Ron Clavier’s Thanks for the Meal project has been more than a decade in the making, and in early September, the concrete foundation piles were laid for the first art installation in the series.
The project is dedicated to celebrating farmers and agricultural history in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
On-site framing for the first piece has a tentative installation date of Tuesday, Oct. 13. Niagara College trades students will install this framing.
The artwork is set to be installed onto the frame in the following weeks.
Indigenous artists Raymond Skye and Shayde Sandy chose the legend of the Three Sisters as the basis for their design concept.
The legend tells how corn, beans and squash came to be grown together. The art installation will feature three women, or “sisters,” working in a field, with the tallest rising 16 feet from the ground.
Concrete slab bases for the figures were laid on the eastern side of Niagara Stone Road, between Hare Winery and Southbrook Vineyards, on Sept. 3.
Clavier told The Lake Report laying the foundation was an amazing feeling.
“It had been a long time coming,” he said.
The team involved in the project, including representatives from the Art Gallery of Niagara-on-the-Lake, set the date for the first installation after a meeting in March.
In June last year, Clavier vouched for the town to exempt visual art from its bylaw banning road signs by non-government groups and ordinary people.
The motion was passed, giving him the green light to move forward.
A number of councillors support the project, including Coun. Erwin Wiens.
“It made me feel good that people seem to get it. They seem to know what it is, it’s not just an exhibition,” Clavier said.
He said he does not know how many further installations the group will complete, but says the possibilities are “infinite.”
He is interested in creating installations in honour of groups including Mennonites, Farmerettes and British land grants.
“I’m happy to sit around their kitchen table and hear their story,” he said.
He would like the art itself to be made by someone in the communities the pieces are honouring, or as close to the community as possible/l,≥/.
“And that’s a way to bring people together. We have a huge amount of divisiveness in society,” he said.
“We have to start listening to each other and we have to start talking to each other like humans, which shouldn’t be as hard as it seems to be these days.”
Twelve Niagara College trade students will be among the team members completing the field installation.
The structures will be equipped with wind braces and bird spikes.
Clavier said that by next spring, the group should be ready for the next installation.
This summer, the group received a $10,000 donation from the Burton Foundation. Once the installation is up, Clavier said he will begin preparing material for further fundraising events to bring people together.
