Vancouver Spring this and that II

Posted on April 24, 2013 by LisaM

Springtime in Vancouver – incredible beautiful flowers and cloudless skies (at least this day). I love this garden bed at George Wainborn Park – it’s always colourful and always full of a variety of blooms.

Yesterday, while walking Brubin along the seawall, we saw this big heron fishing. It is really great to see these birds back in the area, a testament to the cleanliness of these waters now.

Over the winter I have been ice-skating at Kits with the “older adults” … and Maureen organised a birthday party for those in the group turning 75 and older this year, an event attended by about 40 people at the arena. Here are some photos of those fit folks.

Most of these people are in their 80s and had never skated as children; the woman in the red helmet took up speed skating at 74. The fellow second from the right took up skating 7 years ago. However, some, like Rusty (second from left), have skated their entire lives.

I have also been visiting the Beaty Museum to take photographs of their Tetrapod Collection, of which this sealion skeleton is a part. Here it looks as though its about to bite Lori Latremouille’s surrealist pastel work.

One of this Spring’s brilliant brainwaves was to get electric assist bikes and a trailer for Brubin. We’ve tested the trailer out a couple of times on the seawall; he much prefers it to the previous wire basket he was required to ride in.

I have also been volunteering with the West End Seniors Network at Barclay Manor, where I am the art studio facilitator one day a week. This group of active people come together to paint once or twice a week; several of them also show their work in various venues.

Of course, skating and cycling are wonderful on a day like this!

I saw a nice show of artists’ posters at the Burnaby Art Gallery, including these by Jack Shadbolt from the 70s.

And these by one of my old printmaking instructors, Ron Eckert.

A few images from Elizabeth MacKenzie’s exhibition were still in evidence on the walls.

The photo below shows Brubin and Aran at rest.

See more pictures here.

Vancouver Spring This and That

Posted on April 22, 2013 by LisaM

You can just see Ty in the shadows of these amazing flowering cherry trees in our neighbourhood – two blocks of incredible pink profusion.

Since my sister Tracey moved to Saskatoon, there has not been as much reason for us to visit the North Shore but this day, the North Shore Art Crawl called to us; we took the Seabus over to visit the Lower Lonsdale studios.

The fifteen minute crossing gave us a close up view of some of the many huge freighters in the harbour, their red shapes contrasting with the surrounding blue of the mountains and ocean.

Here you can see one of the floating drydocks of Seaspan Shipyards.

The Lonsdale Quay is nice but has never really taken off as a place to be; it’s a bit of a pale shadow of the more popular Granville Island. Too bad because on a good weather day, it’s beautiful.

A row of restaurants still line the bottom of Lonsdale and we sampled the breakfast goodies at one, Raglan’s; unfortunately, for my dining pleasure, so did a group of loud and hungover patrons, whose uninteresting conversation impinged too greatly on my consciousness …

Across the way are the newly-refurbished buildings of the old Burrard Dry Dock. These, formerly the home of a bustling ship-building enterprise, are now empty and waiting for municipal government money to be brought back to life. Beginning back in the 50s and 60s my uncle and several of my parents’ friends worked their whole lives in these shipyards.

Some of those folks may be included in this enlargement of an old photo of the workers.

Below are some pictures of the shipyards that I took several years ago, after they had been closed down and before the resurrection.

The pier is beautiful; strangely, though, there is no life saving equipment in evidence here.

New condos have been erected here, yet, on this beautiful day, hardly anyone was in evidence. Are these places vacant, we wondered, like the ghost towers of Coal Harbour?

The rear end of a Victory class ship is still standing here, all wrapped up in a white plastic bag … who knows why.

We visited the 106 West First Street building where several artists’ studios are located. On the hallway wall are a couple of frescoes; this one shows the Lynn Valley trolley car, part of ancient history around here.

The Holland/Croft studio was the largest and most impressive. These folks have a teaching classroom set up in their space, complete with some interesting props.

Further up Lonsdale Avenue, we stopped in at CityScape’s Nude Figure show.

Strangely, for all the talk of Lower Lonsdale being revived by new housing developments, the place seemed quieter than it was ten years ago when Tracey lived here. Opus has moved, the Petrov Gallery has moved and several storefronts were vacant … not sure what’s going on over there.

