Creative Mornings Vancouver: Making By Hand

It’s been a month since I did my talk at Creative Mornings in December, and I’m only now getting around to sharing the video recording. The audio is a little quiet so be sure to turn up your volume.

I am very happy with my delivery of the talk because I put a lot of preparation into it, and it paid off. I felt relaxed and confident on stage, and said everything I wanted to say. The audience was engaged and attentive during the talk, and I’ve had great feedback on the whole thing. I spoke for about thirty minutes but it went by in no time for me.

I have a few more posts to write related to the talk, including one about the process I went through to develop the whole thing. In the beginning I had no idea where to start in putting it together but luckily I had many friends who are experienced speakers to ask for advice. It’ll be helpful to others to share what I learned from the whole experience.

Typo: Typographic Art at Hot Art Wet City

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Beyond the utilitarian use of letterforms, typography can be beautiful art. This show features typographic-based works from Bennett Slater, Scott Sueme, and Frazer Adams, plus guest artists Ben Knight, James Knight, Erin Gibbs, Brandon Cotter, Ali Bruce, and Rachael Ashe.

Typo: Typographic Art
Hot Art Wet City
Dates: January 9-25, 2014
Opening reception Friday January 10 from 7pm
Location: 2206 Main Street at 6th Avenue

Hot Talks @ Hot Art Wet City with Johnathon Vaughn Strebly

Our first Hot Talks speaker of 2014 at Hot Art Wet City is Johnathon Vaughn Strebly. He is a designer, photographer, and community builder involved as a volunteer in Creative Mornings and is the current president of the GDCBC. Johnathon will be speaking finding inspiration with Lego.

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Creative Blocks & Coloured Bricks

LEGO as a muse? Seriously? How could a designer, or any creative professional, possibly find inspiration from a simple plastic toy brick? But did you know this is one of the best boys Lego ideas for anyone planning to streamline their child’s career straight into engineer or architect? Creative Blocks & Coloured Bricks will feature a blatant disregard to traditional creative process tactics and focus on playful techniques for smoothing out the speed bumps of creative blocks.

Read the full description of Johnathon’s talk here.

Join us for the latest Hot Talk on January 23rd at 7pm. Tickets are by donation and are available for purchase through Eventbrite.

Hot Talks: Johnathon Vaughn Strebly
Hot Art Wet City
Date: January 23rd, 2014
Time: Doors 6:30, talk 7pm
Address: 2206 Main Street, Vancouver

2013: A Year End Review in Twelve Photos

As in previous years, I thought I’d put together a blog post of twelve photos pulled from my archive on Flickr, one for each month of the year. I was pleasantly surprised to discover I had a variety of photos to choose from even though I haven’t been uploading much to flickr.

The selection is a good mix of paper art and nature photos.


January


February


March


April


May


June


July


August


September


October


November


December

All the best in 2014. May it be a creative year for all.

Christmas Scenes From Bowen Island

I fell off the blogging bandwagon a few weeks back when I came down with the flu. It wiped me out for two weeks and I still wasn’t feeling myself over Christmas. I’ve been pretty consistent about blogging regularly for the past few years, so it bothers me a bit I won’t be meeting my monthly goal of eight posts. Ah well, it can’t be helped.

Boris and I spent last week on Bowen Island for Christmas with his family. I went out walking every day and took many photos of the peaceful scenes.

I hope your Christmas was very merry.

Paper Cutting Timelapse

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In preparation for my Creative Mornings talk I felt it was important to include examples of my making so it wasn’t all talk.

I used two time lapse videos, one shot and edited by Lee and Sachi LeFever of me making their yarn tree. The second video I did myself using iTimelapse on Boris’ iPhone 5.

This is about an hour of work. Every time I watch this I am amazed I don’t cut my fingers more often….

Facing Fears Through Creative Mornings

Tomorrow morning I take the stage at SFU Woodwards and present myself to the world at Creative Mornings. I’ve known about this talk for months, so I’ve had plenty of time to acclimatize to the idea of talking in front of a large audience. Public speaking has always been a huge fear of mine, and normally I avoid it even in small ways.

By going through the process of developing this talk I have challenging a long held fear. Not to say my anxiety has completely gone away, but it feels manageable now rather than completely overwhelming. I’m extremely grateful this opportunity came my way, and also that I had the sense not to refuse it.

The whole experience has me wondering what other fears I should face…

Watch this teaser video about my talk:

Inspiration: Sculpture by Deborah Butterfield

I was in Seattle with friends this past weekend, and was glad to spend a bit of time on Saturday at some of my favourite galleries. I really wanted to see Guy Laramee’s new work at Foster White Gallery, as well as Marco Mazzoni at Roq La Rue.

The most exciting work I came across, completely by accident, was Deborah Butterfield’s beautiful sculptures of abstract horses at Greg Kucera gallery. I’ve seen these on the internet many times because they get mentioned quite a bit on various art blogs, but they are incredible in person.

Sculpture by Deborah Butterfield

Sculpture by Deborah Butterfield

They are larger than life-size but have the quiet presence of standing next to a living horse. I never realized her work are bronze casts of the sculptures she first creates in wood.

Sculpture by Deborah Butterfield

Sculpture by Deborah Butterfield

Take a look at the video below where Deborah Butterfield shares a bit about her process. I wish I had a piece of land where I could install one of her horses. They are inspiring.

Inspiring Work By David Robinson

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of going out and touring some of the artists studios open for the Culture Crawl, because I was closed for the Preview night while others were open. I haven’t been able to do this in years because I need to be present at my own studio. There was a small group of artist friends who have been doing the Crawl for years touring around for the evening. We all felt excited to see other people’s studios, and the feeling was a bit like having Halloween and Christmas all rolled into one.

The most striking work I saw that evening was by sculptor, David Robinson. The massive figurative piece below was the first thing I saw as I walked into his fourth floor space in Parker Street Studios. I had to stop and stare at it for long minutes.

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I am really inspired by his work, and was interested to see some of his recent pieces are molded from cardboard or paper. I aspire to one day create on as large a scale as he does.

Visit David Robinson’s website to view more work.

Hot Talks @Hot Art Wet City with Eagranie Yuh

The featured speaker for our November Hot Talk at Hot Art Wet City is Eagranie Yuh. She is a writer, editor, and master of all things chocolate with a new book coming out next year from Chronicle Books. Eagranie will be speaking about simple and effective ways to improve your writing.

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How To Write Gooder

You may be the most talented creative in the world, but if you can’t communicate what you do, why it matters and why you’re awesome, you’re hooped.

In this talk, you’ll learn simple ways to whip your writing into shape and tell compelling stories – without selling your soul.

Read the full description of Eagranie’s talk here.

Join us for the latest Hot Talk on Tuesday November 26th at 7pm. Tickets are by donation and are available through Eventbrite.

Hot Talks: Eagranie Yuh
Hot Art Wet City
Date: November 26th, 2013
Time: Doors 6:30, talk 7pm
Address: 2206 Main Street, Vancouver