Hot One Inch Action Vancouver 2011

It's been so busy recently (helloooo, Christmas!) that I haven't had a chance to share a few pics from the Hot One Inch Action button show. Until now!

I was happy to see another dessert button in the show! And even more pleased that they placed our buttons side by side! :)

You can check out all the Vancouver 2011 buttons on the H1"A site.

The show was a lot of fun. Lotsa people, lotsa buttons - even some brought in from previous years! After we left the busy gallery, we were happy to see that the delicious Nicli Antica Pizzeria - where they make real Neapolitan pizza - was just a couple of doors down. So it was a good excuse to celebrate with a magherita pizza and wine! Mmm...

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Dust off your lapels...

A reminder that the Vancouver edition of the Hot One Inch Action button show is tomorrow night!

Did I tell you that the button design I submitted is going to be in the show? Well, it is! Pretty cool. Mine is the one with the slice of pie, called "I Heart Pie." I originally designed it as a part of the button collection for guests at my wedding this summer. Lotsa pie, losta love.

You can already see a gallery of the buttons from Seattle's H1"A show in November, but you'll have to go to the show tomorrow night to see -- and trade! -- the Vancouver buttons in person.

Hot One Inch Action - Vancouver 2011Saturday November 26, 2011 from 8-11pm
Gallery Gachet, 88 East Cordova St, Vancouver, BC
with DJ Darwin Meyers
Invite your friends on Facebook

The Vancouver show features button art by: Ada Fu, Adelle Bueno, Amanda McCuaig, Andrea Hooge, Anne Emberline, Becky McEachern, Ben Worth, Brian Bredonia, Carelle B. Dunn, Carita Ho, Charles Ferguson, Colin Moore, Dacosta!, David Camisa, Dusan Postolovic, Eileen Soo, Eleanor Rosenberg, Ensoe, Erica Lapadat-Janzen, Evin Gibson, Far Sebastian, Gayle Koyanagi, Jacqueline Klobucar, Janette Ussher, Jen Sheppard, Jenn Brisson, Joshua Johnson, Kalynn Kallweit, Kathryn Mussallem, kdot, Kel/Kel, Kris G. Brownlee (k.g.b.), Laura Eveleigh, M.el. Jensen, Maisie Lam, Matt Bowen, Mauve Pagé, Meagan Mah, Megan Majewski, Mélanie Kimmett, Monika Koch, Nicole Pinkerton, Rhys Edwards, Robin Konstabaris, Robin Thompson, Russell Alton, Shauna Eve, Siobhan Rich, Skyler Luke Punnett, and Skytox.

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A Sea of Sunflower Seeds

On now at the Tate Modern, artist Ai Weiwei has created a room full of sunflower seeds... over 100 million of them. Wow.

Actually, double wow because the sunflower seeds are actually individually handmade porcelain replicas of seeds.



Since that video was made, the Tate has roped off the exhibit, as they've had so many visitors that the seeds are getting damaged and the ceramic dust could be a health risk.

Ai Weiwei's video about the artwork is really interesting. It highlights the amazingly extensive amount of work that went into creating it.



Read more about the exhibit on the Tate's website.

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Miranda July's "Eleven Heavy Things"

"We’re just hugging for the picture.
When we’re done I’ll walk away quickly.
It's almost over."

I'm loving Miranda July's new art installation in NYC's Union Square.

The collection is called "Eleven Heavy Things" and consists of empty pedestals with just a few handwritten words. Alone they don't make much sense, but once they draw people in, it's a whole other story. The pieces invite you to interact with them - standing on top or sticking your head or a limb into a hole or nook - and then they really come to life.

Like a lot of her other works, these pieces are a balance between humour and something a little more serious and melancholy.

"What I look like when I'm lying."

You can see a lot more photos that people have posted on Flickr tagged with "Eleven Heavy Things".

Read more about "Eleven Heavy Things" on Flavorwire and an interview with Miranda July about the project on ArtInfo.

