Winterlore on AKIMBLOG

Nice mention of last year's Hamilton Winterfest exhibition, Winterlore, on Akimblog's 2014 Critic's Picks, Hamilton edition. Thanks, Stephanie Vegh!

http://www.akimbo.ca/akimblog/?id=962

This year's exhibition is fast approaching. More info in this recent post here.

Hamilton Winterfest

There are some very exciting exhibitions on the horizon in Hamilton that I'm involved with that may be of interest to those in the area engaged in the often intersecting worlds of art and heritage. I'm putting on another outdoor exhibition as part of Hamilton Winterfest this February. On The Waterfront, as well as Things Made Here are unique shows that celebrate material culture and local history. See below, as well as Tourism Hamilton's website for more details!

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On The Waterfront
A Hamilton Winterfest Exhibition

Lesley Loksi Chan

Fwee Twade (Becky Katz and Matt McInnes)

Hopkins Duffield

Carey Jernigan and Julia Campbell-Such

Aaron Oussoren

C. Wells

To be on the waterfront is to be on the threshold of something. The waterfront is where settlers landed, and early trade took place. In the 19th Century, the area surrounding Pier 8 was home to some of the city’s first industrial sites, among them an iron works, boat works, sail loft and glass company. In On the Waterfront, industrial sites will serve as points of departure for contemporary artists from around and outside of the region. Evocative outdoor installations will draw on skills, materials and forms associated with early industry, as well as the social history of the neighbourhood. This exhibition will consider the Hamilton’s waterfront as a site of historical significance, tension and possibility, as well as a place where past stories and dreams of the future collide.

At the Hamilton Winterfest Kick-Off Event: February 7, 2015
12:00pm – 8:00pm

Pier 8, Hamilton


Things Made Here: The Collection of Glen Faulman
January 31 to March 21 2015
AGH Design Annex
118 James Street North, Hamilton

Glen Faulman (AKA The Hamilton Kid) is a 10th generation Hamiltonian and a 3rd generation steelworker. He is also part owner of This Ain’t Hollywood on James Street North—needless to say he has great pride in this city, and in particular, the things made here. Glen’s goal is to collect “an artifact from every manufacturing plant that ever operated in Hamilton,” which would be a number approaching a thousand.

On view at the AGH Design Annex are selections from his extensive collection of objects made in Hamilton. From a late 19th century sewing machine produced at a factory formerly located at James Street North and Vine Street, to a stunning Hamilton cash register made on James Street North at Colbourne, to nail samples and graphic ads for soda pop and beer, these everyday artifacts will be familiar to long-time Hamiltonians. They are a stunning introduction for those less familiar. Three types of objects are on display: graphic designs used commercially, the things themselves that were produced, and the things to make things with, such as nails and other components.

At the AGH Design Annex, we provide a platform for contemporary local designers. This exhibition will situate newer pieces in the context of historic local production, with the goal of celebrating those aspects of graphic and industrial design that have stood the test of time.

Curated by Melissa Bennett (Curator of Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Hamilton) and Tara Bursey (Independent Curator).

Join us during Art Crawl on Friday February 13, from 7 pm to 11pm as we launch the exhibition Things Made Here: The Collection of Glen Faulman. Meet the Collector and revel in DJ Johnny Angel’s 78 Spin Out – playing all your favorite 78’s.

For more information:

http://www.tourismhamilton.com/festivals-events/winterfest-2015/art-winterfest-2

Supercrawl 2015 Call for Artist Submissions

This is a public service announcement on behalf of the Supercrawl Curatorial Committee!

Supercrawl 2015 Call for Artist Submissions


Deadline: Tuesday December 16, 2014


Supercrawl is a free annual outdoor art and music festival in downtown Hamilton, and the Supercrawl Curatorial Committee is excited to once again release our Call for Artists for 2015. Supercrawl celebrates the unique mix of arts organizations, cultures, businesses and creative people along James Street North in Hamilton. Last year Supercrawl attracted over 100,000 attendees and will continue to grow in scale in 2015.



The Supercrawl Curatorial Committee presents a wide variety of artistic projects at the annual James Street North Supercrawl. The goal of the committee is to curate contemporary public art which challenges site and context, as well as works that present new opportunities for access and engagement for Supercrawl attendees.



