Shary Boyle- The Cave

I've been meaning to post for weeks about Shary Boyle's latest exhibition, The Cave, at Jessica Bradley Art + Projects. For those of you who have not yet seen it, it's on for another week so hustle over if you want to catch it...

The Cave is an exhibition of recent drawings, small relief sculptures and porcelain works exploring "Boyle’s interest in the vast and fantastical variety of bats in the world, and their recent decline as a signal of impending ecological catastrophe." The show was certainly not limited to bat imagery...also featured were diminutive representations of chandeliers, chalk pastel drawings of period costumes which resemble strangely organic, evocative suits of armour and a milky white porcelain phallus complete with squatting legs and high heels. My favourite pieces included some of the plainly beautiful bat face reliefs and the pictured work above, Wicked Witch of the East, which treads dangerously close to cutesy territory with it's pastel palette and blankety textures. Despite this, it gives you the feeling of a mysterious, alluring nest daring you to disturb it so it's seemingly sleepy bats can suddenly swarm you (entangling themselves in your hair, as the old myth goes...). Also incredible was the large encased bat sculpture (unfortunately, I didn't get the name of it...) which takes Boyle's lace draping technique (best known from her Lace Figures series) to new heights.

It is also worth noting how beautifully the works were presented in The Cave. For example, the pristine white bat relief sculptures were mounted to black velvet, which was echoed in the black velvet painting-esque chalk drawings of costumes and figures. There was a seamless unity to the presentation that was obviously well-thought out by the detail-worshiping Boyle.

The Cave features work that is thematically what Boyle is known for, and rightfully so. It strikes a nerve for articulating the uneasy role of the feminine body not only in myth and fable, but in contemporary society.

For more on The Cave, look here. For more on Shary Boyle, take a look at her website.

Pictured: Wicked Witch of the East, porcelain (unique), 2009

Garlic Gloves II

A preview of some of the details on the latest pair of Garlic Gloves, made over the last two nights. I've been holding onto that crazy onion stem for months!

Garlic skin, onion skin, elm seeds and adhesive
2009

Cluster

My Signature Security Envelopes will be in the above exhibition, a show of recent work by Toronto School of Art Alumni, at Launch Projects. The show runs from March 11th-29th, and the opening is on Thursday the 12th. Should be a great show...please stop by and check it out! Don't come to the opening expecting to find me, though, as I'll be Niagara Falls celebrating my 4-year anniversary with this questionable individual...

Book Covers

For me, book covers (like "good" and "bad" signs) hold a lot of power. I've seen book covers that have made me furious, either because of their bad design, bad concept, or because they were way too gimmick-y. To give you an idea of how emotionally invested I get in bad design, I once told my father (who is a "sign-man") that a Addition-Elle billboard from about four years ago "made a mockery of large women everywhere." Yup...it's true. The idea of the big, stupid, loopy font they used STILL makes my blood boil. Alternately, good book design gives me a sense of satisfaction that rivals the satisfaction I feel when I've finished something of my own, or came up with an idea that I was 100% sure of.

I just killed an hour on The Book Cover Archive and I can honestly say that not a whole hell of a lot of the book covers included on the site grabbed me. Don DeLillo's book covers are obnoxious. The new Vintage edition Kafka covers are disappointing. I am a fan of the covers of the new-ish Penguin "Great Ideas" series, some of which have trickled in at my work (another place I kill hours looking at book covers). The book cover I've pictured above, though, was my absolute favourite on the website. So perfect. We've all been there, haven't we? (Trying to erase something cleanly, to no avail, I mean...)

I've included some other favourites from the archive below. Who is willing to admit that they've bought books for their covers? I am, definitely.

Garlic Gloves

Garlic Gloves
Garlic skin, corn silk, adhesive

Here are some photographs taken today of yet another recent project (this one only a day old...!), which will end up as one of several components in vitrine installation I have coming up in May. The work is very much in progress at the moment, so I don't really want to elaborate much more than this! More photos to come in the coming weeks...

