Archive for June, 2011

Welcome to The Playground, a place for Vancouver families. Every week I post a roundup of upcoming family-friendly events and activities. I’m always on the lookout for fun stuff to do, so if there’s something happening that you think I should know about, contact me.

Canada Day Hats by Evan (age 4) and Ana (age 2).

In The Playground for the week of June 29-July 5: Canada Day, a Bboy/Bgirl battle, a live taping of Mr. Young and a contest celebrating Canada’s National Parks.

July 1st is Canada’s birthday and there is no shortage of parties throughout the city. Here are a couple popular options:

Canada Day at Canada Place – this is probably the largest event in the city with 30+ musical acts, fireworks and plenty more entertainment. Things get underway at 10AM.

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Every day we share a single photo from our Flickr Pool shot by one of our faithful and talented readers (that’s you!)

Man-O-Man! I am so stoked for the Canada Day Long Weekend! Not that I have any extravagant plans to get out of town or anything – the combination of sketchy weather and a recent mudslide on Hwy 1 did contribute to the decision – but I could really use a few days off to relax. Yup, a nice long weekend of relaxation.

So I figured why not start the weekend off with a relaxing photograph? I didn’t need to see the title of Paola Serrao’s photo to know where she was going with this image – after seeing it in the pool I instantly and independently arrived at the same place: no, not Stanley Park – although that is where this photo was taken in a literal sense, but back to my Art History classes again. Here is Monet.

Gary

We’re knocking on doors and taking a look around peoples’ homes to see where your neighbours relax, hang out with their pets, and create! It’s an invitation to snoop, but we’re staying away from their medicine cabinets. Photos: Albert Yee

Our Host: Holly Elissa Lamaro

Whose that? Actor, Producer and Founder of Caleb’s Hope www.calebshope.org

Beverage Offered: green tea

Where do you live?

I live in Kits, a few blocks from the beach and I’ve lived here for 10 years. It’s a really beautiful amazing neighbourhood, I’m very spoiled.

How would you describe your apartment?

My apartment is very eclectic. It’s a fusion on Indonesian furniture, Tibetan Buddhism, and Sufi influences. Then of course lots of Africa art and then some random, I guess IKEA stuff.

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

I’ve been meaning to tell you about this Green Zebra savings guide that they sent to us a little while back! It’s kindof insane actually; it contains more than 250 coupons for Vancouver businesses where you could potentially save up to $10,000 if you somehow managed to use them all. Each of the coupons are for green businesses who offer products or services with clear envitronmental advantages. And it costs $20.

IT COSTS $20!!!

You may have seen it at checkout counters at a bunch of different businesses around town who have coupons in it. The ones I’m most excited about are…

- $10 off a $50 purchase at IGA Marketplace
- 2 for 1 entrees at Sweet Cherebum
- $10 off a $50 purchase at Granville Island Toy Company
- 10% off regular price books at People’s Co-Op Bookstore
- Some sort of discount at Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co that I can’t remember because I used it and it’s gone now

And the bonus? It comes with a …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

THE OPENING is all about introducing the fascinating, quirky and wonderful people working in and around the visual arts in Vancouver. Each week, we’ll feature an artist, collective, curator or administrator to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

Many of you probably already read The Jealous Curator. Her blog is enormously popular, with a following spanning the world. But did you know she was based in Vancouver? Danielle Krysa is a seriously wonderful person with an incredible enthusiasm about art and especially discovering art she loves at random. What’s not to like? If you don’t already read her blog, you should!

collage by Beth Hoeckel (see original JC post here)

What led you to create The Jealous Curator?

Well, I’m an artist myself. If I was online and looking around and I found artists that I loved, it would totally inspire me for the first couple minutes. But then it would kind of crush me because I thought, oh I’ll never be as good as that. And so I had all these blank canvases in my studio and I wasn’t doing anything with them. I was stopping myself before I started. I was just exhausted from it. My husband actually said why don’t you start a blog, and just catalogue these people, write about it from your point of view and just see if that helps. So now when I find a good artist, instead of feeling bogged down, I think nice! Somebody said to me, if jealousy is kept inside it becomes very very toxic. That’s the bad jealousy that everybody talks about, that just eats you alive. But as soon as you say it out loud, it becomes admiration and you sort of turn it on its heels, and it doesn’t have that power over you anymore.

