Category: Travel photos

Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum

I’m back from a short trip to Seattle to visit friends and see art. A highlight of gallery hopping from the past few days was to see an incredible show of cut paper art at the Bellevue Art Museum, titled Cut Up Cut Out. All of the best known artists working with cut paper are in this traveling show put together by Bedford Gallery in California. I’d been dying to see it since I first learned it would be showing in Bellevue.

It is a fantastic show featuring a wide variety of artists, and beautifully showcases the art of paper cutting. I really wish my own work had been included in this exhibition, but I am not well know enough. I’ve included photos here of sixteen of the many pieces from the show.

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Sara Burgess, The Numbers Book

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Yuken Teruya, Notice-Forest (Tiffany)

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Lauren Kussro, Tart Crispy Greens


Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Barbara Wildenboer, Dark Paradise 1

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Maude White, Sonja

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Meg Hitchcock, The Most Secret Supreme Truth

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Donna Ruff

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Cal Lane

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Wim Delvoye, Untitled (Car Tyre)

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Rogan Brown, Small Kernal

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum

Claire Brewster, A Parliament

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Jenn Stark, Holographic Circle

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Andy Singleton, Nebula Form II

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum

Lyndi Sales

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Simone Lourenço, My Universe, Blue

Photos of Cut Up Cut Out at Bellevue Art Museum
Charles Clary

Cut Up Cut Out continues at the Bellevue Art Museum until October 27th 2017. Read more about it here.

Scenic Summerland

Boris and I went away to Summerland with friends over the Canada Day long weekend. It has been many years since I last visited the Okanagan, and I’ve never previously explored this tiny town where our friend grew up. The weather was super hot, and Lake Okanagan was the perfect place to cool off in the afternoon.

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We wandered, explored, snacked, napped, read books, and went swimming. The perfect way to spend a summer long weekend.

Collecting Art on the Streets of Toronto

It’s been three years since my previous visit to Toronto, and of course there are even more murals and pieces of street art tucked along side streets and laneways everywhere. Many pieces I saw previously in Kensington Market and along Queen Street West are still there, and there was plenty of new stuff as well.

This is a small selection of some of the murals I found in my travels around the city. The monochrome ones are really interesting.

Toronto street art

Toronto street art

Toronto street art

Toronto street art

Toronto street art

Toronto street art

Toronto street art

Toronto street art

Toronto street art

Toronto street art

Toronto street art

Toronto street art

I hope Vancouver achieves this level of art everywhere after a few more years of the Vancouver Mural Festival.

View all of my recent photos of Toronto street art on Flickr.

Garage Door Murals in Toronto

Murals on garage doors is a thing in Toronto and I am a fan. These were all taken in back laneways where most garages downtown in the city are located. I would love to see this trend make its way to Vancouver.

Kensington Market garage door murals:

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Harbord Village garage door murals:

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Garage door street art

Each grouping from the two different neighbourhoods were taken in the same two laneways. I love the variety, and I wonder how the whole thing came about.

Colourful Scenes From Allen Gardens

Boris and I took my mom to Allen Gardens Conservatory for a brief visit on her birthday. It was a grey rainy day, so it was the perfect spot to wander indoors and look at colourful things. It’s been a million years since I last visited the garden, and I find it much more interesting as an adult than I probably did as a child.

Allen Gardens, Toronto

Allen Gardens, Toronto

It’s one of Toronto’s oldest parks with tropical plants from all over the globe inside five greenhouses covering 16,000 square feet. It was much larger than I remembered.

Allen Gardens, Toronto

Allen Gardens, Toronto

Allen Gardens, Toronto

Allen Gardens, Toronto

My favourite of all the greenhouses was the Cactus House full of an amazing variety of unusual cactus and succulents.

Allen Gardens, Toronto

Allen Gardens, Toronto

Allen Gardens, Toronto

Now that we are back home again, I am enjoying looking at these colourful photos as the days continue to be grey and rainy in Vancouver.

Read more about Allen Gardens on the wikipedia page.

A Canadian Bestiary by Janet Macpherson

This exhibition at the Gardiner Museum was on my must-see list while in Toronto, and it did not disappoint. It wowed and impressed. Janet Macpherson creates weird and wonderful hybrid animals in porcelain cast from all sort of objects in the form of animals, such as toys, decoys, masks, etc. The exhibition is made up of four groups of installations and explores the Canadian experience in different ways.

Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary

Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary

The carved deer head and legs were among my favourite pieces. I think they were glazed in black and then the intricate leaf pattern was carved into the surface to reveal the white porcelain underneath.

Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary

Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary

Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary
The installation below was the most fascinating of the four because the viewer needs to take a long time looking at the many strange combinations of animals that make up the individual pieces. My favourites (not pictured here) were a polar bear body with the head of a song bird, and one with the body of an eagle combined with the head of a horse.

Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary

Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary

Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary

Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary

Such an inspiring exhibition to see! The show continues at the Gardiner Museum until May 22, 2017, and was commissioned to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation. View more photos of the exhibition here.

Scenes From A Visit to Victoria

Last weekend Boris and I took advantage of the long weekend and went over to Victoria to visit friends. It was a much needed getaway after a busy month, and a nice break before the craziness of Culture Crawl this weekend. We saw beautiful scenery on a day trip to Sooke and nearby beaches, as well as a walk around Beacon Hill Park. It was only my second time to Victoria in the twelve years I’ve lived in Vancouver.

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More photos, including ones taken at the Bug Zoo, on Flickr.

Juxtapoz x Superflat Exhibition

The day after visiting the Seattle Art Fair last weekend I took Boris with me to see the Juxtapoz X Superflat show at Pivot Art + Culture. It was in the South Lake Union neighbourhood, which is an area of Seattle I hadn’t previously explored, and it seemed to be filled with cool art venues, and restaurants.

Elizabeth Higgins O’Connor

Kim Jung Gi

Kim Jung Gi

 

James Jean

I didn’t love this show but I badly wanted to see it because it included work by James Jean, one of my favourite artists. I’ve never seen his work in person before, only online, and it’s an important thing to do when you like someone’s work. It’s absolutely not the same seeing things on the internet. Now I want to see an entire show of his work, but I doubt that will ever happen in Vancouver.

Seattle Art Fair 2016

Katsuya Terada

Katsuya Terada

A Few Days in Whistler

Boris and I also spent a few days in Whistler on our vacation last week. I haven’t been there in years, and it turned out to be a lovely place to wander the trails.

A few days in Squamish

We went for a walk around Lost Lake one day, and then to check out Train Wreck trail the next. The wreck trail is an unofficial but well known trail that takes visitors to see a train wreck in the woods that has been there since the 1950s. The cars are spread across a kilometre and all of them are covered in layers of graffiti. Read more here about the history of the how the train came to rest in the forest. 

A few days in Squamish

A few days in Squamish

A few days in Squamish

A few days in Squamish

A few days in Squamish

Earlier on the same day we walked Train Wreck trail, I also paid my first visit to the lovely new Audain Art Museum that opened earlier this year in Whistler. The building itself is pretty incredible with elements of wood all over the outer surfaces, and surrounded by the remnants of the forest.

A few days in Squamish

A few days in Squamish

These are some of my favourite pieces on display at the museum, and below is a lovely long window in an upper gallery.

A few days in Squamish

A few days in Squamish

I enjoyed our time in Whistler, and I’m so glad the two of us finally had a bit of a vacation. We both really needed it.

Seattle Art Road Trip

2 Comments

I went on a day trip to Seattle last week with a group of friends to go gallery hopping. We managed to fit a lot in during the short amount of time we were in the city. I did not take as many photos as I wish I had, so there is a lot of terrific inspiring art I can’t share. The ones I did photograph showcase a very random selection of things.

Seattle Art road trip

Gift City: A Project by Keller Easterling at Henry Art Gallery

Seattle Art road trip
Franz Erhard Walther: The Body Draws at Henry Art Gallery

Seattle Art road trip
Trimpin at Winston Wachter Fine Art

Seattle Art road trip
Gala Bent at G. Gibson Gallery

Seattle Art road trip
There’s A Story Here by Sean Johnson at Greg Kucera Gallery

Seattle Art road trip
Complex by Evan Blackwell at Foster White Gallery

Seattle Art road trip
Don Fritz at Gallery IMA

It was a terrific trip with a fun group of friends. I was happy to visit a few new-to-me galleries, that I will definitely revisit the next time I am in Seattle.