Daniel Robert Peden Eastman

Snow Days Exhibition

Daniel Eastman’s February 18^th documentation

I wake up inundated with lists of projects to do, things to buy, places to go and remind myself that today I have resolved to rediscover ways to be. It is an ancient pattern for me. Greg arrived to photoshoot and I walked with my blue companion down the 200 meters to Lake Ontario. It was a high day clear skies, white caps, loose dogs and most of all that spring mix of slippery ice, melting snow and soggy ground. The gusts were unpredictable and we could find no real shelter. I could not move away from the water. The ripples and waves held me. I had insight into the cliché of wave interference and marveled how waves passed unaffected through one another, just like the passages of people.

I watched the bits of ice and ducks on water, rising and disappearing. Blue man kept falling. I had to hold him close. But eventually he broke apart and retreated to the car trunk and I home with wet feet. I returned later with video camera to capture the waves and the Ontario shore. By now I was frozen, waiting to see the sun set somewhere in the skyline and then vainly for the full moon that was supposed to rise before I froze to death.

Bio

Physicist: taught at Pennsylvania State University for 14 years. Technologist; At Perkin Elmer Connecticut worked on state of the art optical fabrications including the Hubble Space telescope. Later became technical director. Engineer: Worked with NGO’s and Boeing on various surveillance and astronomical telescopes in New Mexico and Maui including an array to relay laser beams. Artist: Studied Stone Sculpting in Italy. Currently enrolled as a SCINT student in OCAD.

Motivation

I have a history of doing what I want to do irregardless of the weather. Of course I dress appropriately and adjust ETA’s when the weather is bad, but I have rarely been totally stopped in my tracks. The work/play of the day is always most important, and inclement weather a small perturbation. This potential collaboration would go against that trend and calls for me to raise my awareness of the weather, become sensitive to its impact on me and the people I work with. It would perhaps give me a quite different perspective on who I am.