Archive for the ‘Holly Mcgee’ Category
bells
bells in Hillsborough park - Becka Viau, Holly McGee, Allison Cooke 2011 -bells, silk ribbon, moss, found object - http://www.beckaviau.com
written by Becka Viau
This is a place to pray.
This is a place to play.
This is a place to live.
This is a place to breathe.
This is a place to enjoy.
This is a place to walk.
This is a place for community.
This is a place to live.
This place is public space.
And
To me
This is a place where I have fun.
To learn more about the history of Hillsborough square please visit here.
bells in hillsbourough park (detail)- becka viau, Holly McGee, Allison Cooke 2011 - bells, silk ribbon, moss and found object - http://www.beckaviau.com
Island Poems – digital catalogue now online!
design by Kirk Avery
written by Becka Viau
This town is small would like to congratulate all of the poets and artists that participated in the Island Poems: a collaborative art project! The show was a true success. It was amazing to see such diversity in subject and media, as well as the incredible amount of artists that participated!
This Project was our first collaboration with Peake Street Studios and the PEI Writers’ Guild and I have to say it was a very rewarding process.This town is small would like to thank Donnalee Downe from Peake Street and Yvette Doucette from the Writers’ Guild for all of their efforts in making this happen … including initiating the collaboration!
this town is small has put all of the poems and artworks up on the Island Poems page, in hopes that it will serve as a digital catalogue of the exhibition. Please visit the page and read the poems and view the artwork.
If you would like to see installation photographs of the exhibit please visit here.
If you would like to hear an interview from CBC Mainstreet about the exhibition please visit here.
I encourage the artists to send us an email with links to their web pages so we can link their work from this show to more information about them on the net.
Congratulations on an excellent show! We look forward
A Fashionable Small Town Project
Leather Mask - made by Becka Viau
A Fashionable Small Town Project
written by Becka Viau
A couple of weeks ago I was asked to participate in the Urban Fringe Fest Fashion Show on the waterfront in downtown Charlottetown. I was contacted by Savannah Belsher-MacLean, from Panache Magazine, the volunteer fashion show coordinator, shortly after a local designer had backed out of the project. It was last minute and a gap in the presentation had to be filled.
How could I possibly be of help at a fashion show? I don’t make clothing or Jewelry and typically my brain is pretty weird when it comes to creative output… maybe a fashion show is too fancy of an event for my artistic endeavors. Yet, a challenge is something I hardly ever shy away from, especially if there is a short deadline. So, I gathered my thoughts and met with my great friend and local artist Holly McGee with whom I had already collaborated with on a leather mask project last year entitled The Art of Disguise.
Quickly our imaginations came together. A storm of creativity. Questions, responses, discussions and sketches. The talk continued for four days, off and on depending on how often Holly and I bumped into each other on the street or at Timothy’s Coffee Shop. Our ideas funneled out into four categories: Islandness, fantasy, uniqueness and fun.
Crow #2 - Made By Holly McGee
This project had to be fun. There is no sense stressing about time when there just isn’t very much of it to worry about. Having fun is something that Holly and I are pretty good at, but it was also important to ensure our team and audience left the event smiling. Especially since the Urban Fringe Fashion Show was coordinated and implemented by volunteers.
Holly and I make masks, all sorts. We make them in spurts when our fingers and brains need to play and enjoy rather than work and organize. The masks are fantastical, born from make believe. Wearing a mask is a fun thing. They change who you are perceived to be. They can even change the way you perceive yourself to be. This is a concept I love playing with, adaptable identity.
The King - Mask made by Becka Viau
I was born in Nova Scotia. I moved to P.E.I. when I was three months old yet I still find it hard to say that I am a real Islander. My identity is an Island identity, but it is not one that stems from an Island family history rather it has grown from the community and landscape around me. Someone said to me the other day, “This dirt is who you are,” and I think that is true. There is something about the red soil that defines P.E.I. and its people. It is rich and beautiful but it is dirt and dirt is dirty. Generally we are told not to get in it or have it on us. But I do remember when I was little and we went mainlanding I was quite proud of my red clay stained socks and knees. Our Red soil makes us unique; it is a symbol that unites us without really being a symbol. It just is.
Blue bird - made by Holly McGee Pan Mask - Made by BeckaViau and Matt Bowness
So we took some red clay from Tea Hill, bought some tighty whities and headed to the water front armed with a basket of masks and a handful of mustaches on sticks. The fashion shows went well. Holly and I learned a lot about being behind the scene at an event like that, as well as how to work quickly yet sincerely together. I hope you enjoy the photographs from the event. I would like to thank Tanya Davis for allowing us to use her song Drums as the backdrop for the performance, Matt Bowness for collaborating with me on the Pan Mask and Leslie Hambly who worked backstage with us and Sarah MacEachern for the photography.
Collaboration, sporadic, spontaneous or not always blows my mind.
If you or anyone you know would like to collaborate with the members of This Town Is Small don’t hesitate to contact us. Collaborations happen organically and don’t need to be initiated by us, if you would like to support, promote or connect with our members it is as easy as saying “HEY! What do you think of this?”
the trickster - made by Becka Viau
Drums
The way you wear your clothes
and how you eat your food
I like the way you think
I love you
And how you play the drums
on top of every surface
And the rhythm that comes through your hands
And when you tie your boots up
And when you fold your T-shirts
I just like the way you move
And I like your freckles
And I like your muscles
And I like you sentences too
You stride over to me
And I’m watching you walk
Thinking it is the best sight I’ve ever saw
Cause when you come close to me
My heart is always opening
And every time I am so enthralled
The accent in your voice
And all the words you use
I like the way you talk
I love you
And how you hold your arms out when you’re ready for a hug
And the way you bring me close into your chest
And when you study hard and when you daydream harder
I just like the things you do
And I like your features and I like you fingers
I like your ideas too
- Tanya Davis
