Strange day. The feeling I've had all day reminds me of these photos by Lilli Waters. 

*

Tho I pleaded for silence You

forced me to sing

engorged my throat

can I not be nothing

Your tongue drove song thru me

& rendered song

useless

Shall I cry out only so that I

be shamed

by truth O

give this sentence to some other fool

*

-Jakon Stein

American Letters & Commentary

http://www.lilliwaters.com/

There's this short film that I saw on CBC ZeD sometime in between 2001-2004 before they cancelled that fabulous show. I think about this film semi-often. It really affected my brain at the time and it stuck there. I just remember sneaking out of bed to watch this show in the middle of the night in the dark, and this short came on. It was super simple. All it was was a red color being dropped into water really slow motion like. It looked like blood, the sound track was really soft and kind of eiree. As the color dropped, pin-points would appear on it with words you couldn't quite read, like each cell in the blood had it's on story to tell. A good reminder that things don't have to be over the top to be affective. Keeping it simple, with sincerity and putting it together well.

And since we're on the theme of dispersing color, I thought I'd add this one too.

I went to the Master's of Fire event last night. So great! It's amazing to see people create things with dangerous objects. The highlight of the show for me was the creepy vaudeville wedding scene done at the beginning by about 30 people. The costumes, the props and the acting were amazing!

http://montrealenfeu.ca/en/home.html

http://www.byhookorbycrook.ca/

By Hook or By Crook opening this evening at Eastern Bloc, 8pm.

The installation went really well yesterday. Can't wait to light it and see the whole show!!

The pieces of Nature Preserve, broken up and ready to be hauled to the gallery in our tiny little truck with all our stuff crammed in.

Jules Desmarais setting up Red Kimono I - Diagnosis and Red Kimono II - Correction

What you take off isn’t always gone
Sandra Chirico

Situation 1
Karen Warshaw Lampcov

Courtney Mayes setting up for hell is other people.

Tanya Bernleithner setting up Curiosities.

The beginnings of Fabrication by Lauren Osmond.

Munirih Campbell playing in Cozy Unicarpellate Fruit Follicle by Véronique Leblanc.

Emily Kathleen McIntyre setting up Hobby Horse I.

Live Wire
Selina Doroshenko

Learn what I can, do what I want.
Munirih Campbell

The pieces of LaLaLand - part 2 by Jessica Bélanger.

Come out tonight to see the final result!

http://www.byhookorbycrook.ca/

http://www.byhookorbycrook.ca/

In case any of you are interested in the process of how I made the work that will be showing in Eastern Bloc on Friday! 

Nature Preserve is a large sculptural work made of metal and paper. It stands 8 feet tall by 3.5 feet wide. The outside is meant to fit into an industrial space, but when you open the door and step inside, it feels like an inverted tree. The intention of the piece is to discuss trying to create a natural space within an urban environment, but only being able to create a contained and not truly real space.

I don't have images of making the metal cylinder, but it was large pieces of sheet metal cut and welded together so that they break down into 2 foot sections. 

The interior of the metal was then covered in chicken wire and cheese cloth so that the paper would adhere to the wall. 

I made some latex molds of tree bark from trees in parks around my home. These molds were then packed with cotton paper pulp and the molded paper pressed into the cheesecloth section by section. 

While the paper was still wet I sprayed on a mixed of procaine dyes and urea water. As the paper dried the water pulled the pigments apart creating a unique and natural created color pattern.  

Each section was done in this way, dried, and then the cylinder rotated to the next section. 

Finally, two months later, the structure is complete! 

The show will take place on March 30th at Eastern Bloc 7420 Rue Clark, after the opening of En Avril, the fibers festival that the show is a part of.

http://www.enavril.com/

The opening talk for En Avril  begins at 1515 rue Sainte-Catherine ouest, Montréal, at 4:30pm, with the reception beginning at 6:30. From there we will move to Eastern Bloc, which will be open at 7pm with the vernissage officially starting at 8:00pm. Dancing will happen at Eastern Bloc at 9:30pm with Dj forage performing.

http://www.infinitezero.ca/

Gallery hours are:

From March 31 to April 5 2012 :
- Saturday March 31 : 12-5 pm
- Sunday April 1 : 12-5 pm
- Monday April 2 : CLOSED
- Tuesday April 3 : 12-5 pm
- Wednesday April 4 : 12-5 pm
- Thursday April 5 : 12-5 pm

http://www.byhookorbycrook.ca/

Also, What I'm listening to as I work today-

Jesca Hoop Big Fish

I have become curious about the meaning of love and what actually happens when I fall "in love"with someone. I have been doing some research into what scientifically happens when people fall for each other, such as this lovely TED talk by phycologist Helen Fisher. I have also been delving into my own personal journey as a human. 

