Soon.

Jen and I went and it was a really fun event – and I learned a lot about how artists present and saw how some strengths and weaknesses influenced the final vote. I’ll talk about those in a sec. I took some photos, posted below, and I apologize for my name being in the bottom right. That was an oversight from a new process.

Artist and ceramic art studio owner Grazyna Ziolkowski presents her work in support of working with kids and growing beans.

Each one of us received a list with six artists names, who would be presenting projects we could vote on at the end. Aside from costs, the entire funds raised went to the artist and the organizer’s anticipated $500. The actual amount ended up being just over $800.

Audio artist Marco D’Andrea presents his project at FEAST 01. It was a very cool vintage equipment sound installation in a car and presented at the “Electric Eclectic Festival”. I may go.

It was fun sitting with some new people and even a couple of the artists. This sort of format and social funding in the arts here has not happened before and there was an excited buzz in the air, and an excited rumbling in our stomachs as the food was in the next gallery over. Tickets sold out for this, and I think this sort of format has a very bright future within the arts community. OK, I know it sounds like a cheesy quote from the Hobbit, but I really got a  “jolly fellowship” vibe from the whole thing.

Hamilton Artists Inc Director and FEAST 01 co-organizer Andrea Carvalho explains how things work. 10 Minutes per presentation. That’s it. No questions.

What we noticed about some of the proposals is that there never a complete “who, what, where, why, when” picture of the projects. Even if you don’t have confirmed place, you should specify a date and place that is the goal of the work being supported. There was some nice overviews of some studio work or other successful projects, but no “and this is exactly what we are going to do with it with the money you give us”.  In terms of the audience judging this, that seems worthy and genuine but it’s too broad.

It’s was of no surprise to me that Chris McLeod won – he has a great deal of work done on a crazy-ass steampunkish bicycle power water purification contraption. He stated he wanted finish the machine with some specific materials. He was going to take it to festivals and concerts so people would be able to connect to our use understanding of water. That was a the clearest, most demonstrable and destination / time-frame specific proposal of the night.

Jon Grosz

I must admit I was imagining my own proposal and what I would say and show in 10 minutes. They say they’ll have two a year, and I suspect it will be even more popular – especially to present. I hope I still get a chance and would think more events like it should pop up on the landscape. Hopefully.

It was interesting that two of the names on the list were representing a collective of artists. Jon Grosz showed us the work of his colleagues.

Chris Fergusan from HAVN

Congratulations Chris McLeod!

This heritage worthy building we fought for is now in mid-demolition and I am not sure how much longer there will be any structure left. It really was suddenly cold and windy, but I felt the urgency to document this last stand of one of the last of the great Barton Village classic buildings.

This is pretty raw footage of me walking around the building. I do make a brief statement at the beginning, but this is for reference for … future use. Hopefully, we’ve made a difference overall in Hamilton for other communities going forward.

Sanford Avenue School was a very special heritage building, built in 1932 during the great depression. One of the gems of a notoriously poor neighbourhood, this is the sort of structure that is attractive for a very wide range of opportunities including a college, a community centre or health facility. Despite well documented flaws in the public consultation process and the demolition / heritage process, the HWDSB, the City of Hamilton and then the Government of Ontario failed the future interests of  the Barton Village community and allowed the first 100% steel framed building in Canada to be sold as scrap. No public interest from developers was allowed to be entertained.

For the record, below is a list of  trustees who voted to allow Sanford Avenue School to be demolished, and not to allow any alternatives to be presented by private or non-governmental organizational interest. Also included on this list of “Heritage & Community Shame” are the City and Provincial elected officials without whose express support and approval this tragedy could not have happened.

At the time of this posting, there is no secured funding or concrete plans for any development of the site into a park, soccer field or Recreation Complex expansion.  The most frustrating part for most of us? There would of been enough room for all of this if they had agreed to re-arrange parking instead of demolishing this beautiful structure that would have served nicely economic tool for revitalization. There is a need for new leadership in Hamilton, and the following elected officials should not trusted with public office again:

Ward 3 Councilor 

Bernie Morelli

Hamilton Wentworth District School Board Chair

Tim Simmons

HWDSB Trustees:

Bob Barlow

Todd White

Lillian Orban

Wes Hicks

Jessica Brennan

Karen Turkstra

Ray Mulholland

(Former) Liberal Education Minister

Laurel Broten

friend, fellow heritage activist and Photographer Joanna St. Jacques

See also http://hamiltonsusualsuspects.blogspot.ca/?m=1 for more photos and discussion

I cheated a bit, but mostly held true to staying away from using text – and super glad I did. I’m feeling freer with the composition and quicker about it to – funny how feeling uncertain will slow things down so drastically. I am now officially allowed to work back in text as much as I want.

Yep, another series to finish off – this one will be called “AP3″. This will be with a lot of stencils work and on a stack of very nice arche rag paper that I’ve been hoarding for almost 20 years. It’s … relieving to have this kind of clean break from the old text work to this.

oil, vinyl on paper

That is all.

Oh, I know Hamilton is and has long been an area of fascination for artists both casual and professional. Most of what I’ve seen (and much of my own work) is based on the ground up i.e structures and landscapes. But just above that is another landscape entirely – and I’ve been referring to the airspace above the industrial sector as “landscape” because what is going on up there is far too solid and far too much a permanent fixture to be called anything else.

I look for the flames when I cross into Hamilton from work, and I’ll always glance to the air above the architecture to see what is billowing where … and just marvel at how large and, literally, “opaque” these are. Night and day, though wind and rain, I would explore vantage points and study these shapes. I started to take pictures, then time lapse pictures, then movies, then collages… and now, thousands of photos later my first exhibit with this series of work opens tomorrow at 173 James Street North. Both formal and a flight of fancy influenced by a healthy dose of local activism and politics, I started to anthropomorphise the emissions as kind of creatures of mythology. (Is “anthropomorphise” the right word? I’m not sure as technically I am ascribing qualities of non-humans, greek gods, to non-human emissions… )

The relationship, for me, drew similarities to what I assume living among titans and gods would of been like. Huge and obvious, dominating and affecting the landscape yet uncaring and oblivious to gnats like me frittering away at the edges. Sure, I can indirectly communicate with the people operating this machinery, but that is also a claim of priests and oracles at any temple. There are always prophecies of doom and of hope flying about in classical mythology, as there are in Hamilton council and on the local chorus – twitter. I could go on, but that’s basically how my mind always keeps connecting things on me and then I tend to go “deep into the rabbit hole” with work and research. And that’s how I arrived at this collection of digital prints, my first solo exhibit in many years. It’s called “Uranus of Hamilton” – and yes, I know. The name has a few different stories to it, though it is the correct name as this 7 work exhibit refers to the creation mythology of Ancient Greece.

Anyways, so I thought I was alone out there watching for industrial emissions because of their visual qualities. But I was not alone – here’s a recent CBC Hamilton news article about Lynda Lukasik, executive director of Environment Hamilton, who was out there around the same period “documenting and photographing the emissions for months”.  I didn’t know there were laws on the opacity of industrial emissions, and it’s neat to think that what I saw as formally fascinating yet rationally horrifying was kinda validated by this unfolding environmental story.

I am very impressed with Lukasik and local residents for their work on this, and very grateful. It’s a real effort, I think, to break out of our accustomed blind-spots that build up over time and prevent us from seeing some of the absurdity right in front of our eyes. These titans of industry are no slouches – they know what they are doing and they know how to minimize the perception of their presence. For example, I can’t get anywhere inside the industrial sector – I once got in trouble by three security guards for standing on patch of corporate lawn to take a picture of a statue. Public parking is also non-existent in that area and they spend a lot of time and money doing marketing and PR based on charities and the arts.

As thick and opaque as Dafasco’s industrial emissions, this kind of practice shields their activities from most citizens by associating what we are seeing with warm and fuzzy feelings about community and jobs and things like that. Adding insult to injury is the fact that they are spending millions on marketing while receiving millions to keep the plants open. They are also not spending the millions government is spending to clean up toxic areas such as Randal’s Reef.

This asymmetrical scale of priorities and responsibilities is a neat trick of smoke and mirrors. I learned it takes full time dedication from patient and perceptive locals to see through it and be able to change the titan’s behaviour. I, on the other hand, was only observing the titan behaviour.

Some more work from that series is in this post, but not of the works in the exhibit though. You’ll have to show up sometime with April 12th to May 6th to see those.

Bonus: I’ve included a sort of “hidden” work in the gallery that is based on the below raw footage of Tartarus.

Something I’ve been thinking about for a while was switch entirely to photos on social media for a year and see what happens. This seemed like a perfect time, though I’ve limited the experiment to this one twitter account and changed the parameters to be pictures, movies and/or audio. Also, links, retweets and especially hashtags are ok, otherwise it kinda looks like spammers have hacked my account before anyone would even look at a picture attachment.

I’m a flanuer and I like immediate dialogue so this feels like it’s working well with my neighbourhood photos and local based community on twitter. My photos of Hamilton, without a lot editorial, for a year will hopefully have an effect on building awareness of what’s going on in central Hamilton, and in my studio.

After all, the web is heading to be primarily a video based medium – this is just ahead of the curve… ha. But it is an ongoing interest for me to contain the entire capture, production and publication process of the work cycle to a mobile device.

Below are some of the photos i’ve posted to twitter since March 30th, 2013. The project runs until March 30th, 2014.

paintings, March 8 – April 7
330 James Street North, Hamilton, Ont

Maureen eats, sleeps and produces entire series of masterful paintings – or at least it seems like it. You can read a better review of her work here.

Maureen Paxton

Maureen Paxton

Raffaele Caterini

Being manned here in the art outpost of central Hamilton, I promised myself I would make it to more events in Toronto and I was glad to make it to this – especially since Subtle Technologies’ Jim Ruxton has moved into my neighbourhood and I am presenting hounding him for a podcast interview.

Finally, I managed to see inside the space at 345 Sorauren Avenue  I was also very happy to run into Jack Butler, and Susana & Claire from Circuit Gallery, among others.

Below are some photos & a video clip of a performance that evening: Percussionist Ryan Scott performing Erik Griswold’s “Spill.

Look forward to seeing the results of this project!

This work is the last of the 2011 urban survey series. Thanks for the help James.