carlyn yandle
  • about
  • the creative process
  • crafted objects
  • public art
  • painting
  • exhibitions
  • contact

Share-worthy images battle big oil and beyond

5/29/2015

Comments

 
Picture















My mother shared the above image in a Facebook link with me because she knows what makes my heart go thumpety-thump: a dazzling visual pattern tied to a hefty underlying concept. 

Picture@billmckibben shared this staggering image on Twitter.
I and thousands of other social media users were seduced to hitting the Grist hotlink to view more photos of the kayaktavists' protest of Shell Oil's monstrosity that arrived in Seattle's port the Saturday before last.
You had me at yellow. 

But I'm more captivated by the increasing power of those images to effect change. (#sHellNo)

"Your mom and 58% of Americans are on Facebook" screams the USA Today headline. And three out of 10 of them get at least some news while they're connecting with their Friends, according to the venerable U.S.-based Pew Research Centre.

Speaking of images that send a point home:
Picture
The Pew research shows that 78 per cent of Facebook news users "mostly see news when on Facebook for other reasons." It's that seductive power of images that is changing the news agenda and the media landscape. Long gone are the days when corporate media could control the flow of information to keep their advertisers happy and their friends in political power. Individual access to compelling still and moving images is taking on the status quo. It may start by tripping over a single powerful image but it can lead to a whole new era of information-gathering, where images are too pretty or pretty horrifying to resist clicking on for more info — and often too close for comfort:
Comments

Playing with mud -- and new/old ideas 

5/22/2015

Comments

 
PictureWhere it all began: The Mud Girls retreat that sowed the seed for new/old building modes.
Playing with mainly found materials, and whenever possible with other people, offers me the chance to learn about properties and potential of those throw-away materials as well as about collaborative problem-solving and new/old modes of social interaction. I try not to overthink that link between materials and the inherent social nature of our species but just go with the urge to make the connections.

Working with cob – natural concrete that uses clay, sand and straw – provides a glimpse of an alternative to the inevitable glass-tower existence, the reliance on fossil fuels and the hazardous extraction and distribution process.

There’s nothing like bunker fuel hitting the local beaches or the growing Pacific trash vortex not so far away from those freighters to inspire alternatives. The solutions to these problems require alternative thinking, which depends on playing with ideas.
PictureExcavating as exercise: Digging out a 60-inch diameter, 18-inch-deep hole. (Carlyn Yandle photo)
I got that first glimpse in a two-week cob-house-building workshop in the forest atop a Gulf Island, just days after I closed the door on my office job at a city newspaper. It was a tough adjustment, moving from a hierarchical corporate media culture to a loose, collaborative course-movement. 

By day I hauled boulders and danced the sand into the clay with the Mud Girls, the kind of people I had never cross paths with in a Vancouver editorial department. By night I slept alone in a tent on a mossy outcrop. 

PictureDrainage is essential for natural clay-building on the Wet Coast. (Carlyn Yandle photo)
How was it? my friends asked after I returned. "Wild" was the only way I could describe this foreign experience. 

Ten years later, I’ve been aching to dig my hands back into that feeling of the possibility of building something out of nothing, with others, testing our physical strength and forging connections with others who have a line on a local source for our materials.

The project is a cob oven, on a Gulf Island. The goal is to bake a pizza by the end of the summer.

Phase 1 is complete: creating a solid foundation for the oven. This is essential for protecting the cob from the Wet Coast climate.

PictureTeach your children well: Hands-on learning that building materials are as close as under foot. (Carlyn Yandle photo)
The first two days were all about excavation. I hacked through thick salal root and hauled out bucket after bucket of compressed silt aggregate. The kids were eager to get into the act of shoveling the dirt onto the screen, then pouring water through the screen until just the rocks remained. I laid down some found French drain then back-filled with the gravel and stones until the site was pretty much level.

Next up: Building a dry-stack stone foundation – with a little help from my friends. Stay tuned.

Picture
Embedded labour: A solid foundation for the next phase. (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Comments

From disaster to 'Discomforter': 5 lessons learned

5/15/2015

Comments

 
Picture
There is really no way to know whether a blanket covered in brightly coloured buttons will read until the very end of all the work so I wanted to build in the likelihood of failure. That's how I came to decide on "The devil is in the details" as the line of text that would appear on a QR code reader. If it didn't read successfully at least it would prove the rule.

But it wasn't as simple as that. The details that bedevilled me began with my big idea to use masking tape to indicate the grid instead of tailor's chalk (too dusty), disappearing-ink marker (fades too quickly) or basting (tedious).

