Posts Tagged ‘artist’
Debate: Museums are bad at telling us why art matters
…. to skip the long role call skip to 2:30…
written by Becka Viau
I challenge you to consider this debate and then mix it up with your thoughts about a Prince Edward Island Provincial Museum. I am not suggesting another animatronic display of the father’s of Confederation … but how significant is the closing of Founder’s Hall? What will become of that space? Is a true museum the answer?
In Between Spaces – a short film by Millefiore Clarkes
IN BETWEEN SPACES is an experimental video project that explores the notion of a communal gaze. This collaborative documentary follows 12 individual perspectives from within a community; and through their eyes a sense of objective reality emerges. The community is Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.
In the summer of 2011, four video cameras were placed in the hands of four people who filmed one hour of their lives over the course of 3 days. When their hour was up they handed the cameras on to four others of their choosing to repeat the process. This cycle happened once more and in the end, 12 hours of footage from the daily lives of individuals in Charlottetown was collected.
The Director/Editor Millefiore Clarkes onethousandflowers.tv then acted as the organizing principle (with the help of original music composed by Roger Carter rogercarter.bandcamp.com) ordering and filtering these layers of perspective into a whole.
This project was part of the 2011 Cultural Capital Designation in Charlottetown PEI.
City Nights
A short chronicle - by Will Beckett, and featured on the new site Arts on PEI – of the semi-monthly City Nights events hosted by Charlottetown, PEI artist-run organization This Town is Small.
Aganetha Dyck: Guest Workers – a mini doc by Milles Clarkes
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Aganetha Dyck: Guest Workers
Something in the Water
On the 5th of February, 2011, photographer Anna Karpinski gathered the musicians of Charlottetown, PEI, Canada together for a historic photo shoot (ala. Art Kane’s 1958 photo ‘A Great Day in Harlem’.)
This video installation by Millefiore Clarkes onethousandflowers.tv documents the occasion.
This video, the photograph, and other related artworks were exhibited at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in the show Warming Up. confederationcentre.com/en/exhibitions-archive-read-more.php?exhibition=21
Featuring music by Racoon Bandit myspace.com/racoonbandit
and Milks and Rectangles milksandrectangles.bandcamp.com
The Creativity Project
untitled - colour photograph , Monica Lacey http://www.monicalacey.com
written by Jill MacCormack
We are living in a world defined by our image of ourselves, and choices we make based on that image. That self image is in turn being defined by internal and external forces, both large and small.
The Creativity Project
hopes to be an external initiating force towards reconciliation of the internal and external, between the self and the society it creates.
We live in an age that demands urgent, creative, and compassionate attention to the suffering of the world. The suffering can be viewed as imponderably great and binding in the manner of its complexity and reach, but also as grounds from which new ways of understanding and responding can emerge.
In short, The Creativity Project hopes to elevate awareness, and provide an impetus for change.
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Cacophony of Silence
There is a silence present now
so like death it takes my breath away.
A force so large, so deafening it quells
the brightness of the world.
It has no face or name or voice for none
it needs; it thrives on the life force of
the faceless, the nameless, the voiceless,
and the vice of those with plenty.
It will try to sell you beauty, joy, freedom
and security. Its sales pitch is image, youthfulness
and vitality without end.
With policies of mass production, a frantic pace,
confusion and alienation it’s insidious ways are
coordinated, tabulated, regulated: highly orchestrated.
It’s only end is money; power and control, and its only means, destruction:
destruction of land, sea, air, body, soul and culture. Death- deafening death.
What are you being sold…and at what cost?
Be heard above the loudness of the silence:
Get to know your natural environment
Dream, imagine, hope, and believe new ways of being
Seek alternatives
Be open to beauty
Be open to wonder
Turn away from fear and move in the direction of LOVE
Practice mindfulness
Be gentle with yourself and kind to others
Take time to be quiet
Respect different ways of being
Learn to value concepts of simplicity: lagom, wabi sabi
Cultivate an attitude of gratefulness
Learn to sit with uncomfortable emotions
Buy locally more often
Buy plastic less often
Don’t buy into images
Appreciate local arts and culture
Express your creativity
Talk to your neighbours
Practice community mindedness
Acknowledge the impermanence of all things
Be patient and tolerant in the process of change
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As artists we are called to use our creativity as a means of holding up to the light the hurt and fear of the world, so that we can penetrate those walls that silence has created: apathy, disillusionment, disempowerment, destruction, dis-ease. In doing so, we are redefining our confusion and pain, our fear and separation into something hopeful. We become the portal through which newness can emerge…. Softened and pliable once again, our society and culture can be re-created, sustainably, for the future, for the better.