The committee selects projects by local, national and international artists based on artistic merit, originality, and ability to integrate within the festival's scale and energy. This committee reports to the Supercrawl Board of Directors. Since 2010, the committee has curated works in a variety of media, including projects by Dean Drever, Zeke Moores, Sean Martindale, BGL, Kelly Mark, Kim Adams, Max Streicher, and many others. Committee members are Melissa Bennett, Tara Bursey, Amy Kenny, Courtney Lakin, Ciara McKeown, Dane Pederson, Alana Traficante, Stephanie Vegh and Matthew Walker.



facebook.com/Supercrawl

instagram.com/supercrawl

youtube.com/user/JamesStSuperCrawl


supercrawl.tumblr.com


The Curatorial Committee invites artists working in a wide range of creative disciplines to propose works for installation as part next year's event, taking place on September 11-13, 2015.



The Committee is interested in seeking proposals in the following media:
Installation art
Sculpture
Video (projection-based is preferred)
Performance art
Public interventions
Storefront window installations
Murals
New media
Dance


Works will be installed in various locations along James Street North; in addition, the committee is looking to focus on works that can be installed within the following contexts:

Mural wall on west side of 20 Wilson Street
Various windows of buildings along James Street North
Street vinyl (adhesive vinyl art on pavement, walls or windows)
Silent video shorts
*Please email us for images and further details on the above sites.


Proposals must consider public safety, visibility, and that which can be safely performed, or executed outside with large crowds at anytime of day/night, and will remain impactful during both the daytime and night hours of the festival. Each project selected will be allocated an artist’s fee and production fee. Costs such as travel and accommodation, where necessary, may be covered and will be addressed on an individual basis; production assistance may also be available.



Submission Requirements

        1. Artist's statement—conceptual statement on the work (150 words maximum)
2. Practical explanation of the work—i.e. Scale, materials, methods, etc. Thought must be given to install plan and technical/logistical requirements, as well as cost considerations
3. Three images/stills/sketches of the proposed work, supported by 3-5 images of previous work relevant to the proposed project (jpeg, max. 72dpi, no larger than 768 x 1024 pixels). Include title, year, medium, dimensions for all images
4. A clip, link or digital copy of any video (10 minutes max), if applicable
5. A statement as to whether the proposed work has been exhibited before; if it has, please include details as to where and when
6. CV with mailing address, phone number and email contact information
7. Location suggestion for your work (optional)

The Supercrawl Curatorial Committee is open to creatively diverse work that has visual impact and responds to the streetscape of the event. Artists and their work will be identified and publicized as official Supercrawl curatorial selections during the event, on the Supercrawl website and in select media releases. Artists will be required to sign a contract with Supercrawl Productions Inc. The committee will contact selected artists in late January – early February 2015.



Send submissions to supercrawlart@gmail.com

Subject Line: YOUR NAME, SUPERCRAWL ART

Deadline for submissions is Tuesday December 16, 2014.

Gorilla Graphics: This is Our Brain on Vinyl

Ben and I whipped up a little installation for our awesome friends at local record shop Hammer City Records for November's art crawl. This installation is also a big crazy promotional scheme for Ben's new business, Gorilla Graphics. We are grateful that Craig and Leah gave us the space to purge our brains of some silly imagery lifted from the annals of pop culture's sewer.

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GORILLA GRAPHICS: THIS IS OUR BRAIN ON VINYL 
Art Crawl Night 
Friday, November 14 7-11PM

Hammer City Records



Gorilla Graphics is a small business run by lifelong punks Ben Needham and Tara Bursey that specializes in producing custom vinyl and sign graphics for exhibitions, promotions, artists and businesses big and small. 

Part showcase and part mural, Gorilla Graphics: This Is Our Brain On Vinyl blends the objects and visuals we love from the worlds of punk, art, pop culture and design. This installation illustrates the countless possibilities for producing vinyl graphics for application on everything from walls to windows to drum heads. Radical vinyl decals for cars/skateboards/your UFO/etc. will be sold at the opening, with all proceeds going to Hammer City Records!


http://www.gorillagraphicshamilton.com/

http://gorilla-graphics.tumblr.com/
 

http://www.facebook.com/gorillagraphicshamont
Twitter: @gorillasdovinyl

Hammer City Records

228 St N at Rear off Robert Street Alley
Hamilton, ON
Show runs until the second week of December!

California

Carpet shop signage, West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles 

South African Embroidered Panel at the Fowler Museum, Los Angeles 

Mexican Human Skull Mosaicwork, LACMA, Los Angeles 

Jenny's, Chinatown Alleyway, San Francisco 

Ricky Henderson Planter Mosaic, Temescal, Oakland 

 San Francisco Botanical Gardens, Golden Gate Park

Night palms in Westwood, Los Angeles 

Chris Burden and Me, LACMA, Los Angeles

Scenes from my time in California, September 2014.

That Blue. That Red. That Yellow.

This summer, I had the pleasure of working on community art project Artasia 2014, an annual program of Culture for Kids in the Arts, which is the charitable arm of the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts. I was technically the curator-in-residence for the project, which was a massive, intense collaboration! The collaborative nature of this project rendered anyone's title moot, basically-- we all did so much, and there was a lot of overlap! Part of this work involved working with Hamilton-based sculptor Svava Thordis Juliusson. Her work produced for Artasia 2014, That Blue. That Red. That Yellow, was a big hit at our preview exhibition and final exhibition at Supercrawl and it was a pleasure to see it unfold in her studio. Here are some shots of it from two separate studio visits, taken in July of 2014.

Changing Education Paradigms

Amazing video!

Alexandra Brownell's Sweet Fibre at Needlework

At the beginning of this year, I had the awesome opportunity to visit a 3rd year textiles seminar class at Sheridan College as a guest curator thanks to friend and colleague Thea Haines, an instructor in their department of Crafts and Design.  I gave a talk about my work as an independent curator with a deep love and appreciation for textiles.  I also helped design and present an assignment to students where they were to prepare a submissions package for a call that I wrote around the theme of cotton.  All the students in the class were asked to think critically about cotton-- as a raw material, the history and politics of its production, and its qualities as a textile-- towards proposing an installation that they would create in the window of fantastic Hamilton textile shop, Needlework.

After all submissions were received and graded by Thea, Liz and Kate from Needlework and myself got together to jury the submissions.  Though so many submissions were thoughtful and worthy, we eventually decided on a proposal by the talented Alexandra Brownell who, inspired by archival photos at the Hamilton Local History Archives, created a nostalgic and whimsical tapestry that paid tribute to the carefree quality of cotton, outdoor fairs and the pleasure of summertime. I supported Alex through the process of planning her installation and writing an artist's statement, which was a great experience!

Sweet Fibre went up a few weeks ago, and is up for another week or two.  Spin around to check it out before it's too late! And congrats to Alex on a wonderful first solo show!

Call for Submissions: Repair Centre

New project alert!  Check out the following call for submissions and throw something my way if you're interested!

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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Repair Centre
at the Peter McKendrick Community Gallery
Artscape Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie Street, Toronto
Curated by Tara Bursey and sponsored by the Wychwood Barns Community Association

Repair Centre invites artists to submit art and project proposals that explore the politics, pragmatics, poetics and aesthetics of repair. This exhibition will take place at the Peter McKendrick Community Gallery in July of 2015.

Drawing on the past function of the Wychwood Barns TTC streetcar repair barns, Repair Centre will examine the function and principles of repair to restore, renew, maintain and heal. This call for submissions invites artists to consider artistic acts of repair as a means of engaging issues related to (but not limited to) architecture, ecology, the material world, DIY, labour, skilling and deskilling, the aesthetics of repair, human relationships, performativity and the borderlands between art and life. This exhibition proposes repair as an opportunity for re-invention, re-incarnation and an experience beyond a simple means to an end.

Please send the following materials for consideration:
-- A project proposal of new work, or a statement about previous work you are submitting for consideration (one page maximum, pdf format)
-- 3-5 jpgs of previous work (72dpi; 1024 x 768 pixels) or web links to video or audio
-- A corresponding image list (pdf format)
-- An updated CV and Bio (pdf format)
-- Contact information

Please send proposals to tara@tarabursey.com by July 15th, 2014. Please label all email submissions as REPAIR CENTRE SUB in the subject line.

Naziosare

Ivan Manuppelli 

Guess Who? 

Mou 

 Colin Clark

Just got this amazing piece of work in the mail today from Abraham Diaz and Yecal Disaster of Ediciones ¡Joc Doc! in Mexico City.  All pages are screenprinted and risographed; the art is by 16 artists from around the globe.  Buy it here!

Recap: Justseeds in Hamilton

 

Yours truly at top right, DJ Carla Coma at bottom right

Last March, I organized two exhibitions of the work of Justseeds Artist's Cooperative at Homegrown Hamilton (This is an Emergency!) and Hammer City Records (Celebrate Women's Herstory) in honour of International Women's Day.  What started out as an idea for one exhibition soon sprawled into two, along with a couple of amazing community partnerships with SACHA and Centre3 for Print and Media Art.  At the opening party, four lady DJs (including myself and Justseeds' DJ Mary 'Mack' Tremonte) spun records to the point that revelers needed to be kicked out because they didn't want the party to stop.  The opening was seriously one of the funnest nights I've had in Hamilton since moving here just under a year ago and I'm still reeling from all the wonderful feedback about the two shows and the sheer awesomeness of them.

It's been a while since the show closed, and I've been meaning to post here to thank everyone one more time for making this happen.  Thanks first to Mary Tremonte (Toronto-based Justseeds member) without whom the shows would not have happened. Thanks to Mike of Homegrown Hamilton and the amazing Leah and Craig of Hammer City Records for providing valuable wall space, enthusiasm and assistance. Thanks to Carla Coma and Donna Lovejoy for providing amazing tunange. Thanks to Erin Crickett and SACHA for teaming up and spreading the word and Ingrid at Centre3 for helping coordinate the artist's talk with Mary and Jesse of Justseeds.  

The Justseeds shows were in part inspired by the shared enthusiasm for print culture that spans across Hamilton cultural scenes, from art to craft to activism to punk rock.  Evidence of this can be found in retail spaces like Mixed Media on James Street to the DIY merch made by Hamilton punk rockers to the incredible community initiatives of Centre3. I'm proud that the Justseeds exhibitions and events in March (and of course the work of Justseeds) brought these things together in a profound way.

I'll be putting together one more show at Hammer City Records this year!  Not sure what it will be yet, but the goal is for it to be as amazing and fun as the Justseeds shows.  We'll see what I can muster up...

This is an Emergency! at Homegrown Hamilton

Leah Wishnia in MRR

Couldn't resist posting here about this recent interview with Fear of Punk//Fear of Art exhibitor and comic artist/champion extraordinnaire, Leah Wishnia.  Lots of great mention of the Fear of Punk exhibition, and we are thrilled that MRR learned of her work through us-- pretty unbelieveable.

Check out more of Leah's amazing work here.  Also keep an eye out for her interview with me and School Jerks in her comics anthology Happiness this June.

Tea, Talk and Tell at Needlework

At long last, Pulling Strings' next event is on the horizon.  After an incredible month of guest blog posts about essential textile-related publications, PS is launching it's latest initiative-- a textile book reference library-- with a reading and breakfast event at Needlework.  Textile artists Grant Heaps and Kate Jackson, Hamilton-based craft producer and maker Anna Zygowski and past Director of the TMC and lovely local Jennifer Kaye will talk about their favourite textile books in a casual show-and-tell/roundtable discussion.  There will be time to peruse the brand-new reference library's rich (and growing) collection as well, and we will be serving up tasty homemade scones.  Don't miss it!

Tea, Talk and Tell

A Launch Event for the Pulling Strings Reference Library

at Needlework

174 James Street North

Hamilton

Sunday, April 27th, 11 am - 12:30 pm

The Pulling Strings Reference Library

There's lots of amazing stuff brewing with my textile-based collective, Pulling Strings.  A few weeks ago our newest project, The Pulling Strings Reference Library, had its soft launch at Needlework.  A growing collection of eclectic textile-related publications have been installed in Needlework's window along with a cozy chair for browsing and lounging.  After April, the library will become an ongoing fixture at Needlework as a semi-permanent community reference of textile art, theory and how-to books, zines and catalogues both old and new, weird and wonderful.

There are other great library goings-on happening until the end of April as well.  Every Tuesday and Thursday, our blog will feature reviews of books from the personal collections of some of our textile heroes.  This series kicked off last week with reviews by Robyn Love, Kate Jackson and Grant Heaps with many more lined up (previews of a few of the books that will be featured above!). At the end of April, we'll have a reading event at Needlework where an impressive group of textile enthusiasts will read aloud from their fave textile books.  More details to come soon!

http://pullingstringshamilton.blogspot.ca/
https://www.facebook.com/pullingstringshamilton