Bogota

Going to be there in 48 hours.

Pretty excited.

Will be on the lookout for this and similar amazingness:

#AB19 – How to enjoy it, from a self-professed Art Battle addict

Art Battle is live competitive painting. The audience watches, cheers, votes, and bids in support of the artists and their paintings.  Rounds are 20 minutes in length. 2 winners from each round will advance to the final and compete for a cash prize and the title of AB19 Champion.

“Art Battle 19 will feature the masterful Keita Morimoto, winner of Art Battle Queen West Art Crawl 2011, and possibly the best painter in the history of Art Battle. Keita has raised the bar in live competitive painting; we are excited to present him again and invite others to reach for the same heights.” - artbattleto.com

So, you’re coming to Art Battle 19 on Tuesday, November 29th,  at The Great Hall on Queen at Dovercourt? Cool.  Me too. I’ve been going to them since the 11th edition.

So, you’ve never been before?  Cool, no worries. Here are a few suggestions:

See it all – Arriving fashionably late is sexy for other types of exhibits, where the art is static, but Art Battle is an experience you’ll appreciate more if you see it from start to finish. Doors open at 730, and it gets going at 8pm. Getting to see the canvases transform from stark white rectangles into incredible works of art in 20 minutes is something you don’t get to see very often, and won’t want to miss.

Get up close - Art Battle is set up so you can see the paintings from numerous angles.    The painters aren’t paying any attention to you, so don’t be afraid to stand right beside them or behind them.  Remember that the painters, who have spent 20 intimate minutes with the painting you’re admiring from afar, are paying attention to lots of little details, try to see them too.

Take pictures – With your film camera,  your dslr, your lomograph, your cell phone, whatever… but don’t forget to put down the screen and see what your documenting through your actual eyes too.

Social media – Some people like to post pictures to Facebook or live Tweet the event, and if you do, use the hashtag #AB19 and/or #artbattle, or mention the @artbattleto but similarly to the pictures, don’t forget to put it down some of the time.  Remember that you’re there, surrounded by beautiful people, and they probably think you’re prettier without that blue glow on your face.

Separate – It’s great that you’re arriving with friends, but give yourself the space to experience each of the paintings through your own eyes.  Split up and get some of you to go clockwise and some to go counterclockwise, and meet up again to talk about what you saw in the last couple minutes.

Talk to people – See someone gazing at the same painting you really like? Ask them what they like about it.  Make bets with strangers about who’s going to win each round. Find out why people are there, how they heard about it, what they are liking the best, are most surprised by, most excited about.

Vote for your favourite – This can mean a multitude of things, from the one that surprised you the most in its transformation, the most intricate, the most beautiful, the most striking, etc.  I always seem to struggle between the one I find most creative, and the one I’d most want hanging on my walls. Whatever you choose, make sure you choose for your self – Art Battle  is a democratic process.

Talk to the artists – One of the coolest things I’ve experienced over the course of my Art Battle obsession, is getting to know some of the most talented painters in Toronto.  One of my favourite experiences was talking to one painter, who was admiring another painter, and finding out about how they went to art school together.  I learned about how far the talent had progressed in mere months. Tell them how much you appreciate it. Ask them about their work. But if they don’t seem to want to talk, leave them alone :)

Buy the art - There are going to be painters there who sell their art for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, and they’re going to be there, performing for you for the 1 in 17 chance of winning  $300 dollars.  But each of the paintings that are created on Tuesday are also for sale in a silent auction.  The artists take home 50% of the highest bid (and if they don’t make the minimum bid, they get destroyed).   People spend soooo much money on prints and canvases of the same size at un-named Swedish superstore, and millions of other people will have the same pieces on their own walls. If you buy from Art Battle, you’ll be taking home (or giving as a gift! It’s holiday season) an incredibly unique piece of art. I’ve bought 4, including paintings from 2 Art Battle champions.  They have been worth every penny.

