The Generals of Admiral (The Virtue of Solitude)

Standard Implement Company | Admiral (2021)

When the black Ford Escape with the trailer drove down the hill from the Admiral school, parked about a block away from me and started revving its engine, I didn’t know what to think but I was certainly prepared for the worst.

I spent the previous sweltering June day and evening driving around  southern Saskatchewan photographing some new work under the moonlight. I slept on an air mattress I had neatly folded into my checked luggage, along with a single burner stove, some MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) and a courtesy folding shovel… just in case of emergency. All the essentials I would need to be off the grid for a few days. What I didn’t bank on were the temperature swings that went from 33 degrees (94 F for my American friends) to 3 degrees (34 F). The cotton sheet and under-sized quilt that I was able to squeeze into my luggage didn’t cut it, and while I lay fetal and shivering in the back of a rented Mazda CX-9, I started to seriously reconsider my poor life choices.

The next morning, sore and cranky I drove to a place called Ponteix where I met an angel named Sharon who let me check in to the Parkside Motor Inn at 9am where I caught up on some much needed sleep and replanned my shooting itinerary. The main building I wanted to photograph was about 20 miles west in Admiral, and while the moon wouldn’t be in the finished picture, I knew that the light would be present in the colour of the sky and the reflection of the church face and windows in the background. I drove between Admiral and Kincaid (the location of my second night shoot and a place I had been many times before) marking my tripod locations and plotting where the moon would be when I got there. By 8:30 PM I was set and ready to go. I brewed a cup of coffee as I sat on the sidewalk in Admiral and waiting for the sun to go down. That was about the time the black Ford came creeping down the hill.

I Found Jesus, He Owns the Co-op in Ponteix (2021)

After revving the engine a few times, the car accelerated quickly down the road, boxes falling out of the makeshift wooden trailer it had in tow. It slowed as it got near me and the driver and passenger took a good look at me as they went by. I waved and gave my standard, “how goes it boys?”, to which the passenger, a large, farm-raised local chap with hands like catcher’s mitts, raised his tall-boy of Lager and gave a half smile. They drove to the end of the street made a u-turn and slowly crept back towards me. The driver stopped about 30 feet away and called with a thick-ish Serbian accent from the half opened window, “you making a picture? I’m not in the way am I?” He said this not in a sarcastic way like, “I’m hoping I am ruining whatever it is you’re doing jackass”, but with kindness and sincerity. I explained to him as briefly as I could my process and that I was just waiting. He called me over to his car and said “we are all artists, you should come up to the school and see our studio”, which initially I thought was a clear invitation to me being murdered. 

The driver, who introduced himself as “Lucky” but was born as Zoran  was a slender fellow with a wispy ponytail . He reiterated that I should come for a drink, meet Gordan, and see the place. Lloyd leaned forward and said, “yeah come up for a f^%king beer!” Thoughts of Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud popped into my head (I want Pancakes House), but with two hours to sunset, no cell signal and nothing to do, I agreed. As Lucky and Lloyd drove back up the hill to the school I could hear Lucky say  “Oh shit we lost a bunch of boxes!” Their laughing faded as they picked up what they lost and drove up the hill.

As I parked up next to the school, Lucky and Lloyd were waiting for me by the door. Lucky said come on in and Lloyd waited for me to pass and he followed closely behind. A classic pincher technique where I would be ambushed and in a fight for my life. However, as I walked into the school hallway I wasn’t  met with Lloyd’s farmers hands grasping me by the neck, rather I was greeted with art. I mean lots of art. Paintings on every wall and stacked against the wall, carefully wrapped and protected. There were sculptures and makeshift bedrooms from classrooms and filing cabinets filled with paints. There were rooms with screen printing presses, inkjet printers, easels and blank canvases and a gymnasium with wood working tools, and of course, an area for curing meat, because why the hell not.

Hoop Dreams II (2021)

A man with thick glasses and a mop of white hair approached and Lucky said, “This is Gordan. He knows everything about art.” Turns out Gordan is Gordan Novak, master print-maker who has worked with Iain Baxter&, John Lennon and Jeffrey Spalding to name a very small few. Gordan gave me a quick quiz as to who I was and what kind of art I made and after I apparently passed, a bottle of whiskey was placed in front of me and I was given the option of beer or hard stuff (I chose beer). Lloyd offered me a chair and we sat and exchanged ideas and stories while the sun set and the moon rose over the prairies. Lloyd as it turns out is Lloyd Garthus, a local potter and sculptor who Lucky christened “the best, straight potter in Canada”, a fact I was unable to corroborate. The other resident artist, who wasn’t there at the time, is Vlade Marisovic, a Russian bear of a man, who paints whimsical and delicate landscapes.

When it was time for me to make my own art, we shook hands, exchanged info and Lucky and Lloyd walked me back out the way I came. While Lloyd chain-smoked by the car, Lucky looked at me and said some pretty profound words. He said that people think they are crazy for living out here in the middle of nowhere. Living in a school in a ghost town and making art. But most people are so busy making themselves busy that they rarely get a chance to do what they really want to do. They really want to make art and that’s what they do. They travel the world looking for new products, go to Art Fairs from Paris to Hong Kong, and when they aren’t doing that they are right where they should be.

As I drove back down the hill I had a new sense of inspiration and made maybe my favourite DaySleeper piece I’ve ever made. With On the Nature of Daylight playing in my ears while painting the building with light, I knew that I was exactly where I was supposed to be too.