Culture Crawl – Nicolas Demers

The Culture Crawl: Hungry for inspiration

This blog post has been percolating in my brain ever since the East Side Culture Crawl a week ago. This year I revisited 1000 Parker Street and the Mergatroid Building, both excellent choices if you want to catch lots of studios in a short time. Also, it turns out, excellent choices if you want to enjoy delicious mini-donuts and peppermint hot chocolate, provided by friendly vendors outside. How long have they been there? I don’t remember them from the last time I was at 1000 Parker…

Anyway, I did more than enjoy a lot of artwork. See, in the last few weeks, I’ve taken up drawing again. That’s been an on-and-off hobby of mine; I have absolutely no natural talent for it, but I enjoy taking up a pencil and doodling whatever my hand wants to doodle. And I realise I want to practice this more regularly, see where it takes me. So I think part of me was looking for inspiration at the Crawl, some clue to help me figure out what would work for me. Maybe that’s the wrong approach—I need to find my own way, especially if I’m just starting out, or I’d just be aping other people. And it’s hard to avoid comparing myself to these excellent artists—just as I do with my web development career (the thing that pays the bills) I have to balance having something to strive for and being intimidated by superior talents.

Still, it was instructive. Some artwork resonated more with me, and this may be a clue as to what my own art will become. My favourite artist this year was Arleigh Wood. I love her subject matter, mostly quiet beachscapes it seems, but it’s her signature style that I find most attractive. There’s just something about the muted colours and rich textures, contrasted with startling touches of gold leaf… It’s something to chew on, at least. I know the answers will come.

Culture Crawl 2010: Why Art?

Yes, it’s that time of year again. On Saturday I went a-crawling, deciding to roam around Strathcona again. There are still many studios I haven’t seen yet, way out past Clark and near the Waterfront, but I enjoyed Strathcona so much! the pretty heritage houses, the rich history, the feel of community similar to what I feel in the queer West End, though with a different flavour, of course.

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Last weekend I went a-crawling, deciding to roam around Strathcona again. There are still many studios I haven’t seen yet, way out past Clark and near the Waterfront, but I enjoyed Strathcona so much! the pretty heritage houses, the rich history, the feel of community similar to what I feel in the queer West End, though with a different flavour, of course.

I’d like to think this poster was an omen, when I saw on the way to my first studio:

Okay, as far as omens go, it doesn’t say much about the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, because the people organising this Free Art event probably timed it to go along with the Crawl. And though I don’t agree with everything this poster has to say (especially in the fine print), it got me thinking. Hence this stream-of-consciousness blog post.

Why free art?
Or, Why art?
Or, What is it that I’m getting out of the Crawl?

Good questions. It’s true that “Art is food” and “Art soothes pain,” as the poster says, but the Crawl is about a lot more than that. It lets us see not just finished art pieces, we get a peek at the creative process. A lot of the studios had tools, paintbrushes, or what have you, out in the open and obviously well used. Artists are not magicians, they are not some refined elite conjuring beautiful things out of nowhere. Art takes talent, yes—and some say that’s overrated—but also work and dedication and passion.

And art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Around every artist is a whole community to inspire or be inspired by their work. Art and culture don’t (necessarily) belong in galleries, and they’re not disconnected from everyday life. You can find art in paintings and sculptures, but also furniture, clothing, even custom-made panties. No fooling, one of the studios was selling them, but I forgot to get her card. And hey, even painting can brighten up whole communities: about a dozen large public murals were on display in the Downtown Eastside. I only photographed one, the closest to Strathcona, the others being too far out of my way.

I don’t agree with the Free Art people: art, for better or for worse, is not disconnected from money. It’s a business, and one that I’m a little more sensitive to, having taken the plunge into the freelance world. I hope my work will be as rewarding as these artists’.

Home Is Where The Art Is

For the Culture Crawl this year, I decided to do things a little differently. Instead of visiting just two buildings, I’d try to wander around, hit as many studios as I could and get a broader feel of the whole festival.

The journey began Friday after work, at Main Street SkyTrain. I headed north up Station Street, briefly stopping to watch a drawing class—Crawlers were invited to join in, but I declined—and shoot a few photos of the neighbourhood. It’s not the prettiest, but I’d been meaning to try my hand at night photography, especially since a co-worker had invited me to his photography club (the latest meeting theme, as it happened? Night photography.) Unfortunately, I didn’t bring a tripod, so I had to improvise.

My first major stop was 901 Main Street. What used to be sleeping quarters for BC Electric Railway motormen is now home to five floors of art (Favourite piece: Dick Stout’s Madonna of the Lake, and another painting probably by Dick Stout, which I forgot to identify because I was just mesmerised by it: a huge painting of a teenage girl on a pier reaching for seagull flying overhead, with an old lady (I think) fishing in the background, and a dog jumping over the pier. Then you take another look and realise everybody’s flying: the girl, the bird, the dog, even the fishing lady is hovering a few inches above the pier. It’s an indescribable feeling of joy, and freedom.)

Various newspaper clippings in the lobby told me of plans to convert the building into high-end apartments, and that many artists’ studios in and around Vancouver were threatened by gentrification and rising rents. One of the articles mentioned a petition to protect the building, which I was totally ready to sign. It turns out the article was a year old, so that was moot. However, I was told development plans are on hold for the moment. That’s good, at least.

Then I headed off into Strathcona. And I have to admit, it was a new experience for me. Hell, I’ve only ever driven through it a couple of times, along Prior; I usually take either First or Hastings to get to or from the boonies. And I’m sorry it took me so long, because it’s a lovely neighbourhood. The oldest residential neighbourhood in Vancouver, apparently, with a rich history and ethnic diversity and lots of heritage homes. Homes like Matthew Freed’s pottery studio on Jackson Avenue. I went through many other studios that night, ending with the Old Church. Most of them were either live-in studios or the artists’ private homes.

On Saturday I walked around Strathcona for a bit, visiting a couple more studios. By that time I was more interested in looking at the community and how the art (and artists) fit into it, than just the art by itself. I headed further north, into the Downtown Eastside to visit some studios on Railway St (favourite artist: Galen Felde). A few of them were also live/work areas, too. With a nice view of the trains and the harbour, if you like that sort of thing, though I can’t say much for the rest of the neighbourhood. Heading back into Strathcona, I was glad to leave behind all the signs warning drug users and dealers that their descriptions will be sent to the police. I toyed with the idea of heading even further east to check out the studios I’d seen last year… but it was late, I was tired and still getting over a cold, so I decided to cut it short. One last visit to 901 Main on the way back to the SkyTrain, and that was the end of my Crawl.

But it’s inspired me to nurture my own art, such as it is. Photography, and Web design, but also drawing, which I’ve been practicing on and off (mostly off) for the last few years. And it’s given me food for thought: how art and culture are not separate from life, or community, or skyrocketing rents. How Vancouver needs something like the Culture Crawl, even though I’ve been happily ignoring it 362 days out of the year so far. But if it were to go, if more artists are forced out of their studios, this city would be a much poorer place. And I need to find out if the West End has something like this.

I’m cultured, y’all

Last Friday I went to the Eastside Culture Crawl. And I haven’t blogged about it not because I didn’t enjoy it or it didn’t make an impression me, but because I just didn’t know what to say. It’s… art. I don’t know much about art. Like the saying goes, “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” And I feel the same applies here. Still, let’s give it a go.

For starters, it really wasn’t what I expected. I’d imagined big art galleries and showrooms, but the two studios I visited (the Mergatroid Building and Parker Street Studios) were very utilitarian warehousey buildings each housing many independent little studios. Which I should have known just from looking at the Web site, but there you go. And you know what? It was a lot better that way. It brought the exhibits down to a more human scale; looking around the small studios, I could see half-finished work (especially in furniture shops) and the tools of the trade. They felt like very productive spaces, and I could easily imagine the creative process going on.

Mind you, it didn’t bring the artwork’s prices down to a human scale, but hey; artists gotta eat too. I won’t go the “Why pay $1.8M for three coloured stripes?” route.

Crowds were fierce, and didn’t let up even when we left shortly before the exhibition was supposed to close. Not bad for studios set square in the middle of an industrial park, where parking was definitely not easy to find.

At first I took photos of the studios (including the studio names) but quickly stopped. I’d tried that before, when I went whale watching in Tofino and it just didn’t go anywhere. So instead of taking photos, I got up close and personal with a lot of the art. It was purely unconscious; didn’t even notice I was doing it until it was pointed out to me, which is even more interesting since I never thought of myself as a very tactile person. But there I was feeling and running my hands over the smooth ceramics, warm carved woods, cool plastics and cold metals. (Not the paintings hanging on the walls, of course. That’d be silly.) Neat. I’ve never tried building anything with my hands except IKEA™ furniture, but now I can totally see the appeal.