowers and plants have long been codified and are powerful communicative objects. Fairbank’s past work considers flora, wild or domestic, as a living witness to humanity. Now she asks the viewer to witness the plants, invasive, local and exotic that are attempting to exist, cleaning our air, having sex
and fighting for survival here in Alberta.
Low Hanging Fruit: Apple
Ceramic, 2020
A thing or person that can be won, obtained, or persuaded with little effort.
$1280 each
La Petite Mort X + Y
Ceramic, 2020
A nod to the function of flowers as reproductive organs and the struggle to survive.
Bachelor's Button (Centaurea cyanus) an ornamental plant of European decent in gardens was chosen for the impetus of this piece because of its tongue-in-cheek name eluding to human heterosexual reproduction and carrying capacity of a system. Some flowers are seen here to break out of the normality of their rows
X $450, Y $150