Ice bergs

How many layers of socks do you wear in -28 degrees? Multiple choice: 1. Single wool sock. 2. Cotton lst layer, wool second. 3. Same pair all week


Important discussion bandied about Thursday over coffee at Artigiano when Sharron Bates of Global TV came to interview the crew, first thing in the morning. She had been to the hotel for a proper interview the night before.


City-TV braved the cold on Wednesday,


and the next day, we got some magnificent iceberg looking stuff with Sharon and her one woman crew, Carmen.


But first, past the spring salmon on the loading dock.


The work was magnificent, really getting thick and berg-like.



And they had to come out and wrap their cameras, which were 'ghosting' due to the cold.


Scott Wilson at Leader gave us very good seats to the Canuks game with the Coyotes – (who had sojourned at the hotel the night before the game). Gord saw them filing into the bus outside the Olympic tent in front of the hotel

just prior to the game and this morning the headlines “Canuks leave Coyotes howling” and “Another hatty for Burrows” confirmed Vancouver’s win. We sat in row #2 up close to those quick goals, blood on the ice when Salo got his eye poked and 18,000 fans goading players into fisticuffs.



The big buzz on the street is, how crazy is it going to be? : walk, bicycle or transit? One paper said line ups for transit will be double the first day of Canada Line’s opening, which I heard, were . . . long. Another headline: “Who owns the podium? Sponsors save the day and now rule the roost.” Everyone’s talking.


Meanwhile, Allan May and crew are busy bracing the wall at the back. Next week it goes up on site.


The days slip past.

2010 Press in the cold

Finally, we got on NBC’s radar.


“. . . visitors can also view the Ice Gate, an ice art installation created by renowned west coast artist Gordon Halloran...” ~ NBCOlympics.com. It wasn't much, but our VIDEO got picked up by AOL, (Peter Grainger’s/CTV now on You Tube -- see sidebar), and the local press is all over the project.



In Olympic news, Translink to audition buskers for the games; the Torch Relay ran in Thunder Bay Sunday at the post mile 3339 of Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope; Anna Goodman of Pointe Claire, Quebec tore her ACL during the FIS slalom race at Zagreb, Croatia, and is out of the competition for Team Canada.


It was Tuesday of Brianna's first week as paid staff and my first visit to the cold warehouse studio in Richmond. Peter Kim of Shaw Cable, his cameraman, Kenny and I, were just in time for a big pour.


Leader’s Scott Wilson took us down the halls past boxes of mandarin oranges and stacks of pallets.



We were bundled up and it started snowing as we stood outside the plastic stripes-doorway. Inside, the slippery floor stretched out with rows of flat paintings.




Erik pointed out the ‘fat boys’ – in cross-section



and I found some glacial pieces beginning their arctic-like fissures.


Gord gave instructions to Jaz, Erik and Becky, each with a different color of paint in their full buckets.





The place closes @ 3:15 sharp every day and so we were booted into the parking lot where Peter completed his interview and the crew began to stretch after a long day of lifting, pouring hefting.




This week: City-Tv and Global.

Extreme Painting

We stepped out of the elevator this morning and the Olympic sign in the lobby said 39 days, which for us means 35. Yikes! New Year’s. In the interim, Canada’s Olympic hockey team was chosen (with Iginla and Crosby in Canada red on the front page), the grandson rolled over for the first time and The Province published an article with several full color photos of the Ice Gate gang. These photos by Les Bazso.


Damian Inwood opened aptly with: “Gordon Halloran and his crew look as if they’ve just stepped off the set of the sci-fi movie The Day After Tomorrow.” And he coined this great term, “kaleidoscopic wall of ice”.

It’s nothing if not Extreme Painting.


On the last day of 2009, Gord spilled a bucket of blue paint, which froze instantly; today I got some ‘aerobic oxygen’ because we suspect we’re not getting enough oxygen in that extreme cold – (now that the fans have been turned down). Symptoms seem similar to altitude sickness, and we're going to suggest more frequent breaks outside, water laced with 'aerobic oxygen' and co-enzyme Q10. Thanks, Eliya!





