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Learning to play, to learn

5/29/2014

I would rather watch the little kids in my life play than watch the best TV. But it's tricky because they don't like to be observed and if they feel I'm too interested, they are on to me and it all comes to a halt.

I have to refrain from the urge to referee, guide, demonstrate or facilitate. Because it's only when they're sure the adults are not interested that the seriously unstructured play comes on, with all its small power struggles and shared moments of joy. (See legendary Lynda Barry talk about play at the end of this post.)

I'm fascinated by the ability of kids to spontaneously engage in creative collaboration (a.k.a. 'play') with other kids they didn't know 10 minutes before. It's a lesson in the power of putting ourselves out there creatively, to let go of control and all expectations.

Playing with toy bits after hours at the VAG. (Carlyn Yandle photo)

In the past week, I took my inner kid out to play with strangers in two distinct venues: the Vancouver Art Gallery, in preparation for the opening of Douglas Coupland's major solo show, and at the first Arts & Crafts Social at a small Mount Pleasant neighbourhood gallery.

After-hours at the Vancouver Art Gallery, we were all quickly introduced before we were invited to attack and stack Coupland's priceless/useless toy bits to assemble his imposing 'Brick Wall' at the entrance of the exhibit, under the artist's direction. We were just playing but in retrospect we were problem-solving issues of density, colour, weight, communication, and give-and-take. We were just talking but on reflection we were wrangling with issues of value, object-images, collections, consumption, globalization and categorization.

A few days later, I hauled out one of my portable projects and headed to the inaugural Arts & Crafts Social (#HAWCsocial) at Hot Art Wet City Gallery hosted by Rachael Ashe and Kim Werker.

The beauty of a drop-in, BYOP (project) event is that if you're feeling a little shy, at least you have your work to focus until you're comfortable enough to mingle. The tables soon filled up with conversation-starters beyond the beer and wine: stabby felt needles, crochet and rug hooks, Thai take-out, Sharpies on canvas, a digital drawing pad and an old manual typewriter.

You play, you learn — about other methods, applications, directions. And you get to hang with people not typical of your usual social circle. To me it was worth the admission-by-donation just to get a glimpse of the unrestrained mind of Billy Patko (below, left). Which got me thinking: what would Patko's prolific doodles look like in a large-scale format? (See Photoshop'd sketch, below.)

Just playing.

Coupland's show, Everywhere is Anywhere is Anything is Everything runs May 31 to Sept.1. The next Arts & Crafts Social at Hot Art Wet City is June 25, 7:30 - 11pm.

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Piecing together a penny hearth and reclaimed kitchen

5/23/2014

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I've blown valuable vacation days at one all-inclusive Cancun resort and on one gargantuan cruise ship and I can safely say as long as I can stand upright and feed myself I will not endure either again.

There's no place there for getting my mojo back through creative play — or what some would call work. But I couldn't exactly bring my tools and found materials aboard so instead I wandered the decks of Holland America's Zuiderdam for the three-night repositioning cruise, overfed and undernourished by the complete lack of things to do beyond pushing buttons in the smoky casino or pounding on the treadmill. Same for the Cancun all-inclusive. There was nothing doing for a non-thrill-seeking, sports unenthusiast like myself so I bobbed around in weak, cheap tequila drinks, ducking the bouncing aquacizers.

The half-done Canadian penny hearth. (Carlyn Yandle photo)

I need time and space to explore and imagine, away from screens and off the grid. I need to test the limits of materials and my own mental and physical abilities. This past week was a bit of all that, at a Gulf Island cabin. I hauled and hammered, glued and screwed and learned a thing or two, which I am sharing here.

First up: the penny hearth. I liked the idea of commemorating the beginning of the end of the Canadian penny in a functional way. After some surveying of various penny-mosaic methods on YouTube I devised my own idea for a hearth that is not only fireproof but reflects flames to shimmering effect. I started by brushing the grey to-code cement board with copper-coloured acrylic paint, then glued down a row of pennies using Liquid Nails in a caulking gun to create a random pattern that will eventually merge seamlessly into the wood floor. Unlike other methods that call for grouting or a final pour of resin, I decided to let the accumulation of ash fill in the gaps over time. I'll figure out if I want to buff up those pennies later. As with many elegant solutions, it takes a lot of thought to arrive at the simplest method.

Oops — rookie mistake. (Carlyn Yandle photo)

Next: The button bust. I had — have — this idea that would make use of my general glut of non-recyclable plastic buttons as a kitchen countertop. I wanted to use the reverse mosaic method to ensure a flat surface but the bonded thin-set concrete leaked into the buttons on my test square. I scrubbed and sanded and chipped away at the surface until it all shattered. For the next test I will embed the buttons into a poly-resin base first. Adding a wire grid between layers of the thin-set might be a good idea too. I'm still bent on creating an entire countertop of this random, circular pattern of monochromatic buttons that evoke the pebbly coastline.
This was one of those learning moments.

Testing the possibility of wine crates as upper cabinets. (Carlyn Yandle photo)

I had more success with the 'upper cabinets' of wine crates in the makeshift kitchen. Each box was first reinforced with right-angle hardware and installed (with heavy-duty Hilti wall anchors) to feature the vintner art and vintage years burnished on the outside of each box. Like the penny hearth, history is a big part of this functional project.

A lot of my reclaimed, sustainable projects and tests take a lot of research and collecting, but some are serendipitous discoveries. On a morning beach walk I found this rusted rake (below), now a utensil holder. A favourite hand-carved bottle stopper finds a home where the long-lost handle used to be.

A found rake head finds a new use. (Carlyn Yandle photo)

On the final day of my week away, I looked back on all the work/play, and the lessons learned. I looked forward to my wired city life again — physically spent and mentally refreshed.

