The Hamilton Sign Register

New project alert!  I've started a new blog called The Hamilton Sign Register-- the product of many recent aimless, unemployed person wanderings around my new city.  It is an outlet for my love of old signs and typefaces as well as a way educate myself more about them and get to know Hamilton a little better.

http://thehamiltonsignregister.blogspot.ca/

//The Annual// Recap

Photos of the work I made for //The Annual//, both on the night of installation and the night of the opening.  Bottom photo of pals Lyndall and Christine by Grey, found on the Gladstone's Facebook page.  Thanks so much to curators Noa and Deb for giving me the opportunity to strut my stuff!

//The Annual// at the Gladstone Hotel

Just found this great post about my participation in //The Annual// on the Gladstone Hotel blog.  Check it out!

http://gstoneblog.com/the-annual/preview-the-annual-tara-bursey/

// THE ANNUAL //
Thursday October 25 to Sunday October 28, 2012

// THE ANNUAL // is the Gladstone Hotel’s annual independent contemporary art event, offering an open and fertile ground for engaging and emerging practices. Over the course of four days, // THE ANNUAL // brings together artists, curators, and collectives to present new work and site-specific installations.

// THE ANNUAL // features artists Tara Bursey, Soon Cho, Shlomi Greenspan, Brady Gunnell & Mikhail Mansion, Thea Jones, Maria Flawia Litwin, Isabel M. Martinez, Faye Mullen, Jen Spinner, Laura Taler, and keep it UP guest-curated by Zach Pearl & Caoimhe Morgan-Feir and featuring artists Andrew MacDonald, Johnson Ngo, and Cecilia Tiburzio.

// THE ANNUAL // 2012 is curated by Noa Bronstein and Deborah Wang

Gallery Hours:

Friday and Saturday, 2PM – 10PM
Sunday, 2PM – 6PM

Admission: $5

Programme:

Thursday, October 25 – Opening Reception, 7PM – 10PM, Free
Friday, October 26 – Designers Support the Arts with guest DJ Katey Morley, 7PM – 10PM, $5
Saturday, October 27 – Raw Foo, video art screenings, presented by Zach Pearl, 8PM – 10PM, $5
Raw Foo will feature: Dennis Envoldson, Jennifer Chan, Josh Studham, Mark Kasumovic, Sarah Ann Watson, Sara MacLean, Tracy Van Oosten, with audial/visual performance by Frank Tsonis during intermission

The End

I've spent the last week and a bit working hard on the following project for an upcoming show in October.  Lots more to do, but decent progress is being made, I suppose.  Above is a photo of the work in progress-- essentially a drawing of a mid-century end title card made with black and white sesame seeds.  Below is some of the source material, as well as an excerpt from my proposal for the project.

The End
Summer 2012

Last week, North America faced record-breaking high temperatures from coast to coast.  Ominous newspaper headlines marked this summer’s early heat waves, storms, wildfires and power outages to be a glimpse of “what global warming looks like.”  For me, one of the most disconcerting aspects of global warming is the effect that it will inevitably (continue to) have on food production.

In addition to my ongoing concern over global warming, I have been thinking a lot about shifts from one historical period to the next, and our collective inclination to mark epochs and define the time we live in.  If the mid 20th Century and its golden age of cinema could be considered an age of illusion and suspended belief, perhaps our current era can be characterized by a general loss of illusions.    

Simultaneously a celebration of mid-century design and a meditation on loss, The End points to our inclination to repeatedly mark historical periods as a series of ends while pondering the precariousness of our environment in the present.

Parallax Scroll at Harbourfront Centre

Went to Harbourfront's York Quay Centre on Saturday to check out this season's exhibitions before they closed on Sunday night.  While I went expecting to get a bang out of the craft department's biennial, LOOK Out (and don't get me wrong, I did...), I was completely blown away by Scott Carruthers' drawing installation, Parallax Scroll.  An immersive barrage of image and text reminiscent of  R. Crumb or Lee's Palace muralist Al Runt, Carruthers' intense drawings reminded me of amazing punk album art.  It also made me think of the internet...except more honest.

Favourite exhibition visited in a very long time.  Thanks, Scott!

Psychedelic Album Art

I once joked that I can tell how awesome an album is going to be based on how illegible the album's title is on it's cover. If this sounds weird, it's because most of the albums I consume are from the psychedelic era. Here are some examples of records from my collection with totally over-the-top cover art and creative (if completely unreadable) examples of typography. This post is probably inspired by my recent review of the work of Marian Bantjes, who has admitted to being influenced by the art and design of the late 60s.

From the top:
The Incredible String Band, The Five Hundred Spirits or The Layers of the Purple Onion (Elektra, 1967)
SRC, Self-titled (Capitol, 1968)
Elyse, Self-titled (Tetragrammaton, 1968)
Pisces, A Lovely Sight (Reissue on Numero Group, 2009)
The Tiffany Shade, Self-titled (Mainstream, 1968)

Marian Bantjes Review on TCA

A review I wrote of the Marian Bantjes exhibition was just posted on Toronto Craft Alert. Check it out here.

For more information on the show at Onsite (at) OCADU, check out these websites:

http://www.ocad.ca/onsite
http://iwonderbantjes.tumblr.com/

Marian Bantjes

Marian Bantjes is an exceptionally talented and creative designer and typographer from British Columbia. She has an exhibition up right now at Onsite (at) OCAD, that I can't recommend enough. The exhibition is at least in part in honour of her new book, I Wonder.

For more info on Bantjes, check out her website.
For more info on her OCAD exhibition, look at this.

