I feel invigorated, inspired, and excited after visiting the 2012 Sketchbook Project travelling show. It was here in Vancouver for only two days with limited hours at W2 Media Cafe. I made a point to visit both days and see as many sketchbooks as I could, which worked out to about twenty-five or so of the thousands of sketchbooks people have access to during the tour. It’s the work I saw within that small sampling of books that has me so excited, as well as the concept of such a large-scale collaborative project becoming a lending library full of art.

I really admire the set up of the travelling show. Each visitor is required to sign up for a library card before they can access the collection. Then away you go, selecting sketchbooks based upon theme, location, or random draw. The librarian pulls two books at a time for each patron to pour over, and it can be a mixed bag of amazing to so-so work depending upon the skill of each artist.

I took photos of some of my favourites, which you can see here. It was fascinating to see all the different ways people used the exact same little sketchbook. I am definitely inspired to get to work on the 2013 Sketchbook Project, even though it’s not due until the end of the year.

Valerie Arntzen, Vancouver BC, Canada

Kelly Leigh Miller, Louisville KY, USA

Emily Horton, Tyler TX, USA

Rachel Ramm, Dublin OH, USA

Rolando Del Real, Granda Hills CA, USA

Melia Ramirez & Sandra G, Valle des las Palmas, Mexico

Brenna Darroch, Fairfax VA, USA

Andie Wolf, Toronto ON, Canada

Lucy Howard, Bicester, Oxfordshire, UK

If you’re unfamiliar with the Sketchbook Project, it’s a collaborative art project organized by Arthouse Co-op, a group based in Brooklyn, NY. People from all over the world sign up to receive a plain brown 5″ x 7″ book and what they can do within those pages is completely open. The final works are contributed back to the Brooklyn Art Library where they become part of the collection, which people can access both online and in person.

I’ve mentioned it previously because I took part in the Limited Edition project earlier this year. The 2013 Sketchbook Project is now open, and I highly recommend you take part. It’s been a HUGE source of inspiration for much of the work I’ve been doing so far this year.

Sarah in her studio

How long have you been an artist and how did you become one?
I’ve been doing this hard-edged geometrical collage work for about three years. Before that, I did a lot of waiting around for something good to happen, trying to keep my head above water. I’ve been a bookseller, I’ve done manual paste-up for a newspaper, designed textiles, worked in a chocolate factory. For a long time I made photo-realist figurative textile pieces that were quite popular with people but for me were just a placeholder until the right thing came along. And now it has.

Do you work full time or part time as an artist? If part-time, what do you do to support yourself?
I am able to work full time as an artist only because I have a wonderful and supportive husband with a steady paycheque. Otherwise I couldn’t do it at all. Vancouver is a tough city to be in the arts. Government funding is at an all-time low, and galleries, theatres and artist-run centers are closing down. Mostly, when people aren’t slaving away at their desks trying to make a down payment on a condo, they’re snowboarding at Whistler. Yes, there are curators and amazing galleries and people who love the arts, but it feels very subculture to me, very marginal. I hope that will change in a few years.

Work in progress on the studio table.

What are some of your favourite materials to work with?
I work almost exclusively with archival, cotton-based paper. I love Clairefontaine Maya paper, a richly colour-saturated heavy cardstock with absolutely no texture to it. Because my collages often have large glued elements, I need a heavy weight, maybe 140 to 300lb., in order not to have warping. I’m also madly in love with my Plexiglas templates, which I had fabricated for me. They’re so simple and so beautiful.

Targets on the studio floor

Tell us a bit about the process you go through to create your work:
My work is precise and detailed, which means I do a lot of preparation, taking careful measurements, dry fitting, making sure things will come out the way I intend them to. It’s a lot like composing music, the individual notes mean little until they combine into a melody. Mostly I don’t know until the end if I’ve made something good, or a complete disaster. One of the things I’ve struggled with is learning to waste paper through experimentation or at least fearless creating. I’ve been in extreme poverty a couple of times in my life and I can feel the echo of it every time I make a tiny mistake that ruins a piece of matte board I just spent eight dollars on.

"Last Night" by Sarah Gee

"Playing with Fire" by Sarah Gee

Where do you find inspiration for your work, and what keeps you motivated?
I’m not really a worldly person or a particularly referential artist. For example, I don’t look at a sunset or snowy mountain and feel it has a place in my inspiration file. I don’t travel or take reference photographs. I don’t even sketch all that often. Instead I’m seeking to create balance and harmony through geometrical arrangements, arrive at some kind of inner resolution. So I guess both the inspiration and motivation comes from self-determination. That sounds really, really boring, I know.

"Receptor" by Sarah Gee

Tell us about other artists who have inspired you:
I’m inspired by the hard-edged painters who came to prominence in the sixties and seventies, Frank Stella, Tadasky, Josef Albers, Frank Hammersley, Miguel Angel Vidal, as well as our own Vancouver artists like Michael Morris and Gary Lee-Nova. I also like anything obsessive, when you get the sense, when looking at a piece of art, that the person who made it was inventing deeply private formulas, ways of seeing, in order to make sense of the world. When I see “Outsider” artists working in complete isolation, like the astonishing Archilles Rizzoli, Henry Darger or James Hampton, making beautiful things despite a life of deprivation and no schooling, I’m so moved by that.

Where can people find you both online and offline:
People can find my website at sarahgeeart.com I have a gallery and a blog called Studio Life there.

They can also follow me on Twitter @SarahGeeArt

Read on for more about Kirsti and her work.

Painting at Yesnaby, Orkney. (photo by Darren Carcary)

Tell us about yourself:
I am a designer and illustrator. I dabble in a few different disciplines – a product of the times I guess, and my desire to constantly try new things. I studied graphic design and illustration and have worked as both for the past 14 years. My work within those fields is pretty diverse as well.

How long have you been an artist and how did you become one?
I have always been artistically inclined. My grandmother is a painter, so my artistic inclinations were nurtured and supported from the beginning. I drew constantly as a kid. And I had (and still have) a keen interest in nature and animals so that was my primary subject matter–usually animals chasing down and eating other animals. Lots of foxes and wolves, and terrified and bloodied deer. I liked to keep it real.

Even with that set-up, I didn’t set out for a career in the arts, however. I didn’t actually know there were options for arts-based careers other than being a painter–which is weird and a little dull on my part because I had no end of access to illustrated books. But I was aware that being a painter wasn’t the easiest living, so I focused my attention on sciences in high school, intending to go to vet school or into forensic entomology. Science, death and insects were a killer combination for me at the time. But first year college found me recovering from academic burnout, and I accidentally walked past the studio arts room when I went in to pick my courses, and that proved to be irresistible. After a year of mucking around with general arts classes, I was accepted into the Graphic Design and Illustration Program at Capilano College (now IDEA at Capilano University), not even knowing what graphic design was.

picture book illustration | rough drawing & final illustration detail

Do you work full time or part time as an artist? If part-time, what do you do to support yourself?
Depends on what you define as an artist. I don’t identify as being an artist. Or at least, I’m uncomfortable with the term on some level, in relation to myself. Not to say illustration isn’t art – actually, I’m not going to open up the art vs illustration debate. But I don’t feel that doing it makes me an artist. And I don’t really think the work I’m doing qualifies yet. Also, I think it’s that the work I’ve been doing most recently is client-driven–while the decisions I make are my own, they are influenced to different extent by outside forces–so I think I’m reserving the term artist for (hopefully) when I’m able to make work that is purely driven by my own whim, and feels legitimate enough (to myself) to be defined that way. I’m fully aware that I probably contradicted my earlier statement. Also, I might change my mind about the whole thing next week, or next month, or next time we talk. I don’t actually care much about the solidity of definitions, I just go by what feels right at the time.

Identity design work-in-progress.

Short, uncomplicated answer: I support myself with design and illustration work. And I support my picture book illustration work with my design work and my more commercial illustration. I paint when I have the time (rarely). I do sell pieces sometimes, but never intentionally. I rarely, if ever, exhibit. I’d like to change the selling part. But first I need more time to make the work…and I’m working on that.

What are some of your favorite materials to work with?
I love a 3B pencil and a non-precious sketchbook. I adore paint. Watercolour and I have a love hate relationship. I go back to it constantly even though I find my inability to work well in it incredibly demoralising. When I travel, I try to do as many on location paintings as I can. And I dream of having the (financially comfortable) time to get back into a nice, big oil painting so I can putter endlessly. A have at least two series in mind I’d like to take a crack at.

