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• To go to a farm and take a carrot out that’s covered in dirt and wipe it off on your pants and eat it on the spot. It's something that most people don't have access to anymore. So that loss of contact with the natural world is having a radical impact on how people view it, how they value it, and how they seem to be willing to let it go. Not realizing that we depend on the natural world. We are part of the natural world, and if we screw it up, we're gone.

I had the pleasure of spending an evening with Dawn Dale, along with a group of artists at an art and ecology potluck at our home in Ottawa on April 7, 2024. Dawn spoke about her artwork and in particular her alfar sculptures whose distinguishing feature are animal ears, perfect for listening to Nature and how they ground her to the Earth by creating a calming yet energising presence. 

I was intrigued to know more about these alfars (check out her web site to see what they look like) and about her art practice in general and so we spoke over a cup of dandelion tea at a relaxed pace in her kitchen in Gatineau, Québec on May 29, 2024.

Dale's primary focus is eco-feminist art realized in large-scale outdoor, site-specific works, ephemeral organic installations in gallery spaces as well as experimental drawings. The alfar came about much later after she was in a bus accident which curtailed her ability to realize those large scale works. 

You’ll hear her speak about her elemental paper clayworks that come out of 3D demonstrations in wax and clay wax throughout the years of teaching at The Ottawa School of Art. These intuitive portraits of the elementals or alfars that populate her imagination and surroundings of her home occupy a lighter side of her environmental concerns as she continues in the historical precedent of bonding the world of humans to the realm of nature through anthropomorphized creations. 

Dale’s love of nature and art is contagious as you’ll hear, also her concern for them. 

For example, I appreciated this insight about the role of art:

• Art is a reflection of the things that we value.

Let’s start with a soundscape recording in her backyard, which I think sets the tone nicely for our conversation. We’ll also conclude there.. 

Dale suggested the following books

• Braiding Sweetgrass - Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the teaching of plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Creative Act : A Way of Being by Rick Ruben
• HomoAestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why by Ellen Dissanayake
• Reweaving The World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism edited by IIrene Diamond and Gloria Orenstein
• The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution by Carolyn Merchant
• The Reenchantment of Art (1992) by Suzy Gablik
• The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature by David Suzuki

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Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020 on un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (Ottawa). 

It’s my way to give back.

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I Ipublish free ‘a calm presence' Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.

Your feedback is always welcome at claude@conscient.ca and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads,BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube andSubstack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on July 8, 2025