Boxtopia Circus at Skeleton Park

Over the past seven years I've been making these ridiculously large cardboard installations. It all started when Milé and I were backpacking around Europe and we came across a street fair in Lucerne, Switzerland. There were a bunch of large boxes set out in the street, and as I watched the kids run around them, I was like... *YES!* 

I brought the idea back to Toronto and Clay & Paper Theatre, where building these installations became a part of the annual Day of Delight Festival, a tradition which the festival continues.

2015: Boxtopia Circus comes to Skeleton Park, Kingston

Three years ago I started making this "creative cardboard kingdom for kids" at Skeleton Park Arts Festival in Kingston. With each project, Boxtopia has grown increasingly elaborate, but this year really took the cake, mostly because I collaborated with three other fantastic artists: Chrissy Poitras, Nella Casson and Kevin Merritt, with the assistance of some great volunteers, Laura Miller and Holly Gilmour.

We started with a theme: the circus! My crackerjack crew had lots of brilliant ideas to bring to the table, and kids and adults just ate it up. There was a midway with several games, and of course a concession which sold cardboard popcorn. Everything was going so smoothly...

Chrissy merchandises the cardboard popcorn.

Until a competitor opened right next door offering cardboard ice cream in three flavours, all for just one cent each!

There was a fortune teller, which provided some hilarious eavesdropping opportunities...

"You will live in a cardboard box... much like this one..."

Kevin and Holly made all these awesome characters which were dotted around Boxtopia and the rest of the park...

...and they made cardboard hats and costumes with some of the kids...

... including this sweet little robot...

Nell and Laura ran the craft zone, where kids could make shakers or animal hats...

And my proudest creation was a "photo booth." You would enter the booth and draw the curtain. Someone would sit across from you and draw your picture... it could be a friend, stranger or sibling, a kid or an adult.

After a few minutes of processing, your 'photo' would come out the slot...

Presto! Your custom-made Skeleton Park souvenir.

There was a "colouring zone" where kids could could express themselves...

... including leaving us funny messages:

Occasionally Milé would fly by on his new jetpack...

... and the ladies on the trapeze were always swinging overhead.

It was a fun and busy place to be...

... with moments of pure magic happening all around us.

My heartiest thanks to the fabulous crew that brought this corrugated wonderland to Skeleton Park:

L to R: Laura Miller, Chrissy Poitras, Krista Dalby, Holly Gilmour, Kevin Merritt, Nella Casson

I had so much fun with all of you... when can we do it again?

Additional thanks goes out to my mom, Felix, Nora and Kate for their contributions.

The Firelight Lantern Festival

It was a full year ago that Susanne Larner approached me with the idea of starting a lantern festival in the County. We didn’t know each other very well at the time*, but she knew that I had a background in producing theatre and festivals; I had, in fact, been a participant in Toronto’s Kensington Market Festival of Lights for a number of years, so I knew exactly what type of magic she was dreaming of conjuring. Susanne’s inspiration was the Illuminaires festival that she'd seen in Vancouver. Although Prince Edward County is known for its abundant creativity, we had no events like this, and Susanne and I agreed it would be a great way to bring our community together.

poster image by Milé Murtanovski

We put out an invitation to some other creative types, and soon we were calling ourselves "The Department of Illumination." Our goal was to light up the place we love.

The Department of Illumination. Back row, L to R: Norman Marland, Nell Casson, Krista Dalby, Shelby Larner, Susanne Larner, Liz Zylstra. Front row: Milé Murtanovski, Chrissy Poitras, Kyle Topping.

We knew that community engagement would be the heart of our success, so we planned 15 lantern-making workshops throughout the County. There was nowhere we wouldn’t go; we held workshops at a seniors’ home, five library branches, The Bloomfield Centre for Creativity, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Books & Company, Spark Box Studio, and held a special workshop for the Brownies and Guides.

