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