Ignore everything I’ve written above –  ”Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time” (Thomas Merton), so whatever makes you happy (or pensive, or engaged, or inspired, or however it is that you want to feel or be while you’re there).  I’ll just be glad you’re there with me.  Art battle is an addiction I have zero desire to beat, and vices are more fun with friends.

~~~

A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires.
Hedy Lamarr 

FUBU – The recharge my soul desperately needed.

In the not so distant past, a huge part of my identity was ‘I’m a longboarder.’  Even when I was a student of Psychology and Women & Gender Studies, and a waitress at a Jewish folk bar,  the first characteristic I would use to describe myself was ‘a longboarder.’  I think a big part of this is because I’m exTREMELY attention-seeking, and for a while, I was one of very few ladies who were part of the scene.  I was actively involved in the Toronto Longboard community at a point in its history when it was just starting to become popular.  A rider would skate by on the street and I would either know them, or know that I’d probably see them within the next couple of weeks.  I was, and still am, good friends with the founders of the OLF, an online forum that acted not only as a digital meeting spot for getting guidance for equipment and ride-styles or planning skate sessions, but also as an avenue for discussing many of the topics that bound our community outside of longboarding. I was at the 2006 Toronto “Board Meeting”, when it was exciting that we were more than 100 people (This year there were 900+!!) I was also part of the first finale in the 2006 Push for the Cure, where we rode from Hope, BC to Vancouver BC in 3 days, to raise awareness and funds for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.  In the years that followed, I hosted many an after-party to hard-core and mellow sessions, and I weaved in and out of both traffic, and my comfort zone.

But then I took a break. A really long one.  It was interspersed with periods of frantic skatethusiasm, and long periods of complete longboard apathy.  My ride got sad.

I had been and still am, to an extent, going through a bit of a phase lately (probably the last two-ish years), where I’ve been trying so very hard to figure out who I am; what I want; where I’m going; etc. I’m so lost, that the only way I can really do so is by defining all the things that I’m not; by extracting all the things that take so much of my (what I once thought was infinite) limited positive energy.

So my soul has needed a really good recharge for the last little while, and on the first weekend of November, 2011, I got it.

A very good friend of mine was part of the organizing committee for an all-female (For Us By Us) longboarding event that, if you knew me, you’d probably guess I would be involved in organizing too. But, when this lovely lady came to me and asked if I wanted to participate I, defiantly, told her ‘No, this is YOUR thing.’ I assured her that I would come as a cheerleader and a support to her, but that I didn’t want to race, or even ride.  I still brought my board, gloves, and helmet, just in case, but I also brought beer and chocolate, as I envisioned myself more as a spectator.

Little did I know that I’d need those as fuel for recovery from a day of riding pretty hard. I got third place in the amateur slalom, and it felt incredibly cool to be able to say that on Monday when I went back to my desk job!

Sometimes when you go to an event that has some element of competition in it, the very act of being there is sort of terrifying.  There’s all sorts of hormones flying around, endorphins and adrenaline and definitely some sort of -osterone, usually of the test variety.  This event wasn’t scary at all.  There was so much lady-love and support and encouragement going on that no one could possibly feel like they weren’t good enough or cool enough to participate.  Even when people fell, they were cheered on as they got up.  When two girls were racing, and one fell, the other made sure she was ok before pushing on to finish.  There were tonnes of incredible photographers and videographers there to ensure that it was all captured, whether we had NEVER attempted such a thing before, or were doing so with the style and grace of years of practice.

For an all-encompassing overview of the event, including the history of the first Toronto FUBU sessions, and links to many of the photos and write-ups about the event, check out the Nate – one of our most supportive fans. He also really likes broccoli (uh… because it makes you skate fast!? :) )

Toronto Girls Longboading

GRTTWaK – Real Sharing for the Socially Saturated