The first part of my project is involving me creating a weaving of my entire romantic history. I used a different color for each person, and each foot equaled one year. The amount of color in the weft equalled how much time I spent with that person, the amount of color in the warp was how much of myself I gave to that person. Cataloguing this took MONTHS of work, going over old journal entires and emails until I finally had a visual map of what my romantic history looked like. 

I'm also weaving in photographs, poetry, mementos. All of those things that when I started looking, I couldn't believe I still had. All of those things that were at one time, some of the most important possessions I had because they reminded me of someone I loved. 

This magazine is actually one that I had up in my locker in grade 9 of a celebrity I had a crush on. 

As I was going over my old writings, I also noticed something else. There were redundancies in things that I wrote from one relationship to the next. Reading the words, "I don't want to live without you," or "You make me the happiest I've ever been," really made me interested in how I can feel the same way for a different person time and time again, and yet still feel just as stoically that it is a brand new feeling.

I have no idea of where this journey will lead me to yet, but it sure has been an interesting process to go over my own romantic history and see the same feelings I had for different people again and again. 

 And the scarf of many lovers, 18 feet long...

Being inspired by the relationship that animals are capable of having with humans. Showing that any animal can have the capacity to show love and acceptance when just treated according to their own set of rules.

Kevin Richardson is an animal behaviorist who has worked with big cats and relies on intuition rather than static rules. He has slept next to, fed, and lived with his lions. Along with his lions, he has worked with cheetahs, leopards, and hyenas. He prefers lions to any other big cat. His relationship, however, is not an instant one. Most of the lions he works with, he has known since they were cubs. He still continues his bond with Tau and Napoleon, the lion brothers that introduced him to big cats. His unique relationship with the genus Panthera has dispelled many myths concerning the care of lions. Richardson shows that lions and animals in general have personalities, feelings, and are social creatures. He shows that with mutual respect, many species can coexist together.

(taken from Wikipedia Kevin_Richardson)

http://www.lionwhisperer.co

Come and join us for Don't Call it a Comeback, a show regrouping of talented jury selected artists. A catalogue of the exhibition will be sold at the vernissage. 

VERNISSAGE: SATURDAY MARCH 17TH @ 2:00 P.M.

« The objects in Don’t Call It A Comeback use tactile materials to create sculptures -whether self-supporting or affixed to the body- which articulate a knowledge of the haptic. » (excerpt of the exhibition catalog written by Nicola Krantz)

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

ARTISTS/ARTISTES:

//Florence Boivin
//Sabrina Dufour
//Kevyn Durocher
//Gabrielle Gingras
//Hearyung Kim
//Catherine Lisi-Daoust
//Lori Malépart-Traversy
//April Martin
//Lauren Osmond
//Keren Petrie
//Jodi Sharp
//Janna Maria Vallée.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

An event not to be missed!

Un événement à ne pas manqué!

VERNISSAGE: 17/03/12 @ 14hrs

Gallery Diagonale

http://www.artdiagonale.org/

Finally finished this work! Older posts about this project can be seen here-

Work-in-progress

For this project I worked around the theme of emotion. For the thirty days I documented and kept track of my emotional state. Every time I thought of it I would write down the time and a current word that described me. (Eg. 19:56- Anticipatory) 

After a month of documenting my own emotion, I printed it on material that I then made into a garment I could wear. On the outside of the jacket beautiful things have been embroidered, such as birds and flowers and leaves. This signifies my own preference to project outward only the things that are beautiful and "nice", but not necessarily portray my true emotions and reactions. On the inside of the jacket is the printed material of how I felt every day, showing that what is real is often what we hide.

I feel that in our society we are taught to obscure our feelings and only project what we think others want to see. It is important to acknowledge the diverse range of emotions that human beings are capable of, and how we actually apply them to our environment. Communication is the key to human beings interacting in a healthy way, but communication gets halted when honesty is not applied to what we feel. 

www.jodisharp.ca

                             
Mikhael Paskalev - I spy from André Chocron on Vimeo.