Old and St Andrew's Church, Montrose | on location, Montrose, Scotland, watercolour, 7"x10"

Right now, I’m really enjoying digital work as well–though with a real connection to traditional mediums; I don’t like digital-looking digital stuff, I just don’t feel a connection to it. I’m working on a picture book that I’m colouring in Photoshop. It’s opening up all sorts of possibilities that are closed to me through the nature of certain mediums, and my inabilities to bend them to my will. And it’s taught me a lot about colour in a very short time. At the same time, it’s making me want to get back into using paint again. Even though it’s digital, there are still happy accidents. And I find that pretty delightful.

Reflection | oil on canvas, 4'x4'

Tell us a bit about the process you go through to create your work:
Rumination. Research. Procrastination. First Stab. Creative dismay. More rumination (could be mistaken for procrastination). Diving in for real. A series of creative crisis. Breakthrough. A lot hours in the studio. A lot of missed weekends and sunny days. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Conclusion. Sometimes, celebration.

Where do you find inspiration for your work, and what keeps you motivated?
There are very few things I look at without thinking about how I’d go about drawing it, or mixing that colour, where that reflected light is coming from, or trying to commit the image to memory for later use. I’m motivated by the frustrations I have with my inability to draw and paint how I want to, which is also the same thing I’ve found paralysing in the past – though, I think now that I’m older, I’m over that. I’m now totally ok with knowing I still have about 850 crappy paintings or drawings to make before I turn out something good. I’m motivated by ticking time. I feel like I’m getting to the party kind of late, and I need to catch up. I’m also motivated by knowing that this is it, this is the only thing I’m half good at, so I better put my head down and keep going. Commit.

Other than art, what are you particularly excited about right now?
I’m writing part of this from Kaua’i, so in the immediate picture, I’m pretty excited about waking up in the morning (hopefully to some dry weather) and taking my morning coffee down to the beach as I have done for the past week, to watch the humpback whales, and, if I’m lucky, see the large pod of spinner dolphins that have been feeding just off the beach near the place I’m staying. I’m also super excited to get back into the water and do some snorkelling. I’m a bit obsessed with the snorkelling – it’s been pretty poor weather here (thunder, lightening, 80km winds, torrential downpours, flash flood warnings, highway closures, road wash-outs, palm fronds falling like missiles) so it’s not super warm but I’ll stay out in the water watching fish until I’m shaking with cold. They’re just so incredibly beautiful and varied and mesmerising. Everywhere you look, there’s something different.

Anole, photographed in the National Tropical Botanical Garden, Kaua'i.

In the big picture, I’m pretty excited to see the light at the end of the tunnel of a very long project that has consumed my life for the last few years. I’m excited about getting my evenings and weekends back. Having the time to get outside in the sun and explore my city again. To have free time. Catch up with friends and family. Get active. Putter in the garden. Do a bit of travelling. Purge my closet, clean my studio. Rethink work and what I’ve been working at.

Where can people find you both online and offline:
A general collection of work is at kirstiwakelin.com
My book illustration is here: mysecretelephant.com

While Evan’s work isn’t normally the style of art that grabs me, his talk about process and materials drew me in and convinced me to like his work. His opening line of being focused on shape and form is what did it because this is exactly what I am currently obsessed with in the paper cut work I’ve been doing.

These bottom two photos were taken on the side of the studio that belongs to Evan’s studio mate. I was curious about the dried lizards and what he intended to do with them. Sadly, he wasn’t around to ask. I know exactly where you can buy these in Chinatown but I’d never seen anyone purchase them.

It’s always a treat to get to poke around in an artist studio, and to hear them speak about their work. Next up in the series is an Intimate Studio visit with painter, Nicola Tibbetts. Registration is available through the Eastside Culture Crawl website.

I’ve been enjoying Chris’ interviews because it’s exposing me to Vancouver artists I’m not familiar with. Check out more of the videos on the Hot One Inch Action website.

Tell us about yourself:
Today, in the third month of my 46th year, I find myself an instrument-maker engaging community with interactive entertainment by way of performances with a small orchestra dominated by hand-made wooden horns.

But that is more about what I do than who I am. Properly described, I should be seen as the archetypal class-clown determined to escape a long cycle of disappointing corporate employment by creating his own much happier, if less fiscally responsible niche.

How long have you been an artist and how did you become one?
I can think of two starting points separated by several decades. Initially, in 1970′s Kitchener, Ontario, an artist was a person who could draw or paint (or even both!). In grade three I won great accolades from my peers upon completing my Weasel Project (yes, a project about weasels) on account of two very believable illustrations (pencil and guache) of weasels. This conference of status was an impetus for me to apply myself further in the hopes of gaining more praise and social standing from my classmates, an impulse I feel to this day.

