My Beating Heart
I started working with Hearts several years ago as a way to integrate something digital with something physical. I started to build hearts that I could make beat with lights. … and then I hooked this to a sensor that read my heart beat and My Beating Heart became the project title.
I hadn’t worked on it for a while and when Covid Hit and we all went into isolation at which point I started playing around with the project again. I had to make some blank hearts to fit around a poured resin shape I had cast a year earlier. So I made some Heart shaped blanks out of plywood.
Eventually I decided to paint on one of the blank hearts I had cut out and so I spent a really enjoyable afternoon doing this. And I made another one the next day.
I ended up putting one in the window of my house (top image) and then I nailed one into a Hydro Pole at the end of my street . I took a picture of it and threw the image up on my Instagram account.
and a day or so later I received a message through instagram of an offer of for me to make another Heart as a commission in exchange for a donation in my name to a local charity of my choice.
So I made this.
This Heart is three pieces of plywood glued together and shaped, sanded and painted.
The outer two layers are from plywood I garbage picked from a renovation happening a couple of doors down from me.
I was told that the piece would hang in a window and then later on a wall in an office. It was meant to thank and commemorate the Covid19 Pandemic in exchange for a donation to a local charity of my choice.
I chose the Riverdale Basket Brigade – which is a local chapter that a friend of mine is on the organizing committee of and is an organization to which I have volunteered the last two years at Christmas time to take photographs of.
Normally, they collect donations and make Holiday food baskets for members of our community which they deliver directly. This is something I have volunteered at and taken photographs at the last couple of years and now they have recently mobilized to help during the Pandemic.
Riverdale Basket Brigade
Given these unprecedented times, however, we are reaching out again to ask for your support. The impact of COVID-19 is far reaching.
Our committee’s goal is to act swiftly to support those most adversely affected by the Pandemic in our East End Community.
Funds raised will be used to deliver healthy meals to those most in need via our network of local Community Services as well as provide restaurant gift cards to taxed and exhausted front line workers at Michael Garron Hospital.
We will do this by partnering with our local East End restaurants who are also struggling to survive right now.
Let’s work together to support our community.