Transcript

Location: Corner of Caledonia St. and St. James St.

Joshua Doster: I would just pass by this stump on the corner of St. James and Caledonia, and I always noticed it, and it always stuck out as this weird sort of byproduct. So there was sort of this mystery around ‘what is this thing?’ and ‘why is it here?’ or ‘what was its function at one point?’, ‘why leave it?’. And so after walking by this stump over and over, at some point, this idea sort of occurred to me that it-it’s sort of this presentation space/museum of sorts. You know, a one-pedestal museum and I thought it needed a plaque.

So I went home and worked on some designs and then ended up sort of fashioning a very simple plaque made from wood and enamel paint, and—you know—it just says ‘Art Stump’ and on one side of the-the plaque it-it talks about giving and leaving and liberating, this idea of things going out into the world. And then on the other side of the plaque, it’s talking about sort of receiving and taking and gaining, and uh, the idea was that this would be sort of an exchange space.

The only other thing that I did to sort of alter that stump, and maybe the only thing that could be conceived of as legally problematic—I don’t know what the term would be—is that I painted the top of the stump. It was a very rough, worn texture. A beautiful texture, and you could tell that it had been there for many, many years, and I just—you know—got some—you know—expensive enamel paint and just slathered that surface so that it somehow accentuated the function of this pedestal. Not altering it a lot, but just giving it sort of this white surface on the top. I did it in broad daylight, I acted like I worked for the city, and I-I went out and just—you know—painted the thing. I’m Josh Doster, artist, local artist. Why we do art it is that belief that it-this could be helpful.