On Wreck Beach, Art Ebbs and Flows

While walking along the boulder-strewn Trail Four area of Wreck Beach at sunset, I saw a giant driftwood sculpture. The sun was spraying burnt hues on the shoreline and the sculpture's cedar and redwood timbers glowed like embers. It looked like a retaining wall emerging from the steep clay cliffs just below the Museum of Anthropology. At the top, a man with a slight build and salt-and-pepper hair was working. I approached, and his weathered face lit up.

During a lively half-hour discussion, he explained that it had taken him 200 days a year at the beach, rain or shine, for over three years to build this structure. In a thick French-Canadian accent he lamented over the shorn branches on one side. Uttering French curse words, he disclosed that he had been ordered by some authorities (unknown to me) to "amputate" parts. He also said he and a woman named Judy fought these authorities to have it "protected."

I asked him if I could climb it. "Oui, oui, go ahead, of course!" he shouted, apparently flattered. I nearly fell off when a squirrel scurried across the place where I was about to step down. "Mon ami, le mascot," Jacques said. Outside its hole were piles of sunflower seed husks.

After I saw Jacques work, I kept thinking about the renegade artist spending his life in the service of his unconventional work. So, a few days later, I clambered up his sculpture again, and left a message in a Diet Sprite bottle asking for an interview. Weeks later, I got a phone call. "I have to know the date now because I have no phone or Internet," he said. Renegade indeed.

Expelled from the cosmos

Jacques welcomed me into his downtown Vancouver bachelor apartment. The kettle was on and two china teacups were set out. On the bed were large, intricate collages made of Hubble telescope images. Sitting in front of his window was an easel that held up a neon green sign saying "Continuum" with writing underneath that announced, "2000, 3000, 4000 and beyond."

After 45 minutes of hopelessly trying to understand his lecture about the sign's significance, I brought up his Wreck Beach sculpture. The tenor of his voice promptly changed from gleeful to suspicious. He believed a profile on him should contain his philosophies on the time-space continuum, not his art.

I tried to convince him otherwise, but to no avail. "Non. No interview. I don't want you to get into trouble." He became very agitated. I promptly left.

A 'castle' and 'condos'

The only person left to talk to about Jacques' work was Judy Williams, patron saint of Wreck Beach and Wreck Beach Preservation Society (WBPS) president.

"I'm really pissed off right now. Give me a moment," she said through her teeth when I arrived to speak with her. She had just received some bad news concerning someone who had promised to help the WBPS.

Eventually, I changed the subject to art and her tone became light. "It's an amazing spirit down there... we all feel it, venerate it. Wreck Beach is a haven for artistic types," says Judy, lightly. "We have our own dancers, drummers, carvers, painters, musicians. It's all there," she said.

I asked her about Jacques' piece. "I used to walk along Trail Four at sunset and watched Jacques' castle -- that's what the beach people call it -- grow," she said. "He started with driftwood that looked like creatures and dinosaurs to him, and built it up. We [the WBPS] never spoke out against it. I thought it was a unique piece of Wreck Beach memorabilia, a symbol of our free spirit and creativity... but it's all connected to other things going on at the beach."

Debate around Jacques' sculpture has apparently become linked to the WBPS's fight for the "condos," or beach-people-made structures shaped out of beach materials. "People started building up places to hang out and Metro Vancouver decided they were going to take them out," Judy explained. "We had a series of heart-wrenching meetings to save the condos. We managed to negotiate a deal as long as no camping, drinking, pot smoking, or cat calling of clothed people went on. But, they still went after Jacques' castle." After the condo fight, Judy helped Jacques defend his sculpture, but it is by no means "protected."

'They were just following policy'

The crux of the situation appears to be the issue of liability. At one point, Jacques' castle was twice the size it is now, with stairs. If someone had been injured when climbing the stairs, Metro Vancouver could have been sued. There were also concerns raised about the bone-dry wood -- it might be lit or catch fire, posing a threat to the nearby Museum of Anthropology or the home of the president of the University of British Columbia.

"They were following policy," Judy said. "The field staff has been accommodating, but he keeps adding to it because it's a living piece of artwork. If they wanted to get nasty they could take a back hoe to it." Judy feared that Jacques' constant additions have the potential to alarm park officials. More upset might mean more clamp down.

Contention surrounding art at Wreck Beach didn't stop or start with Jacques. "Roget made our sentinel bear, it was life size, it was beautiful," Judy reminisced. "Students whacked its paws off, we put them back on, and then they whacked the head off. Also, there were a series of weathered faces carved in upright logs. Park officials flagged them to be left alone. Then, a demented vendor went on a tirade and took an axe to them. It took me a long time to ever speak to him again," exclaimed Judy.

"There's Michael Asti-Rose who makes our gorgeous benches and we tried to commission him, but Metro Vancouver wanted all benches to be uniform. They don't think outside the goddamned box. Everything has to be sterile and that grits against me. I'm an artist myself."

Outsiders and their art

UBC's John O'Brian, professor of art history and the current McLean Chair in Canadian Studies, has been following the debate over sanctioned and unsanctioned art for years. "I'm very much aware of the community down there," he says. "I feel strongly that it's a very important thing... but there is always going to be this controversy. Art being put into a public space is offering itself up. A debate is entirely appropriate," he explains matter-of-factly.

O'Brian says that there is no agreement on the benefits of unsanctioned art. "It can bring groups together but it can also split them apart. I've seen instances of public art that upsets communities because the stuff is unsafe for children to be on or it might have sexual allusions that some people don't like," he said.

"The reason outsiders do their work is because they're against the systems," he explains. "There is an act of resistance going on down at Wreck Beach. They know the rules and say the rules shouldn't apply. When it's unsanctioned art, it's subversive," says O'Brian. I think of Jacques having no phone or Internet and have to agree. "Art debates like what's going on at Wreck Beach are really important, now more so than ever," he said emphatically.

O'Brian also says that work like Jacques' has virtually no impact on sanctioned art at large. "Until it gains monetary value the art world does not pay attention to it. Anything outside museums, dealers, and sanctioned artists' pockets is not interesting. It's as simple as that."

Recently, I visited Jacque's sculpture again, and discovered that a fierce wind and rainstorm had caused a large landslide to cover half of the structure in clay and debris. It remains to be seen if Jacques will acclimatize to the changes, or if nature has decided this artist's battle is over.