That tape plan might have worked if I had removed it in a timely manner, like within a few days or even weeks. But when you pull masking tape off of fine white cotton sheeting after 13 months you are left with a hard, yellowed embedded adhesive residue. You scrape it, scrub it, attack it with solvents and still it does not un-adhere. In desperation, you ball up the entire quilt and chuck it into the washing machine, despite the raw edges and exposed batting. When it comes out in a tight mass of threads and shrunken batting you curse your hare-brained impulsiveness. You let out a little scream when you realize that the colours from many of those buttons have inexplicably run, bleeding all over the white cotton.  (Lesson 2: Research your materials.) At this point you roll yourself up into a little ball and go fetal in a corner somewhere until you're ready to rejoin humanity.

I knew going into my second QR Quilt project that there was a very good chance that after sewing more than 1,000 buttons into three layers of fabric the pattern may not be recognized by the QR code reader. But I also knew that I had a fighting chance after the surprising success of the readable QR Quilt: After Douglas Coupland. My quilt version of his painting, I Wait and I Wait and I Wait for God to Appear proved that a quilt composed of scraps of coloured business shirts and scattered buttons could contain a message as easily as the typical black and white grid. After several weeks of piecing over 1,000 squares together into one queen-sized square I stood back, aimed my phone at the quilt, and prayed. The sentence appeared, like a message from god.

I wanted that euphoria again. I needed it. (Lesson 1: Avoid great expectations.)
Picture
You eventually decide that the title has suddenly gained poignancy (Lesson 3: Embrace unexpected results) so you pick away at the binding selvedge threads from the quilt-ball until you can hang the wet, lead-apron-heavy slab of fiber and plastic to dry for several days. You start to notice that the sheeting is puckering from the shrinking and is sagging from the weight of all that hard plastic in this queen-sized quilt of the damned. Turns out some of those buttons were of some early plastic vintage that were painted after they were fabricated. (Who knew?)

You attempt to find salvation from a bottle of stain-remover -- Out, damned spot! Out, I say!  -- but it looks worse. The next time you have the nerve to look at this fabricated failure you notice that -- praise the lord -- the bleaching agent has worked -- sort of. You stipple-quilt out the sags and bags and the rest of the discolouration disappears -- also sort of. You trim it square and bind it in black with a devil-may-care attitude. After it's finished you realize that the stippling was essential for creating enough rigidity to prevent the buttons from sagging when it hangs. You like the resulting topography. (Lesson 4: Innovate solutions.)

Then you air the whole sordid story on your blog, knowing that sharing the anguish is part of the process, though you regret you don't have any images that would give the full impact of the horror story. (Lesson 5: Photodocument the process, even failure.)

The title of this work is Discomforter (The Devil is in the Details). It's a cumbersome title befitting this project that took me to the edge of my sanity, or at least close enough to see that there is in fact an edge and I know I can't go there again.

Picture
Comments

twentysomethings' bedrooms a compelling grad show work

5/8/2015

Comments

 
Picture"Hazel Cheng, 21, Bedroom in Family Home" (Photo by Mary Wendel Genosa)
What I’d really like to see is a ‘realitylink’: an aggregate site devoted to photo tours of real Vancouver homes where people actually live, cook, eat, sleep, play, fight, have babies, raise children, have pets, grow old. Except there’s no incentive for people to post photos of their very personal spaces for the viewing interest of perfect strangers.

Occasionally, though, you get a glimpse of that rich world of personal spaces. That’s why I lingered so long at the final project of Mary Wendel Genosa during the Emily Carr University graduation show opening last weekend, and why I went back a few days later. The graduating photography student's compelling large-scale portraits of twentysomethings in their sleeping quarters, Bedroom Biographies are a glimpse into the values of the newest generation of adults. The narratives are rich here. There is the straddling of childhood and adulthood; the impermanence at this time of life; dislocation and alienation; engendered spaces and objects. Each 91cm X 60cm tableau is rich with signifiers and most devoid of self-consciousness. There is sincerity in each image, an inherent trust between subject and photographer.

The accompanying hardcover book covering Wendel Genosa’s complete series includes reflective commentary by the subjects, elevating them from person-objects to thinking individuals. But it is their personal spaces that speak loudest of their struggles and their need for solace and comfort. You can see it in the stuff, in the lack of stuff, the kind of stuff, their arrangement of the stuff. 

If you believe what you see on realtylink.org, most Vancouverites live in clutter-free, pristine homes with gleaming hardwood and stainless steel appliances, matchy-match, neutral livingroom furniture and large abstracted landscape paintings on the otherwise empty gallery-white walls.

