Whole Lotta Art Going On: Tour the Thunder Bay Art Scene

     Multiple requests have come in to cover art related activities; shows, moves, events and fundraising campaigns. So, we suggest that on a sunny summer day like today you spend the afternoon visiting our major galleries and see the works of many dozens of artists. Talk to their representatives to get the scoop and scope out your favourite works. 

     The Thunder Bay Art Gallery has four wonderful shows running till September 14. Local yet worldly, Julie Cosgrove has a show titled, Nowhere is a Place, which features large acrylic paintings that will sweep you up into them as she plays with “geographic concepts” mixing the familiar with the abstract. This work is a clever cross between Toni Onley’s spaciousness and the space/ time trip at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Geography, technology, and beautiful landscapes mix to tweak your imagination that will send you to a place that is either familiar or far out.

     PUSH: Contemporary Glassworks features nine artists who stepped out of their comfort zone and experimented with new approaches to working with glass. Done through a mentorship program the aim was not only to create stunningly original works, but to search for new paths and approaches to their work. The show celebrates that act as much as the individual pieces.

     The illustrious Benjamin Chee Chee’s collection of works features his more divergent traits for which we are not accustomed. This is a refreshing focus on the more experimental and playful abstract works where the subject matter is limited and the focus in on colour and form. Despite the lack of subject matter, there is an awful lot of movement and spirit to the pieces bringing them to life, as much as any depiction of an animal that we expect to see.

     From across Canada and representing Thunder Bay, are the works in Moving Metal, where thirteen silversmiths from across Canada display the skills inherited from pre-Confederation times to create vibrant and stunningly fresh little pieces that are definitely worth stealing. But don’t do it! The rest of Thunder Bay deserves to see what can be done within the apparent limitations of having only a six-inch sterling silver disc to work with.

     Put on your French beret! Bring your hipster beard. It’s time to head down to the Definitely Superior Art Gallery’s opening fiesta this Friday at 7pm for three shows.          

     The 26^th Annual Members show will feature, as it always does, great variety. Professional and novice artists strut their brushes and will try to stretch your imagination with “eclectic and experimental works.”

     Then enter the art cave with Die Active Youth Collective celebrating its 6^th year of stunning success. These young members are painting the walls of Gallery II. It’s sure to be a blast for the eyes and a cross of funk and charm with a little bit of the disturbing to add an edge to the work or works or whatever it is that spills out of their crazy minds. Bring your camera! You’ll want to take a selfie with a crazy cool backdrop.

     A series of video screenings will take place in Gallery 3 featuring three internationally prominent artists. The videos, art pieces in themselves, explore urban artists who play with new approaches and techniques. Videos like these bring an alternative world of art to the Thunder Bay scene.

     A stroll down to the Baggage Building at Prince Arthur’s Landing will bring you to the current show of the Lakehead Visual Art Group. They’re ganging up on local themes, diversifying their technique like never before and offering a variety of works that are both unique experiments and comfortable favourites. There are a number of striking pieces that will make you a fan. And you know that one wall in your living room that looks empty? You can always fill it with something by a local artist.

     Likewise, diversity is paramount at Gallery 33 on Court St. across from the Thai Kitchen. This large gallery with its penny floor offers up new work on a regular basis, featuring many beautiful landscapes, floral works, doe-eyed fairies, skeletons, figure and portrait works, collage, and on and on.

     And if you haven’t heard of the new development, which is a big change for Louise Thomas, owner of the Ahnisnabae Art Gallery, it is her move to the Picture Store on Red River Road, just down from the Waverly Library. First Nations Art is featured and beautifully displayed in a high salon fashion from floor to ceiling featuring established artists and new and upcoming artists. Louise is available from Tuesdays to Saturdays.

     Have a great arty summer!


 

Creating Unique Identifiers in Small Cities: The Value of Creativity

     Thunder Bay, more than many other small cities in Canada is uniquely interesting, a worthwhile home for those who live here, and identifiable from other cities due to history, way of life, and geography. Those used to the variety of choices offered in Toronto may not agree, but we have the benefit of getting to places without the traffic and huge swaths of suburbs to drive through with the added exorbitant cost of real estate that are a problem in big cities. And although Walmart, McDonalds, Tim Hortons, and Shoppers are certainly convenient in any city, they don’t add much to a city’s culture. Neither does commercialized national or American media, whether radio, TV, movies, etc. or international fashion or the fads generated by pop-stars or Greenwich Village

     Of course it seems impossible for a smaller community to compete with the onslaught of these outside influences in order to develop a unique culture. Certainly mass culture is fun, but that doesn’t mean we have to look, act, think, dress or smell like everyone else in North America. It is possible for us to be unique, unique to our own way of doing things and unique to what we wish to celebrate in our city and surrounding area.

