Limes with Orange

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was up at the arts festival in Inuvik in July. My dad's band Razzamajazz was doing a couple of blues workshops at the festival. And I had a chance to screen "Coda in G Minor" and "Persephone" alongside a couple of short films of my dad's and one that they made during their film workshop last year. But the highlight of the festival had to be the visual art. My two favourite artists were Jennifer Walden (no website that I could find) and Gilad (Gadi) Katz. Unfortunately, the piece that I coveted by Jennifer was out of my price range and sold already anyway, but here's a photo:


The piece that was thankfully in my price range was a print by Gadi entitled "Cuts":


Call me crazy, but this print makes me think of my film "Persephone" so I just had to have it. And maybe someday I'll be able to afford one of Jennifer's paintings and hopefully, when that day comes, she'll have another one that leaps off of the wall at me the way this raven in flight did.

Another artist that caught my attention was Nicole Bauberger and her 100 dresses series. I contemplated buying some of her small paintings, but felt that it would be better to have a grouping of three rather than just a single painting for a series like this. But, again, most of the paintings that I was drawn to were already sold. I did ask her if she had thought about publishing a book of her 100 dresses series (of which she's done eight series so far and is scheduled to do two or three more, so that will be over 1000 dress paintings in all!). I hope she actually considers the book idea because I, for one, would love to buy it. She hasn't posted the Inuvik 100 Dresses on her site yet, but here are a couple of examples of paintings from previous 100 dresses projects:


I also met basket maker Jennifer Bowen who turns out to be a filmmaker as well. I gather the filmmaking was put on hold while her children were young (she's married to filmmaker and musician Dennis Allen), but she seems to be putting a project together for the near future. I'll be very interested to find out what that project will be.

Labels: art and photography

I just got back from visiting my dad in Inuvik for the Great Northern Arts Festival. I discovered a couple of artists that I really like, who I'll talk about in a later post, and experienced 24-hour sunlight for the first time... and I've decided that I prefer having a regular sunset. Not that I want to experience 24 hours of darkness, either. I just realized that I need that balance between light and dark (hmm... I think that works as a metaphor for my personality traits, too).

So I may not have slept very well (then again, when do I ever?) but the scenery was fantastic. The photo in this post was taken from the Dempster Highway overlooking Campbell Lake, which is between Inuvik and Tsiigehtchic. I had no idea how many lakes there are up there. Apparently it has to do with the permafrost not absorbing the water (I wish I'd paid more attention to this stuff in school). We didn't get around to our sightseeing flight (darn rain!) but I still got a pretty good idea of the vast, unpopulated wilderness. Maybe this will sound strange, especially because I don't live up there, but I really like the fact that I live in a country with so much land that remains untamed.

More later. Right now I'm going to sit outside and enjoy the post-sunset darkness. Then I'm going to go to bed in my wonderfully dark room. (Oh, blessed night.)

Labels: art and photography, travel

Some time ago, I wrote a post entitled My First Muse about Marc Chagall. So naturally, when I logged onto the internet today and saw my Google homepage had images from Chagall's works I had to click. Which is how I happen to know that today is Chagall's birthday.

I was particularly pleased by the timing because I recently updated my Artist Statement to include the following: "I regard film as visual poetry and have been equally inspired by the mythopoetic work of Maya Deren, the wonderfully complex storytelling of Darren Aronofsky and the beautiful cinematography found in the films of Luc Besson. Other, less obvious, influences in my work are the paintings of Marc Chagall and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Chagall's use of symbolism, bright colours and visual storytelling have always inspired my imagination..."

And here is my very favourite Chagall painting: "I and the Village"

Labels: art and photography, film

I'm about to post about something I can barely bring myself to think about, but I believe it needs to be discussed. There's this "artist" that was brought to my attention through Facebook. I had so hoped would turn out to be another Facebook hoax, but I have yet to be able to debunk it:

In 2007, Guillermo Vargas Habacuc, a so called artist, took an abandoned dog from the streets, tied him to a very short rope to a wall in an art gallery, and left a kettle of food on the other side of the room, beyond his reach, and left him there to slowly die of hunger and thirst.

The gallery exhibition was real. That much I have been able to confirm. The details vary widely from site to site. Some claim that the dog was only tied up for the three hours a day and that it escaped back to the streets after a few days. Others claim even worse details than those stated in the Facebook group. One blog claims to have a statement from the artist:

The purpose of the work was not to cause any type of infliction on the poor, innocent creature, but rather to illustrate a point. In my home city of San Jose, Costa Rica, tens of thousands of stray dogs starve and die of illness each year in the streets and no one pays them a second thought.

Now, if you publicly display one of these starving creatures, such as the case with Nativity, it creates a backlash that brings out a big of hypocrisy in all of us. Nativity was a very sick creature and would have died in the streets anyway.

Is that actually the artist's statement? I don't know. Is there more to the statement that describes that actual exhibit? I don't know. Some bloggers have read the article in the Guardian and been placated. I, personally, would feel better about that stance if there were more legitimate news stories to back it up. Other bloggers say that PETA is already aware of it, but I find no mention of it on their blog. Snopes, the site that I usually look to for debunking, has the status of this rumour as Undetermined. So I really don't know what to believe.

Now I don't usually post about something when I don't have all the facts but this is just so disturbing and, unfortunately, too easy to believe. So assuming this to be true, here's my rant…

If the "artist" REALLY cared about the plight of these dogs there is no way on this earth that he would have killed one so slowly and so cruelly. What could he have done if his intention was REALLY altruistic? Let's see… record the dogs on the street with video, film or photographs, pretend to be the dog yourself in the gallery, hire an actor to be the dog, use paint, sculpture or cuts of meat from a butcher to create a symbolic dog, combine any or all of the above with other images or installations to allow the viewer to make connections that weren't apparent before. By God man, there are infinite humane ways to shed light on this issue. If this "artist" was REALLY trying to do as he claims, he was--in the words of Joan of Arcadia--suffering from a failure of imagination. So what kind of "artist" does that make him? A fraud and a hack. And what kind of a person does that make him? Well, let's just say that I believe this man deserves to experience everything that he forced that dog to experience. Everything.

And if it turns out that the Guardian article is true and the dog was actually fed during the run of the exhibit? Well (a) if you look at pictures of the dog (I couldn't stand to post them here, but just Google and you'll see), that dog should have been at the vet's not on display at a gallery and (b) it still ain't art. Art requires imagination. And for my comments about the imagination of this "artist", see above rant.

Labels: animals, art and photography, rant

One of the reasons that my post election post was so delayed is because I've been spending every spare minute this week helping to organize tomorrow night's screening of Michael Peterson's latest short film, "The Curse of the Piano." If you're not doing anything, you should check it out; it's going to be a pretty happening night at the Cantos Music Museum. Besides the main screening, the event also features live music with Jay Crocker, a showing of a few local visual artists, a silent auction with proceeds being donated to CJSW and screening stations to show the short films of some other local filmmakers... including me.

And that's what I've been working on madly all week: the screening stations. But those screening stations are gonna rawk, baby! Okay, I realize it's not the main attraction but by the time I'm done with them, they could be! Or else I'm just tired and delusional and should go to bed now so that I can get an early morning for the long day ahead. Say g'night, Gracie. G'night.

Labels: art and photography, film

I went to see a fabulous play on Saturday night: "Good Girls Don't" by Ellen Chorley (read the description in my recent Culture post). Not only was the story compelling and the acting excellent, but the staging added so much to the play that it was more than just another character (something that a good location for a play or film really ought to be anyway)... it was almost like adding a fifth dimension.