Signature Security Envelopes

My latest project, which has been occupying the last few nights...

Security envelope pattern generated by weaving shredded fragments of my own signature repeated on a single sheet of paper, and photocopying the result.

Valentine's Card

Valentine's card drawn for Ben on Monday at work. That's me on the right!

Punchline inside:
"If I let you pretend I'm DEE DEE, will you be my VALENTINE?"

Artists' Flea Market at Board of Directors

I will be participating in the Artists' Flea Market this Sunday, February 8th from 10am-6pm at Board of Directors (Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects). The Market will include cheap art works on sale by:

Tara Azzopardi as Baby Jane Lipshitz

Lex Vaughn as Peanut Brittle

Andrew Harwood as Zsa Zsa

Tara Bursey

Tanya Read

Colin Stark

Seth Scriver

Sandy Plotnikoff

Saera Burns-Whymz

Jennifer Lovegrove

Katharine Mulherin

Melissa Hamel-Smith

Melissa Levin

I will be selling loads of zines and bookworks, multiples, pinback buttons, paper-based art, drawings, food art and crafts and other surprises! Tons of stuff for between $2 and $10! Wow!

Should be heaps of fun! Hope to see you there!

Board of Directors

1082 + 1086 Queen Street West

(Near Dovercourt Road)

Toronto

http://www.katharinemulherin.com

Street Poets and Visionaries + What it Really Is Exhibitions

Here are two great-looking exhibitions, found via AKIMBO. There are tons of other great looking shows on right now too; DIYnot? at the OCC, Gretchen Sankey at Paul Petro, Iris Haussler at Honest Eds....if I see even two of the ones I have my eye on, I'll be surprised!...

If I can't make it out, you should!

STREET POETS & VISIONARIES: SELECTIONS FROM THE UBUWEB COLLECTION

Talk by UbuWeb founder Kenneth Goldsmith at 7PM preceding the opening reception at 8PM.

January 09, 2009 - February 21, 2009
Opening Reception: Friday 9 January 2009

Street Poets & Visionaries: Selections from the UbuWeb Collection, an exhibition of posters and ephemeral writings from the streets of New York City.

In the tradition of Jim Shaw's "Thrift Shop Paintings," this collection of street posters, mad scribblings, political screeds, religious rants, and paranoid raves expands our notion of the Outsider arts to include the written word.

Formally striking, emotionally charged, and bizarre beyond belief, these graphical works dovetail with the historic traditions of concrete poetry and art brut. Seamlessly melding text and image, their obsessive quality evokes Adolf Wölfli and Henry Darger's visionary works.

Featured in the exhibition will be the work of David Daniels (1933-2008), a Bay Area poet who created a complex body of work including visual poems using only Microsoft Word. Works from two of his epic series, "The Gates of Paradise" and "Years" will be featured.

UbuWeb (ubu.com) is the Internet's largest resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts, featuring thousands of MP3s, films, books, scholarly papers, and poems.

Mercer Union Centre for Contemporary Art
1286 Bloor Street West
(East of Lansdowne Avenue)
Toronto


**********


WHAT IT REALLY IS
Works in sculpture by Kristan Horton, Liz Magor, Kristi Malakoff, Kerri Reid and Jennifer Rose Sciarrino.

27 January - 28 February, 2009
Opening Reception: Tuesday, 27 January, 6-9 pm

Special event: gallery walk-through with curator Nicholas Brown and artists Kristan Horton and Kerri Reid at Red Bull 381 Projects on Saturday, February 14 at 3PM.

A group exhibition that considers the diversity of sculptural practices amongst Canadian artists whose work reveals a fascination with the world around them. Drawing on sculpture's history of incorporating objects found, duplicated, and manipulated, these artists highlight materials as a means of apprehending, mimicking, and animating elements of the real and perceived world. "What it Really Is" may be an object from the everyday, as in Reid's ceramic replicas of broken teacups, or a vast, primordial form distilled through the artist's imagination, as in Sciarrino's abstracted paper stalactites. But despite the title's evocation of a fixed representational identity-the copy's allusion to the real-in these works we find dynamic relationships between art and life. This is most strikingly apparent in Horton's video, which depicts a series of consumer objects slowly unraveling at the seams and transforming into one another through the process of stop-motion animation. Here, materials turn inwards as much as outwards, revealing the desire to mimic both the outside world and the objects in their closest proximity.

This exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Tejpal S. Ajji, Nicholas Brown, and a conversation between Jen Hutton and Liz Magor.

For more information on the artists and download-able images of their work, visit www.redbull381projects.com

Red Bull 381 Projects
381 Queen St. W (Queen & Peter) 2nd Floor
Hours of Operation: Wed - Friday 12pm - 5pm, Saturday 12pm - 6pm

Pictured: A work by Henry Darger

DI-why? at the Ontario Crafts Council

There are so many great shows happening around town right now, but this one is particularly close to my heart, curated by the lovely Janna Hiemstra, and featuring (among others) Becky Johnson and Shannon Gerard. Read on for all the details...

DIwhy?

January 20 – March 1, 2009
Opening Reception:
Thursday, February 5th, 5:30 - 8:30 pm

DIY can be traced back to several historical moments: the Arts and Craft movement of the 1900’s, the 1970’s craft movement, and third-wave feminism alongside the 80’s punk, zine and Riot Grrrl movements.

However, despite these connections, pinning down exactly what DIY is and what it looks like, especially in the realm of craft, remains a challenging task at best. There is no common definition for DIY, and as it becomes increasingly mainstream, the act of distinguishing a particular mode of making according to “do it yourself”, is an issue that continues to be raised.

As such, the OCC is pleased to present in partnership with Toronto Craft Alert, DIwhy?, an exhibition exploring the many different facets of ‘doing it yourself’.

DIwhy? includes the work of Amanda McCavour, Andrea Graham, Becky Johnson, Brooke Pickett, Catherine Trelford-Keogh, Frances Mahon, Heather Bain, Inbred Hybrid Collective, Katie Muth, Katie Sorrell, Lauren Hortie, Maura Meng, Miriam Grenville, and Shannon Gerard.

Pictured: Becky Johnson, Security Envelope Buttons, 2008/09

Punk Project

Punk Rockers On Creative Survival and the Survival of Creativity
Call for interview-ees

I am working on a print project and need your help.

PRCSSC is a publication that will touch on punk, "creativity," class, and counter-cultural activity. People in bands or people who do any sort of creative "work" relating to punk/hardcore (recording, fanzines, record/flyer art, bedroom labels, etc) are needed for short interviews that will discuss punk "production," and how living in Toronto effects what we do and how we do it, for better or for worse. If you are someone who just hangs out and goes to shows, I want to talk to you too. Interviews will be conducted by email only, and you can say as much or as little as you want.

PRCSSC will be distributed in Toronto, Winnipeg and Portland as a part of Create The Situation, a series of artist-made zines about art and activism.

If you're interested, or would like more information about the project, contact me (Tara) at cleanteen(at)hotmail.com

Call for Submissions: Po-lar-i-ty

Launch Multiples

Call for Submissions:

Po-lar-i-ty

[poh-lar-i-tee, puh-]

-noun

1. Physics

a. the property or characteristic that produces unequal physical effects at different points in a body or system, as a magnet or storage battery

b. the positive or negative state in which a body reacts to a magnetic, electric or other field.

2. the presence or manifestation of two opposite or contrasting principles or tendencies

3. Linguistics

a. (of words, phrases or sentences) positive or negative character

b. polar opposition

Launch Projects is looking for submissions of multiples of objects for the Launch Multiples cabinet with the theme of polarity.