     This is where artists can contribute dramatically to our community, not only by celebrating those aspects of our culture that we already have, but also by adding to it.

     Artists of all stripes, including writers, craftspeople and musicians, are like comedians who make us laugh because they see the world from a sideways perspective. They can be critical, but they also add dramatically to the way we view ourselves and provide something new.

     Artists do much more. They can make us fall in love with new ideas and unique visions. This includes some false starts, like a couple sculptures at Prince Arthur’s Landing and unique road designs, including strangely placed bicycle lanes, but it also includes great architectural works, inspiring murals and new park developments. There will be no real agreement as to what is truly beneficial, but it’s better than living in a static community where everyone is afraid of change.

     “Progress” and even the word “art” has negative connotations for a lot of people. But if Thunder Bay wants to keep its young people here, if it wants to survive, we need to create our own fun world in which to live. It’s good for our brains, morale, and diversifies the economy.

     Various reports have been laid on local politicians and business people’s desks which make great claims for the benefits of art and how economically valuable it is for us to create what can be summed up as “unique identifiers,” meaning what is unique to us, informed by worldly experiences and transformed into something we can experience locally without the expense of travelling.

     Local artists as much as local farmers and business people can create pride in what is necessary for us to be happy, and necessary to draw people to the community, whether as immigrants or visitors. When you can smell pride, like a Country Market pie, you feel the benefits.

     It’s okay to be proud of being simple and not extravagant. Americans, from a Canadian perspective can be so full of pride they need a special kind of deodorant. There’s nothing wrong with our interest in our wanting the simple life, but only in small doses, because if we relish our simplicity too much it will make us lazy, ignorant and boring. We need pride in Thunder Bay, but not the false pride where we love what is ugly over what people have worked hard to make beautiful, or to stop people from trying something different.

      We need memory builders, interesting life experiences that we can collect as if we were travelling elsewhere. When we travel we talk about our food experiences, the entertainment we’ve experienced and the objects and places unique to the location that make for an adventure. We have to find and develop our own character as a city, either by reaching into our past, celebrating unique individuals such as philanthropists, brave firemen, inventors, famous hockey players, good politicians, good business people, teachers, artists, etc.

     Some locals have the opinion that too much money is being spent on the arts, that money should go to repaving roads and suchlike, but Thunder Bay spent thirty years doing little to diversify its economy, relying primarily on a resource based industry. Investing in the arts and beautification is actually much more important as an economic generator than even local artists realize. And it’s fun.

Down With Hudak and Arrogant Artists

When this article appeared in the Chronicle Journal on June 12, election day, editorial staff altered the first paragraph in order that the paper appear more impartial. Thankfully the Liberals, with a great record of funding the arts, won a majority yesterday and pummelled the Conservatives. The vast majority of Ontario's citizens did not buy into the Conservative's retarded plan.

     Over a hundred and sixty thousand jobs were lost in Ontario due to the Great Recession of 2008. It took a long time to get those jobs back. Tonight we learn if the ridiculous Conservative party will be able to enact their mandate to cut a hundred thousand jobs, essentially creating a forced recession. It’s almost inconceivable that a political party would think that cutting so many jobs now would be a good idea, so soon after a major recession. It doesn’t seem to be politically or economically sane. It is blindly arrogant and mean spirited.

      The Ontario Arts Council’s Northern Arts Program, which has benefited Northwestern Ontario could also get the axe, along with many other arts programs if the Conservatives win power. Often a political hot topic and target, artistic ventures are seen by some as a luxury to delight elitists who are out of touch with “ordinary” Canadians. Politicians like Rob Ford use the arts as a wedge issue encouraging an “us against them” mentality.

