Daguerre's Diorama Painting at Bry-Sur-Marne

Had an amazing day checking out the last remaining diorama painting by Daguerre, currently under restoration in Bry-Sur-Marne. My hosts, curator Margaret Calvarin and Camille Elisabeth were extremely generous with their time and information. I was also lucky to see Daguerre's house and had a private tour of Èclats de Photographie, an exhibition curated by Margaret and currently on view in Lagny-sur-Marne. Seeing the painting in person, as well as the restoration of the church that contains the painting, gave me a broader understanding of the complexity involved in manipulating the paintings. Talk about early installation art! I also have an even larger appreciation of Daguerre as an innovator; the diorama is a quite a feat, never mind co-inventing the Daguerreotype process. Seriously. Here's a few pictures from the day:

Front and back view of the left panel from the church.

Interior view of a maquette that illuminates (ha) how the diorama painting in the church works.

Restoration in progress in the church. They let me up on the scaffolding to get a closer view of the work. Amazing!

Main aperture located behind the painting. This part of the building was added by Daguerre in order to illuminate the painting from behind, thereby creating the 3-d effect.

My Banff- A Few More Installation Images

The show opened on Friday and was a great event with lots of people. I think a lot of the crowd came to see the Andy Warhol exhibit (ha) but a few people came into my exhibition space as well. I got some great feedback and a lot of visitors shared their own stories about Banff which was great. I had the great fortune to have a posse of friends and family there for the opening - I feel like a very lucky artist.

Also, all the staff at the Art Gallery of Alberta were amazing to work with and I am very appreciative of my time spent in Edmonton! Special thanks to Sean for working on the bringing together the carpentry and motion sensor on the Bubble.

Artist talk - TONIGHT- at Art Gallery of Alberta

If you're in the neighbourhood, I have an artist talk at the Art Gallery of Alberta tonight at 6:30pm. I will talking about my exhibit, My Banff, which opens May 28th. Come check it out!

Above is a sneak peek of the show.

Details

Getting close to being done. Some of the little bits I've been working on the last few days: hikers looking off the back of Tunnel Mountain, tourists at Surprise corner and a few climbers on Ballista. Did I mention I'm starting to really reach my maximum tolerance for working in N scale? These figures are half an inch tall and I curse them everyday.

Stories

Can't remember if it was Chris or John who said this but man, I thought was funny...and true.

A few more from today

Small Portraits

An example of how I'm presenting the tiny portraits in the diorama. Steph and Maddy.

The Bridge

Spend a long time working on the bridge yesterday. My Dad had made a great bridge when he was here last week but I wrecked it when I tried to add cobblestones so I had to make a new one. AGH. Also added a person climbing the bridge because my friend Paul has climbed the cracks in the bridge in the spring time. Getting pretty close to being done!!

Surprise Corner, The Banff Springs and Some Horseback Riders

Decided late last week to actually put some of the information about the buildings on the white cards with the images. These are based on my thoughts about the place or things I've gathered from other people. I also think I may have figured out a solution for the river.

The Voyager