There’s nothing like clicking on the “additional pictures” or "virtual tour" to realize that your own home (and by ‘your’ I mean ‘my’) is an unphotogenic jumble of memory-things you can’t get rid of for sentimental reasons. Your space is unsuitable for realtylink viewing because it is not a market-commodity; it’s a refuge from all that superficiality.
Picture"Messica Mae, 26, Bedroom in Shared Home" (Photo by Mary Wendel Genosa)
Unreal real-estate photo tours can suck us into believing that everyone else is living a peaceful, uncluttered, happy existence, especially those in their 20s. These weighty portraits remind us of those early adult years that were the best of times and the worst of times. Real life is much more messy.
***
The Show 2015 continues at the Granville Island campus until May 17, 10 am to 8 pm Monday to Friday, 10 am to 6 pm Saturday and Sunday. Take in one of the free one-hour tours on Saturday, May 9, 1 pm, Thursday, May  14, 6 p.m or Saturday, May 16, 1 pm. (Meet in the foyer of the North Building five minutes prior to a tour.)


Comments

Street art saves us from a Pretty empty city

5/1/2015

Comments

 
PictureA masked Spock commands attention at one of many houses slated for demolition outside the King Edward Canada Line station. (Carlyn Yandle photo)
The alienating effect of walking by blocks of empty homes is seen in the writing on the wall. It is there in the masked Spock and other super-hero mashups that adorn the boarded-up exteriors of several houses near the King Edward Canada Line station. Like graffiti art, the houses are here today, gone tomorrow. In two years this corner -- and every two-block stretches radiating from all of the city's rapid transit stations -- will be transformed into homes that are not rented out and that most people who use that transit couldn't afford anyway. 

I don't mourn the loss of those sprawling old ranchers; they're an inefficient use of city land. I worry about losing the street art, when every last residential development has been exploited and the bland luxurious uniformity will deter diverse forms of artistic expression.

As if we need any evidence of the relevance, interest and proliferation of unauthorized street art, almost 9,000 images tagged 'vancouvergraffiti' have been uploaded to Instagram (at this writing). There's even an app for that, Curb, created by three former UBC students who envisioned an evolving street-art wiki-gallery. (Spot some local work in Curb's promotional video, below.)

Only when the art is sanctioned do we get a glimpse of some of the particularly artistic street murals, like in this time-lapse video of Ilya Viryachev, a rising star in Vancouver's animation industry. I'm holding out hope that the hundreds of digital artists moving into the new Microsoft and Imageworks headquarters (beside the Vancouver Art Gallery) this month will share some of their talent outside their new downtown digs.
This week the local news was full of the City of Vancouver's attempt to at least count empty homes, presumably as a baby step toward dealing with the housing crisis (ie. no one except the rich and heavily subsidized can afford to live here). But recently when we were dropping off a friend in his MacKenzie Heights neighbourhood on the Westside it was eerily clear that it may be too little, too late. It was twilight on a Sunday evening but most of the impressive homes with manicured lawns on his block were empty, he said, with the rare interior lights likely on timers.

It was at this moment that it hit me: that this disparity between the over-housed and the homeless is out of control. The popular Beautiful Empty Homes website can't keep up with the latest high-end residential property deals and the crisis is also plaguing the Eastside.  The City may be mulling a wiki-registry of empty houses and condos but this tell-on-your-neighbours scheme may just add fuel to the fire.
Comments
    Cross-posted at
    carlynyandle.substack.com

    browse by topic:

    All
    Abject
    Abstract
    Abstract Embroidery
    Abstraction
    Abstract Painting
    Acrylic
    Activism
    Additive
    Aesthetics
    Agency
    AgentC Gallery
    Aging
    Alison Woodward
    Aluminum
    Anxiety
    Appropriation
    Arcade Fire
    Architecture
    Arleigh Wood
    Art
    Art Activism
    Art Blog
    Art Business
    Art Discourse
    Art History
    Artifact
    Artist
    Artist Residency
    Artist Statement
    Artist Talk
    Art Marketing
    Art Quilt
    Arts And Crafts
    Art School
    Art Show
    Art Spiegelman
    Assemblage
    Author
    Banksy
    Bauhaus
    Beauty
    Betsy Greer
    Big Data
    Billy Patko
    Binding
    Blogs
    Blog Tour
    Bob Krieger
    Body Of Work
    Books
    Boro
    Braided Rug
    Braiding
    Bruce MacKinnon
    Bruce Mau
    Building
    Bull Kelp
    Burlap
    Business
    Buttons
    Carlyn Yandle
    Caroline Eriksson
    Cartoon
    Ceca Georgieva
    Challenge
    Charley Yandle
    Children
    Christmas
    Cindy Sherman
    Circular Thinking
    Cirque Du Soleil
    City As Site
    City Planning
    Cityspace Gallery
    Clay Yandle
    Climate Change
    Cluster
    Cob
    Cob Oven
    Collaboration
    Collage
    Colonialism
    Color
    Colour
    Commission
    Community
    Community Building
    Composition
    Conceptual Art
    Conceptual Craft
    Connection
    Connie Sabo
    Construction
    Coronavirus
    Cosplay
    Costume
    Counter Culture
    Counter-culture
    Cover
    Cover-19
    Covid
    Craft
    Craft Blogs
    Craft Camp
    Craftivism
    Crafts
    Craftsmanship
    Creative Process
    Critique
    Crochet
    Cross-stitch
    Cultural Hub
    Cultural Studies
    Culture
    Culture Jamming
    Culturejammingc9d75664fd
    Current Conditions
    Cycling
    Dafen Village
    Dallas-duobaitis
    Dance
    Data-graphic
    Data-graphic
    David Weir
    Dear Human
    Decorations
    Deep Craft
    Denim
    Denyse Thomasos
    Design
    Digital Art
    Discomforter
    Display
    Dissent
    Distraction
    Distracts
    DIY
    Doilies
    Doily
    Domestic
    Domestic Interventions
    Douglas-coupland
    Draw Down
    Drawing
    Dressed
    DSquared2
    Dude-chilling-park
    Dyeing
    Dystopia
    Eastend
    Eastside Culture Crawl
    ECUAD
    ECUAD MFA
    Editorial
    Edward Burtynsky
    Eggbeater Creative
    Embellishment
    Embroidery
    Emily Blincoe
    Emily Carr Cozy
    Emily Carr University
    Entanglements
    Environment
    Environmental Art
    Exhibit
    Exhibition
    Expanded Painting
    Experimentation
    Exploration
    Expression
    Fabric
    Fabricating
    Fabrication
    Facebook
    Failure
    Fashion
    Fashion Revolution
    Fast Fashion
    Feminisim
    Feminist
    Feminist Art
    Festival
    Fiber
    Fiber Artist
    Fiber Arts
    Fibre
    Fibre Arts
    Film
    First Saturday Open Studios
    Flo
    Flow
    Forage
    Foraging
    Form
    Form And Function
    Foundlings
    Found Materials
    Found Objects
    Fractal
    Free Store
    Fuckwit
    Fuzzy Logic
    Gallery
    Gallery-row
    Garden
    Gardening
    Garment
    Gathering
    Gentrification
    Geometric Art
    Gill Benzion
    Gingerbread
    Globalization
    Glue
    Goblin Core
    Grad 2020
    Graffiti
    Grannycore
    Granny Square
    Granville-island
    Green Space
    Grid
    Grief
    Guanajuato
    Guerrilla Art
    Guerrilla Girls
    Halloween
    Handmade
    Handmaking
    Hand Stitching
    Hand-stitching
    Handwork
    Hashtags
    Haywood Bandstand
    Healing
    Health
    Hearth
    Heirloom
    Hideki-kuwajima
    Homelessness
    Homemade
    Hot Art Wet City
    Housing
    Hybrid Thinking
    Ian Reid
    Ian Wallace
    Ideas
    Identity
    Images
    Imagination
    Immersive Art
    Improvisation
    Incomplete Manifesto For Growth
    Industrial Design
    Industry
    Innovation
    Inspiration
    Instagram
    Installation
    Installation Art
    Intervention
    Intrusive Thoughts
    Invention
    Irena Werning
    Ironing
    Janet Wang
    Jeans
    Jeff Wilson
    Joel Bakan
    Joseph Beuys
    Joseph-wu
    Journalism
    Joyful Making In Perilous Times
    Joyfulmakinginperiloustimes
    Judith Scott
    Kamala Harris
    Kids Art
    Kim Piper Werker