     A society can’t survive without art. We would be able to survive without galleries, but some of the artists who hang their work there are also known to create imagery for nearly everything else your eyes see on TV, the movies, in books, magazines, newspapers, billboards, advertising, etc. And your car, couch, kitchen, hockey jersey, placemat, hair, tattoo, birthday card, cereal box, curtains, wallpaper, office space, chair, etc. etc. are all created by similarly talented people. Many of who go to galleries, many inspired by what they see.

     Art is an intrinsic and necessary aspect of society that contributes to our economy and mental health, not to mention increasing our ability to communicate with one another creatively and beautifying the world in which we live.

      Sadly, there are artists who are so ideologically driven that they can’t distinguish the difference between creative self-expression and an obligation to be a good citizen. Not helping our cause are artists who can be just as corrupt, arrogant and blindly ideologically driven as any politician.

     In an Ottawa community, Jack Purcell became known as the “stick doctor” because he contributed to his community by fixing hockey sticks and sharpening skates for local kids. A park was refurbished and named after him. A sculpture to honour him was erected, but instead of a sculpture resembling anything like hockey sticks or skates, the designers erected what looked like oversized rods shaped like question marks – or rackets. That’s because Jack Purcell is also the name of a famous badminton player.

     The architectural company submitted the wrong plans to the city, not bothering to do any more research than to Google the name, Jack Purcell. Even so, wouldn’t a description of what was required, details on Jack Purcell be part of the proposal? Wouldn’t any artist/architect visit the community, call a family member, look for appropriate images, an image of the Jack with the kids that Jack helped? Or couldn’t they have come up with an image more creatively and deeply associated to the subject, other than sticks? Of whatever shape? Clearly the city and the architectural company didn’t think much of Jack Purcell.

     In Calgary, although the sculpture has a certain degree of humour to it, sculptors created a giant hoop with streetlights atop. It’s called Travelling Light. This cost the city $470,000.00. The mayor and much of the Calgary public hate it. The sculpture is meant to represent the wheel of a vehicle. The streetlight represents the streets on which the wheels of our cars are connected.

      The two projects are very similar in look and approach. They employ stripping, a modernist inversion technique of removing as much decoration or symbolic association in order to get as purely close to the basics of the subject without distraction. It can create some clean and cool sci-fi looking work, but used poorly and by a lazy artist, it’s an excuse for a lack of imagination and artistic skill. There’s nothing really wrong with the approach, but if all sculpture became this similar people would eventually assume that artists who create public works aren’t really necessary, to all our detriment.
     We artists of all stripes really need much more funding, modernist and popular, fine art and low art, commercial and private. As much as artists need freedom to operate and express themselves, they don’t exist in a bubble, especially when their art is displayed publicly. The Ideology and arrogance of a few artists has the potential to destroy funding for the rest of us, and we have to be thankful because Ontario has been much better than other provinces in supporting the arts. We give a great deal of ammunition to the likes of Hudak, Harper, and Ford when we artists are at our worst.

Fantastic Threadworks at the Thunder Bay Museum

An incredible little show of selected works representing twenty guilds from across Ontario with nearly a thousand talented members is on view on the Thunder Bay Museum’s third floor. Titled, Threadworks 2013, the show is comprised of needlework each taking on the theme of Water. The show was professionally juried and the only reason there are no Thunder Bay artists represented is because they didn’t enter. Tich! Tich! Get your act together! However, this show has so inspired our local members that they are determined to enter submissions for the next show in 2015.

     It’s become a bit too easy to be an artist today, and when your typical fine art show relies on the subjective and viewers search for relevance and meaning, the amount of time spent creating the work will come into play in a big way. It’s one way, a weak way, to determine its value.

     This happens too when the work is sentimental schlock, shocking, downright ugly, or entirely self expressive. We naturally want to think the artist has the best intentions, but it’s hard to overcome feelings of resentment when we see works hanging on a gallery wall with a price tag that beats the few hours spent creating it with Wall Street zeal that screams – rip off!

     So, of all the art shows you might see this year, this is one that will be hard to beat for the combined amount of effort, skill, knowledge, and heart. Even if your knowledge of needlework is limited, and you can’t appreciate the amount of time invested, you can still appreciate the beauty and the many themes therein, including the overly sentimental pieces.

     Overall the majority of works are contemporary and brilliant, in both beauty and execution. The show is comprised of professionally crafted fabric, quilts, machine work, needlework, free motion works, and most involve mixed media and mixed techniques.

