From disaster to ‘Discomforter’: 5 lessons learned
There is really no way to know whether a blanket covered in brightly coloured buttons will read until the very end of all the work so I wanted to build in the likelihood of failure. That’s how I came…
twentysomethings’ bedrooms a compelling grad show work
What I’d really like to see is a ‘realitylink’: an aggregate site devoted to photo tours of real Vancouver homes where people actually live, cook, eat, sleep, play, fight, have babies, raise…
Street art saves us from a Pretty empty city
The alienating effect of walking by blocks of empty homes is seen in the writing on the wall. It is there in the masked Spock and other super-hero mashups that adorn the boarded-up exteriors of…
Time is ripe for Occupy Neighbourhood movement
And yet. And yet there is nothing like an untenable situation to spark a creative response. There is evidence of it in the spaces between, beyond, behind, or otherwise outside the scope of authority….
Public art tour by bike all part of the velorution
There is a symbiotic relationship between art and cycling.  For me, I don’t get to work/play in the studio if I don’t get on my bike, and I don’t get my daily dose of hard-pumping exercise if…
Epiphany: the studio is a workspace, not a salon
There was no getting around it — literally. After a few weeks away from the studio I arrived viewing it with fresh yet loathsome eyes. There was no room to move here, let alone swing a cat. It…
When words fail to describe form, make up new ones
There is not a coffee shop in town where two people, heads almost touching as if in shared prayer, aren’t focused on one pocket-sized screen. Sometimes one of those people is me, in answer to an…
Who says sculpture has no business in business?
I liked the idea of messing with the overlooked and the banal to open up possible new understandings about preconceived notions. There was something delicious about a collection of attractive objects…
The power of fiber seen in the corridors of power
When I see the debate raging around women wearing the hajib (head scarf) or niqab (cloth covering the face) in Canada, I think about the male gaze . The latest controversy  surrounds the…
One bit, two bits, green bits, black bits
This may be the third or fourth column/post I’ve written that could come under the headline, ‘Overthinking will be the death of me.’ There is definitely a book in there somewhere about the power of…
Laying doilies on devastated gardens: a bit of sublime madness?
When the white RCMP SUV was spotted cruising around the Maple Street section of the community gardens early Monday morning, it was clear that the chainsaws and earth-movers were next.
Exhibit of a great mistake was just the push I needed
Last week Monte Clark gave four of us some insight into how an experiment by Omer Arbel went awry and ended up as a dazzling installation in his newish Monte Clark Gallery . The heavy,…
3 artworks a day for 5 days — and an extra challenge
Vancouver artist Connie Sabo threw the current Facebook challenge (three artworks a day for five days) to me this week. I’m taking on the challenge for the chance to create three art experimentations…
Hand-working my way out of a future life in a glass box
A couple of weeks back in this space I was musing about the fusing of crocheted granny squares and the ubiquitous breeze-wall bricks of my East Van youth.
Everything I know about design I learned in newspapers
One of the biggest lessons learned from a career in newspaper journalism was, surprisingly, the difference between decoration and design. It began when I built up basic layout skills using paper…
A visual antidote for this flatulent football weekend
As we approach what is arguably the year’s most gaseous weekend  otherwise known as the SuperBowl, with overfed folks lumbering around downtown in painted faces of lurid blue and green, I have just…
Defending the doily in 20 images, 20 seconds each
This just uploaded… Six and a half minutes devoted to that question I get a lot: “What’s up with the doilies?” (Video courtesy of  Terry Fox Theatre’s PechaKucha program . More info on the…
Shab-fab granny squares cover it all
Maybe it’s the chilly monochromatic climate at work here, but I’m suddenly wrapping myself up granny squares. The more I think about them, the more potential I see. There’s a lot of culture woven…
Oh the irony: freedom of expression in a corporate media world
I’m writing this as the radio airs a live report of gunfire . The French police have just killed the two brothers who hunted down particular editorial workers at the satirical Paris magazine two days…
Winter storms lead to brainstorms
A Christmas Day king tide served up some thick snarls of bull kelp and I seized on an idea.
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