Other

Details: Written by: Rod Boyle; Category: Other; Published: 07 April 2017; Hits: 2117

Take the daughter to the local museum. Nelson. Touchstones. Most of the other museums aren't open yet, we've been to Creston (closed), to The Meadows (closed), to Salmo (closed), in the off season nobody wants to open.

The closed galleries, looking through the windows, our breath fogging the glass, everything we (I) want to know is inside...

We go to Touchstones, Nelson. They're always (I think) open. The gift shop, amusing, for a minute.

The History museum, upstairs, always the same, always interesting...

Some Native artifacts, pestle, fishing weights, baskets...

More native artifacts, arrowheads, spearheads, flints, an Iron hammer...

A pair of Antique women's skates. I rather like the fashion, women's skates now are all painted white, these are infinitely cooler...

And, without a doubt my favorite item, an old icon found in the Slocan Valley when they were felling trees, it was hammered to a tree by some well meaning missionaries for the Natives to worship, estimated around 1830 or 1840...

The daughter feigns interest.

Then into the main exhibit. Edge of the Light, Tanya Pixie Johnson.

It's completely my thing. Mixed media, found objects, artifacts...and everywhere the "no photography" icon. There's no one patrolling, nobody would probably care, I doubt even the artist would care, but out of respect (abiding laws I disagree with) - I'll refrain from sharing pictures and instead describe some of the art:

Antique photographs, Victorian, with spring eyes and buttons protruding, drawn and etched upon, altered, statues - abstract, combinations of antique handles, knobs, taps, cameras, horns, square nails, the miscellany of garbage finds while out metal detecting arranged into - well, more ornate abstractions that somehow engage you, old jars filled with ... (I don't remember, moss? Lichen?), all bound together with twigs, stones, nails...

Dolls, old and creepy, paint peeling and flaking off their faces, filled with clockwork gears, the Brother's Quay comes to mind (and hers, I'm sure), halo's and auras of twigs, bodies of cheap plastic, the limbs amputated and used repurposed in other sculptures, the Virgin Mary, carved out of wood, old postcards replace the face, in simple frames that somehow lend a spirituality to her ideas...

Old books, opened, elaborated upon, drawn, annotated, doodled, shadow boxes of carefully cut out papers, it continues...

...fur dolls, coyote, dogs, other skulls for the head, stitched fur bodies, other found objects...

The daughter pays attention. She knows this, knows my apartment, jeep, house, the hundreds of places I've lived overflowing with junk, guesses now at my intentions...

Nothing I'd buy, I have all of this, can find all of this, will find - the rest of this, and my assemblages, while tangent, would not be precisely the same. But I'm impressed nonetheless, she's definitely on my page...

Details: Written by: Rod Boyle; Category: Other; Published: 07 April 2017; Hits: 1492

Bob Ross,

"This artwork represents what it would be like for an AI to watch Bob Ross on LSD (once someone invents digital drugs). It shows some of the unreasonable effectiveness and strange inner workings of deep learning systems. The unique characteristics of the human voice is learned and generated as well as hallucinations of a system trying to find images which are not there."

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Details: Written by: Rod Boyle; Category: Other; Published: 02 December 2016; Hits: 1745

I'm in desperate need of some entertainment, head into town to take in the "Open Mike", a tribute to Leonard Cohen. It could be good, there must be an abundance of unsung talent here...

Saturday night, $5.00 "suggested" cover, only coffee to drink, the "theatre", think small room, halfway-well decorated, with a stage, piano, and filled with chairs, standing room only, a pretty supportive turnout, all things considered, easily close to 70 people, this town, it supports it's own, in Calgary an Open Mike only would draw in about 20 people who didn't know better...

They go around with a list, register the performers, and begin...

The first, bad, he looks like he should be better, butchers his three songs, forgets a couple of poems and is done.

The next, young Bob-Dylan looking twenty year old with beat up guitar, he confesses he wasn't aware Leonard Cohen had died...It doesn't matter, he's going to try anyways, but a verse into "Bird on the Wire" breaks off to play us his own compositions, one on his guitar, another on the piano, good, but irrelevant.

More poems, singers, a brother and sister sing a duet that's uncomfortably cozy, with all sorts of innuendo and eye contact, I'm hoping they're not really brother and sister...

Another out-of-towner, an expensive electric guitar, maybe 60-something or so, headband, he starts by addressing the people in the back who are whispering to themselves ..."Are You Ready NELSON?", and when they shut up he begins, a bit of a primadonna, he can't play the guitar, can't sing, like so many here he's seriously overestimated his talent, only he doesn't use humility, doesn't understand how far he is from even remedial competence...

Next act there's a girl, she's glommed onto a guitarist, she's decided to accompany him, only she doesn't really know Leonard Cohen but has liner notes from a CD for a prompt, he sings quietly, she, not knowing the lyrics or the melodies, harmonizes, singing a couple of bars after him "bird...", then hums a bit, then "Suzanne", hums a bit more, breaks off, tries humming again, it's a train wreck, there's no looking away, watch in fascinated horror...

...after the second song he apologizes, doesn't want to hog the stage, if the audience wants them to leave...I want them to leave, bloody hell, but it would be rude of me to say, and so they do one more number, urged on by polite applause, him playing on the guitar, quietly singing, her intermittent humming to accompany him whenever she feels she's got the tune...

It's wrapping up, there's a competent singer and pianist, his voice, not in Cohen's deep register, but he can carry a tune, and he plays the piano with that one-two vaudevillian sort of rhythm, the best so far...

...and then the French- Canadians gather on stage, 2 families with their children, reminding you for all the world of Dr. Fünke's 100% Natural Good-Time Family-Band Solution, only bigger, and they all play and sing along to unrecognizable Cohen tunes...

The nights over, all in all, a half dozen poems, 3 versions of "Bird on a Wire", 4 of "Suzanne", 2 of "So Long Marianne", the one competent pianist, he begins again on the piano, now free to sing whatever he wants, starts with "I'm a creep, I'm a loser...." by Radiohead,...

I've a new favorite hangout...could it get any better than this?

Details: Written by: Rod Boyle; Category: Other; Published: 26 November 2016; Hits: 2088

AKA Don Kenn. Found him while searching for Edward Gorey, I like his style, needed some inspiration for some illustrations of my own. He's amazing. Find a few of his illustrations below (drawn upon post-it notes), with links to more at the end...

Unfortunately, this is the kind of inspiration a first year art student gets by visiting the Louvre or National Gallery and laying down his/her brushes forever. This is impossible to compete with. And, is it just me, or do a few of his illustrations look positively Japanese?