Factory Party 5

Well, Calgary, it's that time of the month again!
Factory Party is back this Friday at the Uptown Stage and Screen! If you haven't been yet, you really should, and if you have, then you're probably already planning on coming again. It's a great night for music, art, film, dancing, socializing and drinking...all in one place for one low, low price!
I'm even lucky enough to have a couple things up this time 'round and I would love to see some familiar faces and shoot some celebratory tequila. Maybe, just maybe I'll see you there!
Come down early if you don't have tickets...they're expecting 1200 people so there'll probably be more than that and door tickets will sell out.
See some bands, watch some films, check out some art (mine, too, please!) mingle, shake ya tail feather and party!

Movie Madness

Got a couple more movie trailers for ya.


Away We Go is directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. It's got a great cast and looks to be filled with dry humour. Looks like a good'er.

The Limits of Control. Great cast. Great director. Looks quite interesting.

Must Read After My Death. Documentary. I can't even describe it...just watch it. A beautiful, if not entirely disturbing, idea for a film.

Explicit Ills. This look amazing. Paul Dano is making some really great choices in the films he works on. He's extremely talented and I look forward to watching the rest of his career unfold.

Alien Trespass. Set in 1957, this film looks absolutely ridiculous in the most wonderful way. Check out this movie poster:

Where the Wild Things Are

Here's the trailer for the new live-action adaptation of Maurice Sendack's 1963 children's book. It's directed by Spike Jonze and the screenplay was adapted by Jonze and Dave Eggers.
It looks absolutely amazing and I can't wait for it to hit theatres.
Goosebumps, anyone?

Dove with Green Peas ala Cardboard

Our last assignment for intro to sculpture was to recreate a Picasso painting in 3-D using cardboard.
It was really fun and I like how mine turned out. This photo isn't great but it gets the point across I suppose. I'd actually like to shrink down and run around in it - it kind of reminds me of an amusement park or an "urban landscape" as my classmate Kristy said.

Meredith Dittmar

These cute little polymer clay creatures totally made my day.

Meredith's homepage.

Louise Nevelson - 1899-1988

We watched a film on Russian artist Louise Nevelson in sculpture class last week and I was completely in awe of this woman. The film was made in the 70's, when she was 80, and she has such a strong energy and presence when she works. She's funny as hell and has such conviction in everything she does. I tried to find clips of the video we watched but couldn't so instead I'm posting an interview she did on American Architecture Now. It's a bit long, about a half hour, but it's totally worth it. She says the most amazing things.
She worked primarily with objects she found on the streets of New York - old wooden crates, discarded banisters from the school across the street from her house and some of her later work was recreated on larger scales using sheet metal and glass.




She's quite amazing.

-Once her friend and patron Howard Lipman showed her an early American rocking chair that he had just acquired. He asked Nevelson's opinion of the chair. "I couldn't care less about the chair," she said, "but look at its shadow."-

"I have made my world and it is a much better world than I ever saw outside."

"Anywhere I found wood I took it home and started working with it..to show the world that art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind."




Links to more of her work.

Wet Paint - Please Touch

Here's a site I found that's an excellent time killer.
WetPaintPleaseTouch

Some samples from the gallery.

Ones mine, but you'll never know which!
So...click on the link, throw some paint and let's see what you come up with!

Short Film Friday

The Black Hole - Phil and Olly - 2008

Wishie Series - Denis Brown

"I asked people to e-mail me a wish, and I wrote many hundreds of their wishes into these works. Etched in glass and with writing layered on top of writing, the wishes remain mostly secret/illegible, but they embody 3-D images of blow balls, wishies, soffione and pusteblume. In releasing a private wish to me, I hoped it might become more tangible to the wisher. Denis Brown, Dublin, February 2009"

I've always loved dandelions. There's something very magical about their shape, texture, the way those little umbrella seeds take flight with the slightest breeze and how they are at their most beautiful right before all those seeds are gone and their life ends.
Denis Brown manages to capture all of these elements in his series and the idea of secrets etched within every one adds even more magic.
Love it!


Side Note
We've been reading poetry by Don McKay in English for the past week and a half and this is one of my favourites.

Some Functions of a Leaf

To whisper. To applaud the wind
and hide the Hermit thrush.
To catch the light
and work the humble spell of photosynthesis
(excuse me sir, if I might have one word)
by which it's changed to wood.
To wait
willing to feed
and be food
To die with style:
as the tree retreats inside itself,
shutting off the valves at its
extremities
to starve in technicolour, then
having served two hours in a children's leaf pile, slowly
stir its vitamins into the earth.

To be the artist of mortality.

Brian Dettmer

Brian Dettmer carves into books revealing the artwork inside, creating complex layered three-dimensional sculptures. Amazing!

Sea Creatures

These are one of my all time favourite creatures.
They're called nudibranchs (noody-brank) and if that isn't enough to make you love them too then listen to this!
Sea slugs, which these guys technically are but not all sea slugs are as pretty as them, lost their outer shells over the course of evolution because they developed other defense mechanisms. The big one for nudibranchs being their insanely bright colours which warns that they are poisonous or distasteful. When threatened, they release a sour tasting liquid from their skin. Also, these guys are carnivores! They eat algae, sponges, anemones, coral, barnacles and even other nudibranchs! There's also more than 3000 different species, with new ones being discovered every day.
They're amazing. And beautiful. And I want one. I hope you do too.
I think I'll actually do a couple different posts on beautiful sea creatures.

If You Could Spend a Day...

With any artist, celebrity, musician or what have you, who would it be?

I choose Michel Gondry - visionary French director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep, Be Kind, Rewind, Dave Chappelle's Block Party, Tokyo! and a number of music videos. He's insanely talented and I would love to hang out with him for a day...watch him work, help him work, talk about dreams...just get inside his head in general.
I couldn't even begin to post his huge body of work, but here are some of my favourites along with a couple extra treats. Again, if you've got time to spare, watch them. Then go to you tube and watch everything else.


Levi's Commercial.

Radiohead - Knives Out

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind clip

"La Science des Rêves" (The Science of Sleep) dream sequence

Beck - Deadweight

Oui Oui - Les Cailloux

So, who would you spend a day with? And for this one...it can't be a dead person. Sorry, it's the rules.