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How not to crash at the big art shows

5/9/2014

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The mammoth art museum experience is like an all-inclusive resort for the mind: there's so much coming at you the brain binges 'til it can't party anymore.

Unless you're an art history major, what's hanging on those soaring walls and placed on those marble floors at the big art palaces like the Louvre, the Rijksmuseum and The Met is filled with cranial-clanging mystery, intrigue, obscurity, beauty and repulsion that can crash the whole neural system in something approaching Stendhal Syndrome. There's only so much visual field one garden-variety brain can take in. You need to pace yourself, preferably over several days.

Alison Woodward's emblematic, multi-layered drawings suggest carcasses.

Same goes for big education-institution shows so this is the how I tackle the annual Emily Carr University Grad Show, now open daily until May 18 on Vancouver's Granville Island.

With hundreds of final works in media arts, sculpture, industrial design, ceramics, illustration and visual arts packed into two buildings I take the cavernous rooms of randomness in small bursts over a few days, usually with one friend at a time — a sort of playdate. But the only thing organized about this date is the area of creative work we're going to linger in. It's the difference between sports on a school field and free play in the forest.

The real play is in the conversation that is sparked just by being in the milieu of this cacophonous visual field. It might start off as first impressions of an individual piece but often ends up in a whole different kind of thinking, and that's where the exhilaration lies. It's all just as important in the creative process as working in the studio.

The beauty of online column-writing is infinite space, so, in the spirit of the gargantuan art museum and its daunting theme-free collections, as well as the need to let the brain out to play, I present here a few of my own pics of emerging visual artists at this year's Emily Carr grad show whose works contest the two-dimensional tradition.

A detail from Jessica Probyn's large gestural painting reveals a threaded leaf-shaped garland.

The ethereal effect of Colette Stubbings' large 'Channeling Dreams' is enhanced by a ground of creased, ripped and crumpled paper.

Rose Fior's 'Ominous I' is an off-square panel that includes areas of gouging, thin washed and dimensional globs of paint.

The visceral subject of Sarah Erica Berman Goble's work moves from two grounds of paper to the wall itself.

A detail of Scott Lewis' inked, ripped paper on canvas evokes both disputed public spaces and stark landscapes.

Maya Gulin explores the pattern effects of acrylic in this detail of her deftly layered mixed media painting.

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cultural community under threat in sparkling city

5/2/2014

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My daily work corner is one-third of a shared 800-square-foot studio of a mouldering building in the shadow of numerous condo-tower cranes in Mount Pleasant, with a combined rent of more than $1,000 per month. In the four years that I've managed to hold onto this little space I've watched Development Permit Application signs go up on one decrepit building after another. The signs go up, then all the resident independent visual artists, industrial designers, musicians, film industry workers, writers and performers get packing.

But where to go is a serious problem. A healthy city has a rich culture but the places to actually do that hard work are rare or too costly to consider in this town. Everyone knows someone who has given up trying and moved to Toronto. It's getting to the point where some artist friends have decided to remain in Vancouver — at least for the moment — because they just can't abandon the struggling cultural community.

It's an odd feeling, working in adverse conditions to ensure a vibrant cultural life in the milieu of the city's glassy wealth. Surely some of those speculative development dollars could actually help stem the tide that threatens to replace every last independent bookstore, gallery cafe and theatre into one long avenue of Shoppers Drug Marts, bank branches and Starbucks.

This is why, despite a general wariness about any artisan-party-backed events, I and a couple of friends hit the Fox theatre last Thursday for a Vision Vancouver-backed community forum on protecting the city's cultural spaces. When you want to be part of the conversation on this critical topic you go where there are ears.

Everyone from young street performers to retired folks bent on protecting threatened venues packed the revamped former porno theatre last Thursday evening — the perfect venue for showcasing what is possible with a council that is increasingly promoting the value of city culture of all kinds.

The entrepreneur behind the Fox, Ernesto Gomez (Waldorf, Nuba, etc.) was there on stage as part of a panel led by city councillor Heather Deal that included fellow councillor Geoff Meggs; Kate Armstrong, director of Emily Carr University's Director of the Social + Interactive Media Centre; and Esther Rausenberg, head of the Eastside Culture Crawl. The vibe was one of simmering frustration but there was also warmth generated by the obvious show that we are all in this together.

From left: Coun. Geoff Meggs, Kate Armstrong, Ernesto Gomez, Esther Rausenberg, Coun. Heather Deal. (Carlyn Yandle photo)

Deal dealt her summation the next day, based on notes she was taking during the roving-mike portion of the evening:
"Development needs to deliver more for local culture. Arts and culture needs to be treated as a public good. That we need zoning to enable independent businesses and cultural groups to succeed, not push them out. And that it's not just about creating studio space, it's the need for rehearsal and production space too."

But things are getting better, as many noted at the forum. The relatively new food truck program and more reasonable liquor licensing laws are both driving audiences and sales at local festivals and venues; car-free events like the city's biggest free music and art fest, Khatsalano and Car Free Day on the Drive have turned radical notions into much-loved draws.

Miniature portraits by artists of the Phantoms in the Front Yard Collective

And the squeeze on work and show space has resulted in some fresh, unconventional art shows in opportunistic spaces, like shipping containers or urban alleys. Last Friday it was a pop-up show, Everyone I've Never Known, in three units of the retro Burrard hotel. Only in one of the most expensive cities in the world will you find serious collectors crowding into tiny hotel rooms to snap up the miniature graphite and pencil portraits — proof that artists will continue to create, even if at a scale that doesn't demand studio space.

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Learning to play, to learn

Piecing together a penny hearth and reclaimed kitchen

How not to crash at the big art shows

cultural community under threat in sparkling city

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