The Clearing, an exhibit at The Agnes Art Gallery (Kingston)

Clearing (noun)

1. the act or process of making or becoming clear

2. a tract of land within a wood or other overgrown area from which trees and other obstructions have been removed.

I returned last week to experience again an exhibit, The Clearing, by Kingston artists Marney McDiarmid and Clelia Scala, who have repurposed a shipping container to create a magical, mystical "forest" in which we are invited to be still, to observe, wonder, delight, puzzle, reconsider. The shipping container is that most utilitarian, most quotidian artefact of our globalized consumption patterns, connecting us across oceans (our original amniotic fluid) to far flung people and materials, though we are mostly oblivious to those connections. Marney and Clelia use the interior of the shipping container, painted black, as the backdrop for their gorgeous, sensuous creations, made of clay, paper, and other materials. On the outside, muralist Lee Stewart has painted forest trees, silhouetted by a fiery sunset sky, signalling that this is no ordinary shipping container—and no ordinary forest.

Since my second visit, I've been thinking lots about an aspect of the exhibit that I barely considered first time round—the exhibit name, The Clearing. At the opening, Marney and Clelia spoke of the genesis of the project, an artist's retreat they both attended, where they were invited to sit quietly in nature and observe. I imagine them sitting side-by-side, with a few others, in a clearing in the forest, a place where you can see farther. But does seeing farther really mean seeing more clearly? Some things are more clear— the sky, the clouds, the stars, perhaps the horizon. But I think about all the many activities that nourish a forest ecosystem that are invisible or barely visible to human eyes. A different kind of seeing is necessary to recognize those, to see them clearly.

Opening night of The Clearing

A clearing in the forest provides a good spot for humans to gather and socialize. The parking lot on Stuart St. where The Clearing is temporarily situated (a most unlikely location for an art exhibit!) is a clearing of a different sort. On opening night, one of the last evenings of summer, that parking lot filled with the artists' family, friends, neighbours, and supporters. Though I went by myself, I was delighted to be drawn into several different conversations with people I knew, including one I hadn't seen in many years. A warm sense of connectedness hummed in my heart; I was happy to be living in Kingston and to be at this most unusual event. My sense of being connected to the world was nourished both inside and outside the shipping container that evening.

Ceramic lichen

More sobering, more poignantly, the shipping container reminds us of how much of the natural world we have "cleared" in our unquenchable thirst for "more stuff." Marney and Clelia's art provide a delicate feeling of hope that all is not lost, that nature will reclaim for itself the things that humans have made — things that we tend to think of as apart from "nature" but are inevitably, at some level, made of nature. I especially love Clelia's flock of birds that don't recognize the boundaries of the container wall. Some are fully inside the container; some are only partly inside. I also love Marney's intricate ceramic lichens, "growing" on the container walls. I had a feeling that the lichens might eventually take over, covering over the walls and ceiling.

The inside of the container is also a clearing, one that invites us out of the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives to be held, temporarily, in a "forest" that is both familiar and strange. The artists are inspired by nature, but do not hold themselves to realism. Marney's ceramic flowers, branches, lichens, and other plant-like objects are lovingly, intricately, whimsically, exquisitely patterned. I marvelled at the detail and strained to see as much of it as possible. But just like in the actual forest, there is much that is hidden or barely visible.

Clelia's birds, which incorporate tree branches in unexpected places, and bits of paper with words on them, are darker, more menacing, despite their light colours. The sense that maybe not all is as it appears is heightened by Matt Rogalsky's brilliant soundscape, which somehow manages to be both soothing and unsettling at the same time.

The artists want us to contribute to the exhibit too. They invite guests to bring along a personal document to shred and add to the forest floor, for "composting." I brought a letter from the 1980s, from a friendship that disintegrated last year. I felt a great release when the letter went through the shredder, a joy that was only slightly diminished by not being able to tell my former friend what I'd done because we are no longer in communication. Adding the shredded letter to the "leaf litter" already on the forest floor felt like scattering the ashes of the friendship, a sacred act, an offering, like compost, to nourish something that will remain unknown to me.

I've been thinking about The Clearing for a month now. I'm not an artist, an art critic, or a student of art but it seems to me that any artwork that prompts such extended musings is about as good as art gets. I'm struck by Marney and Clelia's fierce love of the natural world, a love that shines in the care and detail of their art, and their invitation for us to see nature anew, through their art.

If you, dear reader, are in Kingston or anywhere close by, I urge you to make a "clearing" in your schedule to go for a visit, if you haven't already. Check for opening hours though, so you won't be disappointed. The exhibit is on until 9 November, and there is no admission charge.

(And now that I'm at the end, I realize that I didn't make space to describe Sadiqa de Meijer's beautiful poem posted at the entrance that invites us in, to be present .... "did you think yourself lost/now you're here" ... and so many other details... even though a shipping container is a small space, there is rich abundance here... just like a forest.)