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92 CANADIAN A RT • SPRING 2016 canadianart.ca 93

MacLeod’s snowflaked movie posters: William Friedkin’s The Exorcist.

For the next hour Irwin and I talk about Rancho Rasdoul, but also what

has changed in Vancouver since we began our exploration of it as young

adults in the early 1980 s. It is a looping conversation, one I could blame

on my lack of preparation, but it is not unlike past conversations I have

had with Hill and Irwin (or indeed with others like us who were born in

the first half of the 1960 s), where a topic is not so much digressed from,

but returned to, as if ordained.

One topic we continually return to (enough to make it a topic) is what

it was to be a young artist in Vancouver in the pre-Expo 1980 s—and how

difficult it is to be a young artist in the post-Olympic Vancouver of today.

For Irwin and myself, this earlier version included cheap rent, inexpensive

food and clothing and a consumer-indifferent DIY punk culture. Most of

this earlier Vancouver existed east of Main Street, and in the Downtown

Eastside in particular, where artists and musicians lived and worked in

The Upper Barn at Rancho

Rasdoul with works by

(from left) Ken Lum, Robbie

Miller, Joe Fafard and

Sonny Assu, March 2 015

PHOTO SITE PHOTOGRAPHY

OPPOSITE BOTTOM: T&T (Tony

Romano and Tyler Brett)

PedalBoat (2 010) at Rancho

Rasdoul, March 2 015

PHOTO SITE PHOTOGRAPHY

and Irwin saw enough love left in its deconsecrated bones to embark on

a two-year renovation that included a terrazzo floor, a well-appointed

kitchen and a climate-control system for the display of their Canadian-

centric art collection. Since its transformation, Hill and Irwin have made

GreyChurch available to arts groups like Artspeak and Fillip magazine, who

staged the Intangible Economies symposium there in 2 0 11. In addition to

more formalized art events, Hill and Irwin have used the church to host

dinners in honour of local and visiting artists, curators and directors.

I arrive at GreyChurch to find the gate open just enough for an expected

guest to notice —the building’s rear glass door open that much wider. Wider

still is Irwin’s smile as she welcomes me from beside a table located between

what was once the church’s ambo and its nave. Although little of the ori-

ginal church architecture remains, I am tempted to evoke it in my response.

I confess this to Irwin, and she deadpans, “Don’t bother—I’ve heard it all

before.” Behind her, on what was once the apse wall, one of Myfanwy

OPPOSITE TOP: Instant Coffee

collective members Jenifer

Papararo and Khan Lee

at the dome-raising party

at Heffley Louis Creek,

June 2 011 PHOTO MARIANNE BOS

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