Deadline: February 8th

Show Dates: February 25th-April 29th, 2009

Your object(s) may embrace the idea of being something it's not- an imposter- or they may express the versatility of being two extremes at once, embodying two opposites.

Multiples will be displayed for approximately 8 weeks and will be sold with 60% commission going to the artist.

Please email 3-6 jpgs of work proposed or a similar/previous body of work to submissions@launchprojects.ca (Attn: Stephanie Cormier and Tara Bursey). Please include an image list (with medium, size, year, price), and a short bio and/or CV.

Wise Words

Text written on the first page of my agenda from 2006:

What's the biggest obstacle you've overcome in your life?

"Feeling that I ought to be doing something very important all the time. To feel that way is a source of energy, but the difficulty it presents is that it leads you to undervalue the time when you're apparently doing nothing. That kind of time is equally important in that it's a kind of dream time that allows things to get sorted out and re-shelved."

-Brian Eno

Dirge II

Here are some pictures of the Dirge II installation at League of Lovers and Thieves, taken late yesterday night. The installation is a part of this year's incredible City of Craft programming. City of Craft is happening tomorrow from 12-8pm at the Theatre Centre, so do come out if you can! Otherwise, my installation will be up until mid-afternoon Sunday, so if you haven't already checked it out, scoot over tomorrow at some point...

For more info on City of Craft, click here.

Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu on the weight of beauty, from a recent interview in Border Crossings magazine:

"...But we would have discussions about art (at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art) and one of the worst words you could say in class was 'beautiful.' What in heaven's name is wrong with the word and why do people get a rash whenever they hear 'beauty' or 'beautiful'? I went from questioning to resenting why no one was willing to discuss why we wouldn't utter the word. I believe the reason is because beauty was actually available to them, their culture decides for the whole world what is beautiful, how beauty should evolve, where it begins and ends. So they were rebelling against the very thing that protected them. They didn't want to use the term beauty because they owned it."

"Females carry the marks, language and nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything that is desired or despised is always placed on the female body.”

For more, see here.

City of Craft

Only one week away! Here are the full details:

CITY OF CRAFT 2008

Come forth crafty citizens to City of Craft 2008 - an innovative craft culture event where craft shoppers & makers come together to celebrate the handmade spirit. No ordinary craft fair, City of Craft 2008 features free workshops, craft-based installations, and outreach by community arts groups & studios, all alongside a curated craft fair of modern handmade goods.

Details:

WHAT: City of Craft 2008
WHO: 50+ craft vendors, community groups, installation artists, workshop leaders & satellite participants
WHEN: Saturday December 13, 2008, noon-8pm
WHERE: Theatre Centre, located at 1087 Queen Street West at Dovercourt

Some show highlights to get you excited:

*FREE STUFF ALERT: the first one hundred visitors will receive swag bags printed by Studio XIX filled with coupons for the show, plus fantastic goodies from indie publications and local & international craft artists.
*AWESOME STUFF ALERT: Check out amazing handmade goods on offer by more than 40 talented makers: http://cityofcraft.com/2008/cityofcraft/vendors.html
*NEIGHBOURHOOD CRAFT CRAWL: City of Craft takes to the streets with crafty programming in local businesses and galleries. (Those of you with a sweet tooth should not miss out on cupcake decorating & knitting activities at the Knit Café.)
*CRAFTY-COOL INSTALLATIONS: Stop by the window of League of Lovers and Thieves to check out Tara Bursey's installation of hundreds or origami shoes made with tea bags, or have a Victorian silhouette portrait taken by Danijela Photography, featuring a papercut frame by artist Li Sui. Get lost in a landscape of fibre, photography and sound by Lynn Harrigan, Scott M2 and dreamSTATE.
*MAKE YOUR OWN HANDMADE GIFTS (FREE!): Workshops include origami star books by the Paper Place, fabric covered magnet sets by The Workroom, recycled felt ornaments by Mr. Sköna, and screen printed cards by Kid Icarus.
*AFTERNOON TEA: Eat treats from Yummy Stuff & sip tea by Tealish between 2-4pm

So there you have it, there is really no better place to be on December 13th, 2008.