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Low Tide

Vancouver textile artist Kirsten Chursinoff has a new exhibit opening this week. If you've ever walked along the beach at low tide, and crouched over a small pool to see what's living there, you're going to enjoy this show...

Entitled 'Low Tide', this collection is inspired by the amazing creatures living along the shores of British Columbia: anemones, birds, starfish, and more.

Low Tide

The exhibit celebrates the details of tide pools and treasures of beach combing with the traditional and contemporary techniques of embroidery and quilting. By layering and combining materials such as cotton, silk and wool, the artist uses the natural texture and unique surfaces of thread and cloth to their full potential.

The opening reception of 'Low Tide' is on Thursday, June 17, 6-8pm at the Craft Council Gallery Crafthouse at 1386 Cartwright Street on Granville Island, Vancouver. Kirsten's also giving an artist talk on Tuesday, June 22, 7pm (RSVP to kirsten at chursinoff dotcom).

Keep up with Kirsten's work on her blog and flickr.

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Of Art, History, Multiculturalism and Origami...

After reading on the Times site about a never-published Alice in Wonderland chapter (!) - with a related letter that's up for sale (£15,000 to £20,000!), I happened to notice a story about a new statue that's just been unveiled in London, on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth.

A play on traditional statues, this one's a ship ... in bottle!

Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle was created by British artist Yinka Shonibare. Unusual and whimsical, this is just the kind of statue I'd really enjoy coming across (and I think a trip to London is long overdue!). What's more, there's also an interesting history about the textiles used in the original ship...

[...] Shonibare’s model of Nelson’s HMS Victory (his flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar) is gaudy with sails made from his trademark Dutch wax fabrics. “The Dutch wax fabrics were originally Indonesian-influenced fabrics, known as batik. The Dutch tried the Indonesian market with industrially produced versions and then subsequently [when this failed to work] they turned to West Africa, where they’re now known as African textiles,” Shonibare explains. “It’s an apt metaphor for understanding that behind a fixed idea or stereotype there are other complex layers.

“It’s very much a contemporary phenomenon that we take what we want from different cultures,” he says. “We might eat Indian today or hang out in Spain tomorrow. I celebrate that, it’s not unique to me just because of my African origins. It’s the way that most British people live their lives now. In a sense that’s what this piece is celebrating, it’s the legacy of Nelson. Nelson fought this battle against Napoleon and that meant that for the next 100 years or so the British had control of the seas. Which meant that the Empire could prosper and expand, and that process really did take in other cultures. One consequence of that is the very multicultural city that we have today.” -- from the Times article

Another fabulous thing about this statue (as well as another crafty tie-in!) is that the launch also comes with - prepare yourself - celebratory origami! Yes. You can download and print a PDF with the ship's Dutch wax fabric patterns on it, and follow the instructions to build your very own ship. Bottle not included.

Photos courtesy of failing_angel on Flickr (CC). You can see more photos in the set here.

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More at MOV

Not only is The Museum of Vancouver (aka MOV) screening Handmade Nation this Friday, they're also hosting another DIY Night!

MOV AT NIGHT: DIY @ MOV 2
April 09, 2010 / 7:00 PM

Back by popular demand! A social-crafting night featuring workshops and a craft market by Birkeland Bros. Wool, Collage Collage, and Got Craft?.

An event for craft newbies and seasoned creators.
Music – Bar – Free Materials – Workshops
$15, Members free

The first DIY Night was lots of fun. I could hardly believe the line-up to get into the event! The museum was filled to the brim with creative, crafty people. My advice: get there early! Most of the supplies were already taken before I got there (except for the insanely huge pile of yarn!). But there was still lots of paper and pens left, so I grabbed a pink marker and spread out the floor to draw.... I left my drawing there (on purpose), and guess what? The MOV used it on their website to advertise the new DIY Night! Nice!!


Kirsti Wakelin (who also designed the Art Of Craft exhibit) posted a great set of photos from the first DIY @ MOV event up on Flickr. And if you haven't yet seen the Art of Craft exhibit, this is the perfect chance to catch it before it closes on April 11th.