     So much so that two of our local guild members, Karen Boote and Cathy Ridley spent a great deal of time discussing each piece, returning to several pieces a number of times. They were entranced by the variety.

     When asked if they had a favourite, they couldn’t come up with a single work.

 “It would be hard for me to pick one,” says Cathy. She motions towards a work called Sirens, and although she doesn’t like its background she finds the freeform workmanship to be incredible. “It’s stitched so precisely but so creatively.”

She was also very impressed with the folding involved in the shell piece entitled Nautilus by Helen Gordon. They were both impressed by the occasional subtle hand painting and with the knowledge that, “None of these works start with a standard design of anything,” says Cathy.

     Karen had her nose practically pressed to the work, Cellular Aqueducts by Mary Cope. Karen wondered if the cloth had been dipped in dye, and whether rice paper was used, mesh, or mulberry paper.

     A good number of works involve the use of free motion, which involves dropping the feed-dogs on a sewing machine so that the cloth can be moved around by hand. This can take a great deal of skill. “It helps if you have a glass of wine,” states Cathy.

    Cathy and Karen were very inspired by the show. “Looking at this work online does nothing for the pieces,” declares Karen.

     Threadworks 2013 is on view at the Thunder Bay Museum till the end of June.

Lakehead University Retrograduate Exhibition at the Definitely Superior Art Gallery

     Nudity and nacho chips combined at the opening of the Lakehead University Retrograd Show to three packed gallery spaces. Stephanie Celine and Kristin Jorgenson aimed to poke fun at our society’s obsessive love of snack food with a work performed by Stephanie and Reed Thomas. The brave souls disrobed to hop into a tub and pop open bags to cover themselves with thousands of Dorito’s Nachos chips. Brave, not only because the performers were naked, but also because those damn addictive cheesy chips have sharp little edges. Death by Doritos! If you like nachos, there are still lots of them available in the bathtub and all over the gallery floor. The show packs a crunch. :)

      The Definitely Superior Gallery hasn’t had such a dramatic performance piece for a while. Performance pieces can wedge themselves into one’s mind as much as a great art show.

     And there’s lots to like about the current show, set in all three-gallery spaces, comprised of a long list of young and talented creative people, many who may become major artistic contributors to our city. A few works are certainly worth obtaining for collector’s walls. If you want to invest in art, or begin the great and respected hobby of buying art and being involved in the community, here’s a good place to start.

     However, you won’t find the standard landscape, still life, or portrait. There are lots of portraits, but most have a tilt, a playful twist, as do the landscapes and still life. Kristin Jorgenson’s playful Bountiful Harvest is a slightly typical portrait of a house, but with a big wedge of pink frosted cake sitting in the front yard. Painted in a naïve manner one suspects its creator, not a professional, got distracted. Since we know the painter has a university degree, and is a better painter as evidenced by more painterly and detailed examples throughout the show, we know she’s poking fun at our indulgences and making a statement about easily accessible art at the same time. Art too, can be like cake. Or Doritos.

     Eli Castellan’s piece, Mental Traffic, continues the theme. This time it’s a gaunt soul starved semi-human who can’t escape the magnetic pull of the television. The figure’s body becomes an alien-twisted anorexic, with arms reaching for an alternative from the soul-sucking world from which he can’t pull his mind away. This deceptively simple piece is fraught with meaning and has as much a cognitive pull as Robert Crumb’s comic piece, Keep on Trucking. The image sticks in the mind because it’s emblematic of a human condition for many people, like our addiction to Doritos Nachos. A miniature version of Eli’s sculpture would be a good present for every child at Christmas. Just a Grinchy thought.

     There are also great abstract pieces like Scott Poluyko’s Rauschenberg-like piece, Aggression, and Rebecca Taddeo’s very red yet composed untitled mixed media canvas work.

     There are wonderfully crazy surreal pieces, like Melissa Miller’s, Awakening, with its bizarre gooey drips floating between teeth and an eye, and Michelle Kivi’s assemblages of recognizable imagery for her Northern pieces: Routes and Commute.

     There are thoughtful emotionally fraught personal pieces like Viki Ludmark’s, Hereditary Relapse, a bold statement as if seen through the very liquid that creates the addiction.

     The show is comprised of twenty different graduates, all worth checking out. Please go to www.definitelysuperior.com for a list of the artists. The Lakehead University Retrograduate Exhibition is on till May 31^st.