For a whole generation of digital natives, who have known and used the Internet since we were at least teenagers, the concept of sharing our thoughts, ideas, and experiences and getting immediate feedback holds no surprise. But does someone ‘liking’ our Facebook status or ‘@ replying’ to Twitter updates actually give us the feeling we crave from the act of sharing? What would happen if the sharing of our stories could be rewarded with smiles, laughter, or even applause from more than a hundred listeners?

At Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids (GRTTWaK), this is a distinct probability. In the back room of The Garrison, thirtyish-year-old urbanites sit on folding metal chairs, sipping expectantly on locally brewed beer. Excited chatter rings through the crowd, while those who are there solo scroll through updates on their smart phones.

Dan Misener, media and tech guru for CBC, who created the “unstoppably rad” open-mic reading series, begins to speak before his microphone is on. He pauses, and the crowd is unbelievably quiet in anticipation.  The balance of veterans and newcomers at GRTTWaK 11 is fairly even, though slightly more of the audience is hearing Misener’s introduction for the first time. Misener explains that the night will be exactly what it sounds like: adults reading things that they wrote when they were kids. The rules are simple: you must “have been the kid that wrote the kid-writing” and it must be short. In fact, the audience literally cheers for the 5 minute limit, to which Dan quips, “Everyone’s very very excited about the concision!?!” The definition of “kid” really depends on the person, and it ranges from the very young, to the post high-school years.

Surprisingly hilarious, the readings are reflections of the presenters’ kid selves, or rather, those selves they think are comical or interesting to a crowd. We hear letters to pets and parents from summer camp, short stories about animals that cause earthquakes, and aliens from the year 4694. We listen to captions that accompany big, bold illustrations, to diary entries and to love notes about passionate crushes on British pop stars. There are new renditions of old classic girl-detective novels, poems about sports victories, lists of teenage hatreds and adorations, and long, flowery descriptions of selves inspired by favourite authors. There’s a “re-imagining of the Resurrection,” and even the last will and testament of a nine year old! One writer’s line from her journal said, “this will most likely sound silly in a few years… but I just don’t care!” This really captured the feeling in the room that night. We didn’t care: the more unedited, grammatically mistaken, and run-on-sentencey, the better! The less confident, prepared and practiced, the funnier!

The selection process for GRTTWaK excerpt-selection is similar, though more discerning by necessity, to the one we all use when deciding what is worthy of a Facebook or Twitter update. When we post to our social networks, we’re presenting a version of ourselves that we want to show others, and we are quite aware that such updates are read by many, and could be for years. But we’re not just presenting our opinions; we’re sharing our existence.  We want to tell people where we are, what we’re doing, who we’re with, what we’re wearing; our everything about our every moment. A quick search for the #GRTTWaK hash tag on Twitter, confirmed my bet that at least one Blackberry or i-phone in that backroom sent out a status about being there, and linked in people who were there with them.  This constant need to share with others can be isolating, especially since the medium — our computer or smart-phone — is such a private possession.  We’re doing all this online sharing with and for others, but in actuality; we’re doing it alone.

Misener tells me “events like this do not ‘scale up.’ They rely on the enforced intimacy that people are missing and craving.” We want to see how our experiences make us similar to others, rather than unique. GRTTWaK has found a market of sharers that actively use online social networks, yet yearn for something more, something tangible. The hand-written journal entries read aloud take on the quality of story telling, the sharing of the kind of un-vetted personal histories that are normally saved for our closest friends and family members.

The night is rewarding for the presenters because they get instant validations of their experiences, and equally rewarding for the audience because of the sense of camaraderie in the collective mocking of our past selves. Besides being full-body-laughing fun, GRTTWaK reminds us of a time when we chronicled our days and shared our thoughts in more than 140 characters. We begin to remember when our faces weren’t lit by a pale shade of blue as we journaled. For people to learn something about us they had to ask us questions, or be around us while we told stories about ourselves.