The workshops were an incredible success as more than 300 people turned out to make lanterns with us. We had chosen water as a theme for our festival, although we told people that it was more important for them to express themselves than to stick with the theme. I could relay dozens of stories from these workshops, but one of my favourites is of a father who came to drop off his son. The dad decided to stay for a few minutes to help, and before he knew it, was deeply involved in constructing his own lantern and stayed all afternoon. When his wife called to find out if he was on his way home, he responded "Are you kidding? This is more fun then I've had in months."

Workshop at Emmanuel Baptist Church

Back at Small Pond Arts, the lanterns were piling up…

Most people took their lanterns home, but we made 40+ more to display in libraries and shop windows, and to sell at the festival for those who hadn’t had a chance to make their own.

The day of the festival arrived. Our plan was to gather at Benson Park with some entertainment on site, parade down Main Street to Delhi Park, where we’d have music performances, a shadow puppetry play and light installations to explore. Unfortunately, the weather was ridiculously cold and windy, so we decided to move the festival indoors. We’d had the foresight to rent the charming Picton Town Hall for just such a purpose.

Photo by Phil Norton

We spent the afternoon decorating and setting up the hall. People started arriving early, and they just kept pouring through the doors. Young and old carried lanterns that they’d made at our workshops or at home, ranging from simple to sophisticated, but everyone beamed with the pride of showing off what they’d made with their own two hands.

Kate MacNaughton, photo by Ramesh Pooran

Photo by Kelly Roblin

Then the entertainment began. There was a belly-dancer…

Teresa Burton, photo by Ramesh Pooran

And there was music…

Melissa Larkin and D'Ari Pouyat, photo by Sam Serrano

The wind let up a bit and there was an impromptu and wildly joyful parade around the block.

Photo by Sam Serrano

Photo by Phil Norton

There were drummers...

Photo by Phil Norton

Milé walked around on stilts (apparently “For the glory of Picton!”)…

Milé Murtanovski, photo by Norman Markland

Then we performed the shadow play that I’d written for the occasion, The Monster of Lake on the Mountain.

There was a black light tent…

Photo by Phil Norton

A “Make a Wish” station…

There was more music, and a giant puppet...

Chris Bonham-Carter, photo by Phil Norton

And finally, a little sing-along…

All in all, it made for a most memorable evening in our small town.

Photo by Phil Norton

Thank you to the DOZENS of volunteers who made this happen, and to the HUNDREDS of people who came out to revel in our community’s collective creativity!

Thanks to our sponsors and supporters: Books & Company, Bloomfield Centre for Creativity, County of Prince Edward Public Libraries, Kelly’s Shop, Picton Home Hardware, Picton Recreation Committee, Royal Canadian Legion Branch #78 and Spark Box Studio.

Krista Dalby and Susanne Larner

*through plotting and planning this festival, Susanne and I became good friends, and last November, we even wound up traveling to Ghana together! But that's another story...

Grave Robber

In July 2012 we held our second annual Cornography, a festival of art on the theme of food.

The afternoon included A Funeral for Bad Food, detailed in an earlier blog post.

Are you curious about what food our audience members wanted to put six feet under? Well, I was too, so I dug up all those little coffins. Call me a grave robber if you will, but I couldn't resist. 

Here's what they said (spelling intact!):

- Chicken fingers

- Bottled sauce (had a picture of skull and crossbones)

- Trans fats

- Fast food

- The sardines my neighbour smokes

- Candy

- Onion

- Jelly beans

- Monsanto corn

- Flesh of animals... cute or otherwise

- Peel chopped boiled potatoes

- Unagi

- Salad 

- Potatoes

- A & W fast food

- Brussel sprouts

- Cheese strings and yogurt tubes

- Brocili, brustles sprouts, green beans

- Bologna

- Coca Cola

- Catchya later, ketchup!

- Mushrooms

- Snickers

- All GMO's

- GMO soya

- White bread

- RIP chips

- I wish I wish I never heard of chips!!!

- Chicken McNuggets

- Factory-farmed cows

- Ban Duncan Hines - put some effort into scratch

- Cheese

- Brocili

- Wheat

- Macaroni infused deli meat

- Kraft Dinner

I love the diversity in what people wrote! Everything from the obvious evils concocted by our corporate overlords, to the naughty snacks we struggle to resist, to children's loathing of vegetables. It's a beautiful thing to see people of all ages embracing the opportunity to express their ideas and opinions.

What food would you banish if you could have things your way?

Cornography – The Second Popping

We’re still basking in the glow of the second annual Cornography, which took place this past Sunday at Small Pond Arts. Cornography is an art festival on the theme of “our twisted relationship with food” which the audience discovers as they are led from location to location around our farm.

The afternoon started off with a Punch & Judy show, performed by yours truly, wherein the devilish Punch throws his baby out the window while the missus is at the farmer’s market. ("What, you haven't seen a bit of good old-fashioned violence before?")

Milé, dressed as a chef, then led the audience back to the barn, where they were greeted by Reverend Rick Zimmerman, who welcomed the audience to the Funeral for Bad Food:

“I want each of you to ask yourself this question: If I could say goodbye forever to one grocery bag beast, one dinner table tragedy, or, as the kids today would say, one food fail – what would it be? For today we shall topple the burger king… we shall banish the Brussels sprouts, or burritos or bonbons. Yes, friends, this is a funeral. It is time to Pills….bury….your bad food choice.”

He held aloft a coffin-shaped piece of cardboard.

“You will each get a coffin just like this….write down that item, that food failure, that corrupt culinary concept that you wish to cast out. A brisket, a basket, just write it on your casket. Let me put it to you as plainly as I can - place on your sarcophagus that which sticks in your esophagus!”

When everyone had written down their idea of Bad Food, we had a funeral procession through our back field. When we reached the grave site, the Reverend was awaiting us. He tapped each person with a wooden spoon, and each spoke the name of their Bad Food and flung it into the grave – to which we all shouted “Expired!”

photo by Marnie Woodrow

photo by Marnie Woodrow

Hands down, it was the best funeral I’ve ever been to. Of course every funeral worth it’s salt has a reception afterwards, so we noshed on fabulous skull and bone cookies made by RuthGangbar, which a bunch of us had decorated the night before.

Next the inimitable Tamara Segal and Chris Byrne led the audience on a musical foraging walk, pointing out edible wild plants growing all around us which are not only nutritious, but tasty, too! 

Meanwhile some folks were in the barn, making a variety of potato people with our queen of craft, Cynthia Dinsdale. We also had food-themed art hanging in the barn, including work by Erin Johnston, Sarah Renaud Wilkinson, Brandy Gale, and of course, Milé Murtanovski.

Next the audience was led to the silo, where Christine Renaud performed some spoken word. She got the audience involved using the human microphone technique, and then got a bunch of volunteers to get into the silo to perform one of her poems, creating a human ‘silophone.’

Children’s entertainer extraordinaire Andrew Queen was up next, performing some great foodie folk songs from his album ‘Grow.’

Finally, the audience gathered around our new cob bake oven, where Jennifer Morales, a Small Pond resident artist from Milwaukee, read her poem Brought to Light. The poem speaks of fire: “Our kind want to burn…”

Yes, we do. The day was coming to a fiery close; the oven had been lit two hours earlier, and I said a few words for our oven inauguration.

“...With the help of our friends and neighbors we built this oven with our hands. The clay that binds the oven together we dug from under foot; we mixed it with sand and hay and water, and stomped it with our feet. The rocks that make up the base were gathered from all over our property. It took a long time to make this oven, but it was worth it, because we weren't just making it for ourselves, we were making this oven to share with all of you. In the days, months and years to come, this oven will be used to create countless meals, meals made by hand, like the oven itself. Once the oven is fired it stays warm for many hours, and we hope to establish a regular baking schedule, so as a community we can share this warmth with each other. Let this oven serve as a symbol of the good things we can create when we work together.”

The afternoon culminated in a DIY Pizza Party, where folks made their own pizzas and had them fired in the oven by the unflappable Susan Larner.

Susanne masters the oven! Photo by Ruth Gangbar

People lingered long after the show was over, not just savouring the pizza, but reluctant to let go of such a sweet afternoon together.

A big huge thanks to the many artists, foodies, friends and neighbours who helped make this such a wonderful afternoon. We couldn't have done it without you.