Based on the classic neon open sign, this 8ft intervention was my most challenging installation to date. Back in the fall of 2012 I noticed a few young guys on the roof of the Deane House in Inglewood, Calgary. It was dusk and a little odd that they were up on the roof at that time. I thought that they might have been getting into some trouble but because I saw a few christmas lights dangling about I let that thought go and kept walking -- so did everyone else. This started the wheels turning and it wasn’t long after that I noticed the unused electrical sockets on the south side of City Hall. After plugging my phone in to see if the sockets were live it was all uphill from there as Open Heart gradually came into being.

This tumbleweed is approximately 6 x 5 ft and made from insulated copper wire and a gorgeous blue string I found along the side of the highway last spring. Thanks to my dad who helped out with the install on Father’s Day and continued to mow around it (yes, on the highway!) throughout the summer so that passersby could still see it. What a guy.

The Sugar Cube Heart was one of mourning. It was created upon of the tiny gallery's eviction based on their landlord's request for approval of the content of the gallery shows. The directors of Sugar Cube staunchly refused. The space was a small but vital institution in our community for the exhibition of independent, non-commercial, contemporary art.

I was invited to create a shrine for Sharon Stevens’ Event Equinox at Union Cemetary in September of 2012. Originally, she asked me to create a heart for the event but I refused. I did not want this solemn event to be a part of the guerrilla heart project. I chose to build a shrine dedicated to my Auntie Marion who was an important figure in my life and whom I lost around the age of 19. As I worked on building the idea for the shrine, I realized it would not be complete without the heart symbol, so I surprised Sharon at installation by fulfilling her wish with a full on Heart Shrine.

One of the major challenges I was faced with on Highway 2 was the wind. With wind speeds that can gust up to 70 km/hr, the Highway 2 project was beginning to feel a little daunting. Rather than fight with such a powerful element, I chose to play with the wind instead. Thus arose the Secret Heart.

Spurred on by my good friend Lisa Brawn, I decided that I could not pass up the chance to make a statement, however small, about the state of the political situation in our home province of Alberta. When perfectly intelligent people are cornered into choosing between conservative and ultra conservative, something needs to be said for the higher mind. So I hit the highway heading south in my parent’s trusty ford focus and deftly implanted my Premiere Heart Series amidst the blitz of provincial party propaganda. The rest is history.

A collaboration with the quietly brilliant Janet Turner. This intervention was generously sponsored by Kari Brawn and Gary McMillan with continued support from the AFA.

This is the only rest area on the #2 Highway running through Southern Alberta. It is the final piece in my Highway 2 Transfusion series and acts as a quiet prayer for rest and re-growth.

My friend Sharon Stevens spotted this lonely spinning sign frame from across the highway just outside Nanton when she came along for the installation of my Premiere Heart Series last April. A year later it was still waiting for me ... a Spinning Heart!

Green Stripe was a deliberate attempt to ‘Bomb the Fort’. It only took two trys to find our success! Very much a collaborative effort, it would not have come to fruition without the extraordinary talents of seven prairie artists: Patti Dawkins, Angela Inglis, Romana Prokopiw, Sally Raab, Mia Rushton, Cat Schick and Joe Sweder. I would also like to add a special thanks to Larry Deglow for his material suggestions, welding expertise and outrageous pipe bending experiments!

The paint found it's way here from Paris through time and space via Edouard Adam's nephew. Edouard Adam developed the ultramarine paint patented as Yves Klein Blue.

The location of the AGC was chosen for The 2013 Heart in direct response to the May 2012 news release regarding the organization’s CEO and the embezzlement of some 500,000 dollars. The whimsical piece was created with latex gloves, jay-clothes and copper scrubbies. While making light of the darker side of our human nature, it directly calls out to the AGC for the deeper cleaning that is clearly necessary here.

Much thanks to Sharon Steven’s for her help with installation. Photography by Janet Turner.

BJ’s Heart was created at the time of the closing of BJ’s Gym in the East Village here in Calgary. Owned and operated for 40 years by members of the Hart family and a vital part of the neighborhood, the gym was targeted as an ‘undesirable’ in terms of the ‘new vision’ proposed for the East Village. It simply had to go. In the end, BJ’s Heart was a tribute to the central role they played in a community rich in history if not veneer.