JEFFREY LOVE

MARGO-GELB 

For the second consecutive year, I had the good fortune to spend time in a Province Lands dune shack, this year for two weeks in May, 2025. My stay came about as a result of being selected for an OCARC Residency (Outer Cape Artists in Residence Consortium) at Margo-Gelb, known in the shack community as Boris, after the surrealist painter Boris Margo, who originally owned the shack with his wife Jan Gelb, a printmaker.

My week at Euphoria in May, 2024 marked the first time I stayed in a dune shack. During that initial stay in the dunes, I encountered each day the pure, unfiltered intensity one finds in that landscape, and at times it was overwhelming. I expected that this second stay might be more measured, tempered by a familiarity based on the previous year’s experience.

I learned, however, that for me, it’s simply not possible to ratchet things down in the Province Lands. It’s just too powerful there, both visually and spiritually. It feels as if the most potent and fundamental elements on the planet had colluded to convene in one place at a particular geological time, then synergistically combine forces to intentionally construct another world entirely. And it’s still happening. Try as I might, I couldn’t photograph without muttering to myself in wonderment; anything measured just wasn’t in the cards.

I’ve been thinking of these photographs as attempts to somehow engage the evidence the elements have left behind, and occasionally, to engage the elements themselves. One night, as the 50-mph gusts of a nor’easter hammered Boris with sheets of rain, shaking the bed where I lay, it felt like some sort of initiation, an illustration of just how that land came into being. I’ll admit to being a little frightened, but also thrilled, and especially grateful.