Browsing “The Proof”

Jonathan Taggart is like your new favourite band, except he’s not a band, he’s a photojournalist.  If you could, you would buy his photos on iTunes, and you wouldn’t think twice about the $9.99. You’d even buy them on vinyl because you love them so much. You want to party to his photos, relax to his photos and make-out to his photos. If he went on tour, you’d have advance tickets the moment they went on sale, and you’d wait after the show to meet him and tell him how awesome he was. And you’d be humbled in his presence.  And though he might not be a musician, every one of his photographs carries with it the importance and delicacy of a favorite song. This is only magnified by the fact that he is selective when sharing his images with the public, and precious with the words he accompanies them by.  His photography is Broken Social Scene for it’s visual soundscape, Gord Downie for it’s commentary and Tokyo Police Club for it’s youthfulness.  I’m proud to call Jon one of my best friends, and I’m excited to watch him rise through the ranks of elite Canadian photographers.
Now go buy his f**king album (of photos, that is).

- Tyler Bancroft of Said The Whale

The Proof

01 Fish.  If I had to take one food with me to a desert island (not a dessert island), it would be fish… lots of wild, local fish.

02 The Office.  To the extent that I have an office, this is it.  My home office looks out over a Dairy Queen and is far less inspiring.  Also pictured: school work, a fairly new and unnervingly prominent part of my life.

03 The Part-Time Job.  I work on a boat (see fig. 2), which is great because A) it pays the bills; B) the ocean is beautiful; and C) I can quote The Lonely Island ft. T-Pain and it’s usually funny.

04 UNYA (looks more like “NYA” in this photo, I agree).  I volunteer once a week at the Urban Native Youth Association, teaching photography, making cool photo murals, going on nature walks and spelling things with shadows.  I truly believe that volunteering is one of the best things you can do, ever.

05 Isabel.  It feels odd to be highlighting a truck here, but Isabel has enabled me to do much of the work I do in remote parts of BC.  I bought her for a song years ago and she hasn’t stopped singing!

06 Whiteboard.  I’m a hopelessly visual person, and this surface is essentially and extension of my brain space.  Projects, essays, exhibition plans, shopping lists – everything starts at the whiteboard.  Unless they start with …

07 Notebooks.  Like whiteboards, but portable!  I am addicted to notebooks … rarely can I pass one without being tempted to take it home.

08 Camera bag.  Like Amelie’s parents in the Jean-Pierre Jeunet film, I take immense pleasure in taking everything out of my camera bag, cleaning it out, and putting everything back in.  Packing it is a true pleasure – as with camping, the challenge is always seeing how little you can get away with.

The Questions

What neighbourhood do you live in?
Kitsilano – walking distance from absolutely everything one could possibly need.

What do you do and where?
I am a photographer; some of my work is for non-profits in Vancouver, but I do as much as I possibly can working with rural communities in British Columbia.  I also work part-time as a tugboat deckhand – that work takes place mostly out on the ocean.

What are you working on?
Right now I’m working on a number of things: preparing to go shoot a short video documentary on isolation and ‘the Friction of Distance’ with First Nations communities in the Lillooet River Valley; planning for an exhibition; working as a research assistant in support of a Canada Research Chair grant to help document life in off-the-grid communities in BC and throughout Canada; renovating an old garage into a studio space; constantly researching my own photo projects; and trying to keep my head afloat amid the flotsam and jetsam of literature reviews and research papers.

Where can we find your work?
This month I’m exhibiting some of my work with BC First Nations at The Network Hub (300-422 Richards Street, on view June 16th – July 17th, opening reception June 16th, 6-8pm) as part of their new art gallery initiative. I’ll also be in the Cheaper Show on June 25th, and you can always find my projects online at www.jonathantaggart.com and at www.borealcollective.com.

Keith is either going at full steam or sleeping. And because the latter usually gets sacrificed for something more fun, his energy and excitement for events, arts, and friends is well suited to Vancouver’s Main Street, his current home base.  He can be found running along the sea wall, biking to basketball or trekking with his guitar to his band’s jam space. Even when sitting quietly with his Chai Tea at a coffee shop, his toe is tapping out his newest guitar lick. He carries a notebook everywhere he goes to track the inspiration for his illustrations and visits dog parks to play with other people’s dogs – since he doesn’t have one himself, YET.  Always ready for a pint, Keith has large circle of really close friends and a huge appetite for Thai Food.

