Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Fifth Grade
















Here's a sneak preview of a project I've been working on for the past few nights...one of about a billion in progress right now!  I am one of a group of artists and art organizations working on a project called Artmap 09, which will be exhibited as a part of this year's Manifesto Festival next month. In a nutshell, each participating artist/organization is responsible for executing a piece of artwork on a surface in the shape of each ward of Toronto. I am in charge of doing a piece of work that represents Ward 38- Scarborough Centre, the ward I was born and grew up in.  After the festival, the piece will be presented to the councillor of Ward 38 as a gift.

For the piece, I decided to pay tribute to the kids of Ward 38. Specifically, I chose to draw each kid pictured in my fifth and sixth grade school photos from Churchill Heights Public School. The kids depicted in the piece illustrate the diversity my old neighbourhood in Scarborough is renowned for; the year I was in fifth grade marked the first year of a period of 9 years (1991-2000) in which the ward's immigrant population doubled.  

I'm really thrilled to be working on a project that immortalizes the kids I grew up with- kids from blue-collar families, the children of immigrants, kids who live in high-rise and basement apartments. Poor and lower-middle class kids making the most of a time marred by conflict and economic turmoil...kids a world away from the kids depicted on television shows of the day such as Full House and Home Improvement.  

For more on the Artmap, click here.

(By the way, that's me on the bottom right in the picture above...!)

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

paperwork/foodwork at Poplar gallery.online






















It's been such a busy last few weeks for me and I have tons to post about, but need to devote my time to seeing through my millions of little projects right now as opposed to musing about them here.  One thing I really should have posted about earlier is I have a small online exhibition up now called paperwork/foodwork at Poplar gallery.online. Big, huge thank-you's to textile artist and Poplar curator Mackenzie Frere for making this happen and devoting time to putting up the work and designing the show.  While you're at Poplar, be sure to check out some of the archived online shows, many of which are really wonderful.

paperwork/foodwork is an older body of work executed during my time in Toronto School of Art's ISP Program in 2007-08.  For more images of this body of work, check out my ISP 07-08 Flickr page

paperwork/foodwork will be up until the end of the year.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Zine Dream II

All the info for this year's Zine Dream just came out.  I'll be tabling again this year, with some old zines, a long-in-the-making new zine (which I'll likely post about here within the next week or so...) and some odds and ends.  Here's everything you need to know:

Zine Dream is a small press art fair with over 50 vendors of hand made arts and crafts, zines, prints, and more! 

Also Featuring:

Toronto Zine Library Open House/Collaborative Zine Making Workshop!

A Bake Sale!!

Performances by:


Nick Flanagan (www.toromagazine.com/popculture)
Anna May Henry
Zeesy Powers (http://www.zeesypowers.com/)

Music by:

Carl Didur (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfh0eQxa4mM)
Andre Charles Theriault (http://www.myspace.com/andretheriault)
James Anderson 
Braintrust (electronic duo of Peter Thompson and James Kirkpatrick!!)

and DJs:

Wes Allen (http://doingittodeath.wordpress.com/)
Boner Dragon (http://offwhiteto.blogspot.com/)
and 
Body Beautiful (http://robertdayton.blogspot.com/)

Zine Dream II
SUNDAY AUGUST 30th 2009
at the TRANZAC 
292 Brunswick Avenue
12 - 6 PM, PWYC

Friday, August 07, 2009

Call for Submisisons: Collectorama at OCAD Graduate Gallery


I found this neat call on Toronto Craft Alert about a week ago.  I'd really like to talk about my record collection...! Check it out.

*****

Collectorama is an afternoon event dedicated to the gesture, impulse, and manifestation of collecting. It is being held in conjunction with the exhibition Other People’s Collections* in the OCAD Graduate Gallery on Saturday, September 19, 2009, 11 – 3pm.

Collectorama is an event for enthusiasts, artists, and experts to collectively tease out the pertinence and resonance of collecting and collections.

Collectorama is looking for you and your idiosyncratic! populist! embarrassing! enviable! professional! amateur! imaginary! real! contemporary! historical! rare! ordinary! huge! overwhelming! modest! boring! collection and/or research to be shared as a 10-20 minute presentation. There will be a slide & video projector present as visuals are strongly encouraged.

!! call for participation !!
Please submit:

  • a short description of the collection you will focus on
  • a short proposal outlining the scope of your presentation including the expected length and whether visuals will be used (making note of the format: digital, slides, objects…)
  • a bio and/or cv

Email your submission to: collectorama2009@gmail.com by Tuesday,
September 1, 2009. All participants will be contacted within one week
regarding their participation in this event.

* Other People’s Collections is a collaborative exhibition between
Hazel Meyer, Amy Pelletier, and Deborah Wang, working with the
gesture, process and repurposing of collections. The exhibition will
consist of Meyer’s installation Cvjetka Meyer’s collection of 1027
handkerchiefs- strung, hung and motorized and Pelletier’s series of 36
photographs, Collector, along with the launch of Wang’s Text Painting
Project, at the OCAD Graduate Gallery from September 17 to October 4,
2009.