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DIY @ MOV

I'm really looking forward to this event on Thursday: DIY @ MOV: A Night of Social Crafting at the Vancouver Museum.

DIY @ MOV: A Night of Social Crafting
January 21, 2010 / 7:00 PM

Come celebrate the creativity and community of the growing DIY craft, art and design movement in Vancouver.

Generously sponsored by OPUS and Blim, there’ll be materials and workshops in a range of art and craft media from paper to yarn. Workshops (listed below) will begin at 8pm. There will also a mini Got Craft market, along with music, snacks and local brews.

Activities are geared so that everyone can participate - from the craft newbie to seasoned creators.

Blim: button-making and screen printing workshops
Knitgirl: Knitting and Craftivism
Kirsti Wakelin: drawing/ exquisite corpse.

If you’re super-proud of what you make at DIY@MOV, MOV is providing exhibit space so that your creation can be on public display in a museum. Think of the bragging rights!

$15 - Tickets available online or at the door.
MOV Members Free

The event is part of the MOV's new exhibit, Art of Craft, which runs until April 14, 2010. The show sounds great - it features craftwork from both Canada and the Republic of Korea:

Art of Craft showcases 173 spectacular fine craft works in three parts:

Unity & Diversity: Selected Works - 75 pieces from across Canada recently on display at the 2009 Cheongju International Craft Biennale in the Republic of Korea.

By Hand/BC and Yukon - 51 pieces from Canada’s West Coast with a focus on the artists’ creative processes and studio environments.

Craft from the Republic of Korea - 47 pieces demonstrating the excellence of traditional and contemporary crafts.

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it's a sailor's life for me

Apparently I have water on the brain. Or pirates. Or trash...

Two articles caught my eye today - both about living on the high seas: I Bought a Houseboat on ReadyMade.com - and Barging In to Venice on NYMag.com.



The first story is written by a guy who went ahead and bought a houseboat - which seems like a fine idea! - only to discover that the hull was made of trash...

My New York friends thought that running off with my girlfriend to live in a houseboat on the San Francisco Bay was a romantic fantasy come to life. But I knew the reality, and it was starting to smell.

And the other article is about how a group of NYC artists crashed the Venice Biennale - sailing in on boats made out of garbage straight from New York City...

This crew is Swoon’s big punk-rock family, and even though they’ll likely be broke after this project, they’ll take care of each other. “The culture of eating and building out of Dumpsters is not an endpoint, not what any of us wants to be doing,” Swoon says. “It’s about living off a bad culture that we wish didn’t exist and making the resources that contribute to that situation no longer available to you.” She curls a lock of hair around her finger. “You start to build something like these boats, and you can’t believe it yourself, but enthusiasm has a way of sparking other people,” she says. “What this project has shown me is that there is no place for pessimistic disbelief in the world; it’s just not useful. Once you’ve decided to be on the side of audacious wonder, beauty, and joy, you can’t go back.”

Interesting projects, both. Ahoy, mateys!

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plush you! 2008!

Plush You! starts tomorrow! Since 2005, Seattle's Schmancy store has been hosting an annual exhibition of plush, softies, stuffed toys, or whatever you like to call them.



You can spy a few of the super softies in Schmancy's flickr set. Above is a cotton monster by Cotton Monster.

But I'm pretty sure there are going to be more items in the show, as I've already spied a few awesome photos in my contacts' flickr streams, including this fabulous entry by Hine (note the three cameras and three legs!):



Also this beautiful rhino beetle by Beetlegirl Design:



For more info on Plush You!, check out the website, blog and Schmancy's flickr.

And if you're in Seattle, be sure to prep by reading Schmancy's list of crafty shopping destinations in Seattle (which also includes tips on where to get cupcakes).

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we all scream for...

Two sweet, sweet things I enjoy:

1. collaborative projects
2. ice cream

I think most people would say the same.

But could most people handle both of these sweets together in one amazing combination? No. For that, we humans need to rely on a higher form of life... Yes, I'm talking about Ice Cream People.

