SCOUT LIST: The 11 Things That You Absolutely Should Do Between Now And Next Week

by Michelle Sproule | The main objective of this website is to scout out and promote the things that make Vancouver such a sweet place to be. We do this with an emphasis on the city’s independent spirit to foster a sense of connectedness within and between our communities, and to introduce our readers to the people who grow and cook our food, play the raddest tunes in our better venues, create our most interesting art, and design everything from what we wear to the spaces we inhabit. The Scout List is our carefully considered, first rate agenda of super awesome things that we’re either doing, wishing that we could do, or conspiring to do this week. From our calendar to yours… Read more

HONOUR BOUND: Check Out Alex Heilbron’s Solo Exhibition “Haphy” At Shudder Gallery

Local emerging artist Alex Heilbron is having a show at Shudder Gallery tomorrow night and you should go. This will be the 24 year old’s first solo show in her own hometown. Alex’s work “speaks to the relationships between contemporary paintings and the dichotomy of pop culture and pop art,” says the gallery’s assistant coordinator, Sharona Franklin. ”Bright, off putting textures of paint and playful comic-style lines along with her use of negative space in a cut-out composition create a type of narrative referencing 70’s style cartoons and modernist paintings.” Check it out.

HAPHY opens Thursday, April 19 at 7pm and runs until May 5 | 433 Columbia | Thu – Sat, 12:30 – 5:30

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Honour Bound details the many cool things that we feel honour bound to check out because they either represent Vancouver exceptionally well or are inherently super awesome in one way or another

VANCOUVERITES: Local Artist Andy Dixon Answers All Sixty Of Our Pointed Questions

photo: Jason Lang

Andy Dixon is a local artist and musician. He will be taking the stage at Pecha Kucha Night this April 26th to talk about his work and what inspires it. Since not every Scout reader could score tickets in time (oh, wait), we’ve asked him 60 questions in an advance effort to get to know him better…

Three things about the Fraser & King Ed area that make you want to live there: 1) Walking distance to Le Marche St. George. 2) Affordable rent. 3) Dosas everywhere.

Name the thing that you eat that is bad for you that you will never stop eating? Sour Patch Kids.

Default drink/cocktail of choice? Red wine.

The Vancouverite that you admire most and why? My friend, Matt Smith. Why? He least possesses the character trait I describe in my answer to question #30.

Best Vancouver place to be inspired by emerging artistic talent: The Waldorf. You’ve got the Black & Yellow gallery upstairs, local DJs in the Tiki Bar and local performers down in the Cabaret…and, of course, my own studio across the hall from the Black & Yellow gallery. You should see me drink a bottle of red wine in there. Serious talent.

Last art show that really blew you away: No painting has ever effected me quite like seeing Twombly’s The Italians at the MoMA.

The historical personalities, both good and bad, that fascinate you the most? David Koresh & Michelangelo (the Ninja Turtle)

What trend have you followed that you now regret? The early 90s trend of gigantic pants, tight ringer t-shirts and obnoxious wallet chains was pretty embarrassing.

The dumbest thing that you’ve ever done to your hair? For a brief time in the mid 90s I had a shaved head save for my bangs which were bleached white and braided.

What are the three things you’d like to change about Vancouver? 1) If it could have the climate of LA 2) the housing prices of the Maritimes 3) if we didn’t win the award for the worst dressed city.

Favourite breakfast? Fried eggs and toast made by my wife.

Your go to, no-frills place for dinner? Fassil, an Ethiopian joint on Broadway and Fraser.

If you could board a plane this afternoon, where would it be taking you? It’s a particularly grey day here in Vancouver as I type this so I’d choose somewhere warm. Italy, maybe.

The strangest place you’ve ever been to? In Pittsburgh, my old punk band needed a place to crash after the show (a usual occurrence) and ended up in this horror movie style situation with the psychotic bartender of the club who kept stealing our things and then trying to sell them back to us. He also had an attic room with an empty baby crib in it with no sign of a baby or a partner. The guy was so scary that some of us chose to sleep in the creepy abandoned townhouse next door, which had intentionally-torn family photos, children’s shoes, and filth.

The three books that you read that made an impact on you in your formative years? A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers, The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff, Calvin & Hobbs.

