Tag: art

as I worship the interpretation


received as a letter, authorship witheld:

Once upon a perfect moment, stretched & bent & folded
in half & sewn end-to-end, when the stars were in faultless
accord & the world turned with dignity & solemn grace,
when even cruelty was polite, even cynicism holy, a girl
with flowers in her hair & a song on her lips drilled a
hole through her liily white palm & stared out through it
at all the ugliness that lay beyond.

(intermission)

She turned away, as all things turned, with effortless
elegance, her skirts sweeping through rose petals &
crisp autumn leaves, blood dripping from her fingers
like the final notes of Libera Me, & in her wake the
shocked silence was worn away be birdsong & the
thoughtful murmur of the trees.

(intermission)

She turns again, later, with long-practiced unpracticed
grace, not away but in a wide, slow circle, arm
out-stretched to display the hole, larger in its setting
of pearl white scar, partially obscured by delicate
metacarpals. The gathered crowd stares in fascinated
horror, & when she bows the applause is exuberant.

She does not do an encore. There is no second act.

point made

Andrew sent this when I was at Michael‘s yesterday. We curled up in his chair together, aghast, seriously wishing there were more video. My obscure reaction? How dangerous it must feel to play The Red Violin in a subway station. (The article’s a bit long, but only because the author’s obviously very passionate.)

Today it’s on Neat-o-rama:

Internationally-known violinist Joshua Bell played busker at a Metro station in Washington, DC during morning rush hour recently. It was an experiment to see if anyone would recognize him, recognize the talent behind the music, or would drop money in his case. What do you think happened? The results may surprise you. The cover story in today’s Washington Post Magazine includes videos of the experiment. Link

getting used to being up at 7:30 in the morning is a crime (or should be)

Dynamo is the 3D animated short that just won the Imagina’s Schools and Universities prize. Benjamin Mousquet and Fabrice le Nezet, the creators, answer questions about their atypical crossroads of clever nonsense and unexpected meaning at ITS ART Magazine&lt, a digital art magazine available in English and French.

ITS ART Magazine&lt is a wonderful resource. I highly recommend taking the time required to explore their small video library. It’s slavishly devoted to high end, quality computer animated shorts. It can be a little hit and miss, as such things generally are, but the percentage of good is notable. Beware, however, as it’s not all fluffy sea sheep, adorable and bunny sweet, many of them accurately capture qualities of nightmare and display them as skillfully as fetishistic vivisection.

March of the Namelss, for example, the second video posted here, is an extraordinary look at the dark fatuity of war. Jean Constantial and Nicolas Laverdure exquisitely blend elegance and the threat of death into something powerfully bewitching. I watched it twice, unwilling to miss even a moment of War in a scarlet suit, thin as a cat’s collarbone, skipping through the calamity.

Seven Brides Electrified

Lovely lads and ladies, if you’re in L.A., make sure you don’t miss this!

Seven unique, fascinating, surreal, and enchanting contemporary artists, all in once place. It’s going to be the show of the season. Even I’m looking forward to it, and I live in the wrong country. As extra incentive, Molly, founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Cabaret Drawing School in NYC, is the artist who drew Heart of the World‘s corporate cartoon.

When she leaves, she’s just asking to be followed

santapau‘s put me in The Secret Knots!

I feel like the vision of a girl who writes personality, warped and made prettier in water-paint parentheses. The Secret Knots is one of my silver cocaine addictions. I check it every Monday, a wrought iron internet-princess hoping for snow and honey to bleed distraction from Vancouver’s dirty tinsel sky. Of course, Spring has arrived, bringing with it art! weather! joy! and more Secret Knots!

As grateful thanks, I present: The Books.

whoring the vancity cine

Rob Mann’s first feature documentary, IMAGINE THE SOUND, (a tribute to Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Bill Dixon and Paul Bley, four of the artists who helped sculpt the avante-garde jazz of the 1960’s), has been digitally remastered and will be playing at the VanCity Cinema on March 28th at 9:30pm. Being a fan of jazz, I’m strongly considering going. From all accounts it’s an elegant film. Would anyone else be interested?

A few days later, they’re showing KLIMT, a weird biopic on Gustav Klimt as played by John Malkovitch. If you don’t know who they are, shame. The director, Raoul Ruiz, says, “The time portrayed in the film was one of the highlights of Viennese culture, which had burst onto the scene very quickly and in which the first seeds of decay were evident almost straight away, since such brilliance rarely lasts. We have Klimt, his private life, the world around him in all its splendour, but in the background we feel something malignant that quietly gains prominence, something contagious.” He’s my mother’s favourite painter, so I’m going to be trying to kidnap her to the the April 5th screening at 7 pm.

And to round it off, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore”, they’re playing NETWORK on Tuesday, April 3, at 7:30 as part of their Salon Series, where once a month a guest presents their favourite film and there are snacks after. (Yes, drinks too, but I care about the snacks.) For April, that guest is Kirk LaPointe, the Managing Editor of the Vancouver Sun. I’m curious as to why he chose Network, of all things, as he works for a paper that’s not particularly known for being on top of the news.

my current desktop

kuksi-sculpture

Kris Kuksi – “Lust and Self-Abuse” – mixed media – 29″ diameter – 2007

I find few things in life sacred, it’s rare I remember awe, so when I find it, I have to share it. Put aside half an hour and click on this link. It’s intense. His art inspires me with something I imagine is akin to religious awe. The detail is overwhelming, an arched back of wicked creativity drawing the eyes to a thousand unique and interesting places. This is the work of an angel and devil both, someone blessed with more than I could ever imagine. My words are ashes.

this is the sea, for him to have a challenge, I must accept one

cultch_webflyer

Larry, my friend who’s master of Sinister Bedfellows and the Sharing Is For Communists t-shirt, is caught in a bit of a financially worrying situation. As a result, he’s put our book on sale.

(I’d very much like to see a printed version of this eventually. I’m told it’s popular in American libraries, but I’ve only a PDF copy, myself.)

My story was about Shane Koyzan, (teaser: here), who is conveniently performing at the Cultch this Tuesday with all the lovely people mentioned in the flyer stage right. I’m told that I’m to be the official photographer for the evening, which is a task I’m beginning to look on with mounting panic. For one, the plate to my tripod’s gone missing. For another, as my mending is at two months behind, I’m going to have to very hurriedly find some theatre blacks with appropriate pockets. (This is where, simultaneously, one of you feels guilty and someone else laughs). Oh, watch me begin to scurry. while. stuck. at. work. Head, this is the desk.

how to properly put on a kimono.

The feet on the floor above me sound like an amplified heartbeat taken from a terrible new age TV show, as if they’re pushing blood through the building by the mystical power of dance. Heads thrown back, arms out, legs crashing in slow motion, blue waving graphics meant to symbolize something drastically spiritual and unlikely to be true. Either that or they sound like feet and I really should have slept more last night than I did. It’s a fifty/fifty bet.

Part of my mock-panic worry are the miniature New York Times Bestseller hallucinations floating around in the penumbra of most of my sensory input today. I’m not so far gone that I’m seriously considering joining the Project 365 Photo-a-Day, but I am beginning to sift through my pictures, trying to pick what to give to A View In Your Mirror. The idea is to create a collection of self-portraits from people all over the world, artists or no, in the medium they prefer. I fall into the categories presented, I like what they’ve chosen to show so far, but most importantly, (not to mention unexpectedly), I can’t think of any reason not to.