Enter the Ice Cream People project, created by Brian Butler.

Here's the mission statement:

The intent of this project to get the Ice Cream Person recognized among the greatest of supernatural beings, (right up there with Bigfoot, Lochness, and UFOs).

Right now I'm collecting artist renditions as evidence. I'm mailing postcards with a cone template printed on it, for fellow advocates to complete and return. The postcards will be archived online at IceCreamPeople.org, and I'm planning the real-life exhibition now.

Check out the growing gallery of ice cream people drawings, as well as the blog, where ice cream people are spotted in their natural environments.


Get all the deets on how to participate here.

Pictured here are the fine ice cream people of Dick Daniels, Mohamed from 826 Boston (Go 826!) and Brian Butler, respectively.

Mmm.

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if you like ice cream sandwiches and recess...

A couple of artists I really like have new shows opening in Vancouver this week.



Anselmo Swan: New Paintings
at Gallery Jones, 1725 West Third Avenue
September 4 to 27, 2008

Swan creates ultra-realistic paintings of ice cream sandwiches, hostess cupcakes, krispy kreme mugs, cups of coffee, cupcakes and other such vices.



Julie Morstad: Touch Wood and Whistle
at Atelier Gallery, 2421 Granville Street
September 4 to 28, 2008

Morstad's delicately rendered lines and assured sense of colour evoke an eerie nostalgia as she channels illustrations from children's books and exposes their underlying darkness. She states that when creating her whimsically wicked ink and watercolour drawings, "hazy memories of childhood fuel much of my recent work, and the narratives of fairytales and folklore are ones that I have drawn upon repeatedly. Being a child of the age of the commoditized and marketable fairytale, my drawings reflect both an unabashed delight in the preciousness of this narrative as well as a conscious subversion of the same." - Atelier Gallery

Both galleries are hosting openings this Thursday, September 4, starting at 6pm.

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back to school

Tomorrow's the day: back to school.

Even if you're done with your edumacation, the day probably still resonates with you. Does it fill you with dread? Or sadness that the summer's over? Or are you excited, ready with your best outfit and your shiny new school supplies?

I bet Calgary's Uppercase Gallery is in the latter camp.

Their current exhibit, Old School will probably make you into a keener, too.

The "Old School" theme will celebrate the aesthetics of twentieth century education through an art exhibition and companion book, as well as curated objects. It is inspired by vintage flash cards, old desks, biology class, science fairs, crayons, card catalogs, textbooks, class photos, teachers, yearbooks, lunchboxes, gym class, maps, lockers, report cards, film strips, recess, spelling, chalk... and the list goes on!

In addition to drawing, painting and collage, we will be exploring old school technology such as typewriters, mimeographs, photocopying, film projections and polaroid, toy camera, and Holga photography.

Uppercase has curated an long, impressive and inspiring list of artists to contribute to the project, including some of my faves: Frank Chimero, Julia Rothman, Lisa Congdon, Ray Fenwick, Sandra Juto, Something's Hiding in Here... Just exploring some of the links in that participants' list will keep you busy for a long, long, time.

Uppercase is also running some fun events, such as silhouette workshops and spelling bees. Get the full schedule as a PDF.

Now here's your homework:
Read the details and see a list of participants.
View the gallery of artwork.
Shop for stylin school supplies and buy the book.
Study photos of Old School here and on flickr.
Read the Uppercase Gallery blog.

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an evening at emily carr

The Emily Carr grad show was a good one this year.

Here were a few of my faves from the show...

Jennifer McGregor - House and Favorable Company
If you live in Vancouver, this one should resonate with you - and make you laugh. "Classic" Vancouver houses are photographed alongside matching desserts: a pink and white stucco house with a trifle, a yellow thatched roof house with a nanaimo bar, and so on.


Claire Henry
I love Claire's pottery. These little dioramas are filled with patterns, owls, miniature vases and other treasures.


Nicole Leong
These dragons are busting out of their teapots. To make them even better, Nicole planted them in shops in Chinatown to observe them in their natural habitat.