The Proof

01 My favourite place to be: on stage with my band Warless. Like a lot of visual artists, I’ve found that the excitement of music and energy of a live audience is totally addictive.
02 My girlfriend bought me this drawing table off an old french guy in West Vancouver back in December – his home must have been worth 15 million dollars, and he had built this table himself. I thought that was super cool.
03 “I may be a graphic designer, but there is only ONE logo that I actually will wear on a shirt.”
04 My favourite view in the city. This picture does no justice of course, but just walk over to 7th and Oak, and the whole city suddenly opens up to you.
05 Another fun thing about playing in a band – GIG POSTERS. Rick and I take turns making them.
06 Cheeky coat-of-arms for the South Granville Social Club. Now that I am on the east side, it’s time to make a new one.
07 My ride for about 5 years now. Weighs about a hundred pounds, but I’ve grown attached.
08 The reading list: Graphic novels, illustration, New Yorker cartoons. I have an unhealthy obsession with New Yorker cartoons.

The Questions

What neighbourhood do you live in?
I live at Main and 5th. Apparently it’s called “Brewery Creek” (who knew?), just moved there in the fall and love it.

What do you do and where?
I work at UBC as a graphic designer; I’m the art director of UBC’s Trek Magazine (among other duties). I do some freelance design as well. I’m also a cartoonist and illustrator – my biggest passion is for editorial illustration. And I play guitar in a band called Warless.

What are you working on?
There are three things I am most excited about right now:

1. Soon I will be starting “one cartoon a day” for 100 days and publishing them online. I want to build a body of work. These will be single-panel editorial/New Yorker style.

2. Warless’ first EP, Coast, is coming out April 1. So we’re working out a venue and a night for our EP release party.

3. ‘The National Apologist’, a social/political satire website and partnership with my friend Andrei Whitaker, coming soon!

Where can we find your work?
Illustration/Cartoons
Music

Lyndsay Sung makes delicious, delicious cupcakes.  Lyndsay is both striking and timeless with her brownish-brown eyes, lemon complexion, and petit fours. Such a sharp palate in such a smooth and pretty Chinese face! Lyndsay is also capable of an infuriating attention to detail and strives for the same unhurried perfection in icing, ice cream, pizza crust and cakes shaped like hamburgers. Lyndsay cares a lot, about colours and quality and people. And children, who are also people, like the fans of her hilarious concept band Guimauves. She also likes cats (Taco “Chubchub” Sung Trawick, RIP), and probably dogs? Definitely poodles.
–C.Min

The Proof

01 I start my day off with a darkly steeped tea which powerjams my morning into outer space. Once it’s supersteeped I fill it right up with soymilk and it makes it cold. Then I drink it along with eating a bowl of…

02 Oatmeal! Oatmeal with frozen berries, then fresh berries if I have ‘em, a good sprinkle of cinnamon, walnuts or almonds, dried cherries and some organic coconut curls. I start my morning off right but usually ruin my food day later by eating 2.5 cupcakes or so.

03 This is the 1950s detective glass style door in my kitchen, the place I work and create in. I spend a lot of time chained to the oven in my kitchen baking cakes, not unlike a Marina Abramovic performance piece. Swing this door to the other side and you have my work station, my trusty Mac computer where I spend many hours editing photos of cakes and writing about cakes and blogging about cakes!

04 This is my black hair, shiny and black for now, but also there are little silvery white hairs trying to piledriver their way into my life. I pluck those away with strong disdain/a sense of depression mixed with “I earned those” pride.

05 A Truman the Dog cake and a regular sized hot pink rosette buttercream topped cupcake. I love making animal cakes, but I feel pre-sad thinking about them getting their face all sliced up and eaten. Even though it’s to celebrate a birthday it’s still sad to think about their sliced up cake face.

06 I love vintage-look cakes, and vintage things in general! So my caking style reflects this sometimes, such as this white all-over piped cake with tri-tone pink cake layers I made. This cake reminds me of one of those old-school Barbie Doll cakes where her poofy petticoat dress is a cake piped all crazy-town like this cake is but there is a Barbie Doll jammed into the top.

07 Caking and art play strong roles in my life, as does music. I think of my life in music as a sinewave. Up and down, static sometimes and vanishing other times. I have no idea if I’ve just described a sinewave so music tech nerds, don’t playah hate me. This is a picture of my friend Rafael and I’s conceptual performance music duo Guimauves performing last year at Collage Collage. Currently I am playing bass guitar in a new loud-ish, heavy-ish band with some excellent ladies.