Unfortunately for GRTTWaK fans, the next one isn’t until 2013, as Misener and his lovely lady are moving to France for a year or so. When I shared my dismay about the hiatus, Misener reminded me that his re-location doesn’t stop the tradition from continuing. Open-mics happen on a nearly nightly basis in Toronto. A little bit of organizing and some effort to let people know about the theme, and GRTTWaK — or its yet-to-be-named cousin — can continue its ability to let us share things and feelings in ways that Facebook and Twitter cannot.

At the very least, this layover will have many of us scouring our parents’ basements for our dossiers and journals to re-experience — and possibly curate — our own kid-self written past. But let’s be honest with ourselves, we’ll probably post the funniest finds to at least one of our social networks.

I stole this image from blogTO

Solitude

Including my job, where I interact with people constantly, I am rarely alone.

Thursday, from 7pm until 2am I was in the company of one or more people, and enveloped by art and/or music.
Friday, from 2pm until 1am I was being social through the creation and consumption of food and drinks.
Saturday from the moment I woke up in the afternoon until midnight I was in the company of friends.
Today from 930am until 630pm I was with people. Good people. Great people, in fact.

The incredible relationships  and activities I am constantly surrounding myself with are fulfilling and beautiful and exciting, but, at the end of these amazing days of connection and interaction, I’m still seeking something else.

Tonight, after a day of matching my mood to my activities to the sky and back to my mood, I was walking home, when I suddenly remembered that my friend’s art exhibit was ending today. I asked a stranger the time, and was relieved that it was only 630… a half an hour until it closed.  The guy at reception at The Gladstone told me that the exhibit was only open until 5pm, but was I there to pick up my art?  I must have looked devastated, because he looked sort of terrified.  I did something I don’t normally do; I asked them to open it up just for me.

He agreed.

The porter a slight, nervous, lovely fellow, brought me to the 2nd floor on the old elevator, turned on all the lights for me, and said not to rush; that I could let myself out.

I’ve been to numerous exhibits at the Gladstone, but getting to be in the space alone, giving myself my own private tour of the works that were on display was sort of magical. An audio exhibit was still running, providing me with an echoic, eerie, and beautiful soundtrack. Of course, since I was so late, some of the pieces had already come down, but I think, given the fact that I crave, but rarely seek solitude, that this was an experience I didn’t know I needed until it actualized.

Why I was there:

Melanjolly

This day began with a feeling of sorrow, and quickly moved slightly upward to match the weather with a sense of melancholy.

A stroll through crunchy back-alley leaves, followed by brunch with little plastic soldiers, a visit to a beautiful bronze gallery, and time spent by the lake skipping stones and listening to the crashing waves has brought us to this new state, which is also a new portmanteau.

Pumpkin Parade

So… this was a thing I went to that was really cool.

Sorauren Park: Hundreds of jack-o-lanterns from mostly local neighbourhood pumpkin-carvers.

Lots of talent. Pretty whimsical. Ranged from super simple to amazingly intricate.

Of course, given the portly and spooky medium, Rob Ford’s face made a few appearances.

There were also far too many beautiful beautiful people walking around, happily holding hands with their partners, walking their dogs, smiling and laughing…  but I digress… to the art:

bottle

Sometimes who you want to be with can be only a distant imagination…

 

Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

frondescence

frondescence – noun

the process or period of putting forth leaves,

as a tree, plant, or the like.

My backyard was my solace today, providing me with a safe space to ponder:

Food Bomb – Midnight in Toronto

Earlier today I considered proclaiming my hatred for the majority of food blogs. I hate their uninspired descriptions, and shoddy photography, and how I get time-sucked into their monotony when I’m hungry or trying to find a recipe. Then I came across this ace video by Daniel Goodbaum and realized that there’s probably a lot of artistic visions of food out there that shouldn’t be slighted by all the crud.  Check it out.  [click the 'episode 2' business for a larger version]

episode 2 – Midnight in Toronto from Daniel Goodbaum on Vimeo.