Mob Hit Productions likes to incorporate new media into their stage productions and they do it quite well. In the past, I've seen them use video screens to establish locations or use pre-recorded video for images that can't easily be portrayed in conventional theatre. Well, this play went even further than I've seen before. There were three screens: a central screen for the uses I just mentioned, plus two additional screens serving as the computer monitors for the two teenage girl characters. Those two screens projected real time images from computer laptops on the stage as the actresses "chatted online" during the play. It was a very cool experience. Not only did it add visual interest, but it gave me the feeling that I was inside a film or something. Hard to explain... you just need to experience it.

I also found the structure of the play itself quite intriguing. It made interesting use of repetition. There were a couple of monologues that were recited more than once but by different characters in different contexts. You might think that it would get boring but, on the contrary, the most powerful monologue of the evening was the last one in the play, one that we'd heard two versions of already. But Emma Claire Miller delivered it with a heartfelt emotion that provided a dramatic contrast to the stark, calculating main character of Kimi. For me, it was that monologue that punctuated just how cold and rational (in a psychotic way) Kimi really was. And of course I'm not going to give away the ending, but I will say it was the perfect ending to satisfy me.

In addition to the play, they were also featuring artwork by Aimee Qiu. Her work is quite stunning... looking at her prints certainly made the intermission fly by. All in all, I highly recommend that you check out this production.

P.S. I also took the Editing Workshop with Deco Dawson this weekend at the CSIF, as well as attending his welcome reception. I'll be posting about the workshop on my film blog in the next few days.

Labels: art and photography, film, theatre

I've had a number of my film workshop instructors mention the usefulness of practicing with a basic still photography camera to learn how to compose and light shots for cinematography. Unfortunately, I always had others around me taking photos so I never really got the hang of it. But I think it's time to change that, time to finally learn photography.

So do I just buy a camera and start practicing? Do I sign up for a local adult education photography course? Or do I get even more ambitious? I'm leaning towards the first option as a starting point. Then, if I don't really feel that I'm learning anything that way, I might consider a night class of some sort. I'll let you know how it goes.

Labels: art and photography, film

I was in the mood for a meme today and discovered Moody Monday (how apropos). It's a weekly photo meme based on a certain mood of the week. This week's mood is "light" and the photo I chose is from a dance piece called "Wind Swept" that was produced by my mother. I love the interplay of light and shadow in this photo, but I'm also amusing myself with the play on words: light >> light as air >> wind >> wind swept:

Labels: art and photography, memes

Browsing through the Blogger's Choice Awards again (I've got new votes... yay!), I found that someone had nominated PostSecret. A friend of mine sent me a link to this blog a while back and I'd meant to blog about it but got sidetracked.

What is PostSecret? It's an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. Some of them are amusing, some of them are insightful, but what keeps me coming back are the ones that are frightening in their truth and beautiful in their pain. If you haven't visited this site before, I highly recommend it.

Unfortunately, the award categories weren't really made for a blog like this. If I were to invent a category for it, I think I would call it "Best Humanist Blog" or "Best Blog about Truth" but those aren't categories that people would typically think about or use. So it's in the Pop Culture category. Yes, yet another post for a "pop culture" blog.



In keeping with the spirit of viewing this as a pop culture blog, I've uploaded "Beauty from Pain" by Superchick to My Music Box for you to listen to while you explore. I've also decided to change the other songs to create a sort of theme of pain and secrets. So there's also Blue October's "Razorblade" sung by Zayra Alvarez and "Merry Go Round" by Athena Reich.

Labels: art and photography, blogging, music, pop culture

Apparently you can now create an online scrapbook. I think it's a great idea, but it turns out that it's not actually any easier to create than a real scrapbook, just less expensive and easier to share… which are actually pretty good reasons to opt for this method, now that I think about it.

The site has a lot of options to choose from, which is great but rather overwhelming at first. Though I think it would be a little less overwhelming if the thumbnails were a bit bigger so you had at least some idea of what the paper (or sticker or whatever) will look like before you click on it.

Hey, you know what would be cool? A gallery of templates that you could use as-is or use as a starting point for customization. That would definitely make it less intimidating for a newbie and give you an idea of what's available as well as sparking your own creative ideas.