What is the best way to get to know a neighbourhood? Visit its local liquor store. Read more

SCOUT LIST: The 12 Things That You Should Absolutely Do Between Now And Next Week

by Michelle Sproule | The main objective of this website is to scout out and promote the things that make Vancouver such a sweet place to be. We do this with an emphasis on the city’s independent spirit to foster a sense of connectedness within and between our communities, and to introduce our readers to the people who grow and cook our food, play the raddest tunes in our better venues, create our most interesting art, and design everything from what we wear to the spaces we inhabit. The Scout List is our carefully considered, first rate agenda of super awesome things that we’re either doing, wishing that we could do, or conspiring to do this week. From our calendar to yours… Read more

HONOUR BOUND: Note The Date & Venue Changes For The “Bill You Murray Me” Show

Art Work by Erika Villanueva

A while back we posted a snippet about a local art exhibition dedicated to all things Bill Murray. We thought it was a great idea, and so – apparently – did a lot of Vancouverites. So many people wanted to take part in the show that the organizers have had to find a bigger space and bump the opening by a week. The new date is Saturday, February 18th (7pm-2am), and the new location is The Fall Gallery (644 Seymour), which would be better suited to a larger crowd of Murray enthusiasts in any event. Guests are still expected to don red toques and housecoats and accessorize with pipes and beards. There will still be cheap drinks, too, plus great music and tons of excellent, Bill Murray-inspired art.

Honour Bound details the many cool things that we feel honour bound to check out because they either represent Vancouver exceptionally well or are inherently super awesome in one way or another.

VANCOUVERITES: Ken Lum Surrounded By New Jersey Toughs & Being Scared By Bats

The good folks at Pecha Kucha always throw down with a solid line-up of people, but this month they present the best of the best. February 29th will be 20th installment of the popular 20 images x 20 seconds presentation format. To mark the auspicious day, organizers at Cause + Affect asked PKN enthusiasts to choose their very favourite of 226 past presenters. The result is the All-Stars Special Edition. Vancouver artist Ken Lum was one of the chosen (full list of presenters here), so we caught up with him to ask a few questions…

Three things about your neighbourhood that make you want to live there? The civic election card says Fairview but I live equally close to Mount Pleasant.  There are very few people living in the area where I live and that’s one reason why I like it so much–it remains largely undiscovered and yet so central. Another reason for living there is proximity to Michael St Clair Cleaners–they’re open Saturdays and Sundays and pretty much every day of the year.

Name the thing that you eat that is bad for you that you will never stop eating?  I don’t eat anything that I know is bad for me that I can’t stop eating.

Default drink/cocktail of choice? Tomato juice or red wine.

The Vancouverite that you admire most and why? I greatly admire Bill and Jack Wong of Modernize Tailors.  I first met them when I was about 5 years old, 50 years ago. Their lives teach us a lot about the history of Vancouver.

One sure-fire way to snap out of a malaise?  I tend to wallow in my malaises.

The historical personalities, both good and bad, that fascinate you the most?  Albert Einstein, Lu Xun, Aung San Suu Kyi, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, the Soong Sisters, Rainer Werner Fassbinder come to mind, but there are many others I could name.

What are the three things you’d like to change about Vancouver? Introduce a Ward Electoral System, greatly densify all arterial roads throughout Vancouver, more even distribution of public assisted operations (from senior’s housing to halfway homes) throughout the city, close down the aquarium or at the very least move it out of Stanley Park.

What does art do for community? I am not sure.

Your go to, no-frills place for dinner? The buffet bar at Whole Foods on Cambie.

If you could board a plane this afternoon, where would it be taking you? Though I have been to Peru, I did not have the chance to visit Manchu Picchu. I was not long ago in Hong Kong and can’t wait to go there again. I get my suits made there from W.W. Chan tailors.

The one place that you have the least interest in ever visiting? Pyongyang I would say is near the top of my list of places I have no interest in visiting. There are places I have been to such as Vilnius, Lithuania, Invercargill, New Zealand, Thunder Bay, Ontario and Columbus, Ohio that I have no interest in revisiting.

The strangest place you’ve ever been to? I found Dubai and Moscow both strange.

The three books that you read that made an impact on you in your formative years? When I was a young boy, I was quite affected by The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller, The Way of the Buddha, and Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heilein.

What is the best way to get to know a neighbourhood? Through the variety and quality of the ‘ethnic’ restaurants.

Where was the last place you traveled to for work or pleasure? Presently, I am writing from Banff, Alberta but I was in Tokyo just prior to coming here.

The strangest talent that you possess? I have a keen sense of direction no matter where I happen to be.

Shoe of choice? I have several pairs of D. H. Pollak shoes of Austria.

Your ancestry? Cantonese Chinese.

Your three favourite films? Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray), Sunrise (F. W. Murnau) and The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Mizoguchi Kenji) come to mind, but I have a lot of favorites.

Architectural style that you most identify with? early International Style.

Your major character flaw? I internalize too much.

The character flaw in others that you can’t abide? Gossip mongers.

What are you the most proud of? I am most proud of my son, Linus.

What is the best thing about your work? The opportunity to really see the world, warts and all.

What is the worst thing about your work? The art world can often be as enervating as any other world.

