My mother remembers seeing a military band perform in the Alexandra Park bandstand across from English Bay, in the early 1950s. I watched a Jazz Festival performance there this summer. But the bandstand itself is one of those very Vancouver heritage features that you might not notice when it’s not in use. It’s just part of the city’s furniture, like an antique end table in the living room you don’t remember not being there.
Haywood Bandstand, across from English Bay beach
Even though I went to high school in the West End, I couldn’t quite picture what is now officially called the Haywood bandstand. So when I was approached by the Burrard Arts Foundation last summer to create a public artwork incorporating the bandstand for this winter’s Lumiere Festival, I had to head back down to the park to take a good hard look at the structure itself.
The city was in the throes of a record-breaking drought when I walked into the parched park to shoot pics of the bandstand from all angles. The flattened, straw-coloured grass, the trees, even the dogs and their walkers were all looking like they could use a little rain, but in three months we would be pining for the sun, so this project should be a beacon of hope for the bright days ahead, in those cold, dank December nights.
The city was in the throes of a record-breaking drought when I walked into the parched park to shoot pics of the bandstand from all angles. The flattened, straw-coloured grass, the trees, even the dogs and their walkers were all looking like they could use a little rain, but in three months we would be pining for the sun, so this project should be a beacon of hope for the bright days ahead, in those cold, dank December nights.
Palette of a sunset
The architecture easily lends itself as a large-scale lantern glowing with the embers of the memories of past sunsets. After scrapping the original plan to use a skin of interconnected colourful umbrellas (one former aeronautical engineer at a site meeting was concerned about “cycloning” winds inside the umbrella web) I turned to the idea of wrapping the entire structure in hot-hued striations of stretch fabric. The overlapping layers would begin at the base to evoke the setting yellow sun, turning first orange, then red, fading to pink, fusing into lilac and finally reaching to a sky blue in the cupola. Lit within, the structure would resemble the most photographed image from the west-facing vantage point of the bandstand.
Sketch for ‘Lighthouse’
I imagined it as a three-dimensional abstract painting, but using cloth in lieu of paint. The excitement of this kind of large-scale project is in the unknown; it requires a certain faith in a first-time success. And then there’s the drama: Will the fabric be too transparent, killing the saturation? Will the lights achieve that vital glow? Will a freak windstorm or some devilish raccoons rip the bands into shreds? After months of sketches, meetings, revised sketches, models and tests, there is just one weekend to view the results.
I am the Lighthouse evangelist (Join me in my vision!) with her fingers crossed behind her back.
I am the Lighthouse evangelist (Join me in my vision!) with her fingers crossed behind her back.
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