Archive for September, 2009

This week in my blog about Van­cou­ver artists, I bring you Daniel Elstone.  You can get a small taste of his fine work in our pre­miere issue; Dan pho­tographed the Radio Sta­tion Cafe at 101 East Hast­ings.

Dan grad­u­ated from Langara’s Pro­fes­sional Photo Pro­gram and is cur­rently get­ting his BFA at UBC. He is a killer surfer and he spends some of his sum­mer nights rock climb­ing, pho­tograph­ing Van­cou­ver at night, feed­ing rac­coons, and jump­ing into Lynn Canyon.

His work speaks both very high and low of the west coast. He doc­u­ments the green beauty around around him and his eye is dead on.

I chat­ted him about his work, sum­mer 2009, and his take on pho­tog­ra­phy today.

Sad Mag: Why are trees such a promi­nent sub­ject in your photos?

Daniel Elstone: I shoot trees because there are end­less vari­a­tions of shapes, forms, pat­terns and sizes, even between the same types of trees. I don’t shoot exclu­sively tree’s though, I’ve been shoot­ing more shrubs and thick­ets lately. I can get bored fairly quickly shoot­ing the same type of things, but I always go back to trees.

Sad: What’s it like to make a name for your­self as a pho­tog­ra­pher today?

DE: I have mixed feel­ings about it. In com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­phy, dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy is mak­ing it harder to make a liv­ing as a pho­tog­ra­pher. The cost of equip­ment, work­load, and image stan­dards are going up dis­pro­por­tion­ately to income, but at the same time dig­i­tal cam­eras make life a lot eas­ier. Pho­tog­ra­phy as an art is pos­si­bly bet­ter than ever. There are so many great pho­tog­ra­phers out there, so many mag­a­zines and ‘zines, so much on the internet—it’s almost too much. Some of my favourite pho­tog­ra­phers are just peo­ple from flickr. (You can find Dan on flickr here)

Sad: What’s do you think is miss­ing from Vancouver’s art scene right now?

DE: There’s a short­age of stu­dio space in Van­cou­ver. I think the city is also lack­ing gal­leries that are will­ing to dis­play inter­est­ing photography.

Sad: What drew you to work­ing with Sad Mag?

DE: The pho­tog­ra­phy scene in Van­cou­ver is fairly close minded, many gal­leries just seem to focus on fine art work, which usu­ally isn’t very inno­v­a­tive. Sad Mag is a good way to get your work out there, dis­cover local artists, and find out what’s going on around the city.

Sad: Who are some of your favourite visual artists?

DE: Some of my favourite pho­tog­ra­phers are Jeff Wall, Stephen Shore, Matthew Gen­itempo, Tok­i­hiro Sato, there are too many to list. My favourite artists are William Schaff, Eric Fis­chl, Mar­tin Creed, and who­ever did the Roxy Music Covers.

Sad:  Sum­mer has escaped us. What are you look­ing for­ward to this sea­son in the arts?

DE: I’m look­ing for­ward to the Where the Wild Things Are movie and The Mal­colm­son Col­lec­tion, which is a bunch of 19th– and early 20th-century pho­tographs to be shown at The Pre­sen­ta­tion House [Gallery in North Vancouver].

Sad:  What’s next from Dan Elstone?

DE: I have a cou­ple series which I’ve been putting together, both of them ten­ta­tively named. I hope to com­plete those by next sum­mer, although they’ll never really be com­plete. I’ll tell you later.

——BG

Check out Daniel Elstone’s online port­fo­lio here.
Keep com­ing back to sadmag.ca for inter­views, blog posts and sneak peaks at our Win­ter Issue.

 

 

Sad Mag­a­zine launched to an enthu­si­as­tic crowd on Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 17 at the ANZA club. We received the fol­low­ing com­mu­nique from our friend Lind­say in the aftermath:

Addi­tional evi­dence that the sad mag launch was awe­some was dis­cov­ered only when I got home and into a well lit room:

• + there were a bunch of sad faces drawn all over my arms in per­ma­nent marker
• + I was wear­ing a home made dirty danc­ing pin that said ‘no one puts baby in a cor­ner’ in sharpie
• + there was a 4 foot trail of fish­ing line and rib­bon trail­ing behind me, attached to one of my boots

We had a great time!

