John Loerchner & Gram Schmalz

Snow Days Exhibition

John and Gram’s February 10^th documentation

We attempted to make a plan for this day. That plan never happened. It was poor planning to plan anyhow. The reality is we were doing a day based on weather. So, on a last minute move we decided to hike the Don and have a camp fire and talk ideas.

John Loerchner

Bio

I like to think of myself as an explorer. I’m often restless, always looking for the next adventure. Whether it’s a project or a destination there is always something new to discover and new ways to play. I have decided to devote the rest of my life to intense play. I thank you for coming here and being a part of that.

Motivation

Weather can both divide and unite. In the same scene, much like music in a movie, weather can be violent or calming, relaxing or terrifying. That said, I still feel that weather can also be what you make of it and I do my best to make the best of the worst. I enjoy rainy days, their sombre, reflective and cold can make you feel alive. Either way my relationship with weather is a turbulent one and I look forward to sharing a slice of it with you.

Gram Schmalz

Bio

I am driven by an interest in innovation and play. My work often turns on notions of data acquisition, internalization, and communication, explored through object based, performative, digital, and relational methods. Over the past few years I have been examining the boundaries between working as an artist and being as a person. A verb classifying this work might lie somewhere between “making art” and “living life”. Often the pre-categorization of actions as discrete activities limits the possible outcomes of said action. Our culture organizes around leisure states and labor states as we work to play, and live to work. Can’t work and play exist as simultaneous provocateurs in a mingling sea of ideas and actions?

Motivation

One of my favorite things about making art is the opportunity for dialogue. In the space of the conversation ideas and reflections are opened up to the infinite combinations of collaboration as two minds meet. I don’t know the statistics, but my gut feeling is that weather must be the most discussed topic between to strangers, as such it seems like the perfect precursor to the open conceptual mingling that Snow Days will provide. I look forward to seeing how Feb. 10th shapes up in relation to all the other dates, and how our many minds shape and interpret this contextual playground. Anticipating this chorus of ideas drives me further in the development of my own reflections.