Lauren Mycroft - The meaning gets lost somewhere between you and me
Lauren embroidered spam and parts of emails onto dozens of sheets of crumpled paper, with threads and words hanging loose and tangled all over the place. People couldn't help but get up close and try read the mysterious messages.


Alana Kyle - The same, but not
Details! Details! And patience! Hundreds and hundreds of girls in striped shirts - the ultimate "spot the differences" game.


Sally Hutcheon - Braids and Bangs
I love the texture and patterns of these drawings. Elegant and beautiful and a little odd, too; always a nice combination.

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a company of parrots, a parliament of owls, a murder of crows...

Birds of a feather flock together.

The Little Bird Project gathered together almost 200 drawings of birds from designers, illustrators and street artists from all around the world.



Organized by Daniel Arendt and Christian Lindemann - both of whom are awesome designers and illustrators in their own right - the artworks were recently displayed in shows in Germany. Lucky for us, there's also a gallery online, too. Proceeds from the Little Birds Project poster go to support UNICEF.




The Little Bird Project is strongly recommended if you're a fan single-animal/multi-artist projects like the sheep market or the essence of rabbit.

NOT recommended if Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds gives you the spooks.

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of artists and snowmen

The Guardian asked some artists to redefine the traditional snowman. Goodbye three white balls with a carrot nose...

Here's a gallery of the results.

This upside-down one is by David Shrigley is one of my faves.




This fabric one by Yinka Shonibare is also pretty great.

For the Guardian's full interviews about the artistic snowmen, go here.

And here's the one I made over the weekend from mini sugar oranges! Hee!



Orange you glad it's Christmas?

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vibrant elements show

Textile and bead artist Kirsten Chursinoff, whom I've blogged about before, has a show on now in Vancouver, along with painter Jewell Shaw. I hadn't seem Jewell's artwork before, but the colour palette of the show's promo piece (pictured here on the right) is gorgeous.

“Vibrant Elements” is on at the West Vancouver Memorial Library at 1950 Marine Drive in West Vancouver (map), and runs until the end of November.

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hallowe'en on my mind

I just came across this photo I took a few months ago at the Emily Carr Institute grad show... the subject matter seemed appropriately gothic for this fine Hallowe'en holiday.

"Prayer Beads (what are your mantras?)" was created by Chris Walker, a fine arts student at Emily Carr. It's made up of dozens of porcelain skulls, and it's huge. Each skull was pretty much life-size, I think. This was one of my favourite pieces in the show.

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you're the one, all right

On the river Loire in France, there is a giant rubber duckie. He is 26 metres tall. He knows no borders and has no political agenda - instead, he is proported to have healing properties. I know my day got brighter just seeing a picture of him.

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back to the future

Katrina Moorhead goes back to the future in her upcoming show at the James Harris Gallery in Seattle. From October 4th to November 10th, they'll be displaying the artist's works, including a wooden replica pair of doors from that infamous car, the Delorian.



But it's not all Michel J. Fox and "I'll get you McFly!"... turns out the Delorean is full of history and politics.

Monumentalizing Jon DeLorean's controversial automobile factory in Belfast, the doors lay lifeless on the gallery floor. Constructed in the late 1970s and aided by British government incentives, the factory was designed at the height of political and religious tensions in the region. As such, the factory was designed with two entrances: one for Catholics and one for Protestants. Once inside, workers came together to assemble DeLorean's highly futuristic sports car but, despite the joining of efforts, the plant was soon closed partly due to a poor business model and partly due to fraud that had gone undetected by DeLorean’s auditors. In the sculpture On or about December 1981, the artist lovingly recreates these gull wing doors out of wood. The abstracted forms and their gesture, akin to that of clipped wings, are a tribute to the workers and the events that loomed large while the artist was growing up in Northern Ireland.

- from the James Harris Gallery website

Incidentally, you can now get a Delorean made for you from original parts by a company in Texas.

And, as always, you can read up on the whole Delorean backstory on the website of the future's past, wikipedia.

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