The initial start of this series was produced for the 12th City Artist Collective's 2023 Annual Show titled, 'Collection'.

Carousels to me are like the old fairy tales, they are both for children and adults, but it is a very different consideration and effect from whichever age they’re looked at from. There is a charm and beauty in a carousel, a sort of magical drawing of the eyes and a lulling of the senses. Yet, they are in ways, terrifying also. The twisted, stuck faces and poses of the characters, the too loud; mechanical music, the lights and dizzying motion, much faster than anticipated, and the inability to focus on any one thing for very long, as everything spins around you. There is a wonder and a fear being on one, as a child you find yourself quiet and almost hypnotized, perhaps wondering if you haven’t actually been somewhat like Hansel and Gretel, led along the path and enticed into a trap....were the characters you are riding once children just like yourself, just like Pinocchio and the boys on pleasure island? Caught up in the excitement and visual feast, unsuspecting? Along for the ride, until in the last moment they realize the danger and their mistake, as they are changed into the horses and characters upon the ride. They are now frozen, but alert to what they were and unable to communicate it to the next children. “Careful! We were once you, but we’ve been transformed.” Hence the faces of horror and the poses of attempting flight? All of a sudden, you hug the pole a little harder, you’re heady; almost sleepy. You want to spin forever, but you are also wishing to get off, there is something of Fairie in it all.

From the adult perspective a little bit of life analogy.....hence the titles.

 

Some Days You’re Up

Some Days You’re Down

Just Hang On

Let the Music Carry You Along

Enjoy the Ride

Too Soon It’s Over

 

There is a charm, a beauty, a nostalgia, a sweet lulling of the senses. Yet, still dizzying. What seems like it is riding along for so long, comes to an abrupt and unexpected stop. Don’t hold too loosely, it will slip away. Don’t hold too tightly trying to anticipate the end, you’ll miss the thrill and be disappointed. While you are there, while on the ride, embrace it....the ups and downs, the fearful, the unexpected. The ease and speed, the beauty, the changing view. Embrace the experience; soak it up, for the magical ends sometime, and reality settles in again with a suddenness. When I shared these works in process with my aunt, she sent a poem she once wrote titled “Carousel Rider”, not a light piece of writing, but reflecting on some of the same thoughts and feelings of the analogous nature of the subject to life. And as I was in the midst of a fast moving, uncontrolled, just hang on season while working on these, I had many long hours to consider the parallels.

This particular carousel is found at the Cultus Lake amusement park near Chilliwack BC, and it was so unique in its characters, I was entranced. We spent a day there as a family with my sister, brother in law and their children, when every one was much younger then now.