The Alberta artist building a fence that keeps pipelines away

From the window of his studio, artist Peter von Tiesenhausen can see the fence make its slow procession across his field. 

On one end, its pickets are pristine and white. The ground around it has been mowed. But as the fence travels east, its paint begins to fade and flake. Grass and shrubs grow up around it. Its boards are bent by thickening trunks shouldering for space. And one spot lies crushed by deadfall. At the other end, the fence is completely overgrown. 

The artist — who has exhibited in some of the country's major galleries and made public art for cities across Canada — calls this his "most profound" work. 

Known as Lifeline, the project began in 1990, shortly after von Tiesenhausen's 31st birthday. Concluding 14 years in mining and construction, the artist had just returned to his ranch near Demmitt, Alta., a tiny community northwest of Grande Prairie. He'd decided his most recent job in Antarctica would be his last and he would pursue art full time. Lifeline was von Tiesenhausen's first project as a professional artist.

It began as a single eight-foot section of pickets installed on his property. An early visitor told the artist it looked like a grave. "It is," he replied. "It's some kind of grave to my previous life." 

The idea was to add another eight-foot section every year. "I didn't really know what I was embarking on," he says. "I was just building this fence to plant myself on that piece of land.… And I thought, 'Let's build this for the rest of our lives.'"

Next month, Lifeline will be 35. Once the ground has thawed, von Tiesenhausen, now 66, will add a fresh section to the fence, which runs nearly the length of an NFL football field. He is determined to continue Lifeline in this manner until his death. "There's no question," he says. 

For the renowned environmental artist and activist, the artwork represents his commitment to the land as its steward. In the heart of oil and gas country, it has become a centrepiece — not just symbolically, but legally — as he fights to protect his patch of paradise from the pipelines that threaten to carve it up.

It is the nature of a fence, after all, to hold some things in place and to keep others out.

Today, the artist lives on the same land where he grew up. His parents were Baltic Germans who immigrated to Canada after they were stripped of their property in Estonia. Von Tiesenhausen was born in New Westminster, B.C., and his family moved to northern Alberta when he was three. 

As a boy, it was his job to mind the cattle on the farm. "I had a horse and I'd be off in these 1,100 acres looking for our 150 cattle, spread out through the land, to count them and check them for disease," he says. "I had this enormous freedom, and I got to know the land really well."

Von Tiesenhausen says he was a "typical country kid." That meant he was expected to help out, whether the task was making hay or fixing machinery. His father was a carpenter, so von Tiesenhausen learned to swing a hammer early on and developed a "second sense" for making things, which would carry him through his life.

When von Tiesenhausen was 15, his father put the farm up for sale. The teen felt side-swiped and told him, "You can't sell home." 

However, the sale proceeded slowly, and within a few years, von Tiesenhausen had saved enough money from his first job to buy a quarter section from his father. He has since continued to acquire land and, today, owns roughly 400 acres (160 hectares) of the original ranch.   

Exploring this boreal landscape for more than 60 years, von Tiesenhausen has gained an acute sense of place. He watches the advance of the seasons through its plants and animals. He notices when new species arrive. Although the soil may not grow great crop, it produces a wonderful old-growth forest, he says. "On a daily basis, even as I walk around the same lands, I see things I've never seen before." 

The artist, who began as a landscape painter, approaches land management as he would a canvas. If he doesn't like the look of a field, he lets the brush grow wild, then reshapes it. He draws trails through the forest. He fills in clearings with new trees. 

After Lifeline, other land-based works followed. He made a small fleet of boats woven from willow branches — the surrounding grasses mimicking waves. Next, came a larger vessel, 30 metres long. Then a tower. Then human-size forms suspended in the trees. Then larger-than-life figures carved by chainsaw. 

The works use materials from the land and many involve deterioration and regrowth. In some cases, he says, the artworks have been almost completely reclaimed by nature and "only shadows of them" remain. 

For another ongoing project spread across his property, von Tiesenhausen uses a jackknife or his fingernail to mark the trees with a stylized eye. Sometimes he carves words, like "witness." "[It's] the idea that nature is keeping an eye on us," he says. When he goes for a walk, he might leave one or two of the small markings. Over the course of 30 years, he has made thousands.    

To the west of Lifeline, von Tiesenhausen can see his neighbours. The towers of the gas plant next door rise above the treetops. The artist's home in the Peace Country region sits on one of the largest natural gas reserves in North America, the Montney Formation, which covers a 130,000-square-kilometre area in northern Alberta and B.C. 

