ART, ART TALKS & ARTISTS

It has been a busy time getting out for art. 

ART SHOWS & GALLERIES:

One unusual show was "Through the Trap Door" curated by Paul Wong and produced by Rick Erickson.  When I saw the advertising I thought that is brave as they described it as "like the old warehouse shows we used to have"  That would be hard to match as they were at a certain time in Vancouver and were sooooo much fun!  Edgy art, art in crazy places like stairwells, tons of people (over the fire allowance I am sure), music and of course drinks.   Well they pulled it off...was up for 5 days,  in the 1965 Gallery and in the old storage lockers under VIVO Media Arts Centre.  And it did feel like the old warehouse shows.  For more information and some visuals check out this article.
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2014/04/24/thru-the-trapdoor-paul-wongs-journey-through-art/

www.winsorgallery.com is showing Martha Sturdy's new work, resin on steel called Breaking, until June 7, 2014.  I highly recommend you see the video interview http://hotartwetcity.com/martha-varcoe-sturdy/ produced by Windsor Gallery in collaboration with Chris Bentzen of www.hotartwetcity.com before you see the show.  In 3 minutes it gives a bit of insight into Martha's art practice and this new body of work.  She had me with that beautiful blue colour!  It is a very Canadian show to me as the "ice paintings" are something we have all seen whether in a frozen puddle, lake or back east in the form of icebergs off of Newfoundland. 

Photo courtesy of Winsor Gallery

www.initialgallery.com was showing Michael Bjornson's show Commune which includes sculpture, painting, drawing and dioramas.  I  love the fact that he works in lots of mediums.  His background is as an architect and film production designer and he used to have a gallery called Third Avenue Gallery, which was one of my favs.

My favourite!

www.galleryjones.com is showing Otto Rogers recent paintings and mixed media pieces until May 31, 2014.  I am intrigued by his use of colour and shapes.  I am not normally attracted to round pieces of art but there were three mixed media pieces that I loved.

Brendan Tang, ceramic artist is also an artist at Jones

Edward Burtynsky www.edwardburtynsky.com and Lawren Harris en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawren_Harris were at the VAG and both were fabulous shows.  Lawren's landscapes are my favourite but it was interesting to learn about his abstract work and also to learn that he was responsible for the Emily Carr Foundation.
Edward's large format photos are beautiful but because of the subject matter is troubling.

farm water systems...up in the top left corner is a farmhouse

fish farms

farms that look like an abstract painting

factory in China

Bau-Xi www.bau-xi.com was showing Tracey Tarling and Andy Petterson in the last couple of months.

Tracey Tarling

Andy Petterson from his Africa series

The North Van Art Crawl  nsartcrawl.ca had some of my favourite artists with assemblage artist Isabelle Procter being number one.

Isabelle Procter

Sally Gooding visiting Doris MacDougall

Michael Fitzsimmons

ART TALKS:

I was invited as a guest by one of the committee members to attend the artists appreciation night put on by the  http://vghfoundation.ca/artprogram/.  This program takes art donated by artists and hangs it in the hospitals in their corridors both public and private and offices.  They have an amazing collection of 1200 pieces.  Next time you are at Vancouver General Hospital stop and take a look around.  As most of you know I have been going to the hospital for physio twice a week for 5 months and one of my favourite pieces by www.torriegroening.com sits right outside my therapists office. 
The highlight of the evening was an artist talk by Ian Wallace http://www.canadianart.ca/artist/ian-wallace/ which was funny and very informative about his process and his new body of work.  He will be having a show of his new works of 5 panels 8' x 4' at the The Apartment Gallery in Chinatown http://theapt.ca sometime this year.

this and the one below are by Alan Wood who donated to VGH but these pieces are at Winsor

I attended the Surface Design http://www.surfacedesignbc.blogspot.ca/  meeting at the Christ Cathedral Church to hear a couple of presentations by Sheila Wex and Thomas Roach.
Thomas had slides about his work creating clothing for clergy (not sure if that is the right term).  I am an athiest but love churches so was great to hear about the workings of that church.  He also does some set design for the church.  He machine and hand sews and also hand prints on the fabric.  He had some of his work as well as some antique pieces from his collection.  Beautiful!
He worked with Sheila on the Indigo Quilt Project which involved over 100 volunteers to create a whole room of quilted and hand dyed panels to decorate the room downstairs and to help with the acoustics.  More details through this link.
http://www.cathedral.vancouver.bc.ca/2013/05/15/common-threads/                

Thomas made these

the three on the right are from his collection

Indigo Quilt project

Indigo Quilt Project

water colour paper painted and woven for Show & Tell

ART:
Some shows I am involved in are:
1.  Multifaith Calendar 2015  One of my Laos photos was selected to be in the calendar.
2.  Maritime Museum Victoria mmbc.bc.ca   Field Trip Project.  June 19-Sept 8
(a mobile, participatory, interactive art exhibition installed within Japanese school backpacks)
3.  Instagram photo project which will take place in Prague and Berlin.  I will be posting at least one photo per day for the three weeks I am there, May 31 to June 18, 2014.  Check on my progress at:
 http://instagram.com/arntzenvalerie  or follow me on instagram at arntzenvalerie.
4.  www.firstsaturday.ca is growing wonderfully.  We have 25 members and website is getting more traffic.

NEWS AND NOTES:
1.  had two gentlemen arrive at my studio door looking at the windows, Arnt's sculpture

and our building.  I invited them in as they were curious about my studio and low and behold it was Fred Herzog http://fredherzog.com/  and his friend Henning J. Wulff.  We had a great 1/2 hour conversation about assemblage,  Joseph Cornell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cornell and of course photography.  They are coming back to attend First Saturday.
2.  Went to the Columbia Theatre in New Westminster for an evening of big band...the two bands playing were Urbana and Impressions.  More information on where they are playing next can be found at http://arokismusic.org/    The Columbia Theatre is a fantastic venue newly renovated, tiered seating with tables lit with candles and they serve food as well. 
3.  Visited the Brittania Mine www.britanniaminemuseum.ca  They also had a fantastic art show put on by Jeanne Krabbendam www.jeankrabbendam.com  and her students.

Karli and I all helmeted up

and the Train Museum http://www.wcra.org/ up in Squamish.

Highly recommend both to learn about BC history and a fun daytrip.  You can take a short train trip and walk through the mines and you can walk around and in the trains at the train heritage park.

4.  One final note which I am really chuffed about is Joyce Woods  www.joycewoods.com was inspired by my blog, especially the Amsterdam posts and has moved temporarily to Ireland to work in film and paint!  So pleased.

That is all for now...thanks for stopping by!