Volume 15 Issue 1 » 93 have grown up on it, and people return to it and now they’ re bringing friends and kids. It’ s quite a deal.
LOVE BIRDS Ford Econolines, car parts, grain silo caps, perforated water barrels, lighting and trailer systems 11’ 4” x 8’ x 8’ and 11’ 2” x 11’ x 11’ 1998-2010
I love the duality of Love Birds. The language I use to describe the piece- car parts, grain silo, water barrel- those words should not go together. And why the name?
KA: It’ s a hard one to describe. I had bought two vans and I needed the backs of two Tradesmen vans. One piece I made is called Bottle Van and the other one is called Squid Head at the Vancouver Art Gallery. I had the whole rest of the vehicles and the leftover halves sitting in the yard for five years. I was sitting in a chair having a beer and looking at it on an angle, and I thought I could stand it up. I stood it up and it completely lost its identity. It’ s two Tradesmen van front ends and I just opened up the doors and bashed it with other car hoods and it became like its own character. And it just needed a companion. There was another piece that I had started and failed on. They made livestock water storage things. I was drilling holes in it and it was something that sat around for fifteen years. And then I thought,“ Here we go, we’ ve got something.” I started working on it and letting it be what it is. I knew what the parts were, but the abstraction of it, I accepted the abstraction. The term Love Birds, well, they have these love birds. They’ re lyrebirds where the chests puff up and they have a whole show. Seeing that as a child, it popped back in my mind in my sixties as a feeling. It looked like a bird performing in front of another bird. It’ s an abstract belief of soul mates. They belong together so if someone wanted to buy one part only, you’ d be creating a divorce. These are called love birds. You don’ t separate them; they have to go together.
Bruegel-Bosch Bus, 1997- ongoing Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid
Love Birds, 1998-2010 Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid