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

Justseeds Artists' Cooperative in Hamilton this Friday!

If you're in Hamilton (and even if you're not!), don't miss the multi-venue event Celebrate Women's History with Justseeds Artists' Cooperative which kicks off on Friday, March 14th at the James Street North Art Crawl!  Thanks so much to the local exhibition partners for helping make this happen-- Homegrown Hamilton, Hammer City Records, Centre3 for Print and Media Art and SACHA.

RSVP on the event Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/701873419870645/?ref=br_tf

RSVP to Celebrate Women's Herstory at Hammer City Records on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/533030836816430/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular

Celebrate Women's History In Hamilton with Justseeds Artists' Cooperative

It's amazing to see so many events cropping up around Hamilton for International Women's Day on the 8th.  I'm adding one to the pile that I've had up my sleeve since the beginning of this year-- a two-venue art event showcasing the work of the Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, a collective of print artists from across the US, Canada and Mexico.  I was introduced to Justseeds' work at Printed Matter's NY Art Book Fair at PS1 in 2012 and fell in love with their punchy, passionate prints that tackled topics such as climate change, feminist heroes and war resisters.  It's my pleasure to have a hand in bringing their work-- with the help of Justseeds member Mary Tremonte, a former Pittsburgher (is that a word?) now based in Toronto-- to the Hammer.  Read on for more info about Justseeds, the exhibitions, our partners and the opening party at art crawl on March 14th!

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Celebrate Women's History In Hamilton with Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative

In honour of International Women's Day 2014-- 20+ Artists!  Two Venues!  Print Media!  Gender Justice!  Rock’n’Roll!

Exhibition #1:
This is an Emergency!
At Homegrown Hamilton, 7 King William Street, Hamilton, Ontario
March 14th - April 10th, 2014; opens at Art Crawl, March 14th, 2014, 7pm. Presented in association with SACHA
http://www.homegrownhamilton.com/
http://sacha.ca/

This is an Emergency! is an exhibition of a print portfolio organized by Meredith Stern of Justseeds in 2012 which focuses on reproductive rights and gender justice. In response to all the bullying, legislative measures, and the horrifying statements filling the media against women, 2-LGBTQ, and non-gender conforming folks, the project brings together a collection of voices responding through visual art and interviews. This project brings together the voices of people most affected by these issues-- women, queer identified, and transgendered artists.

Exhibition #2:
Celebrate Women’s Herstory: A collaborative printstallation created by Justseeds Co-op members Mary Tremonte and Jesse Purcell, including selected posters from the Celebrate People’s History poster series. Posters and prints will be available for sale.
At Hammer City Records, 228 James Street North, Bsmt @ Rear; opens at Art Crawl, March 14th, 2014, 7 pm
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hammer-City-Records/144221478929997

Other Events:
Art Crawl Opening Night Party! DJs Mary Mack, Donna Lovejoy, Carla Coma and Tara Strange spin a lady-hero playlist at Hammer City Records, 228 James Street North, Bsmt @ Rear, March 14th, 2014, 7-11pm

Artists’ Talk with Justseeds’ Mary Tremonte and Jesse Purcell at Centre3 for Print and Media Arts, Saturday, March 22nd, 2014 @ 5pm, PWYC
http://centre3.com/

*****

Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative is a decentralized network of 24 artists committed to making print and design work that reflects a radical social, environmental, and political stance. With members working from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, Justseeds operates both as a unified collaboration of similarly minded printmakers and as a loose collection of creative individuals with unique viewpoints and working methods. We believe in the transformative power of personal expression in concert with collective action. To this end, we produce collective portfolios, contribute graphics to grassroots struggles for justice, work collaboratively both in- and outside the co-op, build large sculptural installations in galleries, and wheatpaste on the streets – all while offering each other daily support as allies and friends.

Mary (Mack) Tremonte is an artist-educator-DJ currently living in Toronto, ON where she is a Masters student at OCADU. Her vibrant silkscreen prints explore queer animal sexualities, amplified possibilities, and signifiers. As a DJ and party organizer she strives to create temporary safe spaces for expression, as well as to raise funds and awareness for grassroots causes. She is consumed with printmaking, totally teens, collaboration, communication and the politics of social space, particularly the danceparty.

Jesse Purcell is a multi-disciplinary artist and professional printmaker. After many years of working in Montréal’s vibrant screen-printing mileu, he has recently relocated to Toronto. The roots and current drive of his practice derive from the global DIY underground poster and art scene, which confronts issues of social and environmental injustice. He has a 20-year history of working in and with socially engaged artists’ collectives with the goal of using art as a tool of social transformation. His current work experiments with scale and pushing the parameters of the serigraphic medium.

Celebrate Women's History in Hamilton with Justseeds Cooperative is organized by Hamilton-based artist and curator Tara Bursey in collaboration with Homegrown Hamilton, Hammer City Records, Centre3 for Print and Media Art and SACHA.

Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, 2012

Symposium Recap

I've been too darn busy with graduation and work to post these photos of the She Said Boom Feminist Zine Symposium, that happened two weekends ago.  The workshop on Saturday, April 27th was definitely a highlight-- an all-day collaborative zine-making session with several talented and brilliant women of all ages. I wanted to thank and acknowledge everyone who took part for their amazing contributions: Emily Cook, Sarah Snyder, Lia Frederiksen, Aviva Cohen, Andrea Manica, J.P. King (honorary woman for the day!), Samantha Miller, Marta Ryczko, Renee Saucier, Lydia Ogwang, Meredith Marty-Dugas and Robyn Marty-Dugas.  And of course big ups to my fellow organizers Erin Oh, Shannon Gerard and Amy Egerdeen.

She Said Boom Feminist Zine Making Symposium

Okay, people-- let's get down to business.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I have two first loves that are inextricably linked: zines and punk rock.  It is a "chicken or egg" situation.  I was inspired by early British and American punk zines when I was barely a teenager.  I made my first punk fanzine on my dad's fax machine in Scarborough.  My awkward earliest explorations of punk, politics and social justice were through writing in zines. While this blog more or less chronicles my "art life," and I can honestly say that I would not have an art life if it wasn't for zines and punk rock.  Zines and punk are the heart and lungs of my life as an artist.  (Whoa...did I just say that?)

I am in my early thirties and still involved in p-rock, but sometimes I wonder why I stick around.  In contemporary punk and hardcore, zines and art are marginal activities at best.  I have stood by local punk as it openly disparaged art.  I have stood by punk even as it covertly disparaged women.  I have stood by punk (reluctantly) as it reproduced many of the structures and conventions found in the "real world."  Zines have recently made something of a comeback in the punk scene, but they draw from the conventions of Twitter and Vice Magazine.  One-liners and pictures of people at parties.  Punk rock by way of advertising and back again.  But I digress...!

Thinking about this makes me want to revert back to a simpler time...a time when women like Caroline Azar and GB Jones were the gold-dust of my teenhood fantasies.  When I was sixteen, I destroyed my bedroom floor with glue stick residue, utility knife slashes and metallic blue nail polish.  By this time, I had made about fifteen zines, though many sat in my room assembled and saddle-stitched but not distributed.  The postal service was still the zine-makers super (slow) highway.  I dreamed of run down bachelor(ette) apartments in Kensington Market with back alley access, walls painted in red enamel, plastered with obscure tracts and littered with trinkets from Chinatown. The sound of static on the radio and red wine seven nights a week.  A full moon framed by a windowsill  rough with decades of paint layers peeling and chipping away; robins-egg blue, beige and salmon. Creativity as a transcendental force.

As nostalgic and somewhat jaded as I may sound here, I still believe in the power of self-publishing.  And the above event happening next weekend (I am one of it's several organizers) combines all these "first loves" into a stew of zine, art, punk and lady goodness.

The She Said Boom Feminist Zine Making Symposium consists of three days of activities with a focus on zines, print culture and feminism from April 25-27.  Heaps of inspiration will come by way of a screening of the documentary She Said Boom: The Story of Fifth Column, which features the story of the legendary Toronto band who were nothing if not totally dedicated to the blending of art, music, film and publishing.  Art and rock heroes GB Jones and Caroline Azar of Fifth Column will give a talk about their work on the Friday night.  The following day, several local printers and zine-makers will help facilitate a day-long collaborative zine making marathon, while giving guidance on Risograph, letterpress, hand and perfect binding and photocopying strategies. Selections of zines loaned from my old pals the Toronto Zine Library will be available for browsing over the course of the day.  That night, the finished collaborative zine will be launched at a party at Gallerywest on Queen Street West.  FYI: On Saturday afternoon, I will be running zine participants to Kinkos, where I will teach a clandestine workshop entitled "Photocopier Tips N' Tricks."  Among the workshop facilitators and symposium organizers are local printers and zinesters Shannon Gerard, J.P. King/Paper Pusher Print Works, Erin Oh (a.k.a: symposium brainchild), Amy Egerdeen, Mary "Mack" Tremonte and myself.

For more info on this extravaganza or to register for your spot in the Saturday workshop, check out this and that link, or email feministzines@gmail.com

Stories About Art

One of my favourite Frida Kahlo paintings, Without Hope (1945)

Is there potential in the prospect of critics writing short stories about art in the place of art reviews or traditional pieces of art criticism?  Here's a short story that I wrote recently (raw and pretty much unedited) that used Frida Kahlo's paintings as a starting point and ended with mention of Diane Arbus.

Gross

“Frida Kahlo makes explicit the openness, fragility and leakiness of the body-self, as not just object and subject, but also as always potentially ‘abject.’”  Reading this sentence in an art history text, I am reminded of my break from childhood to adulthood.  What things change between these periods that could serves as signposts, you ask?  I promise, it’s not what you think.

I remember when I was about twenty-one, living in my second apartment; I learned I wasn’t afraid of “gross” anymore.  I remember doing the dishes, determined to wash each plate and mug until it was perfectly spotless.  I relished in the steamy scent of green detergent wafting in my nostrils.  By the time I finished this chore and the chortle of the last trace of grimy water circled the drain, there would be chunks of tomato and bloated grains of rice gathered at the bottom of the sink.  Sometimes I would try to jam it all down the drain with my thumb.  Other times I would scoop up the slimy detritus with my hand and throw it in the garbage under the sink unfazed.  The bottom line is it didn’t bother me like it might have a year or two earlier, when I would have just let the dishes slide for another day.

When I was a child, I was afraid of everything gross.  The country was gross.  The way dragonflies skittered across the surface of a lake did not fill me with a wide-eyed sense of wonder, but rather with tiny jabs of fear that bordered on disgust.  The mosquito avenged the contempt I had for nature.  Their bites would swell to the size of fried eggs on my young, fleshy body, resembling breasts I did not yet have.  My swollen self yearned to go back to the city, back to the perfect balance of chaos and control of subway lines and air-conditioned malls on Saturday afternoons.  Garbage water and gutter dirt had nothing on the smell of cabin and the feel of algae on my feet. As I aged, visits to friend’s cottages were politely passed up more and more frequently.

Gross is never in style for teenage girls, and for a while it wasn’t for me either.  But at one point, I realized that gross could be a weapon.  I put egg white and Kool-Aid in my hair; put black tar around my eyes to look like a cross between a movie monster and a mocking caricature of femininity.  While this may be gross to some, this isn’t really the kind of gross I am addressing here.  This is a more topical type of gross.  What I’m really talking about is the gross that gets under your skin and into your intestines.

In her biography, an acquaintance of the photographer Diane Arbus claimed that in the few years before her death, Arbus “would wander around Central Park with a camera strapped around her neck.  She was always wearing the same leather pants, and often had a strong smell about her.”  It is an unwritten rule that one of the more taboo day-to-day transgressions is body odor.  That man on the bus who smells like a cross between salami and scalp, or the mouth-breather in the doctor’s office who has a cheesy funk to him.  But one day, somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, it was like someone had flicked a switch inside of me.  I began to welcome the smell of my own body, and almost revel in it. To some, the smell I’m referring to might be the sort to get under the skin and into the intestines.  But to me, it’s a reminder that I am imperfectly and gloriously alive.

Esther Bubley

I'm writing about the work of American photographer Esther Bubley in the 1940s right now--she was known for depicting working class female subjects.  While working for the IWO in the 1940s, she travelled up and down the east coast by Greyhound on assignments because she didn't drive.  Many of her better known images were taken of passengers, drivers and workers on the bus.  These images were collected in the IWO photo series, Bus Story.

"In these respects, Esther Bubley's photographic apprenticeship was very different from that of other women who had worked for the FSA in the 1930s. Bubley's small town, lower-middle-class background pales in comparison with Dorothea Lange's intrepid documentary adventures across the country. Bubley also did not have the advantage of Marion Post Wolcott's bohemian education in Greenwich Village and Vienna. Furthermore, unlike her female predecessors, Bubley's pre-FSA photographic experience was in commercial and fashion photography rather than in socially concerned documentation, like Lange, or with photojournalism, like Post Wolcott. Bubley did not even have a driver's licence. Her photographic projects for the FSA were therefore confined to the Washington, DC area and the outskirts of Virginia. When she travelled, it was not for thousands of miles through the Southern states solo with an axe in her trunk; nor was it across the Midwest and California consumed by a vision to reconstruct a social and economic history of agricutural production in the United States. Instead, Esther Bubley travelled from Washington, DC to Memphis on an overcrowded Greyhound bus. Her view of America in the 1940s was not of an unobscured road heading west seen from the roof of her car, but looking awkwardly through the bus driver's windscreen as the bus moved along, trying not to get in the driver's way.  Consequently, Bubley's vision was a little lopsided, her view not quite squarely framed."

- Jacqueline Ellis.  (1996).  "Revolutionary Spaces: Photographs of Working-Class Women by Esther Bubley, 1940-43"

Amy Borkwood Interview on TCA

Amy was my subletter while I was in Baltimore!  She is also an accomplished bookbinder, longtime zine maker and all-round awesome person.  I interviewed her recently for Toronto Craft Alert-- in it she talks about how she has integrated zines into her job as a community worker.  Mega inspiring stuff.

http://torontocraftalert.ca/2012/02/16/questions-for-crafters-amy-borkwood/

From Russia with Love on Etsy

Last night I placed a new listing on Etsy for From Russia with Love custom mail order bride drawings. I had the idea to do these a long time ago when asked to contribute the FRWL project to a group show that never came to fruition. Below is a short description of the project, along with ordering info.

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From Russia with Love Mail Order Bride-- MADE TO ORDER

Your very own mail order bride...made to order! For $30, I will send you your own mail order bride portrait, drawn in archival ink on a postcard-size (4"X6") piece of heavyweight cold press watercolour paper. Drawings can be made (from actual "mail order bride" websites) either at random, or made to order from your specifications. Specifications can include any combination of the following:

-Age
-Height
-Eye Colour
-Hair Colour
-Weight
-Hobbies/Special Interests

Each drawing comes with an info sheet that includes information about each portrait subject-- name, country and city of origin, age, etc.

From the original FRWL artist's statement:
From Russia with Love is a project based around a series of 72 portraits of Russian “mail order brides” drawn from photographs on internet sites. This project is an extension of previous work exploring serial portraiture- yearbook photos, WWII military portraits- and the idea of portraits of this nature serving as “human catalogues.” Using the laborious act of drawing each woman’s likeness by hand, the project attempts to subvert the idea of these women being catalogued, while alluding to their commodification through their presentation within storefront installations and supplementary bookwork/pinback button multiples.

*****

If you're interested in purchasing a drawing, buy one through the listing on my Etsy shop here.

PRCSSC + paperwork/foodwork

Two blog posts in one day about yours truly! First, a little bluurb from the lovely Becky Johnson about my brand new zine project, Punk Rockers on Creative Survival and the Survival of Creativity.  I have yet to write about this project here, so stay tuned for more on this. Secondly is a short piece on artclothtext about my online exhibition, paperwork/foodwork up on poplar gallery.online by artist Lesley Bricknell.  She writes:

"Artist Tara Bursey’s show paperwork/foodwork is currently on show at Poplar Online.  One of my favourite pieces is shrimplace, pale pink shrimps enmeshed together like a doiley.  It seems to me to hint at craft practices once traditionally associated with women.  Crochet, lacemaking - repetitious, labour intensive, domestic.  Tara’s choice of food as artworks is an interesting one.  Surely the refusal or rationing of food is a position of power and control.  Manageing the ‘unmanageable’?"

Becky's post here.  Lesley's post here.

Pictured:  Shrimplace (detail), 2008.

Po.lar.i.ty at Launch Projects

I am co-curating the following exhibition (with friend and incredible photo-based artist, Stephanie Cormier), which opens next week at Launch Projects.

Po.lar.i.ty

An group exhibition of sculpture/installation, glass, photography and multiples by:

Leanne Eisen

Emma Gerard

Alexandra Mainella

Kim Stanford

Curated by Stephanie Cormier and Tara Bursey

Runs June 17-28, 2009

Reception:  Thursday, June 18th, 6-9pm

at Launch Projects

404 Adelaide Street West

Toronto

Po-lar-i-ty is an exhibition which explores ideas surrounding polarity and dichotomy, specifically with regard to traditional  women’s roles, activities and rituals.  Leanne Eisen projects representations of the sex industry onto the medium of the conventional dollhouse, juxtaposing the equally constricted and restrictive roles of  homemaker and sexworker within detailed dioramas.  Emma Gerard’s hot sculpted glass breast implant multiples use material and process to present a playful yet striking visual pun. Similarly, Alexandra Mainella uses multiple representations of lipsticks and pedicure tools cast in bronze and aluminum, transforming them into bullet shells and brass knuckles, while Kim Stanford uses steel wool to create a giant steel wool spool of yarn, commenting on the nature of repetitive domestic tasks and activities.

For more information, contact Stephanie Cormier:

stephanie@tsa-art.ca

Image credit:  Emma Gerard

Remember Who's Emma?

Remember Who's Emma?  I certainly do.  For those of you who don't, Who's Emma was an anarchist space/infoshop in Toronto's Kensington Market which existed from 1996-2000.  It served as a centre for grassroots political activity, and was also a gathering place for local punk rockers. Who's Emma was completely volunteer-run, sold punk records, zines, subversive/radical books, coffee, vegan empanadas and pamphlets to make the rent, while hosting punk rock shows, workshops, meetings, and benefits.  

For the past year, my pal Lyndall Musselman has been gathering info and ephemera, as well as conducting interviews and shooting footage for a documentary project called Remember Who's Emma: Punk, Politics and Place, which maps out the rise and fall of WE. Through a series of interviews with former volunteers, the documentary weaves through Kensington Market's subversive early history and individual accounts (from approximately 10 former collective members- my estimate is there were upwards from 50 or 60 in total...) of Who's Emma's beginnings, how it operated and the purpose the space served to both activists and punk rockers.  The film ends with perspectives on the space's eventual demise on the heels of two devastating break-ins, and alludes to the lack of interest which ultimately closed the space in September of 2000.

I was involved with the space as a volunteer collective member from July of 1999 until Who's Emma closed.  My love of zines brought me to the space as a volunteer collective member- I had just turned 17 years old.  Looking back, my time at Who's Emma taught me a great deal. For one, it taught me how to take initiative and take matters into my own hands socially and creatively.   I met a couple of people during my time there that I keep in touch with to this day and who's friendship/acquaintance I value immensely.  Among my favourite memories of Who's Emma involve meeting younger girls from the Who's Emma community years after the fact, and having them tell me that zines I did back then and my presence as a collective member inspired them to make things, get involved, and find their personal voice through zines.  As trite as it may sound, they looked up to me and were like the little sisters I never had; similarly, I looked up to and was inspired by the older women in the collective. (One of my few criticisms about the finished documentary (film) is this "interpersonal" aspect of Who's Emma is rarely addressed in the film...personal analogies such as this are largely absent from the film, curious considering it aims to depict the "social dynamics" of the space) Thinking about those relationships for me represents the best that Who's Emma had to offer someone like me who was marginally interested in the theoretical/capital "P" politics side of Who's Emma- it provided me with a great deal of personal empowerment through positive relationships, collaboration, and it served as a venue for free, informal learning.

This is not to say that all was peaches, cream and sunshine at Who's Emma.  For me, the above photograph of two girls, taken early on in Who's Emma's history, speaks volumes.  The following piece of writing was found online, written after watching a rough cut of the doc by a friend of Lyndall's which reflects on a conflict caught on video, included in the documentary:

"It begins with a Drop Dead show in which someone brought their dog down with them to the show space. The band, hardcore vegans that they are, started shouting down the guy for being cruel to his dog...I mean the guy who brought his dog to the venue was clearly a jerk, no argument, but that the band took it upon themselves to humiliate and make an example of this guy in front of his friends was such a classic example of this overbearing and shitty nature of political hardcore punk of that era. I saw shit like that at Submission Hold shows where teenage punks would be too loud while they describe their songs and rather than deal with the situation diplomatically they decided to make a public example of the people and then, in a sick way, brought their politics into it saying that it was misogyny (not the booze apparently) that made them talk over Jen and Andy. "Some people" Jen said, "get really uncomfortable when they hear a woman speaking their mind." Never mind that it was a guy and a woman making all that noise. That's kind of fucked up and oppressive in it's own way isn't it?"

YES!

Something rarely discussed openly is the political/punk divide that existed within Who's Emma volunteers.  Frequent and worse yet were situations similar to the one described above, which- if I may be so bold- is an (argueably) typical result the destructive power of combining radical politics with an often confrontational punk subculture.  Disagreements happened...disagreements that were hurtful, unhealthy and ill-managed.  Passive aggressive guilt tripping, exclusion and shutting-out, feelings of superiority projected themselves, and negative vibe-ing were even more commonplace at Who's Emma, during a time (the 1990s) where political posturing within punk attempted to hide the (perceived) illness beneath it's surface- jealousy, anger, and competitiveness.  All qualities which are perfectly natural, and perfectly (or shall I say imperfectly) human.  

Is it any wonder that Toronto punk rock took a turn towards the vaguely nihilistic and pointedly apolitical after Who's Emma's closure- like clockwork- in the year 2000?

Time and time again, I come across people who have negative feelings or experiences tied to Who's Emma.  One woman's sentiment echoed my own feelings about Who's Emma at it's worst- she claimed Who's Emma made her "feel stupid."  This was largely due to some collective members' heavy-handed, academic, theory-heavy approach to radical politics and activism.  Another woman who I spoke with unexpectedly yesterday initially about Lyndall's project claimed that something that happened to her at Who's Emma made her more or less lose faith in punk, and caused her to disengage herself with the local punk community.  Will these telling, and incredibly valid feelings be represented in Lyndall's documentary?  Likely not...which is nobody's fault, really.  

On that note, forget what I've said here...do Lyndall the justice of seeing her thought-provoking tribute to an essentially "failed revolution."  Like the many failed revolutions which came before Who's Emma, it is well worth the documentation.

For more information on the film screening and satellite programming, see the Remember Who's Emma blog.

I Can't Stop This Feeling: Crisis, Comfort and Craft at MKG 127

This is a great sounding/looking exhibition currently up at MKG 127 Gallery, which I plan checking out within the next few days.  If you're in town, why not take a jog down our fine city's recently maligned Ossington Avenue and check it out too?

I Can’t Stop This Feeling: Crisis, Comfort, and Craft, an exhibition of new work from Toronto/Hamilton based collective, SHAKE -n- MAKE.

Opening Saturday May 30 2-5 PM 

"We grew up in the 70s, in the midst of turmoil and social upheaval. Planes were hijacked, gas was in short supply, the traditional family was in flux, and an American president resigned in disgrace. Through the lens of Afterschool Specials, we saw the world as a crisis waiting to happen; we learned that trauma was just beyond the wood paneled walls of our Rec room. Not surprisingly, we sought comfort in all things homey and homemade. Collectively, an entire culture tried to craft its way back to the 50s, only the tools, and rules, had changed. Try as we may, Betty Crocker’s canned concoctions, macramé and string art, shrinky dinks and felt banners, embroidery and toaster cozies, didn’t make life any simpler or safer. But still we persist."

SHAKE -n- MAKE is a collective that was inspired by the discovery of vintage Betty Crocker recipe cards. On the heels of a personal loss, the unearthing of these retro recipes culminated into a desire to craft a way out. SHAKE -n- MAKE is motivated by a shared experience of growing up in the 1970s, where survival, crafting, and popular culture defined not only an era but also our childhoods.

Claudia Manley is a writer and crafter who is interested in almost everything. She is currently obsessed with sewing and hunting and recently was awarded a Writers’ Reserve grant from Coach House Press. Claudia is interested in navigating the tension between the rustic and the refined.

Liss Platt is a multimedia artist who works at the intersections of digital arts and craft. Liss is interested in using ‘hobbyist materials’ to re-envision high modernist traditions. While exploring compulsion and repetition, Liss retains connections to nostalgia. She is currently an Associate Professor in Multimedia at McMaster University.

Steph Rogerson is a crafter, artist, curator, and academic who believes there is critical power in television. Long-term interests include semiotics, photography, and queer theory. Current interests are Gordon Ramsey, Adam Lambert, and embroidery.

SHAKE -n- MAKE would like to thank Shasti O’Leary Soudant, Ian Manley, Karen Valino, Cecila Berkovic, Liz Abram, and Vesta-la.

The exhibition continues until June 27.

MKG127 is located in Toronto at 127 Ossington Avenue between Queen and Dundas Streets at the NE corner of Ossington Avenue and Argyle Street.

Hours are Wednesday to Saturday from 12 to 6 PM or by appointment.
For more information call 647-435-7682.

Barb Hunt Interview

I recently conducted the following interview for Toronto Craft Alert, a contemporary craft blog and excellent local art and craft resource. Barb Hunt is a Newfoundland-based artist and educator, whose work I was lucky enough to be introduced to by a beloved teacher in art school a few years ago. Her political and often poignant work employs craft processes to explore rituals of mourning and address the devastation of war.  

For more on Barb and her work, seek out the excellent book By Hand: The Use of Craft in Contemporary Art edited by Shu Hung and Joseph Magliaro, or check out Barb's website: http://www.barbhunt.com

http://torontocraftalert.ca/2009/05/29/question-for-crafters-barb-hunt/

Pictured:  The Old Lie, seams from used army fatigues, 3.5 X 8 m (2007) Installation at Stride Gallery, Calgary

Photo credit: Hutch Hutchinson

DI-why? at the Ontario Crafts Council

There are so many great shows happening around town right now, but this one is particularly close to my heart, curated by the lovely Janna Hiemstra, and featuring (among others) Becky Johnson and Shannon Gerard. Read on for all the details...

DIwhy?

January 20 – March 1, 2009
Opening Reception:
Thursday, February 5th, 5:30 - 8:30 pm

DIY can be traced back to several historical moments: the Arts and Craft movement of the 1900’s, the 1970’s craft movement, and third-wave feminism alongside the 80’s punk, zine and Riot Grrrl movements.

However, despite these connections, pinning down exactly what DIY is and what it looks like, especially in the realm of craft, remains a challenging task at best. There is no common definition for DIY, and as it becomes increasingly mainstream, the act of distinguishing a particular mode of making according to “do it yourself”, is an issue that continues to be raised.

As such, the OCC is pleased to present in partnership with Toronto Craft Alert, DIwhy?, an exhibition exploring the many different facets of ‘doing it yourself’.

DIwhy? includes the work of Amanda McCavour, Andrea Graham, Becky Johnson, Brooke Pickett, Catherine Trelford-Keogh, Frances Mahon, Heather Bain, Inbred Hybrid Collective, Katie Muth, Katie Sorrell, Lauren Hortie, Maura Meng, Miriam Grenville, and Shannon Gerard.

Pictured: Becky Johnson, Security Envelope Buttons, 2008/09

Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu on the weight of beauty, from a recent interview in Border Crossings magazine:

"...But we would have discussions about art (at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art) and one of the worst words you could say in class was 'beautiful.' What in heaven's name is wrong with the word and why do people get a rash whenever they hear 'beauty' or 'beautiful'? I went from questioning to resenting why no one was willing to discuss why we wouldn't utter the word. I believe the reason is because beauty was actually available to them, their culture decides for the whole world what is beautiful, how beauty should evolve, where it begins and ends. So they were rebelling against the very thing that protected them. They didn't want to use the term beauty because they owned it."

"Females carry the marks, language and nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything that is desired or despised is always placed on the female body.”

For more, see here.