Adrian in Halifax, NS, submitted this story in response to our post ‘Friday Morning Coffee: Inviting Stories About Community Arts.’ Read how he started building a labyrinth out of found materials and ended up creating much more! If you have a personal story about community arts that you’d like to share, please contact me at cora@artbridges.ca.

“I built this picture frame to gift to Jim, the owner of Java Blend. He was happy to put it up on his wall.”
– Adrian Martynkiw

“On October 12th I was sipping coffee, reading, and scheming in Java Blend when I came across the quote “when you see one leaf falling, you may say, Oh, autumn is here! One leaf is not just one leaf; it means the whole autumn”. I felt like this held the solution to the problem I was posed with the day before. While talking and idealizing to a friend about the best possible way of building a labyrinth at Common Roots, I was thankfully received with the phrase “talk is cheap”. Rather than taking offense, I took it as the perfect opportunity to give my efforts freely, rather than worrying about the costs. It was the spirit of the season.

Taking up the free offer of used 70kg coffee sacks from Java Blend, I thought I’d collect leaves and shape them into a labyrinth at Common Roots for people to enjoy. However, with a complete lack of fallen leaves, I was left with looking for alternative materials. With sack in hand, I began collecting the garden stakes (some now used in the above photoframe) and stuck them in the ground. Bricks salvaged from what used to be the Queen Elizabeth High School were also collected in the sack and placed as the turning points along the journey’s path. Only to be stymied with an insufficient supply of garden string to attach it all together. At this point, I had completed the initial phase of building entirely by myself and felt the need to ask for help to get more people involved. Maybe a neighbour had some string they could donate? Then I realized I already had the answer in the bag. Literally, the sack itself was made of string!

For the next three hours it fell upon me to unstitch the boarders of the sack to free up the string now seen holding the frame and photo’s together. And as luck would have it, at last 3 curious strangers approached me knit-picking and within minutes were gladly helping. A pair of them set to freeing the string from the sack while the other two re-tied the loose threads onto the stakes to give the labyrinth its shape. It was during this time that 3 groups of people inquired what we were doing. Leaving the explanation to the new help, simple talk between strangers transgressed that in no way felt cheap. Upon completion we began to wander the path. Six strangers, six unique perspectives, all following a single path towards the labyrinth’s centre and I could not help but wonder if ‘talk was cheap’, then what was this silence worth?

At last we met in the centre and stood arms over shoulders facing each other, having just met. One of them said “I feel like we are good friends, even though we just met each other”. Now the talking didn’t even feel cheap! To me it was the leaf that indicated autumn. Whether that indicated my desire to see the ordinary transformed through intention, the death of those people being just strangers, or the brilliant color that unfolds during this season to indicate a change in how people interact with each other is irrelevant. I seem to constantly seek simply being able to share a special moment with others without saying a word. Look around you, it’s happening while you read this.

This labyrinth installation was dismantled, but many are becoming familiar with them popping back up in different forms. The hay labyrinth in the meadow still exists but will be removed for a new project this summer.

If anyone has ideas, wants to comment, contribute, or just know the event date, please don’t hesitate to email me at: adrianmartynkiw@gmail.com or call at (902) 818-1894. Your contribution to the project is what makes it special. However big or small.”

– Submitted by Adrian Martynkiw, Halifax, NS
Photo courtesy of Adrian Martynkiw

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