Sounds like a fan­tas­tic time was had by all! Thank you to every­one who attended our event, cram­ming the ANZA club well beyond capac­ity, and help­ing us to raise money for this excit­ing project. 

Thanks espe­cially to:

• + Paul Beja, our event plan­ner, for cre­at­ing the best bal­loon trees of our lives, as well as the vol­un­teers who helped us to set up the party.
• + The vol­un­teers who man­aged the bar and the front door in every man­ner of dressed and barely dressed.
• + The eter­nally fab­u­lous Isolde N. Bar­ron and her sup­port crew, for blow­ing our heads off with a per­for­mance of “Baby, I’m a star!” Baby, you are a star.
• + Our DJs Jef Lep­ard, Ryan and Rohit, who kept us danc­ing all night long. 
• + And, of course, the very tal­ented con­trib­u­tors who ded­i­cated their best work to our first issue. 

Enjoy our peek-a-boo slideshow above for folks who couldn’t make it, or those who want to relive the magic.

This week in my blog about Van­cou­ver artists, I bring you Kristina Fiedrich. She gra­ciously accepted our offer to illus­trate our debut cover and is one of our fea­tured con­trib­u­tors of in the first issue

When I first met Kristina at Vancouver’s Odd­ball, she was dressed in a feather head­dress and had lips like glossy cherries.

I was cap­ti­vated, and thought, ‘who is this girl? And why are we not friends yet?’ When I asked mutual friends about her, I dis­cov­ered that Kristina is so much more than girl with great stems—she is a bril­liant artist.

I had the plea­sure of col­lab­o­rat­ing with her on our cover, while get­ting to know Kristina more and under­stand her work better.

For the blog, we talked Sad Mag, illus­tra­tion, and how her home­town Kam­loops just doesn’t do it for her.

Sad Mag: Tell me how you ended up in Van­cou­ver from Kamloops?

Kristina Fiedrich:Via the Coqui­halla Highway.

Sad: Does Kam­loops and the inte­rior still influ­ence your work today?

KF: I don’t feel that grow­ing up in Kam­loops has ever had any bear­ing on my work. In fact, there is only one place in the Thomp­son Okana­gan that ever influ­enced me, and that’s Salmon Arm; not the town itself, but the fact that my grand­mother lived there. I grew up idol­iz­ing my grand­mother, and the mem­o­ries I have from our time together have really stuck with me. I some­times use imagery from those moments to express a sense of curios­ity, open­ness, fragility, and disconnect.

Sad: Tell me about your col­lab­o­ra­tion with me. Did you take your ref­er­ences from my photo or the sub­ject Isolde?

KF: In this case, I think the pho­to­graph and the sub­ject are one and the same—that speaks to the tal­ent of the pho­tog­ra­pher. [Bran­don: I gush!] When I saw the pho­to­graph, I thought, “Oh my god, I’m going to ruin this man’s work.” Hav­ing met Isolde once, or at least been in her pres­ence, I had an idea of how I wanted to make the cover look, with­out see­ing the other half of the col­lab­o­ra­tion. Work­ing more-or-less blindly appealed to me and the free­dom you—as the photographer—and Sad Mag gave me, was at once excit­ing and eff­ing ter­ri­fy­ing. I haven’t, as of yet, seen the fin­ished piece. I’m wait­ing with bated breath for the results.

Sad: What do you think of draw­ing in the art world today?

KF: I think it’s really excit­ing; the pos­si­bil­i­ties for cre­ativ­ity are end­less. I’d like to think that we are part of a gen­er­a­tion of artists and cre­atives who believe that any­thing goes. Draw­ing is a medium that has never gone out of style, or dropped out of favour, it just doesn’t always get the atten­tion it deserves. Over the last few years, there is a resur­gence of inter­est in art shows, graphic design, fash­ion illus­tra­tion, dig­i­tal media and museum ret­ro­spec­tives. There is such a vari­ety achieved with draw­ing: the mark-making, the tools, the sur­faces… all you have to do is pick up Vit­a­min D, and it’s all right there. Draw­ing is beautiful.