Somewhere along the line, I determined to make a career out of my art skills, and promptly sold out to the advertizing industry as an illustrator/designer/prostitute-for-hire, a ten year career that feeds the satire in my performances to this day.

My epiphany came in 1995, in a windowless cubicle, in a Fundamentalist-Christian-owned advertizing agency, in an industrial park in deep Etobicoke, where 75 of us worked mostly for a KFC account. I was using my hard-won skills to render technical drawings for the 64 page deep-fry equipment user’s manual, a task my art director sold to me as ‘a soul-sucking job from hell, but with plenty of billable hours’. That horrible job was finally impetus enough to quit, move to Vancouver and take a chance on my own, self directed work.

Do you work full time or part time as an artist? If part-time, what do you do to support yourself?
I used to be a ‘full time’ artist. My first ten years or so in Vancouver, I made ends meet by selling paintings real cheap-like out of a pizza restaurant in Gastown. But the desperation as a semi-obscure Canadian artist is no trip to the playground. Lately I have two, four-hour-a-week jobs: one cleaning my building on Sundays, and the other as the gardener for a lovely co-op near Granville Island. Both jobs pay $100 each time. Combined with the occasional caricature gig entertaining at conferences or municipal events (yes I am still at least partly a corporate whore), and workshops through community centres, my habits are being supported.

Sticks harvested from the Empress Tree

What are some of your favourite materials to work with?
Currently, my favourite material is wood from the Empress Tree (Paulownia tomentosa) on account of it’s habit of growing long, straight, hollow* sticks very suitable for horn making.

*mostly hollow

Tell us a bit about the process you go through to create your work:
First there’s the pollarding of the Empress tree, a heavy pruning that leaves only about four feet of trunk remaining. This causes it to sprout new branches which grow very fast and often straight up. At the end of the winter, they can be harvested and cured on the porch, out of the sunlight. Once they’re dry, they can be chopped and glued into appropriate horn-shaped configurations.

Another process worth mentioning is composing music and rehearsing with my band, an enterprise I would liken to herding wet cats with a broom, only the wet cats all have opinions and never answer their e-mails.

Where do you find inspiration for your work, and what keeps you motivated?
I think of my work as a voice in the wilderness crying out against corporatism and religious dogma. What keeps me motivated is the certainty that, at least here in Canada, the ecologically-minded secular socialists are losing the fight at the cost of human rights, freedoms and the future of our drinking water.

Plus, the band is getting tighter as we practice. We’ve had some really good sets, lately.

Legion of the Flying Monkeys in performance

Is there a favourite project or piece of artwork you’ve created? Tell us about it:
Tough to pick favourites. But this is a recording from a set we played at Raw Canvas (a restaurant) with pictures from the Means of Production Garden in Mount Pleasant, wherein I am heavily involved.

Tell us about other artists who have inspired you:
I have the great fortune of knowing Ken Clarke, a master sculptor in Gastown who has played a large mentorship role with me over the years. Ken is known for large cast faces and figures he produces in series, but I know his more private stone work that is more Zen and abstract.

Other than art, what are you particularly excited about right now?
There’s a new lunch place on Cambie street called Meat & Bread selling roast pork sandwiches. It’s not easy to convince my pesco-vegetarian wife that this is something I really need. But it does have me particularly excited right about now.

What are some of the biggest challenges you feel artists face today?
In Canada an artist must overcome the inherent social standing of ‘Canadian Artist’ which is only one step removed from ‘homeless person’ or ‘pan-handler’ in the minds of the average citizen. In this milieu, a hopeful creative-type can spend far too much effort seeking to achieve legitimacy when what they really need is to find their peers and get on with the task of making art.

What is special about the arts community where you live? What’s one thing you would change?
I live in the Core Artists’ Co-op in the Downtown Eastside, Vancouver’s only actual Artists’ Co-operative. The larger community here in Gastown is very affirming and often feels like Sesame Street for its friendliness and camaraderie, despite being in the midst of rampant, street level human suffering.

If I could change one thing, I would end the war on drugs. Not very realistic I suppose but it sounds much better than telling you about the people I’d like to kick out of my co-op (the violence-threatening alcoholic, the delusional, violence-threatening homophobic, or the non-participant rich kid who illegally sublets to strangers and doesn’t submit his taxes).

Where can people find you both online and offline:
Online: davidgowman.wordpress.com

Offline: Walk down to Main and Alexander Street. One half block East, stand on the North side and yell, ‘Hey, Fire-Maaaaaaaaann!.’
That should work.