Visit the show website at http://cityofcraft.com/2008/cityofcraft which is being continually updated with more details.

Dirge II

My installation for City of Craft! Be sure to check it out!

DIRGE II
an installation by Tara Bursey
at League of Lovers and Theives
1156 Queen Street West
Toronto

December 6-13, 2008.
A part of City of Craft 2008.

DIRGE II is part of a body of work originally inspired by the idea of the Chinese bound foot shoe as a metaphor for the ways individuals can be bound similarly by traditional and contemporary facets of society, particularly from a female perspective. The work explores and juxtaposes imagery relating to foot binding with ideas and materials which reference mass-production and the role of the body in industry and manufacturing. At the root of the work is an interest in visually and materially exploring past and present forms of oppression and de-mobilization.

DIRGE II is comprised of hundreds of origami shoes made of jasmine and green tea sleeves. The use of origami alludes to comparisons between hobby-craft and manual labour/assembly line work. The use of packaging is also central in it's allusion to package and product, garment and body, and the use of both the garment and the package as a cover or false front for what is truly contained.

Tara Bursey is a recent graduate of the Toronto School of Art's diploma program, and a former student at Ontario College of Art and Design. An artist whose practice encompasses sculpture and installation as well as drawing and craft, Tara's work is characterized by its use delicate sculptural materials such as eggshells, garlic skin, found garments and paper. During her studies at the Toronto School of Art, Tara was the recipient of TSA's Barbara Barrett Scholarship (2004) and Matthew David Stein Scholarship (2005). In the past two years, she has exhibited extensively throughout the city in a diverse range of venues, from storefront window installations and telephone poles to the Textile Museum of Canada, the Ontario Crafts Council, and in group exhibitions in Halifax and Copenhagen. Tara's most recent projects include co-ordinating The Portable Library Project and working as one-third of the Toronto Zine Library Collective. In addition to her work as a fine artist, Tara also operates actively within Toronto's independent music and small-press communities as a DJ, illustrator and designer. She was born and raised in Toronto, Canada.

Iris Haussler- Honest Threads

A project by the amazing Iris. Check out the Koffler Centre website for more details and the project application form for contributors.

RENT YOUR REALITY, LOAN YOUR LIFE
BE PART OF TORONTO’S HISTORY!

Share your story and the shirt off your back in this art project by Iris Häussler

Iris Häussler: Honest Threads

January 22 to March 8, 2009
Curated by Mona Filip
Presented at Honest Ed’s by the Koffler Gallery
581 Bloor Street W, Toronto

Deadline for contributions: December 19, 2008

The Project
In a crossover between visual art, literature, and theatre, Toronto artist Iris Häussler creates immersive environments that reveal personal histories, real or fictional. Responding to the Koffler Gallery’s invitation to develop the first project in a new off-site program, Häussler chose Toronto’s famous landmark, Honest Ed’s, to host an installation that engages the GTA public in sharing real life stories.

Honest Threads will display garments and the memories they carry. Lent by Torontonians, each item holds a personal story revealing a glimpse of the many threads that weave our identity over time. Visitors will be able to borrow the garments and wear them for a few days, experiencing both literally and psychologically what it is like to “walk in someone else’s shoes.” At the same time, they will add new layers to the clothes’ history. Trading experiences on both tactile and narrative levels will enrich our collective perception of the place we call home. As pieces of a vast puzzle, these individual stories will render a fragmentary portrait of the city, attesting to its complex history.

The Place
With its overload of celebrity photographs and eccentric sales items, Honest Ed’s is no ordinary store but a museum in itself, blurring the boundaries between commercial, public and exhibition spaces. The place equally attests to the inspiring story of its founder, Ed Mirvish, the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and Austria, as well as his impact on Toronto’s cultural scene and on the community through philanthropic gestures. Spotlighting Honest Ed’s significance as a haven for newcomers to Canada, Honest Threads positions the store as the meeting point of individual Toronto stories of immigration, survival and childhood dreams, entwined with the city’s cultural history. Among the participants you will also recognize local celebrities.