Sad: Who are some of your favourite visual artists?

KF:Kiki Smith, Mar­cel Dzama, Egon Schiele, Mar­lene Dumas, Amy Cut­ler, Paul Klee, Ai Yam­aguchi, Yoshit­omo Nara, Michael Sowa, Jo Ann Cal­lis, Henry Darger, Peter Doig.

Sad: Any show or gallery that you enjoyed going to in the past summer?

KF: Well, if i were a shame­less self-promoter, I would say my favorite show was my own (Back to the Draw­ing Board, On The Rise Artist Artist Col­lec­tive). But, to be fair, I also enjoyed Karin Bubas’ show With Friends Like These… at the Charles H. Scott Gallery, and see­ing Cai Guo-Qiang’s piece Inop­por­tune: Stage One at the SAM.

Sad: Sum­mer has escaped us. What are you high­lights of the sum­mer? If not one thing you regret miss­ing this sum­mer? Or some­thing that you feel was lack­ing from your summer?

KF: Some high­lights from the sum­mer: my first FUSE event at the VAG (May 2009). I was blown away by the turnout and the per­for­mances. Why haven’t I gone to this event before? I also went to the Decem­berists con­cert at the Vogue The­atre. Some regrets from this sum­mer: not get­ting enough work done. I had this Big Plan to get all kinds of art work fin­ished. Where does the time go?

Sad: What are some things you are look­ing for­ward to this sea­son? Movies, books, art shows?

KF:I haven’t been watch­ing many movies lately, but I did hap­pen across an advert for a movie star­ring Adam Gold­berg called (Unti­tled). That’s so PoMo, I just have to see it. I’m read­ing Merleau-Ponty’s Phe­nom­e­nol­ogy of Per­cep­tion, in an attempt to make myself smarter. So far I think it’s hav­ing the oppo­site effect. I also bought Art Now Vol­ume 3, and it promises a “cut­ting edge col­lec­tion of today’s most excit­ing artists.” I’m expect­ing to be in Vol­ume 5…6 at the lat­est. As for art shows, I’m look­ing for­ward to see­ing Anna Plesset’s new show Head­lines at the Jef­frey Boone Gallery, and attend­ing the Cheaper Show.

Sad: What are you work­ing on?

KF: I’m work­ing on a cou­ple pieces for friends, as well as a new port­fo­lio of work for my upcom­ing appli­ca­tion to Emily Carr’s MAA pro­gram. I’m also work­ing on grow­ing out my hair.

Come to our launch tomor­row and say hello to Kristina. She is a visual force to reckon and a beauty.

–Bran­don

We just got a mes­sage from DJ Jef Leppard:

“THIS JUST IN. To com­mem­o­rate Patrick Swayze (RIP)… I’m going to mix in songs from the movie Dirty Danc­ing, and we will all dance to them. For real. See you soon!!!”

Sad Mag is get­ting ready for Thurs­day. We are sad that Patrick Swayze is gone but we will dance in his hon­our. We will see you on the 17th, at the Anza Club. Come early, see the mag­a­zine and stay late and dance.

Sad Mag­a­zine makes its smash­ing debut on Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 17 at the ANZA club in Van­cou­ver, BC. Join us for a night of drag, great music, and cheap drinks!

Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 17, 2009
ANZA Club, #3 West 8th Avenue (@Ontario)
8:00 p.m. to late!
$5—$10 sug­gested donation

 

As the Sad Mag fam­ily excit­edly moves closer to our launch date on Sep­tem­ber 17, we’ll be giv­ing sadmag.ca vis­i­tors exclu­sive sneak peeks into our pre­mier issue. Check back in the com­ing weeks as we pre­view orig­i­nal con­tent right here.

“With my sec­ond child I was in labour at bingo,” she recounts. “I had con­trac­tions. I was among other moth­ers who were breath­ing with me. They were all yelling at the caller, ‘She’s gonna have a baby for fuck’s sake! B8!’”