08 The guy behind the watermelon face is the sunshine of my life.

The Questions

What neighbourhood do you live in?
I live in the Commercial Drive neighborhood in East Vancouver. Among the delights that make it what it is: Remnants of Little Italy staying strong, dogs ‘n dykes, dollar slice pizza wars, streetcorner drugdealers, drunks in the park, cheap and plentiful grocery stores, mommies and strollers, strange anachronistic mediocre-food restaurants, and nutritional yeast trails from Drive Organics. Did I mention medieval-kilted hacky-sackers carrying large sticks in the park, and pop-up shops (lay your stuff on a blanket and sell it) before they were cool?

What do you do and where?
I am a self employed cake machine called Coco Cake, and I also teach art part time to hilarious and bright but sometimes crazy children at Arts Umbrella on Granville Island.

What are you working on?
I’m always working on a custom cake or set of cupcakes for an order, or I’m mentally constructing or decorating the cake in my mind. When I’m not baking, making and decorating cakes, I am photographing them and writing about them for my blog! I’m also working on a cake book with Vancouver’s utterly adorable Simply Read books.

Where can we find your work?
Online at www.cococake.com or www.cococakecupcakes.blogspot.com. Or at your buddy’s wedding, or someone’s art opening or at a kid’s 1^st birthday party on the dessert table!

Ex-island boy Josh Mepham moved to Vancouver from Victoria in 1995. Once here he traded his baggy knit sweaters and Birkenstocks for better fitting sweaters and Blundstones, then dove head first into the booming animation community. Fifteen years later, and after living in almost every community in Vancouver, Josh settled in Shaughnessy. He lives there with me and our adorable kids, Max (3) and Rory (8 months). Josh is a creative and funny guy who still loves to draw every day. He is proud of all his achievements to date as an award winning animation director, but is even more proud of his amazing family and is never shy to share stories about his kids. Josh has found the perfect fit with his business partners, Greg Sullivan, Vito Viscomi and Kathy Rocchio at their company Slap Happy Cartoons; they’re a very talented bunch that share the same twisted sense of humour.
- Naomi Mepham (Josh’s wife)

The Proof

01 My laptop -I love that I can draw right on the screen of this thing; I can get all my work done right there. That’s a FIN design my partners and I did for the Canucks. In the background is my son Max’s art table. That’s where the real creative genius happens.

02 My dog Fergus – he helps me through creative blocks by taking him for a walk around the block. And I help him from not dying when he darts out into the road to chase a squirrel.

03 My Blundstones – THE ultimate Vancouver shoe. Especially for walking Fergus on those squirrel hunting expeditions.

04 Our fridge door - otherwise known as Max’s art gallery.

05 Our bathtub – we live in this big 100-year-old house and have a big 100-year-old tub that is very comfortable. Too comfortable actually. Especially in the mornings when you’re already running late for work.

06 Our bookshelf – a whole lot of books that never get read and a whole lot of vinyl that my son likes to attempt to play for me but usually only succeeds in scratching the hell out of. There are, however, some great “art of” books on there that come in very handy from time to time when I’m looking for inspiration. And those Time Life – Library of Boating books will come in handy when I decide to build a boat.

07 Fin - How does the Vancouver Canucks keep fans interested in learning proper behaviour and etiquette in Rogers Arena? Start by hiring an animation firm (us), add a “Super Jerk” to the mix (seen in the image), toss in a superhero – Canucks’ mascot Fin, blend it all with a large dose of humour and show the animated shorts on the video screen during stops in the action.

08 The Slap Happy gang at a Canucks game – enjoying the fruits (and beers) of our labour. GO CANUCKS GO! (Left to right: Greg Sullivan, Director; Vito Viscomi, Writer & Story Editor; Kathy Rocchio, Producer, Josh Mepham, Director.)

The Questions

What neighborhood do you live in?
I live in Shaughnessy.

What do you do and where?
I’m a director of an animated TV series. I’m also a partner in an animation company called Slap Happy Cartoons.

What are you working on?
We’re currently in development on a show we created at Slap Happy called The B.O.O.M. BOYS and we’re also producing animated shorts for the Canucks.

