In the Time of Toucan: An Update
Art, Construction, Small Business, and Thanksgiving
So, there's this. But first, don't panic, I want to talk about the artwork above in terms of what it might represent: spacetime. The artwork of Allison O'Donnell has always depicted some thing, some place, some time, beyond the real world in which our heavy footsteps fall, a hidden structure fundamental to how we perceive that world, invisible but necessary.
Maybe I'll add this piece, above, by Jodi Lightner, to further this exploration. Jodi's work has often been described as architectural (sometimes even by her), produced as a depiction of, response to, or maybe better: in conversation with the environments humans build to ease our existence here on Earth. Architecture, of course, manifests as a function of Newton's Second Law of Motion, particularly as it relates to the force of gravity. There's plenty of math to explain this, but let's consider it in literary terms instead: architecture is an (aesthetic) argument against gravity. We're trying to build (beautiful) things that don't fall down.
Jodi's artwork strikes us as architectural because the rendered elements of which it is comprised, lines in particular, are organized in ways that remind us of how things are built here on Earth: horizontal and vertical lines crossing and connecting at right angles, a rectilinear representation of not something that is real, but something that could be, because vertical and horizontal, right angles and rectilinear, are the words that describe the conditions that best combine to stand up to gravity's pull.
Allison's work represents the same world as Jodi's but with an added dimension (not more, just another). If Jodi's work is Newtonian, Allison's is perhaps better described by Einstein. He posited that the three dimensions of space are inextricably linked with a fourth dimension: time. In Einstein's world (which is our world, as his theories stand today), gravity is described as a property of this four-dimensional spacetime, the curvature of it, specifically, and not the force of Newton's Second Law.
Allison's artwork (here’s another one, above) speaks to this lack of straight-line resistance to the force of gravity and reveals a reality while universal in its witness, is less so in its interpretation. Temporal disruption or prairie grass? Blackhole or high plains snowfield? Of course, maybe Jodi's piece reminds you of your mother's tears or your father's last words or your own lingering regrets, architectural or not. Which is nonetheless valid and a different kind of gravity entirely. Because it's not for Newton or Einstein or anyone else to tell you what to see, what to feel. Certainly not me. Art belongs only to the audience, the user, when the artist's work is done, your own journey through spacetime mitigated not by the object itself, not by the artist's intent, but by your own interpretation of it.
This particular interpretation of these particular works is only my own, then, the artists' moot, if not mute considering that I know them both personally (one with the added dimension of wife). I bring up this work only because it is immediate to me and was on my mind, but my first contact with the art of spacetime probably came long ago in a television show, Star Trek's warp drive, an artistic expression more literal than any of Allison's combined colors and textures. And while it leaves less room for the mind to play, it is certainly useful as an elixir of fantasy in the miasma of something as earthly as, well, construction delays. The warp drive of the Starship Enterprise produces a high-energy plasma that is used to bend space in order to bring a point of destination closer, thus reducing the amount of time it takes to travel to it. Bending space to manipulate time. This is Einstein's theory made as real as fiction, and it thrills as a dream of humans having control over things that humans can't control.
That is to say that Toucan is not the Starship Enterprise, and here on Earth, we are left to disentangle time and space from one another and return to Newton's world, where our stand against gravity must contend with the vagaries of time untethered, and such that we're left with the iconoclastic theoretical physicist Richard Feynman's estimation of it: "Maybe it is just as well if we face the fact that time is one of the things we probably cannot define (in the dictionary sense), and just say that it is what we already know it to be: it is how long we wait."
And so it is that Toucan will now be opening in its new iteration...in its new location...in January.
At first, we lamented the missing of our intended destination, planet Christmas, the venerable (and inclusive) Holiday Season, but we are relieved to now have the time to realize a fully-formed Toucan 3.0 in the truest manifestation of our vision, without the rush, the anxiety, and the potential for error.
I often turn to Albert Camus to provide tonic to my mental turbulence, and I'll reduce his ideas about human existence to almost nothing (which might mean everything) and leave it at that, namely that it is absurd.
However…
You can still enter the orbit of Toucan this holiday season by giving the gift of a Toucan Gift Certificate. A little something that will afford the opportunity to be one of the first people to shop at the new Toucan as soon as we reopen.
Toucan has participated in Small Business Saturday every year since American Express introduced the idea in 2010. This Saturday after Thanksgiving is dedicated to supporting the small businesses that exist evermore as an alternative to big corporations and big boxes of economic consumerism. While we won't be open this year for Small Business Saturday in a physical (three-dimensional) way, we will be open virtually (for real) when we kick off our (very weird) holiday season of 2023 with this dispatch.
We thought about making Toucan gift certificates available on our website, but since Toucan has always been for real people in a real place, we decided it better to just let everyone email us at toucan@toucanarts.com or call or text us at 406-252-0122 and request said gift certificate in person, so to speak. That way, we can take care of business in the real world. Like we’ve always done. So let’s do that if you’re interested.
Also, Allison has started a list of framing jobs as customers have inquired with respect to such things. It is likely that the frame shop will be operational first, and that list will be our guide for letting people know as soon as they can bring their projects to our new location (likely before our official opening).
We have a lot going on with this crazy project we’ve undertaken, so if you do call and don’t get an answer, please leave a message. We will definitely get back to you. And as indicated, you can email or text, as well.
Thanks, everybody. We look forward to communicating with you at this end-of-year time and, ultimately—soon, very soon, so very soon, with fingers crossed—for you to come see us in person at 1002 2nd Avenue North.
And Happy Thanksgiving. Obviously, we’re thankful for you and your patience, and your ongoing support and participation in the place, enterprise, and community of Toucan.
More updates to come, so stay tuned, right here and on our website toucanarts.com