I’m pleased to be kicking off this series of artist interviews with assemblage artist (and good friend), Valerie Arntzen. I hope you find her as inspiring as I do.

Valerie in her studio (Photo by Wendy D)

Tell us about yourself:
For starters I am female and going to be sixty this year. I love those milestone birthdays as they kind of knock on your door of memories and aspirations. You take stock of where you have been and where you are going. I have been a worker all my life from draftsperson, treeplanter to buyer in the film industry and artist. My life started in Toronto, Ontario but when I was 19 I moved to Vancouver. I am married to an artist, Arnt Arntzen who is a designer/builder of modern furniture. He makes every piece himself. We both collect things but his found objects are large. He is also my technical director when I need a problem solved. We have been together for 33 years.

How long have you been an artist and how did you become one?
I have been a self taught artist for over 20 years. My first show was in 1990 and since then I have tried to be in at least one show a year while I did my money job in theatre and film.

I like to work and use my hands and head. My mother says I was always working on at least two things at the same time. As a kid I received a brownie camera (which I still have) as an Xmas present and took photos and created photo albums. I still carry a camera and take a lot of photos which I often use in my pieces. I started my art career as a painter of found objects in which I would do these crazy patterns all over vases, furniture and other objects.

I am now an assemblage artist. Assemblage is an artistic process in which a three-dimensional artistic composition is made from putting together found objects.

Do you work full time or part time as an artist? If part-time, what do you do to support yourself?
Retirement from my money job happened about 8 years ago and I have been a full time artist since then. I was also a founding director of the Eastside Culture Crawl and the executive director for 11 years. Retirement from that position happened 2 years ago. The amount of money I have been earning from my art practice has been going up every year. I would not have been able to support myself on those earnings in the past but now my studio is paid for and my husband works full time in his art practice and is very successful.

Record History by Valerie Arntzen

Record History (detail) by Valerie Arntzen

What are some of your favorite materials to work with?
I LOVE JUNK! Being an assemblage artist is a fun job. I get to collect, re-use, recycle and give new life to discarded objects, wood and metal. The found objects I collect can vary from a souvenir Statue of Liberty from New York to a complete set of sun dried animal vertebrae found on the beach in Mexico. I collect when I am out for a walk or traveling different parts of the world.

Tell us a bit about the process you go through to create your work:
I almost always have my camera with me. I use my photos in lots of different ways: in my assemblages, cover them with bees wax, collage them or make books. My files of photographs are categorized under themes such as fences, rust, texture, chairs.

My studio is a visual feast piled high with labeled boxes and drawers stuffed chock o’ block on shelves holding my collections of junk and treasures. Getting out my treasures and creating an assemblage in a favorite box takes me back to a memory of a special trip, person or event. I like to work in series mostly due to the fact that I collect in multiples but I also find my thought process needs more than one piece to be complete. One assemblage piece seems to complete the other.

Shamans Closet by Valerie Arntzen

Shamans Closet (detail) by Valerie Arntzen

Where do you find inspiration for your work, and what keeps you motivated?
My travels definitely inspire me. I collect stories, treasures and photos from my trips. I can start a piece with a found object, box or photo and then it just develops from there. I think I have about 10 years of assemblages worth of stuff in my studio. If I think I have artist block I try to challenge and inspire myself by taking a class, collaborating with another artist, attending art shows, artist talks or going through my library of art books. My biggest motivation at the moment is moving to Amsterdam later this year for six months. I have a show in October there and will be making the art locally as well.

Is there a favorite project or piece of artwork you’ve created? Tell us about it:
One of my favourite pieces I have made is called “Bullets to Buddhas”. It started with a printer spacer box that a friend gave me from his old building in North Vancouver. The spacer box was used to store pieces of wood that you would put between the laid out type (yes one letter at a time!) to create space around each article. I filled the box with bullets I had made by a props person in the film industry and small metal Buddhas I bought at a temple supply store. On the back I carved text from the bible Isaiah 2:4 that talks about turning your swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. My thoughts behind the piece, is that thousands of years later we are still using weapons (bullets) and they should be turned into something peaceful (metal Buddhas). Peace not War!

Bullets to Buddha by Valerie Arntzen

Bullets to Buddha (detail) by Val Arntzen

Tell us about other artists who have inspired you:
I look at Joseph Cornell‘s work a lot. He was an American self taught artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. I love Frida Khalo‘s story and work…against all odds and lots of pain she stayed true to herself as an artist.

