Archive for the 'Brandon’s Blog' Category

This week in my blog about Van­cou­ver artists, I bring you Andrew Schick. A fresh face on Vancouver’s art scene and one tal­ented illus­tra­tor. Schick’s enthuthi­asm and energy radi­ates off the pages of our Win­ter Issue. Schick shared some new work and we talked ran­domly about art and Vancouver.

New Work by Andrew Schick

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

New work by Andrew Schick

Andrew Schick: I think that draw­ing is really excit­ing right now. The need for an illus­tra­tor to have a cohe­sive style is fad­ing and I think that is a good thing. Now (and prob­a­bly always), the best illus­tra­tors are con­cep­tu­ally witty (first), and tech­ni­cally pro­fi­cient (sec­ond). Artists like Jil­lian Tamaki, Noma Bar, Mon­sieur Pim­pant and Andy Gilmore really stand out because they have a core idea before they daz­zle you with tech­ni­cal vir­tu­os­ity.

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

AS: Watch­ing Where the Wild Things Are again, because it cap­tures child­hood so accu­rately and it made me cry like a baby. I am read­ing The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie right now and it is so jam-packed with beau­ti­ful images that I never want to put it down. The entire book is so dream­like and it makes you want to paint and draw and read at the same time. I’m also vis­it­ing my illustrator-friend in Ams­ter­dam (dur­ing the Olympics, actu­ally), which will be rad. So I’m excited to check out the art/design scene over there, which is awe­some apparently.

SM: Do you have any cre­ative New Year’s resolutions?

AS: They are always the same: read more, don’t leave things until the last minute, and sign up for a credit card (or else the world will con­tinue to not let me do any­thing). Actu­ally, I’d like to work on get­ting a design intern­ship at Van­cou­ver Mag­a­zine for next sum­mer, that’s my main resolution.

SM: In regards to the arti­cle you illus­trated, how do you feel about the arts cuts? Do they affect you directly?

AS: They affect us all, actu­ally. It’s frus­trat­ing that the arts are still seen as dis­pens­able when times get tough, espe­cially when you hear the polit­i­cal, rhetoric-ridden jus­ti­fi­ca­tions from Kevin Krueger and Stephen Harper. I remem­ber lis­ten­ing to either Kruger or Moore on CBC Radio, talk­ing about how they’re mak­ing the choice to feed starv­ing stu­dents over fund­ing the arts, as if it’s an either-or sce­nario, when all the evi­dence shows that it’s not. Also, if I see another “Economic-Action-Plan” bill­board, I’m going to throw up in my mouth.

New Work by Andrew Schick

SM: What are you work­ing on right now?

AS: School. Now that graphic design/illustration has become such a trendy pro­fes­sion, it’s so impor­tant and really dif­fi­cult to stand out. Right now, my only con­cern is a strong portfolio.

Make sure you check out Schick’s LJ and here are the images that Schick cre­ated for Sad Mag.

–Bran­don

Shari-Anne Gib­son smiles and delights. Pho­to­graph by Bran­don Gaukel.

Shari-Anne Gib­son is a newly wed. Buzzing around her new apart­ment she talks about love, mak­ing art, and the sim­ple life. The fall is the sea­son that marks new begin­nings: a new hus­band and her first solo show in Van­cou­ver. Now The Trees Have Grown Up is Gibson’s col­lec­tion of new paint­ings and draw­ings that rep­re­sent inno­cence, our rela­tion­ship with nature and an insight into the artist’s imag­i­na­tion. The work is char­ac­ter­is­tic of Gibson’s aes­thetic, which is the­mat­i­cally con­nected by a sense of inter­rupted innocence.

SG: After liv­ing in Toronto, Van­cou­ver feels very photo-conceptual in con­trast, which I absolutely appre­ci­ate, how­ever I sense that real paint­ing is a lit­tle out of style here. But I know the tides are chang­ing as more painters are get­ting atten­tion and the MFA pro­gram at Emily Carr is gain­ing a national rep­u­ta­tion for its paint­ing program.

Shari-Anne in the stu­dio. Pho­to­graph by Bran­don Gaukel.

Shari-Anne Gibson’s online portfolio

Now The Trees Have Grown Up shows at Lit­tle Moun­tain Gallery

from Octo­ber 29th to Novem­ber 18th.

Open­ing recep­tion Thurs­day, Octo­ber 29, 7-10pm.

www.littlemountainstudios.ca

195 EAST 26th Avenue VANCOUVER B.C. V5V 2G8

RSVP for the opening.

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.

Car by Daniel Elstone

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.

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.

Kristina Fiedrich, feather head­dress and all. The Opu­lence Ball 2009. Pho­to­graph by Bran­don Gaukel.

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.

Autopsy from Kristina’s solo show at the On The Rise Artist Artist Collective.

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?

Elphant. Illus­tra­tion by Kristina Fiedrich.

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

Paper as Laura sees it. Pho­tog­ra­phy by Laura Nguyen

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.

Pauline Kong’s sculp­ture. Pho­tog­ra­phy by Laura Nguyen

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

Our pre-press proofs. Say that three times. Blurred for the sur­prise element.

Sad Mag is launch­ing its first printed issue in one week! The proofs look fan­tas­tic, the col­ors floated off the page, and the CMYK looked stark. The mag­a­zine is going to be a beauty to hold in your hand. Vancouver’s Rhino Press did a fan­tas­tic job. And did we men­tion that is is printed on FSC-certified paper? It is printed on sus­tain­able for­est paper. Good for the envi­ron­ment, good for us. Good for you.

The founders of Sad Mag are going to be post­ing on sadmag.ca at least once a week. Being the cre­ative direc­tor of Sad Mag, my blog will be bring­ing you visual art, inspi­ra­tions, sneak peeks into the design of the mag­a­zine, and inter­views with Vancouver’s raw visual talent.

Stay tuned this week for inter­views with two of our pho­tog­ra­phers and our cover artist!

–Bran­don