"The Gift" was the result of an installation project that went badly wrong. I packed the project up and sat on it for a year. One day I had a eureka moment. They fit nicely in the palm of your hand and were perfect to give away. In September 2006 I rented a Kabuki cab with a trailer and drivery. My friend Grace and I went to 4 different locations around Victoria and gave away the teeth and claws. There was a brochure explaining the project, and a box or bag to store it in. Some peope actually followed us around creating their own collection.

I saved some of the teeth to make hidden gifts. I called this part of the project "Abandonment". I placed the objects in unusual and unexpected places. These included trees and equipment at the Duncan Forestry Museum, bags for scuba divers at Ogden Point, kelp fronds around Forest Island off Sidney B.C., at tide line on Sidney Spit Island, and in jeans pockets at the Zellars in Canwest mall. The placed gifts were really interesting. I put the teeth in 4 women's purses with a note explaining the project and left them for people to steal. I documented the thefts. I left a collection in a purse at the library. I also made a bathing suit with spaces to hide the teeth so I could go swimming and leave them in the pool. One of my favourite placements was to buy a set of buttons off a rack at the Langford Saint Vincent dePaul store. I copied the design of their labels and made identical bags up with teeth inside instead of buttons. I deposited the bags on the rack and checked back to see if they had been purchased. They were. I decided that this project was too much fun to keep to myself so I had my students find creative places to place the teeth and document them. This was a huge project and has its own website. http://members.shaw.ca/the_gift/

"For 10 long years I lived in a suburb of Victoria called Langford. Its was quiet and kind of shabby. The new municipal council decided to develop the region as fast and hard as they could. It was hell living there. Everything was ripped up and the roads were always clogged with dumptrucks and bulldozers. I understand people need a place to live but the devastation of the wild lands around Langford was unprecedented. The mayor and council would not listen to pleas from the public to leave some of the wild lands, especially the jewel of our south coastal landscape, the Garry Oak Meadow. Big box stores were built over the meadows and the entire character of the area changed. I decided to make a video about the devastion of the meadows down the road from my house. The video is called "One Less Orchid".

While salvaging plants I thought that the meadow should be able to return to that site in some way. I built a box trailer and filled the box with soil and plants from that location. A year later the meadow in a box was in full bloom. I brought the meadow back to its home to Langford. I drove the trailer to the exact GPS location that the meadow plants were dug up from. Its now the middle of a mall parking lot. We also drove the meadow across the road to visit Costco, the location of another demolished Garry Oak Meadow. To complete the process we drove the meadow to Saanich to the Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary.

" Then I got my ass out of Langford before I strangled the mayor and council with my bare hands. Brave people remain and try to fight to control some scraps of wild land but it isn't easy. My Langford hero is Zoe Blunt and her blog WTF Langford- check it out!"