ticipants, observers, historians and other retrospective interpreters have attempted to make sense of events both as they unfolded and over time since then, (and) to make those events meaningful for the present in which they lived and live."7 So, it is as some sort of desultory "retrospective interpreter" that I will sketch out a brief overview of this milieu, as well as certain openings onto how it might make meaningful in some way the activities and lives of these people, as well as the present in which we now find ourselves, and the possible relationships between the two. One preemptive opening—a concept that I feel obliged to refer to—is that of the elder Marcuse's non-repressive society.8 The group in Charlotte County had read Eros and Civilization (1955) early on, and the idea of escaping from Freud's compulsory repression and all that it entails within modern capitalism became paramount, inspiring them to found the Whistle Cove commune, which became the headquarters for their activities throughout the early 1970s. It is here that the work of "non-repressive sublimation" would take place, in different forms, over a period of about five years. To begin with, it is important to understand where and how this group saw the light of day—so an overview of the context in which they emerged is in order. Charlotte County is located in the southwestern part of New Brunswick, bordering the state of Maine. Though most of the territory is covered by coniferous and mixed forest, it contains three small towns and a few coastal villages and parishes, with a total population of around 20,000 in the late 1960's (which hasn't grown substantially since). In most of the county, fishing and aquaculture have dominated the local economy for the past century since the advent of the railway and the end of shipbuilding, though the town of St. Andrews is a tourist destination and St. Stephen's economy is largely fueled by the Ganong chocolate factory (who claim to have produced the first chocolate bar in Canada). By and large, the area is relatively economically depressed as well as ethnically and linguistically homogeneous. Charlotte County also bears the dubious distinction of being, in some sense, the birthplace of colonialism in Canada—more specifically, Île Sainte-Croix in the Passamaquoddy Bay (or Dochet's Island, as it is referred to by locals), where Samuel de Champlain spent his first winter in 1604.9 How did a conceptual art movement, such as it was, germinate in this context? The answer is complex and unlikely to be retrieved in its entirety from the oubliettes of participants' memories and the scattered documentation I have been able to get my hands on. I have, however, been able to put together bits and pieces of the Charlotte County saga from interviews and the archives in Brenda Haddon's basement.10 Though probably not the most consequential aspect of
the movement's history, the first component of the narrative is the fairly amusing "genesis story"11 recounted to me two summers ago by Donald Gullison, the one-time leader of the group: In the Fall of 1969, the New York conceptualist and then-inert gas-sculptor Robert Barry drove from New York to Halifax, where he would participate in David Askevold’s Projects Class at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. It was during this stay at NSCAD that he would realize the now-celebrated Decide on a single common idea piece (1969). On his way to Halifax, Barry entered Canada at the international border crossing between Calais, Maine and St. Stephen, New Brunswick. Understandably tired after ten hours of driving, he decided to stop for the evening at the Busy Bee Motel on Highway #1, leading out of St. Stephen towards Nova Scotia (it is still in operation). Before turning in for the night however, Barry complained of a blocked drain and subsequently became involved in a conversation with the janitor of the motel, Randall Gullison. During the discussion, the janitor became perplexed, then intrigued when Barry spoke to him of his art practice—though it is unclear exactly how the subject was raised. When learning of the Inert Gas Series, Gullison contended that he himself also executed on a regular basis activities wherein the imperceptibility of the action and its aftereffects became the locus of the action’s meaning and affect, such as in his habitual emptying of the motel’s liquid waste into the nearby Passamaquoddy Bay. The next day after Barry's departure, Randy discussed the meeting with his cousin, Donny Gullison, and this seems to have been the seed for the birth of the "movement," such as it was, or at least the fertilizer, as Donny had already had already become interested in Henry Flynt and Fluxus while studying philosophy at University of New Brunswick in Fredericton the previous year.12 The other members were not entirely unaware of current events either; Brenda Haddon had briefly studied at NSCAD in the mid-60s, and George Firlotte, the other core member, had already come into contact with the young, but seasoned art-worker Laird Hamilton. So, consequently (though in a relatively surreptitious manner) the influence of Robert Barry's visit was felt for several years following through the activities of the small group that was, for its most active years, loosely based out of the Whistle Cove commune on Grand Manan Island and headed by Donny and his partner, Brenda Haddon, originally a movement artist who had operated a very short-lived school of Steinerian Eurythmy in Black's Harbour. We will come back to Brenda, as she was perhaps in retrospect, the most significant member of the group, not least because she became and still is its archivist, and in the wake of the mental illness, prolonged drug use, alcoholism, and regular old senility of the other founding members, the de facto custodian of its collective memory. 65