Another day, another year, another email, an experiencer’s perspective.
“During my time on Quadra Island I had the good fortune to witness the creative process by which the inner ear piece was created.
I had seen and admired Jim’s completed artworks including the pieces “Transformation” and “Body Parts.”
They evoked strong emotions in me then and still affect me now. I helped haul the new stump into the workshop and crank it up on ropes to a workable height. I agreed that the rocks entangled in the roots would make for an interesting piece but I also knew from its sheer size and plain bulky trunk that this piece was going to be different. Jim said he wanted to get inside it. After stripping down the trunk to bare new wood, Jim sanded and rounded the edges for a few months and pondered. I recall Jim saying that he wasn’t hearing what the wood wanted. One day the ever-patient Jim picked up the chainsaw and delved into the center of the piece. The rough hole was created in a matter of minutes. As quickly as things got started, he stopped the saw. After pondering for some time, much to my amusement he gradually disappeared into the stump with his grinder whining, emerging periodically barely recognizable with his curly mop of hair impregnated with sawdust. The piece slowly took shape over the next few months. Unlike any of Jim’s earlier pieces, we marveled together at the energy of the piece as it came nearer to its final shape. Neither of us had a clue as to the theme of the piece. Jim was certain that it was an interactive piece and that it invited people to step inside, to make sounds, and to hear and feel the piece from an inner perspective. He said to me as I left the Island that he felt the piece was almost finished yet there was something missing, that he felt there was to be something more, a more definite theme, a more definite message, something…
Four years later I returned to the Island for a two-day visit. I took another look at Jim’s gallery space, now with the completed addition of “The New Piece.” The finish had been completed and a few small touches had been made around the roots and the rocks. I recognized the changes immediately as I had spent so many hours visually devouring the piece during the main stages of development. Fully complete, the piece now held a certain humble majesty about it, to add to the former beauty and energy of which I already knew.
Then Jim told me about what had happened regarding the piece after I had left, four years earlier. I was awestruck. Everything finally fell into place. The more I looked, the more amazed I became. Perhaps it even makes sense in some wonderful kind of way.
Sincerely, LP”
