2 February 2025 – Let’s hop back a few days.
Let’s ignore this morning’s sloppy snow (cleared from the fern by my loving fingers but slumping off the chair all by itself)…
and let’s ignore yesterday’s sullen drizzle that had this would-be patron waiting in vain for someone to open up the Espresso Bar at False Creek and start serving coffee.
Let’s instead revisit January 29.
It is a breezy-clear day that rewards a walk along the Coal Harbour stretch of Burrard Inlet — even if afternoon light is already fading by the time I reach this installation, which overlooks the Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre from its spot beside Vancouver Convention Centre West.
I’ve seen it before, always liked it a lot, but today, I pay more attention to it. I start reading the signage. I learn the artist is Vancouverite Doug R. Taylor, who has “a passion for building whimsical mobiles that reflect the storyline of a site.”
The more I read, the more I understand what this means. And understand there’s more going on here than artistic whimsy.
The site, in fact, is directly opposite, not here — past the float plane activity, over there on the north shore where sulphur piles mark one of the many terminals that comprise the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.
What we have on this side, in this Wind Wheel Mobile, is a memorial to the workers who loaded asbestos over there for so many years.
This mobile is Taylor’s way of working with that history, and those consequences.
I give it a moment, I do, and then I walk on.
I am almost immediately captivated by another storyline — this one created by the dance between the two sites now in front of me. Orange harbour cranes, down there on the left, bounce a fiery explosion across Convention Centre windows, here on the right.
I keep walking, treat myself to a closer look at the reflection, which by now has only the peaks of Convention Centre East to play with. (Plus one swooping gull.)
And then, very well satisfied with wind, water and light, I go on home.
To wait for the snow.
WALKING WOMAN 