— Burcu Ozdemir, as told by Stephanie Orford
FALL 2009, ISSUE ONE

 

Deanne and Bran­don were inter­viewed this week by CBC Radio One’s Sheryl McKay for her week­end BC arts pro­gram, North by North­west. We had a great time talk­ing Sad Mag and the arts scene accord­ing to Vancouver’s under-40s.

Our inter­view was aired Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 12 at 8:30 a.m. Catch the pod­cast record­ing at http://www.cbc.ca/nxnw/.

Thank you, Sheryl and Anna!

Ros­alynn Tyo, Man­ag­ing Edi­tor of The New Quar­terly, pro­files the launch of Sad Mag this week at her blog, The Lit­er­ary Type. Tyo intro­duces read­ers to small-but-mighty arts mag­a­zines at her blog in response to mas­sive cuts to gov­ern­men­tal fund­ing for the arts.

Check us out online at TLT by click­ing here.

Thanks, Ros­alynn!

My first insight into the visual team of Sad Mag’s first issue is Laura Nguyen. Laura spent a morn­ing in Molo’s Design stu­dio in Gas­town and pho­tographed the team work­ing away. Her pho­tos can be found accom­pa­ny­ing Stacey McLachlan’s inter­view with the Molo group in issue one of the mag­a­zine. Her clean and sim­ple aes­thetic makes her one of Vancouver’s up-and-coming food pho­tog­ra­phers. She is also and amaz­ing cook, and can score you the best Viet­namese food in the city. I urge you to check out her com­mer­cial port­fo­lio online: www.lnphoto.ca

Laura pho­tographed some web exclu­sive pho­tos for sadmag.ca and I sat down with her and chat­ted about her work, Sad Mag and how her sum­mer went.

Sad Mag: Why do you pho­to­graph still life?

Laura Nguyen:I shoot still life because the com­bi­na­tion works. I enjoy mak­ing ordi­nary objects beau­ti­ful. My mind just sees and under­stands how to manip­u­late and shoot still life more than any other sub­ject. Plus, it’s fun!

Sad: What drew you to Sad Mag?

LN: Sad Mag is the per­fect show­case for intro­duc­ing the new crop of amaz­ing artists and writ­ers the city has to offer. There are so many tal­ented peo­ple here that need an out­let like Sad Mag to intro­duce them­selves and their work.

Sad: What do you think of food pho­tog­ra­phy today?

LN:That it is tak­ing over the world. It def­i­nitely has grown and gained pop­u­lar­ity with the suc­cess of things like food blogs and flickr. It also has become a sep­a­rate cat­e­gory of pho­tog­ra­phy itself, not just merged in with com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­phy. Visu­ally it has evolved from mostly sim­ple clean high key images to hav­ing more vari­ety with bold, sexy colours or moody, con­trast lighting.

Sad: Who are some of your favourite visual artists?

LN: I admit I usu­ally don’t pay as much atten­tion to the artist as the art itself. How­ever I do fol­low the works of John Ker­nick, Matt Armen­dariz, Lara Fer­roni, and Tracy Kusiewicz.

Sad: Any show or gallery that you enjoyed going to in the past summer?

LN:I will shame­fully admit I didn’t attend any shows this sum­mer. [Bran­don: No shame, Laura, no shame.)

Sad: Sum­mer has escaped us. High­lights of the sum­mer sum­mer? If not one thing you regret miss­ing this sum­mer? Or some­thing that you feel was lack­ing from your summer?

LN: My sum­mer was pretty fan­tas­tic. High­lights being my first com­pleted new years res­o­lu­tion ever which was to cre­ate my new web­site (it took 8 months but it still counts!) and learn­ing how to swim. The water and I didn’t start off great together but seri­ously, now I think it’s the best thing ever.

Fol­low Laura on Flickr and check out her new work.