What are you listening to as you answer these questions?  My wife is humming a tune and I am trying to figure out the tune.

What musical instrument do you secretly long to play? I really wanted to learn how to play the piano when I was little.

What is the game that you’re best at?  Badminton.

What is the one animal that scares you the most?  Probably a bat.

If you had a motto, what would it be? Suffer the small stuff in silence. Read more

CITY BRIEFS: On Cruising And Choosing Our Public Art Murals (City-Sanctioned Or Not)

by Ellen Johnston | How do we choose what to depict in public art? Should it be the reality of the present, the legacy of what came before, or an idealized vision of what we want these spaces to look like in times to come? Whatever the case, the choice of subject matter for public art – especially for that of murals – can rarely be said to be purely aesthetic. In the context of the often harsh realities of urban life, art for art’s sake is a luxury few can afford, especially since our city streets provide contexts that simply cannot be ignored (unlike within the confines of a gallery).

One need only examine some of the most famous public art in the world to see that this is the case. In Mexico, the murals of Diego Rivera ask questions about their country’s history, and what it means to live in a Mestizo nation. In Philadelphia, where the Mural Arts Program has produced over three thousand murals, public art adorns decrepit and abandoned buildings, depicting messages of hope in some of the city’s most blighted neighbourhoods. In Derry, where some of the greatest atrocities of the Catholic-Protestant struggles of Northern Ireland occurred, political murals dedicated to the Republican cause stand side by side with ones depicting the innocent victims of The Troubles, and a dove, the symbol of Peace. And this is also the case in Vancouver, where our struggles are fewer and our mural culture is less developed. But there are still many gems that can be found throughout our city, and they can tell us a lot about where we came from, where we are at present, and where we aspire to be in the future.

It is hardly surprising that a high percentage of Vancouver’s murals are found in the vicinity of the Downtown Eastside. Not only is this one of the city’s most historic areas, but it is also a place in which some of our city’s greatest struggles have been fought, and are still being fought today. While most of the murals found hereabouts and in the surrounding areas were created individually, they have now been incorporated into a City of Vancouver program known as “The Great Beginnings Program”, which, according to their website, “supports this initiative through an investment of $10 million over three years to celebrate the history, heritage, and culture of Vancouver’s first urban areas, including the neighbourhoods of Gastown, Chinatown, Japantown, and Strathcona.” The city has now also produced an interactive map of these murals, which can be found at www.MuralsVancouver.ca. Suggested mural walking tours can found on the website, and information about each mural is listed.

As you can see, Multiculturalism is one of the most common themes addressed by our murals. Some highlight the mosaic-like nature of our city and collective efforts to get along, while others draw attention to the struggles of specific communities to find their place in the whole. On the corner of Columbia and Pender, for example, a three-paneled mural called “Snapshots of History” depicts the early lives of Chinese immigrants. On one of the panels, the Goon family is shown. The father went on to become the city editor of the Chinese Times, established in 1914 to chronicle the story of the Chinese in Canada and abroad, while the mother ran a fish shop. Their son, Hung Get Goon, dreamt of becoming a lawyer, but did not succeed due to discrimination. At the mural’s inauguration, Goon’s son said “It’s in memory of our ancestors and how they came out here and how hard it was for them to begin life here in Canada. There was so much discrimination. It was really hard for them to get by — but they survived, they survived.” Just a block and a half away from Vancouver most notorious intersection, Main & Hastings, this mural speaks true in more ways than one, because the continued success of Chinatown is a testament to survival amid so much poverty and addiction. It feels like a world away from Main & Hastings, and yet it is just around the corner.

Other cultures depicted in various murals include the Japanese, Russian, Italian-Canadian and Aboriginal communities, as well as the residents of Vancouver’s oft forgotten first and only black neighbourhood, Hogan’s Alley. Largely razed during the construction of the Georgia Viaduct, this neighbourhood’s most famous denizen was the famous musician Jimi Hendrix, who lived a few blocks east off and on with his grandmother, Nora. A mural depicting Jimi can be found at 1030 East Cordova. Equally unique is the Jimi Hendrix Shrine, located near the corner of Main and Union streets. While it is not officially sanctioned public art in the traditional sense of the term, it contains many pieces both inside and out that are free to the public and visible from a fair distance away. While the Shrine lacks the professional touch of the official Jimi Hendrix mural, its simple vision to commemorate a son of our city is nevertheless commendable.

This is true of several other unsanctioned pieces in and around the Downtown Eastside, whether they be graffiti or postering or words scrawled on a wall. They remind us that Public Art does not have to come from an official source. While some sort of community consensus might be generally preferred for such projects, sometimes an individual’s touch is all that is needed to ask the questions art so often needs to ask. One particular work on the DTES that cannot found on the City of Vancouver’s website states: “Food, home, health + education. Not greed”. It seemed such a simple equation, and yet only two blocks away, a street was blocked off because a TV show called “The Killing” was in the midst of shooting. Cops were telling pedestrians and bikers that they simply had to wait, because the almighty dollar has paid for this street to not be their street anymore, and nevermind the fact that one of the saddest shows on earth was streaming live, mere meters away.

