More on The Wilderness Downtown

This piece is interactive. Before it begins you put in the place where you grew up, then Google puts live video from there into the video. At one point you are asked to send a postcard to your young self. When the video is finished you can send it to share with others in the project. I think you can be anywhere in the world that Google has satellite to participate. Let me know what you think of the experience.
It is designed to be used with Chrome browser that can be downloaded from Google. However you can try it with your usual browser and see if it works.

The Wilderness Downtown

The Wilderness Downtown

Dorothy posted this link, The Wilderness Downtown on her blog Avant-Guardian Musing 
 is an experimental online  interactive film by Chris Milk Featuring "We Used To Wait" Built in HTML5

I think you'll be amazed.

What is Art

Here is a video of Bob Gregson's work. I discovered it through the Thea's Encaustic newsletter. It is fun to watch and it challenges the view of what is art. His art is fun and interactive and he certainly has me thinking in a different direction. Here's a link to his website.

Encaustic Bath

Since I was asked what an encaustic bath entailed I looked up the link where I got the idea. It was a link in an encaustic newsletter I subscribe to: Thea Haubrich who is a B.C. artist residing in Penticton.  Check out other items or subscribe to the newsletter.

I didn't use this exact method. Instead I brush cold wax onto the digital image then when dry I fused it by placing the image between layers of parchment and used an iron to fuse wax to the paper.

Open Studio Conceptual Collaboration

Tuesday is installation and critique day. Hmm that gives 3 days to test the encaustic bath idea and have the images ready to place.

The topic is memory - vivid memories, faded memories, discarded and forgotten ones.
Materials: Collage, acrylic paint and encaustic images placed among the branches hanging from the ceiling. Branches form a path and supports for images. Light cast shadows on the walls.



Hopefully it will work. I'll take photos of the finished construction.

Visual Culture Blog

My Art History professor has just put up a blog called Avant-Guardian Musings,

  "Avant-Guardian Musings is a curated space of ideas and information, resources, reviews and readings for undergraduate and graduate students studying modern and contemporary art history and visual art theory, film and photography studies, and the expanding field of visual culture. For students currently enrolled in my courses, this blog also serves as a place of reflection and an extension of the ideas raised in lecture and seminar discussions"


Drop by her blog there is everything from film to performance art to photography to paintings, you get the picture. There are also links to various art publications like NYT, Artforum, Canadian Art. It has a wealth of information of the visual arts.

First Open Studio Project

First project is collaborative. There are three of us working together. Next Tuesday is installation and critique. Yikes!

Below are digital photos I took. I added omnidirectional lighting in Photoshop. The chairs were abandoned around the property. Placed there by someone in the past. Now nature is slowly absorbing them.

The last photo is looking in through the window to the older woman sharing her memories of a trip to the Antarctic. It has a reflection of a window in the window pane giving it an altered appearance

More Mozart's Requiem

Thought I'd share another movement of Mozart's Requiem used in the dance performance by choreographer Gary Masters.

The music is so beautiful. Being a part of this dance performance was an awesome experience. This first segment was a quiet introduction of loss while the following sections had a mix of emotions. I love the softness in the opening. The music soothes and comforts before it intensifies. It was easy to imagine carrying a candle to represent someone I had lost. There also was a gentle comfort at times, a ritual in the movement.

I'd like to bring that range of emotion into a piece. I'm thinking it needs many layers by using multimedia. A challenge I know. It may not work the first time but I can refine it in another piece.

Mozart's Requiem Mass

This is a beautiful piece from Mozart. When I was in Simon Fraser University Summer Institute Dance Intensive (1988) I had the privilege of working with Gary Masters, contemporary choreographer, New York. The Intensive was 9 am - 4:00 pm classes Monday to Friday with extra 2 hours of learning choreography and rehearsing for the end of summer performances. Some summers the choreographer already had a piece ready other times the piece was created during the program. Masters came with an idea but developed the piece with the dancers. It was truly amazing as a dancer to be the instrument for a choreographer's creative process. It was called Requiem and it was dedicated to the loss of friends. It was personal for anyone who experienced loss of a loved one while at the same time transcended to the symbolic ritual of grief and loss. Performing it I could feel the power and loss of life.

In some way I want to explore death, loss, and grief. Mozart's Requiem Mass and remembering this moment is the beginning of my exploration.

As you listen visualize 15 dancers entering from the back of the theatre dressed in black carrying a lit candle down to the stage. Each dancer set their candle on the floor at the back of the stage and quietly took their place on stage waiting for the last candle to be placed. At that moment the dance began the first section, the realization of loss and grief.