TIME HAS THREE DIMENSIONS / Group Exhibition, Eldon House, London ON, 2004.
Michael Baker, curator of Regional History and Eldon House
Guest curator and contributing artist, Kirtley Jarvis
click here for exhibition catalogue
click here for walking guide
click here for video
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_"Time has three dimensions and one positive pitch or direction. It is
therefore not so much like any river or any sea as like the Sea of Galilee, which has the Jordan running through it and giving a current to the whole." Gerard Manley Hopkins,"Creation and Redemption the Great Sacrifice", 1881 |
Three-dimensional works by eight artists in a variety of media including steel, stained glass, sandblasted marble tile, oil on vintage linoleum, interwoven throughout the grounds and interior of Eldon House. Each artist has responded in a very individual and often playful way to the history, site or artifacts in London Ontario's oldest residence built in 1834 and home to four generations of the Harris family before it was given to the city of London in 1960. |
KIRTLEY JARVIS / NINE TO FIVE, annalematic sundial, 12 sandblasted and painted marble tiles,
12"w x 12"h x 3/8"d, 2004
Each hour tile has a motif that relates to an artifact in Eldon House.
click here for guide describing each tile below
Embroidering is meditation. In the throes of organizing this exhibition, and researching and then sandblasting & painting the tiles for the sundial [above] - as well as solving all the problems of installing and insuring new works by 8 artists on a historic site - I embroidered one of my favourite pieces, Fire Alarm [see below]. In his catalogue essay, Tor Lukasik-Foss wrote: "Kirtley Jarvis installed a second work as part of Time has Three Dimensions. Entitled Fire Alarm it is not listed in the walking tour brochure, and is positioned humbly in the second floor hallway. It provides the exhibition's post-script for anyone lucky enough to stumble across it. It is literally a perfect embroidered copy of a 1975 note written by Stanley Beacock, then director of the London Public Library which managed Eldon House, complaining about its failure to pass a recent fire inspection. The note laments that Eldon House will have to be modified to adapt to the standards of the present day. Fire Alarm succinctly describes the melancholy in knowing that the pure preservation of history is a fool's errand; it also proves that all houses, even the most tended-to museums, must bring in new collections of people and new ideas, and must evolve accordingly." |
From a note written in 1975 by Stanley Beacock (director of the London Public Library which managed Eldon House). Beacock is complaining about the building's failure to pass a recent fire inspection. When I found this note in the archives at the LPL, it struck me as a perfect snapshot of the tension at Eldon House: restraining ropes across doorways, curtains drawn to slow the deterioration, as well as the jarring and intrusive contemporary fire alarms and emergency lighting fixtures. Fire Alarm, embroidered linen, 14"h x 12"w x 1"d, 2004 ELDON HOUSE Fire Regulations Oct. 22, 1975 Snedden, Chief Fire Inspector 679-4565 200 people at reception Not permitted Mrs. Somerville (one of our people requested an inspection) Does not meet minimum (newer) requirements Gone along to keep character of Eldon House but no longer!! S. |