    Kimsooja
    Kintsugi
    Knitting
    Knots
    Knotting
    Kyoto
    Labor
    Labour
    LA Fires
    Landon Mackenzie
    Landscape
    Leanne Prain
    Lecture
    Lighthouse
    Linen
    Liz Magor
    Log Cabin
    Logo Sweater
    LOoW
    Lost Painting
    Lumiere Festival
    Lynda Barry
    Macrame
    Maker
    Making
    MakingIsConnecting
    Malcolm Gladwell
    Male Gaze
    Mapping
    Maquette
    Marie Kondo
    Marketing
    Mark Lewis
    Martha Rosler
    Martha Stewart
    Masks
    Material Exploration
    Mathematics
    Maya
    Media
    Meditation
    Meditative
    Mending
    Mend In Public Day
    Mental Health
    Metalworker
    MFA
    Mister Rogers
    Mixed Media
    Mobile Art Practice
    Monique Motut-Firth
    Monster
    Monte Clark
    Mosaic
    Motivation
    Mt. Pleasant Community Centre
    Mud Girls
    Mural
    Mushroom
    Mycelium
    Narrative
    Natalie Jeremijenko
    Nature
    Needlework
    Neon
    Net
    Network
    Networking
    Neuroplasticity
    New Forms Festival
    Newspapers
    Nick Cave
    Noah Goodis
    North Vancouver
    Obtrusive Thoughts
    Omer Arbel
    Online Talk
    Openings
    Organization
    Origami
    #overthinking
    Paint
    Painting
    Pandemic
    Paper
    Paper Sculpture
    Papier Mache
    Parkade Quilt
    Patchwork
    Patriarchy
    Pattern
    Pecha Kucha
    Pechakucha
    Perception
    Perfectionism
    Performance
    Performance Art
    Personalispolitical
    Photography
    Playing
    Political Art
    Political Satire
    Polly-apfelbaum
    Pompidou
    Poodle
    Port Coquitlam
    Portrait
    Practice
    Process
    Production
    Profession
    Project
    Protest
    Protest Art
    Psychedelic
    Public Art
    Pussy Hat
    Pussy-hat
    Qr Code
    Quilt
    Quilt Block
    Quilting
    Quilt Painting
    Rachael Ashe
    Rachel Lafo
    Ravages
    Raw Materials
    Rebar
    Recycle
    Recycling
    Reflection
    Reflektor
    Reimagine
    Renewal
    Repairing Is Caring
    RepairingIsCaring
    Research
    Residency
    Resistance
    Resurge
    Retreat
    Re-use
    Rhonda Weppler
    Richard-tetrault
    Richmond Art Gallery
    Right Brain
    Rondle-west
    Roses Against Violence
    Rote Activity
    Rug
    Ryan-mcelhinney
    Safe Supply
    Safety
    Sampler
    Sarah-gee-miller
    Sashiko
    Saskatchewan
    Scaffolds
    Scaffolds I
    Scale
    Scraps
    Sculpture
    Seasonal Decor
    Seattle Art Museum
    Seaweed
    Seismic Rug
    Semiotics
    Sewing
    SharingIsCaring
    Sharon Kallis
    Shawn Hunt
    Shigeru Ban
    Sketchup
    Slow Craft
    Smocking
    Social Art
    Socialart
    Social Distancing
    Social Distancing Hat
    Social Engagement
    Social-engagement
    Social History
    Social Justice
    Social Media
    Soft Sculpture
    South-granville
    Space Craft
    Spore
    Stitching
    Storage
    Street Art
    Studio
    Styrophobe
    Subversive Stitch
    Surrealism
    Surrey
    Tactical Frivolity
    Tactility
    Tagging
    Talking Art
    Tapestry
    Tattoo
    Teamlab
    Technology
    Terry Fox Theatre
    Text
    Textile
    Textile Art
    Textiles
    Thrifting
    Thrift Stores
    @tinypricksproject
    Tiny Pricks Project
    TJ Watt
    TO DO
    Tools
    Toronto Design Offsite
    Toybits
    Trash
    Trash Art
    Travel Art
    Trevor Mahovsky
    Trump
    Typography
    Tyvek
    Unbridled
    Unfixtures
    Upcycle
    Upcycling
    Urban Design
    Use Object
    Use Objects
    Utility
    Value Village
    Vancouver
    Vancouver Art Gallery
    Vancouver International Airport
    Video
    Video Tour
    Visual Field
    Visual-field
    Visual Language
    Wabi-sabi
    Wallace Stegner House
    Wall Hanging
    Waterwork
    Wearable Art
    Weaving
    William Morris
    Women's March
    Wood
    Wool
    Work Wraps
    Wrap I
    Wrap II
    Writing
    Xenobia Bailey
    Yarn Bombing
    YVR
    Zaha Hadid
    Zendoodle
    Zero Waste Art
    Zero-waste Art

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    October 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    November 2021
    April 2021
    September 2020
    April 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    November 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Picture