And OH my GOODNESS, one of the coolest light dances I've seen! Done by Wrecking Crew Orchestra, a Tron inspired dance routine. 

Also their very cool commercial. Only the Japanese... 

http://wizarts.jp/

And last but not least, something of your very own to dance around to this morning- Dj forage, just goofing around at our house the other day. :)

Dancey Tech House Practice Dj forage

His full website is

http://flavors.me/1nfinitezer0#683/soundcloud

I just got introduced to these guys by a friend. Super great.

I went to an INCREDIBLE puppet show this morning (yup, 11:00 on a Sunday morning) for the International Puppet Theater Festival. It blew my mind! It was just two people, but the set was amazing, involving a lot of objects, wire, magnets and projection that the actors created with while on set. It was extremely wonderful and SO inspiring. And taught me that I will find my way EVEN IF I'm DIFFERENT!! 

Ernest T. is afraid of the world around him… Born amidst a labyrinth of objects and protected by his “mother-hen”, he must one day leave the warmth of this tangled mess and go to school. On his quest he will follow in the footsteps of Louise-Adélaïde. She’s a no-ordinary eccentric that will help him find his true self.

Walking the tightrope of life, Ernest T. juggles with the times. Adorable from head to toe, he embodies “difference”: scary difference, funny difference, thought-provoking difference and, ultimately, the difference that is an integral part of who we are. What if normalcy simply did not exist?

Founded in 2004 by Agnès Zacharie, Ubus Théâtre stages its performances inside a school bus converted into a small theater. Le Périple and L’Écrit were warmly received at every stop as they travelled from Tadoussac to France. Ernest T., Ubus Théâtre’s latest creation, is presented here in the intimate reconstruction of the original bus. With its manipulation of miniature puppets, small objects, light and sound, the show offers its audience a unique brand of magic – with front row seats for all!

http://festival.casteliers.ca/en/shows/ernest-t/

Also, this lovely little song that helps describe my morning. 

Jodi Sharp
2012
Paper

Nature Preserve Urban Installation is a public interjection into the city of Montreal. In it, paper replicas of tree bark are wheat pasted around the city onto stereotypical urban surfaces such as glass, plastic and metal. The intention of the piece is to highlight the juxtaposition between the natural world and man-made constructions, as well as discussing the lack of real natural space within the city. As the paper gets wet it will begin to dissolve, referencing ideas of the impermanence of nature when it is not cared for.

Jodi Sharp

2012

Performance

Nature Preserve Performance is a performance done in the parking lot of a large shopping centre. In it, the artist creates a ritual where she tries to call to the "gods of nature" to replace the trees that previously lived there. 

Although the artist puts in hours of work, the ritual ultimately does not achieve the goal of making trees appear, and the artist leaves the space essentially as she arrived in it. In fact, the only thing that is changed through the course of time is the artist's paper costume, which breaks down and falls away as the ritual goes on. 

The intent of the performance is to discuss how difficult it is to replace natural space after it has been removed, and how "faith" will not fix the damage done to the environment. If the damage to environmental space is to be repaired it will require a lot more effort than prayer, and if we do not take the correct actions to change the situation, the only damage done will be to ourselves.

The beautiful photographs of Robert and Shana Parkeharrison. Not quite how I'm feeling this evening as I work, but it's getting there.

http://www.parkeharrison.com/

And what I listen to as I work-

Also! Website for the show that is open this week-

http://weighs.com/

Jodi Sharp

2012

8' x 3' 6"
Metal, Paper

The purpose of Nature Preserve Sculpture is to discuss the relationship between urban and natural space. Standing eight feet tall by 3.5 feet wide, Nature Preserve Sculpture invites the viewer to enter into and close oneself off in it. Inside are paper castings taken off of trees in the artist's neighbourhood. The viewer is surrounded by a nature mimicking environment that changes the sound and feeling of the viewer's space. However, the comforting "natural" space cannot be mistook for something manmade, which in the confined space becomes somewhat disconcerting. 

Nature Preserve Sculpture deals with the human desire to try and implement natural space within a city, while still keeping it contained and manicured, therefore making it unnatural. 

For meticulous, ridiculous, beautiful work.

All cut out and stuck together with pins.

http://www.davidadey.com

Recommended by a friend of mine: M∆DE:IN:HEIGHTS. I love them!

The website launch for the catalogue of By Hook or By Crook. At Le Cagibi on Thursday. There will be entertainment and raffle tickets!

http://www.byhookorbycrook.ca/