–Bran­don

The edi­to­r­ial con­cept for Sad Mag can best be summed up as “be sur­pris­ing.” We wanted young writ­ers and visual artists to draw on their own per­sonal inter­ests and expe­ri­ences to pro­duce con­tent for the mag­a­zine, so the con­cept hasn’t been dif­fi­cult to achieve.

Want to know about a gypsy musi­cian / vin­tage store owner and her role in the devel­op­ment of Main Street in the last 15 years? We’ve got that. How about, what a Chi­nese immi­grant thinks about life and perserver­ence? Yup. Got that, too.

Nobody is ask­ing Chi­nese immi­grants what they think of life. The piece that opens the mag­a­zine, “A Good Life,” was writ­ten and pho­tographed by Justin Mah and Jimmy Hsu (respec­tively). The friends and room­mates fre­quent the laun­dro­mat of their inter­view sub­ject, Jessie Li, a few blocks from their base­ment apart­ment in Burnaby.

It’s an exquis­ite piece. The first of the sub­mis­sions we received, “A Good Life” was the first affir­ma­tion that our vision of pub­lish­ing uncom­mon writ­ing could be achieved.

I’ve said it before, but the kinds of writ­ing young peo­ple are going to pro­duce is nec­es­sar­ily dif­fer­ent from that of more estab­lished folks. Young peo­ple eek it out at min­i­mum wage, share apart­ments with friends, and rent in the dodgy areas that allow for pay­ing rent and hav­ing enough left over for beer. We use laundromats.

Jessie Li shares that she’s seen some hard times.

“I was once at the peak of my life, then sud­denly lost every­thing one day. It’s deter­mi­na­tion, I think, deter­mi­na­tion that kept me going—just think­ing on the bright side. When prob­lems come up, just face it and don’t give up. One should be hard­work­ing, kind and hon­est; this is my per­sonal philosophy.”

Keep your head up. Work hard. Don’t give up.

The dif­fer­ence between this arti­cle and some­thing you might read on eco­nomic hard times else­where is sim­ple, and it’s this: estab­lished writ­ers, skilled and con­nected as they may be, don’t hang out in laun­dro­mats. And I think we’re miss­ing out on some­thing really impor­tant as a soci­ety by rely­ing exclu­sively on politi­cians and talk­ing heads to give us moral guid­ance in times like these.

I’d rather speak to Jessie Li.

So, that’s our deal. We want unex­pected, uncom­mon writ­ing from young people—experienced or not. If you’re think­ing of devel­op­ing a pitch for Sad Mag, fol­low these three sim­ple steps first:

1. Grab onto an issue or a topic that inter­ests, even obsesses you. I’m super inter­ested in the preva­lence of bur­lesque among hip­sters. What’s the deal with the sud­den pop­u­lar­ity of faux-suppressed sexuality?
2. Con­sider how this issue or topic affects you per­son­ally. What about your posi­tion in life makes your take on the issue par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing? My room­mate started tak­ing bur­lesque classes last month, and now it’s all nip­ple tas­sels and feather boas. She says she feels more con­fi­dent, but I’m not so sure. As a fem­i­nist, can I endorse boo­bie shak­ing as a confidence-booster?
3. Do some research. How can you feed your inter­est, teach­ing your­self and oth­ers through some qual­ity time in the library, and out on the streets talk­ing to peo­ple? I’m going to do some research on the his­tory of bur­lesque danc­ing, inter­view my room­mate and her danc­ing friends, and what the hell, take a class myself. It’ll give my writ­ing some spice, or good jokes, at least.

Then bombs away to info@sadmag.ca and we’ll chat about mak­ing it a fit for the magazine.

Keep writ­ing,
Deanne

As the Sad Mag fam­ily excit­edly moves closer to our launch date on Sep­tem­ber 17, we’ll be giv­ing sadmag.ca vis­i­tors exclu­sive sneak peeks into our pre­mier issue. Check back in the com­ing weeks as we pre­view orig­i­nal con­tent right here.

“When prob­lems come up, just face it and don’t give up. One should be hard­work­ing, kind and hon­est; this is my per­sonal philosophy.”

— Jessie Li, as told by Justin Mah
FALL 2009, ISSUE ONE