See more photos here.

Heartfelt 2013 at the Vancouver Print Room

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Lisa

Torrie Groening, a Vancouver artist who’d been living in San Francisco for quite a while, has relocated back to Vancouver and set up a new studio and gallery in Strathcona, the Vancouver Print Room, in an old converted church at 832 Jackson Street. It’s a fabulous space and a great venue for her first curated exhibition Heartfelt 2013, a reprise and extension of a 1997 exhibition of print works on the theme of love.

Opening night saw lots of Vancouver’s artists and friends gathered to view the salon-style exhibition. Since it was a coolish evening, I thought the blue biking gloves were a necessary touch, even though they made my hands look like gigantic cartoon-character mitts.

As you can see from the photo below, the studio area is large, with lots of room for Torrie’s props and equipment.

For more information on the Heartfelt show, click here. To read an essay by Doris Shadbolt on the original 1997 printmaking project, click here. See more pictures here.

Invoking Venus, Feathers and Fashion

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Lisa

Marsha, Ty, and Dana at the opening of Invoking Venus, Feathers and Fashion.

INVOKING VENUS, Feathers and Fashion features photo-based images by Catherine Stewart and accessories from the clothing collections of Claus Jahnke and Ivan Sayers.

Using bird specimens from the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, Vancouver-based Stewart explores the role colour, patterning and adornment play in courtship and attraction. Through the juxtaposition of images of bird plumage with images of vintage fabrics and actual feathered fashion accessories, the parallels in human and bird behaviour become apparent. The lush and sensuous images magnify details in avian plumage and vintage fabrics, revealing a multitude of rich and varied hues that combine to create the colours, textures and patterns observed when viewing birds and humans at their finest.

“On the surface, birds and humans are very different. Yet, if you really observe these two groups you can start to draw many parallels in their behaviour,” explains Yukiko Stranger-Jones, Exhibits Manager, Beaty Biodiversity Museum. “Through pairs of images, Stewart engages us in a visual dialogue that examines the role adornment plays in the courtship of both birds and humans.” (text from the Beaty website)

The opening reception included a fashion show featuring historical clothing and accessories from the collections of Ivan Sayers and Claus Jahnke. The show was hosted by Ivan Sayers and explored the history of feathers in fashion. Clothing from about the 1880s to the 1970s was worn by a series of models who strutted their stuff on the red carpet running beneath the gigantic whale’s skeleton in the Museum’s atrium.

Seated right below the whale’s huge jaw bones, we contemplated the possibility of being crushed if the “big one”, the huge megathrust earthquake overdue in these parts, were unhappily to occur this evening.

In his comments Sayers pointed out the action and reaction of clothing designers whose dresses became longer or shorter, tighter or looser, bigger or smaller depending upon the changing political and social status of women through time. (It was difficult to get a photograph that was in focus – the models did not stand still for very long).

Similarly the hats alternated between gigantic feathered confections and small, close-to-the-head caps and bows.

One of the most bizarre hats included the head and feathers of a small animal on its front face. A break in the proceedings allowed the audience a chance to view Catherine’s photos works hung along a corridor framing the Beaty collection.

I rather like the Francis-Bacon-like effect in the picture below. See more pictures here. More information about the show is here.

Autumn in Vancouver

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Lisa

Now that Winter is here I can only dream about the glorious Fall we had in Vancouver this year. Here’s the local wildlife enjoying a nibble at Beaver Lake in Stanley Park.

The pool at Second Beach has been left to the birds.

Drift on Main seems to be losing energy but I did enjoy seeing Julie McIntyre’s studio space where she’s working on some small-format mixed media prints.

I have been documenting the towers rising in our neighbourhood; this crane is building the condos where the old Cecil Hotel at the end of Granville Bridge used to be.

This gigantic tower is rising on Pacific Street across from George Wainborn Park, leaving us only a tiny sliver of False Creek water view.

November means the Eastside Culture Crawl, the vast annual cultural extravaganza in which hundreds of artists’ studios are open to the public for a three day art blitz. Torrie Groening’s new space at 832 Jackson is fabulous, an old church converted into studio, exhibition, and living spaces. I was surprised to see glasses exactly like mine in one of her large format images.

Torrie and Steven have done an amazing job of fixing up this building; it contains Torrie’s archive of prints, her equipment, and lots of room to work.

The huge rabbit warren that is 1000 Parker is always an art feast; here are a few samples of the smorgasbord on display: Christian Dahlberg’s neon photos,

Bluegrass music in the studio,

contemporary surrealist painting,

sculpture by David Robinson,

and green art, living plants displayed in frames and shadow boxes.

We watched a glass blowing demo at the Mergatroid Building, reminding me of my early ventures at this art in a garage studio in Dunbar, the products of which I still have on hand. Amazingly I managed not to set myself alight while working with the molten glass.

A hopeful sign adorns a locker in the Purple Thistle Art Cooperative studio.

Ty was beginning to lose steam at this point.

Apparently there is still a market for handprinted silkscreen T-shirts.

I was happy to catch up with my old friend Maggie Manning at the William and Clark studios.

Monika Blichar’s goth/comic art made me smile.

This fellow creates art from ordinary industrial wire, bending and working it to create sculptures and gigantic armatures for paper lanterns.

Wendy’s large-scale lotus paintings are serene and lovely.

Esther and Richard at 800 Hawks had some lively double-exposed photographs, woodcuts, and mixed media on mylar works on display in their great Strathcona studio.

Years and years ago I was involved in a life drawing class run by Richard out of the Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings.

At the Razstone Studio on Powell street I enjoyed seeing Ken Clarke’s concrete sculptures of grotesques.

The Crawl is always a mixed bag of stuff but what a stimulating treat; I really love seeing what everyone is doing and the vibe generated by the thousands of artists and art buffs who support the annual event.

See more pictures here.

Still Summer …

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Lisa

Here are a few pictures I took recently of rides around town and along the seawall.

A convoy of big red trucks was parked near Science World one night for an unknown reason.

I had noticed the colourful blue stripes on the base of the Cambie Bridge pilons before; what I did not realise is that they are a public art project designed to demonstrate how high the waters are projected to rise in False Creek as a result of global climate change.

As you can see, the water rise will be significant … and might happen sooner than we think, if the arctic continues to melt quickly – frightening.

Now that we no longer have a car, it’s bicycle commuting for me. And rather than the huge vessels of BC Ferries, my water transport is the Cyquabus across the Creek to Emily Carr.

Below are a few pics that I took from the Painting on the Edge juried show at the Federation of Canadian Artists Gallery on Granville Island.

From our place, we can still see a little slice of water and a tiny bit of Granville Island in between the towers that continue to proliferate downtown.

When the tide is low, it’s really fascinating to see the well-demarcated ecological niches of the creatures populating False Creek.

This bike tune-up guy is conveniently located on the seawall right near Science World.

This flower bed in George Wainborn Park is just amazing; I have no idea what these purple flowers are called but they have grown enormously in the last month of good weather.

AARRRRR – the Pirate Pub is a favourite pit stop along the seawall.

Two salty sea dogs on the sea wall ~

We saw this guy just floating around in the fountain at George Wainborn Park one beautiful late afternoon.

And these Fringe Festival folks waiting for the aquabus.

Malaspina Gallery has a really interesting show of print works by Kathy Slade and Lisa Robertson up – we stopped in to the opening.

BIMPE VII, the Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition’s seventh incarnation, opened on Thursday night at the Federation Gallery, offering 400 small print works from all over the world. Check it out if you have the chance – lot’s of great stuff.

I am really enjoying riding my bike around town; last week, with a group of cyclists, I rode out to Dundarave across the Lion’s Gate Bridge – joy!

See more pics here.

Summer in the City II

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Lisa

Cycling through downtown Vancouver is one of my favourite things to do, and I love Chinatown, Strathcona, and the area around the docks. When wandering through the back alleys there I am always fascinated to see how the street art has changed and developed.

This small labyrinth is tucked away near Union Street.

Many murals grace the walls of buildings and bridges down here; this first nations sun is part of a large image beneath an overpass near the old Sugar Factory.

On Alexander Street, in Gastown right near Chill Winston’s restaurant, is the gallery and studio of Choboter, an artist whose name was previously unknown to me. His works are vaguely reminiscent of Pollock’s drips, although more kitschy, with women’s faces and bodies embellished upon the paint drips and drops.

One of the blocks along Hastings is constantly metamorphosing. Every time I ride by, another piece of old time Vancouver has disappeared to be replaced by yet more restaurants, coffee shops, and palaces of consumption.

SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts faces off against the not-so-Regal Hotel across the street, its windows usually full of interesting art.

I have been photographing the alleyways between Cambie and Richards for a few years now; each time I return, the images have changed. Having been away from the area for a year, it was interesting to see what has happened with the street art and graffiti.

The alley behind the Dominion Building yielded some cool stencil art.

These large-scale wall stencils represent the contemporary evolution of printmaking art. Rather than the small, rather intimate aesthetic of traditional printmaking, these works are big, bold, and often have a socially conscious point to make.

However, there’s also lots of the usual guys with huge guns, death’s heads, and rampaging monsters thing …

A few weeks ago we checked out Tomoyo’s small installation Yearning at Solder and Sons books and cafe, 241 Main Street. Originally from Japan, Tomoyo has lived in Vancouver many years. She also spends part of the year in Ladakh, India where she is involved with the Tibetan community. Her drawings speak to issues of community, spirituality, and the injustices perpetrated on the people of Tibet.

Solder and Sons is right near the Main Street viaduct, from the top of which is a great view out over the docks, the harbour, and the North Shore mountains.

Riding along the Carrall Street bikeway from False Creek to Gastown, we pass the Sun Yat Sen Park and Gardens, recently voted the World’s Top Urban garden. It is an oasis of calm and green beauty in a sea of concrete.

From the gardens we can see the revolving “W” of the former Woodwards Department Store, now the epicentre of downtown eastside Vancouver gentrification.

While vestiges of the gritty downtown eastside remain, such as the West Hotel, the areas untouched by real estate hipsters are shrinking in the face of an influx of expensive doughnut shops and trendy restaurants.

At the yearly Powell Street Festival, the remains of Vancouver’s original Japanese community gather in Oppenheimer Park (between Powell Street and the waterfront).

See more pics here and here.

Summer in the City

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Lisa

Summer in the city means sun (we hope), cycling, and art.

Art Day in Cedar, south of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, involved painting, collage, and recycled materials, with each of us given the same images and objects with which to being our creations.

(For extra points, can you spot the common element(s) in these works?) It is always interesting to see how different the final products are when people begin at the same starting point.

The trip over and back on BC Ferries (now that I don’t have to commute on them any more – yippee!) was beautiful on a brilliant sunny day.

The opening of Collaborative Drawings by Kitty Blandy, Geoff Carter, and Michael Bjornson was great. I love the concept and the work – here are a few glimpses.

During an interlude of clouds, Barb and I rode out to UBC along the seawall and through Kits Point, where we stopped to read the scribbles of locals protesting the Harper Government’s short-sighted decision to close the Kits Coast Guard Station.

Most writers were not very complimentary about Harper, his government, or the conservatives in general.

Cycling around Vancouver is always a joy, but even more so when the weather is great.

Yesterday I was surprised to see that Soul Food, the downtown eastside community food garden, has expanded to the formerly empty parking lot near BC Place.

A huge garden of produce to feed local residents, grown and managed by locals and sold at farmers markets around town, has sprung up over the last six months – great idea!

Science World has a show on until the end of August focusing on the “genius of Leonardo”, mostly containing modern recreations of the machines and ideas recorded in his notebooks. There’s also a big section devoted to Leonardo’s most famous work, the Mona Lisa; however, none of the items on display are actually by Leonardo. All are photographic reproductions. Since I had already seen most of these before, more interesting to me was a small display of jewel-like insect art by a Singaporean man whose name escapes me.

See more here.

On our ride around Strathcona looking at murals and street art Barb and I also stopped at the original Soul Food Garden on Hastings next to the Astoria Hotel to see how it was growing.

After riding through the downtown eastside, we took the Main Street Viaduct down to Crab Park

and then under Canada Place, up to the convention centre,

along Coal Harbour and through the Park, over the Burrard Bridge to Go Fish on the waterfront at Granville Island.

Gotta love this city when the sun’s out. See more pics here.

Merida en Domingo

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Lisa

It is often hard to tell what’s behind the old walls here in the colonial town of Merida – could be a fabulous mansion, a car garage, a building supplies store, or a parking lot. And many of the houses in Centro are abandoned, decrepit, and falling down, perhaps waiting to be reclaimed.

