Clare Hope Brown; the rock through this whole thing. Every time I got discouraged and threatened to stop making art all together, you calmed me down and set me straight. On top of that, doing the lion's share of the work taking care of our sweet baby Maelle; am I lucky or what?! I said it once and I'll say it again, you make me feel like I won the lottery, and the all time jackpot at that. Woo Tek Yang, the maestro of P.U.P Contemporary and a dear friend. You organized the work, cataloged the art, framed the entire show, and did a heck of a job selling and promoting the exhibit. You are fantastic! Justin Labine, also a dear friend as well as my studio/house mate and idea junkie. You did a superb job setting and printing type for the poems in the show, awesomeness becomes you. Michael Uytenbogaart, the best clean hands in town, throwing paper onto the press for me after working all day, you are nothing short of a saint in my eyes. Sean Kosonic, my work buddy at Discreet and Discrete, you helped install the work like a champ, high fives. Esenguel Oenal, with such little notice you came to the gallery and sat while I ran errands and then tended the bar at the opening, you're friggin great. Dirk Teunissen, you came into the studio and turned an hour of hanging out at the studio into the sweetest promo video for the exhibition, you're a magician! The Morals, who lent their song for said video, your band rules! All of the Näf-Mathews clan; whether it's Ofir who ran me downtown to get frames, Ima asking me why my art has no colour, Joni and Daizy getting me pumped up or Ayla blaming her fart on me, mishpacha keeps me going! The Whittaker-Brown clan too, always present and always supportive, so generous and thoughtful, I love you guys. These words thrown into the ether can only do so much, but I can`t say it enough: THANK YOU! A dream of mine was fulfilled and enjoyed.
Frig, enough of all this sentiment, let`s take a stroll through the experience via some words and pictures, okay? Sorry but I don't have any pictures of the opening itself. I was a touch busy and nervous that night to focus on anything else other than not freaking out. I hope this will suffice.
This is the were-kitty I drew in chalk on the board in the space. As the gallery only got busy after 3pm most days, I had a couple of hours upon arrival to read and add to this thing every day.
perspectives
more perspectives
and more
There was a beautiful stained glass window that caught the sunlight around 4-5pm and shot a nice rainbow beam into the space all Care Bears style
more light phenomena
This piece is called Bananarama: A Reprise, It's the synthesis of all the ideas in the show that I've been writing about about in this blog over the last couple of years. Here all of the others works are represented either through characters or symbols. I will be posting a high quality image of the piece in the coming days on my official website www.gidnaf.ca so look for that if you feel so inclined. If not, throw on some Night Court, eat some cheetos, and laugh at the witty banter. This photo shows the rainbow projected onto the artwork proper. I felt it an ethereal experience and documented it eagerly.
With an incredible stroke of luck, most of Dundas was obscured by construction after the second we opened. Thank the Heavens! I'm not bitter or being sarcastic at all right now by the way. I'm just having a mild episode of sorts, most of my face feels normal.
Sidewalk view
This is what the store front looked like.
Here's a panorama I shot in the space. It goes around in a circle. Circles are cool. They don't have corners. I hope you enjoyed visiting with me in this virtual setting, do have a lovely day.
Hugs and kisses,
Gidzilla
