Dispatches from Banff: 1

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As of right now, this very second, 10:51AM MDT, Wednesday the 23 June, I've been in Banff 20 days, minus a few hours. And it's been amazing. I feel like I'm building something. I don't really know what it is yet. But it's made up of lots of little pieces, little pieces inspired by being here. In fact, being here is the right term, the recurring theme in the last few weeks. Being here, not elsewhere, not thinking about another time or place, just experiencing a new now, as all nows are new, in this place. While the sounds of construction drown out the chirps of ground squirrels (onward! upward! towards progress!), I still feel dreamy. The mountains, a postcard in front of me, hardly real. Take a picture and it looks like nothing real at all. The panoramas, things I've only seen in pictures, can't possibly be true, though I might stand on them and feel them. Place. I went hiking one day, my companion likening the smell of hot pine to France. But standing on a mountain, looking at snow on the next one over. Of course, I've never been to France or smelled its smell of hot pine, but it appeals that we don't grasp the thing itself, instead turn it into other things, understandable things, things we've experienced already.

There's this mountain... And that one and that one and that one. And there's the valley, with the river flowing through, the river that eventually gets to Calgary and cuts it in half. And there's this town in the valley, swarming with tourists, with stores from malls and busses full of people who get driven to a particular point, let off to take pictures and then piled back in. And there's this gondola, costs $25 dollars to go up, but then you can say that you've been to the top of Sulfur Mountain. Where the hot springs were/are/aren't. Where they've got a pool, all tiled, all hot, but not smelling of sulfur at all.

But here, in this little bit, on the side of Tunnel Mountain, with the construction noise and the ground squirrels and the red staircases going a little rusty and in need of paint, it's pretty nice. The conferences come in and out, with lanyards on necks and signs in the dining room. The rooms are like hotels, tiny toiletries and complementary coffee alongside the ice bucket. But the people are good. The strangers I meet at breakfast, the dozen or so people I've seen most days for the last three weeks, we talk. And it's good. And I learn things. And I build on things that I already know. Then I go back to my studio, put ideas up on the walls, match them up, build them. I feel like I'm building something.

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Below, the last dispatch from Banff (previous dispatches here and here). It was written almost two weeks ago, July 1. Not only is it a dispatch from Banff, it's also become the letter I sent to my funder, RBC, to... Read More

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