Where can we find your work?
slaphappycartoons.com, the ROGERS ARENA video screen, and you can keep your eyes peeled on Teletoon and YTV for shows with my name in the credits. And by the way, you can see some of my work here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12489674/Final_Quicktimes_smaller2/FIN_battery.mov

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12489674/Final_Quicktimes_smaller2/FIN_BOOZE_SEP3010.mov

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12489674/Final_Quicktimes_smaller2/FIN_EXTINGUISHER_SEP3010.mov

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12489674/Final_Quicktimes_smaller2/FIN_SKINS_SEP3010.mov

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12489674/Final_Quicktimes_smaller2/FIN_WATCHOUT_SEP3010.mov

Emily Carr’s Degree Exhibition 2011 is an exhibit of works from this year’s 306 graduates being shown from May 7-22 at 1399 Johnston Street on Granville Island. To raise awareness of what promises to be an incredible show we’ve invited a couple of the graduates to share their life and work in a couple of special editions of The Proof.

Emily Carr’s Degree Exhibition 2011 is an exhibit of works from this year’s 306 graduates being shown from May 7-22 at 1399 Johnston Street on Granville Island. To raise awareness of what promises to be an incredible show we’ve invited a couple of the graduates to share their life and work in a couple of special editions of The Proof. First up is Shelagh McLellan who has just completed her Bachelors in Industrial Design!

I have been given the task of describing Shelagh. As her supportive partner (a.k.a. roommate, or, since dressing up as her bride last Halloween, the title of “wife” seems to have stuck among friends) you can only imagine the repertoire of fascinating information I could divulge, but I’ll reserve my comments to focus on her artistic profile. What makes Shelagh truly unique is her capacity to assume any means of solving a problem. She is rigorous in her ability to dissect any object, system, and (for those who know her have divulged many secrets) person. During her time in the Design program at Emily Carr, She had some successful encounters with private enterprise (the 2010 Olympic Visa project, an internship at Fluevog, etc.), but for a final project Shelagh chose to solve a very real problem in the public sector; working with physicians and youth at BC Children’s Hospital, Shelagh contemporized the system of communication between these two parties to make it more engaging, ultimately improving the healthcare for young patients. This project is a perfect display of how Shelagh can yield to a complex process and somehow come out the other end delivering clarity. She has found balance between keen organization and genuine light-heartedness that characterizes her work and her person. Mixed with inquisitiveness and generosity, I give you Shelagh: Designer.

-Sarah Storteboom

The Proof
01 I had the opportunity to take a summer class at Emily Carr where we made a point of purchase display for Visa’s Go World campaign during the Olympics. My group also consisted of Stephanie McCarty, Sam Dal Monte and was selected to go into production and was on display in 350 stores during the Olympics.

02 Let me introduce to you the AIESEC UBC executive board of 2009-2010 which I was a part of as Vice President of Outgoing Exchange. A year filled with laughter, struggles and endless learning experiences, I emerged as a confident leader. I learned skills I would never have developed in a school course.

03 This is my exhibit of “on trac” in the Emily Carr 2011 Grad Show, come check it out.

04 Proof of my B.DES in Industrial Design. Couldn’t have done it without the support from family and the amazing friends I have made along the way.

05 Last summer I was a design intern for Fluevog. I learned something new every day, and I am honored to have a pair of shoes named after me, and obviously I had to have them. Shoe Family: Truth, Shoe Style: Shelagh.

06 Duck collection. The bride and groom duck were bought for our wedding as cup cake toppers.

07 The recycling station I have going on in my room. The labels are donate, sell, electronic recycling, garbage and paper. I am moving to Sweden and can only bring about 2 suitcases of stuff, so there is some drastic reduction going on.

08 I color coordinate my life. My gmail and my moleskin agenda and my notebook are all coordinated with the same colors for each project.

The Questions
What neighborhood do you live in?
I live in Marpole, which also happens to be the same area my grandmother was born, which a quite a co-incidence considering I am born and raised in Norway.

What do you do and where?
I have just completed my Bachelors in Industrial Design at Emily Carr University, and will continue to work on my graduation project “on trac” during the summer. As school is over and the 12 hour days in a hot pink house coat have come to an end, I begin to work from home and enjoy the city during daylight hours before I move to Sweden to do my Masters in Interaction Design in the autumn.

What are you working on?
I am currently working on my graduation project “on trac” where I have designed an iPad application to help facilitate communication between youth and doctors. It acts as a pre-screening tool with questions linked with actions and icons for the doctor to understand where the youth is at, so they can relay relevant information to them and start the conversation. Otherwise I am regaining sanity from a very intense school year.

Where can we find your work?
My website: ShelaghJoyce.com
Twitter: @Shelaghjoyce