And You
This is your opportunity to bring out the cherished jacket your father wore on his clandestine journey across the ocean, the sari you inherited from your grandmother, or the shirt that made you look cool in your high-school band. We would also like to include in the display a photograph of you or the original owner wearing the garment. Share your stories and lend your unique voice to a project that brings together the many faces of Toronto’s identity.

To contribute your garment, story and photograph, please call Mona Filip at 416 636 1880 x270 or email mfilip@kofflerarts.org.

About the Artist
Iris Häussler was born in Friedrichshafen, Germany in 1962 and immigrated to Canada in 2001. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and has exhibited widely throughout Europe. Her exhibitions and site-specific installations include: Therese (2004) at the Triennial of Contemporary Art Oberschwaben, Weingarten; Time and over (2003) at Gallery Huber Goueffon, Munich; Monopati (2000) in residential apartments in Berlin and Munich; Paulina (2000) in a residential house in Bonn; and You do not return from the place that does not exist (1999) at Hotel Franziskaner, Zürich. The Legacy of Joseph Wagenbach (2006), curated by Rhonda Corvese and conceived for a residential house in downtown Toronto, is her most complex off-site narrative installation and marked her first major show in North America. Häussler currently lives in Toronto and teaches at the Toronto School of Art.

Zine Party at the Toronto Zine Library!

A note from the Toronto Zine Library:

To celebrate new Friday night zine library hours, we are having a Zine Party and Fundraiser! Come hang out, read zines, drink beer, listen to music, meet the collective and indulge in our yummy bake sale with vegan and non-vegan treats galore! Door prizes courtesy of This Ain't the Rosedale Library and the TZL Collective! Whoa! All proceeds go towards funding future events and TZL projects! Awesome!

Come join us on:
Friday, November 28th. 6-9pm
Toronto Zine Library at the TRANZAC Club
2nd Floor Rehersal Hall
292 Brunswick Avenue, south of Bloor Street
Toronto

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Tara, Patrick, Suzanne, and Danielle.
The TZL Collective

torontozinelibrary@hotmail.com
http://www.sitekreator.com/zinelibrary
http://torontozinelibrary.blogspot.com

Call for Submissions: DIwhy?

This will be a great show! I am so glad their call for submissions deadline was extended to December 1st!

DIwhy?
A Juried exhibition presented by the OCC and Toronto Craft Alert
Show dates extended to January 20 – March 1, 2009 Deadline for Entry: 5 p.m. on Monday, December 1, 2008

One of the fastest growing and contested sites of contemporary culture is the DIY movement. Broadly speaking, DIY is a socio-political stance enacted through the processes of creating. In reaction to multi-national corporations and modern industrial society’s basis in mass-production, DIY stresses the importance of thinking globally and making locally. At the same time, each community practicing DIY has its own approach, and consuming less as a political statement is often found in tandem with aesthetic concerns.

There is no common definition for DIY, and as it becomes more mainstream, the act of distinguishing a particular mode of making according to “do it yourself”, is an issue that continues to be raised. Hosting a DIY exhibition in partnership between the OCC and Toronto Craft Alert is an attempt to bring so-called ‘fine craft’ into dialogue with DIY, and explore the ways in which they intersect and diverge.

BASIC SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

• 1 -2 press-quality digital images (see below requirements), with image information (title, medium, year, dimensions).
• 1 copy of a current cv, artist statement and/or biography.
• 1 minimum 300 word response to “What does DIY mean to you?”.
• A $10 fee, payable by cash, cheque or credit card. Fees are non-refundable.

See the Call for entry for more details

JURORS 1) Jen Anisef 2) Michelle Rothstein 3) Allyson Mitchell