Gord spent the few days on the coast sketching his plans on paper print-outs of the plates/wall. Brianna came to work full time today. This morning Vancouver Sun headlined: “2010 Winter Game Resident’s Guide”; a huge white tent is being constructed in front of the hotel in preparation for the IOC who will be staying here for the duration. Jaz sent us designs for the invitation; Global-TV, Shaw Cable and City TV are visiting the gulag with their cameras this week.


Just got a call from The Discovery Network. It’s dark at 7:30 AM and the rain is still coming down, but I can feel the excitement gathering - about the event - and about the work itself.

At Artigiano, discussion centered around the ‘hefty’ pieces the ‘jagged edges’ and the ‘fat boys’ – poured before New Year’s; Erik couldn't wait to see what the cold had done to them.



Check out the YouTube coverage from C-TV at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyufIJ5Acrk



Photos by Jaz Halloran and Les Bazso.

Like glass - 43 days til opening

Yesterday, Gord opened The Globe & Mail to Marsha Lederman’s article on the front page of the Arts Section.


"PUTTING OLYMPIC ART ON ICE", it headlined . . . . . "Gordon Halloran and a crew of craftsmen have been busy preparing a painted frozen artwork that promises to be a monumental addition to the Winter Games."


See the whole article at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/putting-olympic-art-on-ice/article1411782/#


Now as the earth turns, minutes are added to the sunny side of each day. At the hotel, the Christmas trees were whisked from the lobby over the holiday weekend, and there’s an eerie silence – no more dreaming of a white anything. Instead, there is a huge sign beside a tv screen on the wall announcing that this is the official hotel of the International Olympic committee. And Wang Shu Gang's 'Meeting' outside on the lawn as if it were already spring.



We celebrated those cozy, sentimental, hyped-up several days of gift giving and merrymaking, surrounded.


Christmas Eve, Tracy’s ‘Nonno’ her Italian grandfather, his three sons and their open-hearted families hosted us in a small kitchen in East Vancouver.








Home grown tomato sauce, Abruzzo fish and home made wine. We couldn’t help but remember our 2006 adventures in Turin. www.paintingsbelowzero.blogspot.com


Christmas Day, after our time-honoured tradition of ball hockey on icy tennis courts, after festive hats around the family table, we toasted to Patrick – who spent his first Christmas in Afghanistan.



After turkey and sweet heirloom confections,


after phone calls to family in other parts of the world, after lights on the tree melted into darkness, that weird feeling of nostalgia and sadness crept in, an unshakeable, mortal feeling, profound and unsettling, like waking up at dusk after napping too long. A shared but dreaded let-down; at Christmas we witness our loss of innocence even as everything conspires to bring us back to that child-world of hopeful, eternal days when everyone you loved was alive, when Santa Claus still existed and anything dark was held at bay by the soothing words of a capable parent and a lifetime yet to be lived.


Monday, the engineer’s signature for the wall finally inked the paper after a year of planning, designing, constructing. Kudos to Allan May.


Today, after our first day back in the gulag, all admitted to being ‘stuck on the sofa’ and ‘totally wiped’. Talk at our Artigiano table was reflective and constructive.


Erik and Jaz have worked as crew since the 2006 installation and are beginning to understand the complexity of creating works in this scale - works which are truly ephemeral.


Erik admitted relief to work the rest of the year as the author of his own creation, but now enjoys being part of the team, as the ‘pressure is off’ and full responsibility is not on his shoulders. “In Chicago,” he says, “the skyscrapers were watching.” "There are days, " Gord admitted, "when the importance of it all escapes me."


Here, the ice freezes so fast, it makes bigger, thicker pieces of sculpture possible.


And, unlike ever before, here there are clear pieces, which freeze like glass.



Photos by Jaz Halloran, Caitlin Hicks and Allan May.