Artists that are alive and I admire, show with and talk with are Ken Gerberick (Vancouver) and Bill Thomson (Burnaby). They are both assemblage artists and they both paint as well.

Other than art, what are you particularly excited about right now?
I guess my trip to Europe is what I am most excited about as it won’t all be about art. My husband and I will be learning so much about living in another culture as we usually only travel to places, and not spend so much time there. There will be lots of new adventures and new people in our lives.

What are some of the biggest challenges you feel artists face today?
I am one of the lucky ones who has a studio that I own. Studio space is disappearing or getting too expensive. It is affecting all types of artists from every medium. For those who go the gallery route we are also losing our galleries as they close up for various reasons.

What is special about the arts community where you live? What’s one thing you would change?
I live in a part of Vancouver that has always housed and supported artists. Translation: rent was cheap and places are in the area of mixed use – industrial and residential. Our community supports each other by collaborating, sharing, coming to each others shows. The artists here give back to our community whether it is through teaching children, helping raise money for a project or just generally making our neighbourhood beautiful with their art.

Our biggest hurdle is rentals that are reasonable whether it is a studio, home or live/work studio. As people purchase and renovate and save the old houses the extra space becomes too expensive for artists to rent. We are also getting too many cars in this neighbourhood as more people move here.

Where can people find you both online and offline:
I have an open studio date on the First Saturday of the month. The next ones are February 4th and March 3rd.

Website: www.valeriearntzen.com
Blog: valeriesarttalk.blogspot.com
Contact: 604-817-9130 or valeriearntzen@gmail.com

My friend Val and I were the first to arrive, and Hugh treated us to genmaicha in beautiful handmade mugs while we waited for the rest of our group.

Hugh Kearney is a mixed media painter creating very colourful landscapes, abstract work, and sculpture from found objects. I really enjoyed his talk because he spoke at length about the evolution of his art career and how this affected his process over time.

He mostly works on paper and is heavily influenced by his environment, both natural and handmade. He’s also a musician, as evidenced by the guitars and amps placed around the studio.

These intimate studio visits are a great opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the many artists in Vancouver. The series will continue once a month until June, so stay tuned to the Eastside Culture Crawl facebook page and website for details of these upcoming events.

To clear out some of this older work I’ve decided to continue with the inventory clearance sale I held during First Saturday a few weeks ago. Come find a great deal on one of my metal prints, or maybe an altered book is more your style.

Here are a few of the items I am selling:

Altered Books

In The Shade of The Cherry Blossoms – $300 (regularly $450)

Circle Away & Return – $300 (regularly $550)

Metal Prints

Magnolias 24″ x 12″ Metal Print – $150 (regularly $300)

Red Leaves Above 24″ x 24″ Metal Print – $300 (regularly $500)

Please note: the altered books included in the sale are ones I consider one-off experiments. Most of the altered books are regular price, but are also available for viewing.

The work can be viewed at my East Vancouver studio by appointment. Contact me by Email: rkashe (at) gmail (dot) com or by Phone: 604.787.9237 if there is something you’d like to see.

Making It! explores the professional experiences of various artists through interview and panel discussions. The book examines business practices that have significantly contributed to the development of visual artists’ careers. Chris will deliver a short presentation and be on hand to sign copies of his book and answer questions.

I am one of the artists he interviewed for the book, and I feel honoured to have been included. I met with Chris twice last year, once as part of a panel of artists, and then again for a one-on-one interview. It’s great to see all of his hard work come together in print form. I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.

Date: Thursday, July 28, 2011
Time: 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm
Location: Opus Granville Island
1360 Johnston Street, Vancouver BC

The latest of these murals is on a large stretch of wall behind Britannia High School along the McLean Drive bike route, between Parker and William Street. It depicts a flock of crows in flight, with decorative details of ferns, beetles, and other native flora and fauna. It’s a radical transformation from drab concrete wall to one with so much colour and life. I love it.

The mural is a community project lead by artist Richard Tetrault, and is painted by an team of volunteer students and residents from the area. It was still in progress when I came across it last week.

For more photos of the mural please visit Richard Tetrault’s web site.

I’ll be sharing more about this event as we get closer to the date, but for now check out my Meet Your Maker profile on the Vancouver Maker Faire blog.

The presentation was hilarious because of Felice’s deadpan commentary, but it was also inspiring to hear about how much Booklyn does to nurture and promote their artists. Book arts is alive and well in Brooklyn, and some day I must visit their collection.