Wanting to experience Merida en Domingo, the pedestrian friendly market and manifestation day in the historical centre of Merida, Ty and I jumped on one of the local buses down 61st.

After being dropped downtown, we waited while all the vendors set up their booths in the park.

Below is the Casa de Montejo, the house of the first governor of Merida, built in the 1500s by Spanish conquistadors.

Merida en Domingo sees all the local women out in their Yucatecan garb, illustrated in the photo below – very colourful, with floral patterns and lace.

Since the day was a bit overcast, it wasn’t as blazing hot as it otherwise might have been – only 40 rather than 45 degrees …

After having indulged ourselves in a couple of somewhat mediocre tortas, drawn by the outdoor sculpture display, we decided to check out the Macay Gallery, Merida’s modern and contemporary art gallery, featuring work by contemporary Yucatecan artists, none of whom I was familiar with.

The gallery is housed in a beautiful colonial building, with a sculpture courtyard in its centre.

We saw some interesting acrylic on paper works by a German artist depicting his vists to North Africa.

Some of the art pieces on permanent display were vaguely reminiscent of West Coast First Nations artists,

while others could have illustrated a science fiction novel.

I quite liked the work of the artist below, especially this mobile of tiny ceramic figures.

For Merida en Domingo, the streets downtown are blocked to traffic and people are encouraged to cycle; the family below took advantage of the opportunity to pile all five of them on a single stretch bike.

All that art viewing in the heat makes for a very thirsty couple of Canadians; naturally we had to stop for a cervesa or two.

After watching locals dance to Yucatecan trova music performed by an excellent one man band in the Santa Ana park, we finished off our Sunday enjoying the spectacle of Merida’s well-known troupe perform folkloric dances in the Zocalo.

Amazingly, even in the 40 degree heat, these folks looked cool and dry … unlike us.

See more pics here.

Puerto Walkin’: Camino al Mirador and Playa Manzanillo

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Lisa

I had a vision of colourful flowers in the small pool here at the Swiss Oasis so, a couple of nights ago, when all the other guests were out, Ty and I set up the camera and I had some fun playing Ophelia floating amongst the flowers.

See more pics of this project here.

Puerto is still very much a fishing town, and lately the fishing seems pretty good, at least judging from the catch brought up on the Playa Principal, the main beach.

You just never know when you’ll run into a juggling clown …

or a piggie at the market.

On the weekend the beaches here at Puerto Escondido are packed out with local families, all laughing, having fun, and playing in the surf.

The kids here get introduced to the water very young; many of the families with tiny babies were in the waves with these little cuties, enjoying jumping in the big surf.

One couple had their very small child quite far out in the water on a tiny inflatable device.

At Playa Manzanillo the waves have been high for the last few days – olas altas took a number of people off guard, including one granny sitting on a walk who was completely engulfed, and the oyster lady, who suffered a gigantic wave up her shorts and jumped up laughing.

The Babylon Cafe near us has a fabulous collection of painted wooden masks – I am coveting all of them … (click on the link below to see more of them).

And we discovered a sushi restaurant on the beach … not as good as the one we go to in Vancouver, but not bad (don’t order a tequila drink, though – just juice, no juice).

Just a couple of days ago we discovered the Camino al Mirador, a walkway along the sea travelling from the Playa Principal to near the Playa Manzanillo.

It reminds me quite a bit of the Lovers Walk section of Italy’s Cinque Terre hike, with the same concrete and stone walkways along a steep rocky shore.The cacti here are absolutely enormous – like trees, and some have very soft brown fluffy attachments, flowers, I suppose.

In spots, this walkway has broken down and bits of it can be seen in the ocean; in other areas, the concrete is starting to crack and deteriorate – Ty figures that it will only last another few years before it drops into the ocean.

Along its length anonymous artists have tagged the shoreline and street philosophers have inscribed their thoughts into and onto the rock.

On today’s walk I floated some flowers on a small seaside pond,

while the female dog who joined us sat panting in the shade,

and installed 20 strands of coloured ribbon on a promontory viewpoint to watch them dance in the stiff breeze. These we left behind for passersby to enjoy.