But here's my first attempt: a wee tribute to my horse, Night Wing.



Hmm, one area that could actually use MORE options is the fonts… very limited at the moment. And for some reason my text placement and alignment seems to have a mind of its own. But I guess a few glitches are to be expected when the site isn't even in Beta yet. I'll definitely be revisiting this site when it's a little further along in development. At which point it'll be great to add to my genealogy sites!

P.S. To the folks at Heart Vault: In order to embed this into Blogger, I needed to add a closing "/embed" tag to the end of the code provided on your website. And adding this P.S. made me think of something else I'd like to see on the site: a way to contact someone please .

Labels: animals, art and photography, cool sites, genealogy

The other night while I was tutoring, one of my cats (Tobi, my previously mentioned "closet cat"… who actually comes out of the closet for this particular student) curled up on top of my student's book bag and looked just adorable. I grabbed my camera to take a pic and didn't manage to capture the cuteness at all. (I'd show you my efforts but I deleted them straightaway.) But it made me realize that I've never really managed to take a good photo of my cats. Fortunately I have a few decent pictures of them that friends of mine have taken… but I'm the one who sees all the cute stuff they do, so I'd like to be able to take the photos myself.

Which is why I was quite pleased to find this article with pet photography tips. The tips are pretty commonsensical but sometimes common sense isn't so common, so I definitely liked the approach. I particularly appreciated the suggestion that the cat should fill about 70% of the frame. I think that's been part of my problem, I'm not zoomed in enough. It would have been nice if they'd talked about digital cameras, too. But with the article not being overly technical, I suppose most of the information applies to any type of camera. Now I just need to practice!

Labels: animals, art and photography

I've lived in Calgary for almost seven years now, and it's only in the past year that I've really managed to find the artsy people that I want to hang out with. I'll admit that much of that is my own fault. I arrived with the attitude that Calgarians expect from Torontonians: what little redneck, culturally-bereft backwater have I just landed in? Not too endearing an attitude, I'll admit. But I only seemed to be meeting people who worked directly in the oil and gas industry or indirectly for the oil and gas industry. And my parents were hippie actors. No common ground. I did try. Really. But I felt like I was selling my soul.

Then last year, I joined the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers and started taking a bunch of courses there—meeting people who had not only heard of my favourite movies, but actually liked them—and my one musician friend married a really cool actress with really cool creative friends and all of a sudden I have artsy people back in my life. Yay!

This whole process could have happened a lot sooner if The Whole 9 had been around when I first moved here. The Whole 9 is an online community to connect creative and artistic people for networking and dating (there's even a place for your portfolio). I may not be needing it for friendship or dating at the moment, but I'll definitely be exploring the networking potential!

P.S. Couldn't resist the Beatles reference in the title, especially since 9 is one of my favourite numbers. My fave favourite number is actually 108... long story... short answer: I'm weird, remember?

Labels: art and photography, cool sites, dating, film, music, theatre

I just found out about this 2006 Photograph of the Year Contest over at Photography Corner. I'm no photographer myself, but I love good photography (which is obvious to anyone who has seen the wall of black and white photos that is the focal point of my living room). Fortunately, I have been blessed with friends and family who are excellent photographers, so I've got some incredible photos documenting the people, places and animals in my life (even though I've taken nary a one).

Having found out about this contest, I'm eager to spread the word about it to my cousin (mentioned in my Meet the Artists post) and other aspiring photographers that I know, especially given the fact that there are over $14,000 in prizes available (and they look pretty sweet: lenses from Lensbabies, professional software from Time Exposure, etc... if only these were for film, not still photography, I would be entering in a heartbeat)! The deadline is January 12 (my sister's birthday!) so I better start spreading the word soon.