Check out the Brooklyn web site to view more of their amazing artist books.

The project was put together by Erin Sinclair and Jason Uglanica, two East Van locals who love their neighbourhood and wanted to organize a community project. They did a really fantastic job of selecting work to include and curating the flow of one photo to the next. The book beautifully captures what life it like in Vancouver’s eclectic east side.

You can purchase the book online through Cargoh.com.

The guy in this photo turned out to be an upstairs neighbour from my building who I never see. It was hilarious to run into him in such a random place. He and his girlfriend were helping out as actors during the filming.

The metal column going down the centre of the staircase was set temporarily for their project of filming the interior of the stairway in a helical movement. I didn’t see much of the filming because they were still setting up but I was really impressed by how much equipment they brought all the way to the bottom of the stairs. The only way in is from the top of the bridge because the city bricked up the bottom entrance ages ago.

There was plenty of ancient graffiti covering the stairs and walls, which indicates people have been able to sneak in there in the past. I wonder if the Department of Eternal Art is still around….?

The whole experience gave me a killer case of vertigo but it was an amazing opportunity to get into this space which is normally restricted from public access.

For more information about Konstantin Dimopoulos’ Blue Trees visit the Vancouver Biennale web site.

Bird on a Wire is a relatively new retail store located on Main Street near Broadway, and it carries nothing but beautiful handmade items by local artists and crafts people. If you haven’t been to the store, it’s a warm welcoming space run by Karen Unger-Strickland. She’s very interested in supporting local artists in what they do, as well as building community around her space. I felt it was a good fit for my work, and I’m confident I’ve put the altered books in good hands.

Bird on a Wire Creations
2535 Main Street
Vancouver, BC – V5T 3E5

Fall store hours:
Monday to Friday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Saturday 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM
Sunday Closed (for now)
Stat Holidays 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM

AMP Studio, featuring Valerie Arntzen, is having a sale of assemblage work and photography. She’ll be selling older work at very reasonable prices, so drop by this Saturday Feb 5, between noon to 5pm, and you may get yourself a deal on artwork.

AMP Studio
800 Keefer Street
Vancouver, BC
604-817-9130 for more info

Val will be hosting this as an ongoing event on the first Saturday of the month, from February until June. So if you can’t make it this weekend, there are more opportunities coming up.

Paul Wong has put together a site-specific installation/performance work in room 103 of the Waldorf Hotel. The room is covered floor to ceiling, windows, furniture, bathroom and all, in bedsheets collected for charities by an activist named Karen.

Karen is back at The Hotel from her most-recent goodwill missions around the globe. Karen will be back at it collecting and recycling the hotel sheets and linens and repurposing them for worthy causes. A well-meaning activist, Karen has contributed our used bedding to numerous charities in Vancouver and around the world, including the homeless, the destitute in the Downtown Eastside and Surrey, and to victims of natural disasters in Haiti and Pakistan.

Boris and I visited the site on Friday before (delicious) dinner downstairs at Nuba. I’d been curious to see this installation but after seeing it in person I’m not really sure how I feel about it.

I liked the aesthetics of the installation, with every surface of the room taken over by the sheets it became this wonderful cocooned space away from the noise of the rest of the hotel. The part I didn’t like was the video projection on the back wall showing the character of Karen going about her work and talking with visitors from what I guess was a previous performance. I felt it took away from the experience to watch her secondhand instead of interacting with Karen in person. But I guess it’s not possible for her to be on site all the time.

Go see it for yourself if you get the chance. Karen’s Room is open 5 to 9 pm, seven days a week, and will be on site at the Waldorf Hotel until Feb. 11, 2011.

Toque
Friday December 3rd, 6 to 9pm
Saturday December 4th, 11 to 4pm
The Western Front, 303 East 8th Avenue

Own Your Own Strathcona
Saturday December 4th, 11am-6pm
Chapel Arts, 304 Dunlevy Avenue

Got Craft?
Sunday December 5th, 10 to 5pm
Royal Canadian Legion, 2205 Commercial Drive at E 6th Avenue

Shiny Fuzzy Muddy Eleven
Saturday December 11, 11am to 9pm
Sunday December 12, 11am to 7pm
Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street

Craftshows can be dangerous because I often find more things I want to buy for myself than gift to others. But it’s more fun than shopping in a mall and with prettier things to buy.

I thought I’d highlight some of the other artists I would go visit if I could. Some of these recommendations are people I’ve visited in previous years and love their work, and others are artists I’ve had the pleasure of meeting since becoming a member of The Crawl. Every single one of them creates amazing work.

Siobhan Humston. Painting & mixed media.
Alley Pad Studio – back lane entrance, 1774 East Hastings Street

Robi Smith, Blue Lantern Studio. Painting & mixed media collage.
1218 East Pender Street, just east of Clark Drive.

Lincoln Heller, Fiveleft Leather. Beautiful handmade leather goods.
The Mergatroid Building, 1177 parker street

(I SERIOUSLY covet this clutch).

Valerie Arntzen. Mixed media & Photography
Paneficio Studios, 800 Keefer Street

Kiku Hawkes. Photography & textiles.
Quattro Pose, 733 Keefer Street

(I’ve always loved this photograph).

Wendy D. Photography
The ARC, Suite 711 – 1701 Powell Street

Jeina Morosoff. Glass & sculpture
William Clark Studios, 1310 William Street at Clark Drive.

And so many more….

I am showing a selection of ten portraits from the Imaginary Girl series, and am excited to finally have more of this work in print. If you would like to attend the opening on Friday November 5th please RSVP on facebook. I would love to see you there, especially if you happen to be a subject of one of the portraits.

Two Women
–> Opening: November 5th, 6 to 8pm
Dates: November 4th to December 15th, 2010.
Firehall Arts Centre
280 East Cordova Street
Vancouver BC V6A 1L3
Viewing Hours: Wed – Sat, 1 to 5pm

Artists frequently get approached to donate their work to charity silent auctions, which means instead of getting money for your valuable inventory, you get a tax receipt. These do not pay bills and I’m sure most artists have plenty to write off as it is.

The Vancouver Timeraiser has a different approach to working both with charities and with artists. Instead of asking the artists to give their work away for free they purchase the work (up to $800!) and use it as a draw to earn volunteer hours for non-profits. They also do a terrific job of promoting the work of the artists right along with the Timeraiser event itself.

I had a really great experience with Timeraiser. They were organized and kept me informed every step of the way – when they needed my work, when the cheque would be available, inclusion in the day of the event, etc. My favorite bit was receiving and signing the contract because it was done online with a digital signature, and I received a copy immediately. It was also written in “human” rather than lawyer speak.

It was fun attending the Timeraiser event and watching as the bidding on my piece made its way to the maximum bid. Almost all of the artwork went really fast. I’m not sure who ended up winning mine but I hope the person loves it as much as I do. The work (pictured above) was the very first altered book I created. I felt a little sad seeing it go.

More than four hundred people attended the Vancouver Timeraiser, and an amazing 6,830 volunteer hours were raised. It makes me feel good that my work contributed to the success of the evening, and I would definitely take part again next year.

Earlier this week Boris and I were lucky enough to see Arcade Fire play at the Pacific Coliseum, which is on the grounds of the PNE. We sat in a private box with a great view of the concert, and also enjoyed catered food. It was the closing party for the Container Art show, and all of the artists with their favorite +1 were in attendance. It was an awesome way to conclude the whole experience.

Container Art was a paid gig which included a generous artist fee, a materials fee, an exhibitors ID for unlimited access to the PNE grounds, and four free passes to share with others. There was also a HUGE amount of exposure because the PNE draws a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people. The Arcade Fire concert was just icing on the cake.

Is this a typical experience for emerging artists? Not at all. But it demonstrates the potential for businesses to work with artists, promote their work, and compensate them appropriately for it. It’s the kind of situation I would like to see more of because our government certainly isn’t supporting the arts, so why not big and small business?

I am very grateful to Peter Male and Caryn Garder at the PNE, as well as Valerie Artzen, for the opportunity to be a part of Container Art.

From Shangri-La to Shangri-La, by Ken Lum.
Location: Vancouver Art Gallery offisite space at the Shangri-La
Details on the VAG web site.

Meeting, by Wang Shugang.
This is one of eight such sculptures placed in a circle, facing inwards.
Location: Cardero Park, Coal Harbour
Details on the Vancouver Biennale web site.

We, by Jaume Plensa.
This is a small scale version of the sculpture in the Biennale.
Location: Sunset Beach Park
Details on the Vancouver Biennale web site.

Ceramic Forms, by Yee Soo-Kyung.
Location: Cardero Park, Coal Harbour
Details on the Vancouver Biennale web site