This idea is a work in progress and by no means do I want to claim it as my own
By adding your voice the “Cacophony of Silence” will become less deafening. Please feel free to add your ideas, be it a rant or a hopeful image/ words.
Please respond.
Thank you,
The Creativity Project
* to respond to this post please email it to this.town.is.small@gmail.com or leave a comment
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
Bodily Functions
Gene Pool - Gerald Beaulieu
Written by Gerald Beaulieu
Much of my practice involves the exploration and utilization of new and unique material processes. As a sculptor it has become self evident that my practice leans towards an exploration of the physical world through this material handling, which informs my work and contributes to its inventiveness. Many of the materials I use are direct metaphors for the ideas I’m exploring.
One of the reasons for doing this body of work was to meet a challenge I put to myself of working on a small scale. For years I’ve done large-scale works and numerous attempts to work small produced unflattering results. As a formal process, taking something with its origins in the microscopic world and rendering it much larger than life, corrected this problem.
The display format was designed to mimic the laboratory aesthetic of Petri dishes and microscope slides. Each element exists separate from the others. While pulling things apart and examining their constituent components is a completely valid form of inquiry, with 50 to 100 trillion cells in our bodies, (nobody really knows) that are all alive and playing their role, the irony is that our constituent whole is even more complicated.
Bodily Functions will be exhibited at ARTsPLACE Gallery in Annapolis Royal NS, May 15 – Jun1 19 2011
Bodily Functions is an ongoing series of small scale works dealing with the physical make-up of our bodies as a collection of individual cells, organs and systems. The body has been a continual subject of my practice and these works try to re-imagine ourselves by looking at the ecosystems, the strange wildness contained within our physical forms. The works are deliberately tangible reinforcing the notion that our place in the physical world is defined by our own physicality and our sensory perceptions of the physical. These pieces are inventions, intended as metaphors and also an examination of the metaphors we assign of our organic existence, the essence of our biological make-up and the processes that occur, from infection to respiration to circulation to degeneration to regeneration; all events that occur within ourselves and the larger social context in which we live.
Vote. Everything Matters
Film by Mille Clarkes
This video is made by one Canadian citizen to implore all Canadians to participate in their democracy.
voteeverythingmatters.wordpress.com
May 2nd is a big day for Canada; our federal election day. We can beat our poor voter turn out from the last election. We can build a country that reflects our values. Values of strong social services, multiculturalism, healthcare, environmental stewardship, cultural and artistic legacy. We can care about all these issues while maintaining a robust economy.
On April 16th the citizens of the province of PEI held a “Vote. Everything Matters Rally” in the capital, Charlottetown. Over 200 people showed up to share their passion for democratic involvement.
There were a host of musicians out to join in for a ‘sing for democracy’ including Todd MacLean, John Connolly, Teresa Doyle, Meghan Blanchard, and Carmel Mikol.
Poet Tanya Davis spoke words to move a nation.
Other poignant speakers included Conor Leggott; a UPEI student and one of Canada’s concerned youth; Teresa Doyle, acclaimed musician and advocate for the Arts; as well as Jack McAndrew on behalf of the Friends of the CBC; Irene Novaczek Director of Island Studies Department of UPEI; and Mary Boyle of the PEI Health Coalition.
We’re going to be OK. This country is full of rational, caring, passionate people.
painter’s progress
Studio work table. - Stephen B. MacInnis - 2011
written by Stephen B. MacInnis
The challenge for an artist is to get their work in front of the public. There are many ways to do this online, and lately the best method for me is a WordPress blog. I prefer the blog method over a website. I find a website very static, and as an artist with limited computer skills, and who is always working and producing new work, a blog is the perfect fit.
I’m a stay at home dad as well as an artist and my daughter is often in my studio with me. I enjoy her contribution to my work space, I let her do things such as telling me what colours to use, or she sometimes adds a drawing to an abstract piece I’m working on, and I will blog about stuff she does and says. She enjoys painting and drawing, and she enjoys talking about art. Lately, she has been talking about photography, so I gave her a camera and let her loose. I’ve been posting some of her photo essays, and they have proven popular.
I treat my blog as a studio diary. I show what I’m working on and discuss what I’m thinking about. It takes awhile to figure out what to blog about, and so lately I’ve been working on organizing my blog. On the weekends I will include content my daughter has provided. Wednesdays I do a list of ten random things I like. I also show the process of painting, and have been showing the steps to creating a painting from start to finish. I show the work I am doing, but I also like to show what is going on in the studio.
I’ve been experimenting with different ways to promote my blog. I find Facebook and Twitter to be very effective. I also link to my blog from any other sites my work might be on, but I am still looking for different ways to reach a greater audience.