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Ellen Johnston considers herself a wanderer, whether tramping through the rain-soaked streets of Vancouver and attempting to pry loose the layers of our urban fabric, couch-surfing across America, or getting lost in the souks of Marrakech. Since that is not a full time gig, she fills her days with the study of African dance and drumming, writing, piano, and running her own cookie company, Cookie Elf. She grew up in Vancouver, studied in Philly and London, and hopes to see even more of this great big world in the future.

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HONOUR BOUND: Check Out The Launch Of Stan Douglas’ New Book On February 10th

If you’ve ever walked around the new Woodwards 3 complex in Gastown you’ve likely noticed Stan Douglas’ translucent photo mural, Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971 (as seen above). It’s pretty awesome, as is Douglas’ revealing book of the same name (published by Arsenal Pulp Press). It details how he came to create the scene from the 1971 Gastown Riot (fascinating), and also takes both the riot and his work “as points of departure to discuss the legacy and implications of this tumultuous time, not only for Vancouver but for all urban centres where dissent and conflict based on class, lifestyle, or other issues arise, and where the role of authorities is contested in the form of public demonstration” (learn more about riot and the work here). The official launch goes down on Friday, February 10th at the Charles H. Scott Gallery (Emily Carr). Stan Douglas will be in attendance and signing copies. Be sure to check it out.

Honour Bound details the many cool things that we feel honour bound to check out because they either represent Vancouver exceptionally well or are inherently super awesome in one way or another.

HONOUR BOUND: Contribute Your Art Work To The “Bill You Murray Me” Art Exhibition

We ran across the above poster over the weekend and love the concept. An art exhibition dedicated to Bill Murray. So great. The only thing that would make it cooler is if every Bill Murray loving Vancouverite could contribute some quality art work to the show. Yup, the organizers are looking for quick and dirty work of all sorts that honours “…this peculiar, hilarious and often sad man…From Caddyshack to Broken Flowers…Classics such as Ghostbusters, Lost in Translation or every Wes Anderson film. We want your inspired art on our walls. We are open to any and all interpretations (paintings, drawing, mixed media, film, knitting.. anything)”.

The deadline for submissions is Wednesday. If you have some original Bill Murray work or think you could whip something cool up overnight, get in touch with the creative folks running the show at billmurraylove [at] gmail [dot] com. The show will go down at The Toast Collective on February 11, 2012 (648 Kingsway in Mount Pleasant). Guests are expected to bring red toques, housecoats with pipe in hand and be bearded. There will be cheap drinks, great music and tons of presumably excellent art.

Honour Bound details the many cool things that we feel honour bound to check out because they either represent Vancouver exceptionally well or are inherently super awesome in one way or another.

THE MAKER BRIEFINGS: On DIY Christmas Presents And Digging Art That Uses Energy

by Emily Smith | Handmade gifts are always my favourites over the holidays, which doesn’t necessarily mean salving over projects for all of your friends. Try something simple, like adding a mustache to a mug with this Mustache Mug Tutorial.

Or, if you’re feeling really artistic, try painting some driftwood and call it art!

Feeling like that scarf you’ve been knitting for your grandma is never-ending? Try out something smaller, and check out Mochimochi Land for ideas and information on how to make little creatures that are often no larger than an inch or so (and jam-packed with cuteness).

Want a unique twist on some Christmas cards, and want to test out your typography skills? Try making a stamp. A great resource for this is BC Stampworks. If you bring in an illustrator file, they can make your artwork into a stamp.

This Thursday night, check out Art with Energy, a one-night exhibition of artists who employ energy in their works. There will be a giant mechanical snake (see the video above), a log that can play electronic music, and other ambient works of brilliance. See a full list of the participating artists here.

Looking for a new podcast to listen to? Radiolab is one of my favourites right now. It blurs the lines between science, philosophy, and the human experience, exploring broad, always interesting topics like Symmetry, Loops, and Famous Tumors. If all those Christmas carols are starting to get to you, I highly recommend a listen.

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Emily Smith is a graphic designer, crafter, technical writer, life-hacker, and bicycle lover. She is passionate about DIY, open-source geekery, and facilitating collaborative and creative workspaces. She is an active member of the Vancouver Hack Space (VHS) and enjoys foraging for unlikely materials and increasing bicycle safety. In her off time you can catch her spinning on a drop spindle, dyeing with found materials or knitting half a day away.

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