Written on cigarette foil collected from 40 individual packs of Pall Mall smooth regular size, Tranes, Trains, & AutomoTrains serves as an homage to… well, the trains of my life. The front and back of each piece are meant to be viewed concurrently with one another. The pen’s indentation on the ‘paper’ serves as an allegory for the imprint of memory on any given individual. Sometimes illegible, yet visible, and physically tangible. Each page has been placed in a double-sided frame of scaling quality and designed to be suspended in perpetual rotation in front of a window. Oftentimes, the older a memory the more we cherish and protect it, but regardless of the quality or durability of the mental frame we place it in, memory will inevitably fade. The ink in the physical frame is no different, slowly bleaching in the sun until only the pages’ embossed imprints remain as reference to the original text. A memory of the work, captured through the scars of the pen on the page.
627 St-Philippe 1992
I have a history with trains. I was born bundled in umbilical cord, blue & swollen. My grandmother was convinced I had been dropped, but when the hospital cleared me, I went home. We lived at the end of a cul-de-sac, next to the tracks. Every summer, me & my mom cut a hole in the fence to the railway with bolt cutters. We would walk our spaniel mutt Swimmer there, who chased the trains & barked as they passed. Eventually, CN started melting tar around the hole instead of fixing it, staining snow & winter jackets. So, we ducked low. I gathered rusty railway spikes for my heavy metal collection that my dad brought to Cub Scouts for me. Fifty-plus pounds of rust categorized by size in a turkey tray repurposed for scrap. We lived so close to the tracks that a Dr later blamed them for my failing hearing as an adult
“BABIES ARE SENSITIVE.”
-Some Dr-
The Turcot Yards 2010
I still have dreams about you. Dreams where we chat and laugh. I’ll visit you in the hospital and gab about how lucky you were. You’ll look puzzled when I mention a train or Halloween night. And you’ll say, ‘I know’ when I bring up your death, embarrassed to be found out. You’ll give me a hug and tell me, ‘It’s ok, we all wake up crying sometimes.’ That bend in the tunnel is notorious nowadays. Do you remember when we almost got hit there? I hid in the ditch as the train passed above, and when you called my name, I waited a beat. I thought it was funny. But it’s been 13 years since you ducked down that ditch without me, and I fear the timing may have soured.
“AN ACCIDENT THAT KILLED 3 MONTREAL TEENAGERS IN THE TURCOT YARDS COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED. THE TRAIN WAS OPERATING WITH HEADLIGHTS DIMMED TO 10% INTENSITY.”
-CBC-
De Coursol & Acorn 2017
We spent all night in the hospital before she woke up. A fractured spine and some brain bleeding. Ambulance lights acquainted friends & parents for the first time. ‘Unfortunate circumstances.’ Just a clip of a hit before they found her in the snow. Sheets on a bed tossed about. I asked a police officer if it was a tall black girl. He wouldn’t say. I went back to get you from the bar, to tell you the news. To watch you break down and cry as the vans showed up, filming anything and everything. Filming you. We were famous that day, we were on the news. But it was the phone calls you refused to make, that I remember most. Directing strangers to the Montreal General in a shaky voice.
“A 23-YEAR-OLD WOMAN IS IN HOSPITAL AFTER SHE WAS HIT BY A TRAIN NEAR DE COURSOL AND ACORN STREETS IN MONTREAL’S ST-HENRI NEIGHBOURHOOD. THE WOMAN’S FRIEND WAS ABLE TO CROSS THE TRACKS UNHARMED.”
-Global News-
807 Wellington #5 2023
Now I live by a different set of tracks. One’s that shake my house when trains pass, & blast their horns because there’s no mechanical arm to stop traffic. One track cuts through town, the other crosses the border. American tracks have fences and sirens, while Canadian trains slow and honk like geese. Sometimes they pass at 2:00 in the morning, and I wonder if they’re running late. Held up by an accidental or intentional incident. I have a history with trains, but not these ones. These tracks are new, they’re fresh. Laid a few months ago the day I touched down and first noticed them. I never walked my dog here, never picked up scrap, never ditch dove and was never on the news. I never had dreams where I walked these tracks with a friend. These tracks are history free.
Numero810 