Drumheller Albertosaurus
2005
family artifacts
In 1966, when Donald Lawrence’s oldest brother Hamish was 12 years old, he excavated the fossilized femur of an Albertosaurus near Drumheller, Alberta. The artifact has remained in Lawrence’s family ever since and has been moved back and forth across the country several times, encased in its original bed of plaster and crate. In addition to the bone, other artifacts and numerous documents accompany the object, speaking to its prominence in the family: photographs; newspaper columns written by Lawrence’s brother Iain; a map of the site drawn by his father Raymond; and a video of Lawrence’s father explaining its origins as well as the bone’s appearance on a quilt created by Lawrence’s siblings and extended family for his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in 2003.
This discovery from the Cretaceous period during Lawrence’s childhood resonates throughout Lawrence’s practice. The artifact, its display and the ensuing conversations that transpired between his family and the media about its importance become evident in the production of skin-on-frame construction in many of Lawrence’s works. These include skin-on-frame kayaks and other skeletal constructions including Rock (1991),Storm Kit (1992), Kayak (1992), The Sled (1995), and Torhamvan/Ferryland (2005). The physical presence of the bone is also apparent in the weighty cameras that Lawrence has fabricated for underwater pinhole photography as well as his enduring interest in history and obsolete (or extinct) technology. The Drumheller Albertosaurus installation was first created in response to a curatorial framework developed by Will Garrett-Petts and Rachel Nash for the 2005 Kamloops Art Gallery exhibition Proximities: Artists’ Statements and their Works which invited artists to create an artwork in response to the notion of artists’ statements.
Photo: SITE Photography