Book Covers

For me, book covers (like "good" and "bad" signs) hold a lot of power. I've seen book covers that have made me furious, either because of their bad design, bad concept, or because they were way too gimmick-y. To give you an idea of how emotionally invested I get in bad design, I once told my father (who is a "sign-man") that a Addition-Elle billboard from about four years ago "made a mockery of large women everywhere." Yup...it's true. The idea of the big, stupid, loopy font they used STILL makes my blood boil. Alternately, good book design gives me a sense of satisfaction that rivals the satisfaction I feel when I've finished something of my own, or came up with an idea that I was 100% sure of.

I just killed an hour on The Book Cover Archive and I can honestly say that not a whole hell of a lot of the book covers included on the site grabbed me. Don DeLillo's book covers are obnoxious. The new Vintage edition Kafka covers are disappointing. I am a fan of the covers of the new-ish Penguin "Great Ideas" series, some of which have trickled in at my work (another place I kill hours looking at book covers). The book cover I've pictured above, though, was my absolute favourite on the website. So perfect. We've all been there, haven't we? (Trying to erase something cleanly, to no avail, I mean...)

I've included some other favourites from the archive below. Who is willing to admit that they've bought books for their covers? I am, definitely.

Signature Security Envelopes

My latest project, which has been occupying the last few nights...

Security envelope pattern generated by weaving shredded fragments of my own signature repeated on a single sheet of paper, and photocopying the result.

Shred Scarf

I am in the middle of crocheting a paper scarf (an odd project for spring...this past winter has scarred me, obviously...) made out of the same shredded documents as the Insecurity Blanket. Here are some details of it...more to come later.

Shannon Gerard + Katie Kehoe

Two really great looking shows, as seen on Akimbo today:

KATIE KEHOE
Form Poetry

TYPE Books Gallery invites you to the debut of Form Poetry, an exhibition of drawings by Toronto based artist Katie Kehoe. Each piece exhibits one word hand written over and over in various layers of graphite producing a multidimensional geometric or oblique form.

The meticulous nature of this work engages viewers and sparks curiosities. Form Poetry reduces complex forms and phrases to the bare minimum. Kehoe selects words that people use repeatedly everyday such as 'and' or 'yes', making the artwork more accessible. The forms she draws to write within range from fundamental geometric forms to organic and oblique natural forms. Using words as a mode of expression and structural tool, Kehoe creates text based post-minimal contemporary art.

Katie Kehoe is an interdisciplinary Toronto based artist who values interactive art as the most provocative art form and creates performance, installation and visual art. She is a recent graduate of the Canadian Film Center Media Lab's Interactive Art and Entertainment Program (formerly Habitat) and an apprentice of Joan Jonas, New York based pioneer of Performance Art. Her work has been presented in various festivals and galleries across Canada and in Toronto. Notably in Drawing 2008: 9th Annual Juried Drawing Exhibition, John B. Aird Gallery; [TEXT] curated by Gary Michael Dault, Propeller Centre for the Arts; Free Fall Festival (2006), a national festival of experimental performance, The Theatre Centre; and Sound Travels: Sign Waves (2005), an annual installation series, New Adventures in Sound Art.

Form Poetry runs at TYPE Books Gallery, April 3 to 27, 2008. Located at 883 Queen St. West, Toronto.

Media Contact: Shelley Banks 416.886.1848 / formpoetry@gmail.com

PLAYING DOCTOR
SHANNON GERARD

The installation PLAYING DOCTOR brings together various components of Shannon Gerard’s multimedia project, BOOBS & DINKS: Early Detection Kits.

Many dozens of crocheted plush breasts and penises contain small lumps that can be found by following illustrated instructions in accompanying booklets.

A short PSA style film features models in life-sized crocheted strap-ons who demonstrate self-examination. The strap-ons hang beside the projection for those viewers who wish to dress up and follow along.

A series of screenprints highlights moments of play, tenderness and expectation as models both demonstrate and experience self-examination of their “bathing suit areas.”

An autobiographical comic book, HUNG no.3; Lonely Tylenol, chronicles a cancer scare Gerard had last year when her partner found a lima-bean sized lump in his testicle.

The softness and humour of PLAYING DOCTOR aims to eliminate some of the fear surrounding self-exam of one’s own precious privates. The nature of this project changes as viewers experience it. At first the kits seem like cute and hilarious toys (tee hee, boobs and dinks!) but then as people play with them, read the booklets and find the lumps, the experience shifts. Even though the plush multiples contain a sinister possibility—garden pebbles stand in for possibly malignant tumors—interacting with the project is a strangely calming practice. PLAYING DOCTOR tries to touch people's fears and human underbellies through the ultra feminized, "soft" form of crochet, through playful interactive video and performance, and through the revelation of the artist’s personal experience. Broadly, the project initiates conversations about our bodies and confronts the idea of human frailty.

Partial proceeds from the sale of the BOOBS & DINKS: Early Detection Kits are donated to the Ontario charity Cottage Dreams (www.cottagedreams.org) which connects recovering cancer patients with donated cottage spaces in Haliburton and the Muskokas.

Additional information and images can be found at www.shannongerard.org

PLAYING DOCTOR runs:
April 3 to 26, 2008
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 3, 7pm to 9pm

Open Studio
George Gilmour Members’ Gallery
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 104
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8

Tel/Fax: 416-504-8238
office@openstudio.on.ca
www.openstudio.on.ca

Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 12pm to 5pm

Media Contact:
Shannon Gerard
416 593 5306
shannon@shannongerard.org