Since von Tiesenhausen was a teenager, his family has fought to protect their land from encroaching processing facilities and pipelines. And the fight continues today. 

It was in the mid-1990s when the artist would first take action in a way that has made him famous in some circles and infamous in others. At the time, a pipeline had been proposed between northwestern Alberta and the American Midwest, which would cut across his land. 

Von Tiesenhausen was discussing the matter during a residency at the Banff Centre, when facilitator Su Ditta mentioned how, just a year or two before, the architect Douglas Cardinal had taken a parish in Red Deer, Alta., to court for copyright infringement to block an addition to a church he had designed. Although Cardinal's claim was unsuccessful, it gave the artist an idea.

When gas company representatives came to negotiate a right-of-way, von Tiesenhausen took the men for a walk around his property. They told the artist he had no means to stop them; the province was determined to develop its energy resources and expropriation was likely. 

Then, von Tiesenhausen rattled off his argument: "My title says I own the top six inches [of the land], right? While this might look like a field to you folks, it's not. And that isn't a forest over there.… 

"They went, 'What are you talking about?' I said, 'What's not readily evident to the untrained eye is that this is actually artwork, this whole land, and I maintain the copyright. Now, if you could put a pipeline underneath, I can't stop you, as long as you don't disturb the surface. But if you're going to disturb the surface over this one-mile length, then you're infringing on my rights.'"

The artist remembers one of the men saying, "You can't do that, can you?"

"I don't know," he replied. 

Perplexed, the pair got in their truck and left.

Gallerist Clint Roenisch — then a curator with the Kelowna Art Gallery — was on a visit with von Tiesenhausen before a solo exhibition and was at the meeting. He'd found the artist's position "clever, sly and poetic — and most importantly, persuasive."

The gas company came back the next day and asked von Tiesenhausen to name his price. "It's not about the money," he said. Shortly after, the company notified him it would divert the pipeline around his property. 

A few years later, Glen Bloom, one of the country's leading copyright lawyers, helped von Tiesenhausen formalize his defence. "I suggested that he assert a claim of moral rights in the [artwork]," Bloom says. "Moral rights include a right of integrity, and that right is infringed if — to the prejudice of the owner of the right — the work is distorted, mutilated or otherwise modified."

It is the same argument artist Michael Snow used to sue the Eaton Centre in Toronto for placing Christmas ribbons around the geese of his Flight Stop installation.

Von Tiesenhausen has since deployed it to fight incursions into his property as well as expropriation for resource development. To date, all matters with the oil and gas companies have been settled out of court, and the artist has never had to try out his claim before the law. "They don't want to test it, because what if I win?" he says.

In a further effort to keep pipeline developers at bay, von Tiesenhausen began charging $500 an hour for consultations. As a result, meetings are fewer and shorter, he says.

The artist has become a kind of bogeyman for the industry. On a plane ride once, he struck up a conversation with the person in the next seat, who introduced himself as a "land man" for one of the gas companies. 

Von Tiesenhausen asked if they ever ran into places where they're unable to acquire the right-of-way. And the man said, "Yeah, as a matter of fact, there's a guy west of town here, and if you go to any oil field map, it's got a big red line all the way around his property." He was talking about the artist.

Von Tiesenhausen began Lifeline decades ago as a commitment to both his art and the land. Continually, the project has made him ask himself, "If I'm going to be here for the rest of my life, what do I want this place to look like?" Through the work, he has developed a sense of responsibility that extends well beyond his property line and even his own lifetime.

"[Imagine] everybody decided to anchor themselves in a place and think, I'm not buying this land as an investment. I'm buying this land because I actually want to learn about it, I want to care about it, and I want it to 'accept me' — as one of my artist friends, David McGregor, says.

"What would this planet look like if we actually gave a shit? If we were all gardeners, if we all cared about the quality of the soil and the critters on it, instead of just scooping up what we can and moving on to the next place or selling it off to a pipeline company? What would it look like? It would be an absolute paradise."

The white picket fence is a deliberate symbol. It is typically used to mark the boundaries where one's property begins and ends. Of course, von Tiesenhausen can't possibly build a fence all the way around his land. But with this simple row of pickets, marching through the centre, the artist maintains all of it under his stewardship.