So you’re not using jealous in a negative context?

No, and a lot of people think that. I’ve gotten tons of emails and tweets saying that they think it’s terrible that I’m using this horrible emotion and celebrating it. It hurts my feelings because that’s not what I intended at all, and I’ve put that out to my readers a couple times just to say hey, just so you know. And so many of them write back and say yeah, all you have to do is read one post and you know that’s not what you’re talking about. I think with the name sometimes people think that, but it’s not my intention at all. It’s meant to be jealous in a good way, admiration and envy basically.

What community of people are you most looking to appeal to with The Jealous Curator?

I think other artists who feel that way – stopped and frustrated and halted – to realize that there’s room for everybody out there. To share in my jealousy, celebrate it, and say man that’s good stuff. To get you back in the studio and get you creating too.

paintings by Shawn Huckins (see original JC post here)

I mainly write about contemporary emerging artists because I find that they’re the ones who aren’t being given a break and aren’t being put into galleries. So if I can give them a break and give them a whole bunch of exposure, hopefully they will feel better about themselves and continue with their work and get into the galleries they want to be into. The cool thing I find about the blog now is that the [Mikael Kennedy] show I have coming up – maybe 500 people are going to see that. But the post I wrote about it the other day, thousands of people have already seen. In a show I can only touch 500. So there’s something really powerful in the blog, exposing emerging artists online, because you can give them worldwide coverage in a few keystrokes. I don’t want it to sound like blogs are the only way. When I get to see it in person, it’s so different! Scale and brushstroke… you can’t compare the two. But as far as exposure for emerging artists, it’s amazing what the blog can do. I’m really proud of that.

There’s this one woman in the States, somewhere in the mid-west. She’s very accomplished but she doesn’t have a ton of exposure. I don’t know how I found her, but I wrote about her. I knew Frankie magazine in Australia, an art and lifestyle magazine, would love her work. So I …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

This  series had its genesis when I began photographing Vancouver area location shoots last summer to get over a long post-Olympics funk. Film and TV productions like This Means War, Mission Impossible 4, Fringe and the new AMC series The Killing showcase our city in similar fashion and sometimes put a celebrity actor or two in the frame.

Hip hop fairy tale Rags looked more like a feature movie than a TV movie, with its dozens of prop New York taxi cabs cruising our downtown streets during its month of filming here. The Nickelodeon musical stars 17-year-old Keke Palmer, who also produces (backed by Mariah-Carey-husband and TeenNick chairman Nick Cannon), in a reverse-gender Cinderella story set in New York with teenage Max Schneider as her Cinder-fella, Charlie Prince. Is this Nickelodeon’s answer to the Disney smash High School Musical?

It could be, with the help of grownup Nickelodeon star Drake Bell of the popular Drake & Josh series in the cast: Bell (see the signature bangs below) is the current Nick heartthrob to Cinder-fella Max Schneider’s heartthrob-in-waiting. You might have spotted the actor Bell here last summer filming the upcoming  live-action A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow up, Timmy Turner! Or you might have seen the just-turned-25-year-old musician Bell doing the rounds of New York morning shows this week, promoting his new 4-track EP – A Reminder — whose preview single Terrific recently topped the iTunes chart. I had no idea of Bell’s star power among the junior set until I uploaded this photo of him and Max Schneider (with his ukulele on his back) filming a Rags scene in Oceanic Plaza  downtown.

During each take of the scene between Drake Bell and Max Schneider, …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Every day we share a single photo from our Flickr Pool shot by one of our faithful and talented readers (that’s you!)

I know what you are thinking – it’s only been a couple of days  since this space featured a subject of an avian nature. But I can’t really help it – ’tis the season of the bird after all. Another Action Shot™ by The Black Azar of one of our fine feathered friends, a male Mallard Duck. This particular specimen was spotted at Stanley Park, and The Black Azar used a really quick shutter speed to freeze the action just milliseconds before touchdown.

I love the tension in the bird’s body as it braces for the resistance of the surface of the water.

Gary

The Pack A.D. just completed their latest album! Produced by Jim Diamond (The Dirtbombs, The Paul Collins Beat, The White Stripes) it’s called Unpersons and it’s coming out September 13th. Have a look inside some random studio action with Maya and Becky and stay tuned in the coming weeks as we try to convince them to release some tracks to us early so that we can share them with you.