While checking out the contest, I discovered that they also have a Photograph of Month competition. I clicked through some of the winners and here are a few of my favourites:

Labels: art and photography

My mother was recently retelling the story of when I was three years old and going through my "great artist" phase (I took my phases very seriously, even at that young age, and intended to be "great" in every one of them). Apparently there's even a newspaper photo of me painting in the park (someday I might have to go through the Toronto Star archives to try to dig that up, just for the heck of it).

What I hadn't realized before this particular retelling was that this phase of mine was inspired by an "Art for Children" book about Marc Chagall. According to my mother, I was completely enthralled by Chagall's paintings and looked up at her to ask incredulously, "Were these painted by an adult?"

It seemed inconceivable—given my experience of most adults so far in my young life—that anyone other than a child could create art that seemed to spring directly from the stuff of dreams. My mother assured me that they were indeed painted by an adult and a whole new world opened up for me. She bought a poster of "I and the Village" and I would spend hours staring at it... dreaming.

My first artistic influence. My first muse.

Labels: art and photography

A friend of mine sent me a link to this very cool video of Jerome Murat's statue act. I guess it's kind of a cross between mime and puppetry (with just a dash of Zaphod Beeblebrox), but those descriptions simply don't do justice to this performance. It's clever and subtle and funny and... well, you really just have to watch it.

Labels: art and photography

I was referred to this site called Art in the Picture.com. I decided to check it out and wouldn't you know it—right there on the front page—one of my favourite artists is their current featured artist: Gustav Klimt. One difference that I noticed from other art sites is that it doesn't just have a biography and list of paintings, but it also has some interesting tidbits in the overview of the artist, as well as quotes by the artist himself. Here is one of the Klimt quotes that I found intriguing:

"I have the gift of neither the spoken nor the written word, especially if I have to say something about myself or my work. Even when I have a simple letter to write I am filled with fear and trembling as though on the verge of being sea-sick. For this reason people must do without an artistic or literary self-portrait. And this should not be regretted. Whoever wants to know something about me—as an artist, the only notable thing—ought to look carefully at my pictures and try and see in them what I am and what I want to do."

The site is also well organized and easy to navigate. It has clear descriptions of different styles of art, as well as the periods they emerged from and the representative artists. There's also a newsletter that I signed up for because I think it might prove interesting. (And, of course, there's a handy link to buy posters of the featured artwork at art.com.)

Labels: art and photography

Went to a "Meet the Artists" night at CounterFLUX Art Centre in Inglewood. (Unfortunately, their website is just an image of the postcard they would have distributed for their last Meet the Artists night... hmm, maybe I should offer my web design services...) Anyway, my cousin was one of the artists being met (well, not "met" by me, since I obviously knew him already... though that's not necessarily obvious but explaining that statement would be a whole 'nother blog post, so I'll leave well enough alone and try to stop going off on tangents). So, my cousin (of Big Fat Nondenominational Wedding fame) is a photographer: Chris Krieger, S7K Photography. He does some very cool work and before you claim that I'm biased because he's my cousin, go check out his website and see if I'm not telling the truth. Trust me, I wouldn't be planning on covering a whole wall of my apartment with his photographs if he wasn't any good. In fact, since I know some of you don't bother to click on the multitude of links that I am so thoughtful as to include in my posts (not that I'm going to mention any names... Mandy... oops, look what my fingers just typed... ... hmm, methinks I just went off on another tangent... did I mention that I didn't get a lot of sleep last night? That's my excuse for why this particular post is so rambling and incoherent... yep, that's my story and I'm sticking to it)... and now that I've totally lost my train of thought, here's one of Chris' pics that will soon be hanging in my apartment:



There was some other cool art at the gallery tonight but, unfortunately, I don't remember any of the artists' names. I'll have to go back and get the name of the guy who did the paintings with concrete and acrylic on canvas. Yep... concrete... gave them a really cool texture... had to restrain myself not to touch it (for some reason, galleries seem to frown on patrons putting their grubby hands all over the art... not that I'm implying that my hands are grubby or anything... okay, that's one tangent too many for me tonight... I'm going to bed!)

Labels: art and photography