Construction

Many of my friends can tell you that I have long had an underlying fascination with construction equipment. Some would guess that the roots of this subtle obsession go back to my first job out of high school when I worked as a Flagger for the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and spent the summer surrounded by dump trucks, steam rollers and the pungent smell of freshly laid blacktop. Others may think it has something to do with the fact that my Dad's family owned a building supply store in a northern Alberta town and that somehow an appreciation for the tools that make construction possible was genetically embedded in me. I myself cannot say for certain what the actual source of this interest in construction is but I can affirm that it has been (and continues to be) a rich source of perspective and life lessons for me.

Construction is the bringing together of many parts to form a functional whole, it is a process of transformation that involves the creation of one thing at the expense or deconstruction of something else. From a visual art perspective it is an act of collage making - at times on a grand scale. Construction takes planning, foresight, preparation, skill and energy. Stages of an active construction project can appear messy, destructive, and counter productive, but construction at its most basic is a process. It is a process through which all steps, in their own time and way, work in purpose for a common goal.

To bear witness to construction is to bear witness to the process of transformation. It offers insight into the challenges and joys of change. It offers awareness of the potential that independent objects/beings can have when used in conjunction with something else - along with the knowledge that those objects will no longer be solely what they were before becoming integrated into a construction. It is exciting, exhausting, energizing and bittersweet.

This week all of the roads that lead to our apartment complex are being stripped and resurfaced. Coming and going from our driveway is a unique experience each time we venture out or make our way home. Traffic patterns are constantly shifting along with the texture of the road upon which we drive. I, of course, love this - I love being near the big trucks, I love seeing the progression of deconstruction and reconstruction and the juxtaposition of the rough stripped portion of the road bumping up to the sections of completed fresh surface. I even kind of like being stopped in the middle of the road by a flagger to allow one of the dump trucks out to go pick up its next load. It is a reminder that things do not always operate on my schedule or under my control - a call to awareness of the things around me - to notice how they are at present, ponder what they have been in the past and to remain attentive as they become what they will in the ever ongoing construction and transformation of life.