Month: April 2012

Max MacDonald was a good choice for first artist to show at the brand new Gerrard Art Space. He filled the walls… and I mean filled… with at least a hundred colourful, textured, imaginative abstracts with a variety of themes and palettes.
Often (but not always) painted on pieces of weathered board and bits of what looks like driftwood, MacDonald’s paintings are objects that don’t require frames. Most are about shapes and colour combinations, composition, pattern and texture. They are all lively and engaging.
I liked the work and just wish that the artist would sign them on the front. They are so handmade and personally expressive, I think the maker’s mark would add something.
GAS is a welcome addition to the Gerrard strip, known best as Little India. I hope that the artists’ cooperative exhibit space will inspire imaginative uses for some of the down-at-the-heels storefronts… and I believe it will.
BTW, GAS will run on memberships and they are accepting artist/members at present. Costs are a realistic $80 – $100/month… what an opportunity for artists to gather together, show their work and sell to the public without paying commissions. Brilliant idea! Good for art prices, too, if Mr MacDonald’s show is any indication. I lost my price list on the way home but I do remember that most of the works were available for anything from a few hundred dollars to under $200.

The turnout for Opening Day was gratifyingly good. I notice that our tireless city councillor Mary Margaret McMahon was in the crowd. The exhibition space is inviting and the opening offered tables of tasties and glasses of wine. Welcome to the neighbourhood, GAS.

Kash Kashmeri’s documentary tribute to the life of his Bollywood scriptwriter father premiered tonight at the Famous Players Canada Square Cinema. The audience loved the story and gave the filmmakers many rounds of applause during the Q&A afterwards. This news clip explains more about the film.

I didn’t put this up just for Kathleen and Danica, who both have extensive experience in long term care work. I think anyone can appreciate this clip.

There are tulips and daffodils everywhere and I cut the grass for the first time ever in the early half of April… so what Spring vision do I photograph? It doesn’t do much to add colour to the site, does it?
Nevertheless, there are interesting things to be recorded before greenery covers them up. I never noticed these limbs in the chain link fence until my walk today. Back up to 10,000 steps a day. My cold put a damper on my strolls for a few days, so it was good to get out again.

From the vicinity of her studio near Burrard Street, looking downtown, North Shore mountains in the background. The two biggest buildings were the new BC Hydro building and the Hotel Vancouver. What a difference from today!
This freely rendered oil on board was one of Helen’s ventures into painting with a palette knife. Textures are richest on the mountains. I don’t know when she painted on the large, peculiar signature, or why she did it. Helen’s signature at the time of painting would have been “Andy” (her nickname from nursing school days and her nom d’art thereafter). She probably signed it “Andy” in the same area originally and then painted over it much later.

You don’t stop doing things because you get old. You get old because you stop doing things.” ~ Rosamunde Pilcher, writer
The cold is finally going away and it’s time I got off my butt.

Hamblin glasses, a pair of spectacles especially designed for reading in bed; England, 1936
Lying around, wating for this cold to pass is getting to be a bore, but I haven’t the energy or the wits to do much else. At least I’ve been able to iPad up a few good sites I hadn’t come across before. For example…

Ripple.ca is functioning just as it has for years, although a cold has kept me from adding new entries as frequently as usual. When John Robert Colombo wrote to say “I see that ripple.ca is still offline”, I realized how far I’d gone with my minimalism.

Until today, I didn’t know that WordPress could easily paginate long chunks of text. All that’s required is a bit of code where the break is wanted. Page navigation is automagically supplied at the bottom of the entry. For example:
Read all of this, because it’s about you!

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside.