Velo Vogue: A bicycle fashion show

Velo Vogue Fashion Show 2013

The Ottawa Velo Vogue bicycle fashion show is back in its second year bringing you the latest in cycling fashion for both men and women. This is not your typical fashion show with spandex. The show will highlight the latest trends in clothing, accessories, and bikes (vintage and new) from local and international designers:

Saturday, June 1st

7:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m.

Kichesippi Brewery, 866 Campbell Ave. (off of Carling Ave.)

Admission: $10 in advance at velovogue.eventbrite.ca or at the door 

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/149083511939166/

Eventbrite: velovogue.eventbrite.ca

Website: www.ottawavelovogue.com

Proceeds from the event will go to Cycle Salvation; an organization that provides training and employment in the field of bike mechanics to people who are economically disadvantaged. For more information, please visit: http://cyclesalvation.org/

I will be donating a mask for the silent auction.  Here's a sneak peek at some of the elements scrubbed up and ready to assemble.  I'll post a photo of the completed work tomorrow.

Hope to see you there!!!

The Electric Buffalo and other Metal Anomalies @ the Urban Pear until May 11

Art Show at The Urban Pear-- Feb 27 to May 11

I set up my show at the Urban Pear this morning with Chef and owner Ben Baird (twitter). I was welcomed by delicious coffee and was very interested to hear about the food truck the Pear is getting ready to hit the streets in May. You are in for a treat ottawa!

It's very satisfying to see work go up on the walls of such a fine establishment after working away in the studio surrounded by piles of scrap metal. I feel like a groundhog crawling out of my hole.  That said, the exhibit looks great in these surroundings, so check out the Pear's website for it's hours and other info.

A big thanks to Annette Hegel for her generosity in allowing me to use space in her studio for the past few months. I tend to do most of my work outside during the friendlier seasons, so the warmth of an indoor workspace was comfort indeed!.

The Urban Pear is closed Monday and Tuesday so the show will start on Wednesday Feb. 27 and runs until May11th. Come on by and check out the show and while you're at it have a look at the menu. Awesome!

Stay tuned!

At the ReStore

I arrived at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore on Saturday morning in the pouring rain, so the planned outside set-up for my work was definitely not going to happen.  After years of being bullied by the weather at outdoor markets, craft fairs and art shows I was very content with the contingency plan of setting up inside the warm dry store with the big vat-o-coffee and great abundance of brownies. 




It was a great pleasure to meet Myrna and the welcoming staff  and have the leisure of setting up my masks here and there throughout the store.
                                                                            
                                                                                       

The masks were right at home alongside the building materials, fittings, hardware supplies and other miscellaneous items that can be found at the ReStore.



After setting up, it wasn't long before I was rooting through bins like a kid in a candy store and making a little pile of things to take home myself! 





While the rain continued to keep the hoards away, I contented myself,  tinkering with an old typewriter that I was determined to take home with me, and which Myrna ended up giving to me as gift for coming to the store--I couldn't be happier!  More and more people appeared as the day moved along, and despite the rain I talked to a lot of interesting folks and lots of drop-offs were made to the E-waste site.  BTW, I believe that both ReStore's in Ottawa are now accepting E-waste for recycling on a regular basis (check their website).
  I was also pleased to meet Stone Sculptor, Uwe Foehring, who is on Staff and also is the creator of the towering e-waste sculpture outside the store. 


Thanks again to Myrna for the invite.  I met some great people, found a new source for art materials, oh ya, I sold some artwork as well!

Visit From an Old Friend

Earlier this month I had an email from Heather Boyd, an old friend and fellow street-vendor of Karen's and mine from Montreal days.  Heather had lunch and visited  my show at Zen Kitchen with her daughter. She made this photo-collage of two masks in the show and wore this mask earring on a necklace (bottom left) that I made in 1989!  I used to cut up old copper plumbing pipes, heat them with a torch, flatten them out and pound designs into them.  The first ones I made were pretty heavy, which probably explains why it is now on a necklace!

I didn't even realize until later that I could buy copper sheets that were already shiny and flat.  I had forgotten that I was making masks from "junk" all those years ago. Thanks Heather!

Heather Boyd is a multi-talented artist who has been making fantastic wire jewelry for years and is fast becoming a you-tube sensation with her instructional arts and craft videos.  Check it out!

“Where the wire is.”
On-line shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/heatherboyd
Website: http://heatherboyd.org/
Blog: http://heatherboydwire.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Heather-Boyd-Jewelry/169083695448
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/heatherboydwire
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/HeatherBoydWire/videos
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/heatherboydwire/

Virtual Mini-Tour on Google Street View Interiors

Zen Kitchen is now on Google Street View Interiors and as a happy coincidence the Google camera people came just after my show was mounted. Now you can take a virtual walk on Street View and walk right into the restaurant to see Tribal Masks of Urban Culture.










 If you click on the little man icon in the corner of the picture on the google maps page, you can "look inside" the restaurant, pan 360 degrees and zoom in on some of the artwork.

Of Course a Google visit is no substitute  for the real thing, so if you want to get a really good look at the artwork and more than a virtual taste of the fine cuisine you'll have to drop by Zen Kitchen!!!

It's Not Over!!! Chinatown Remixed 2012

(photo by Dave Loan)

In case you thought you'd missed it, Chinatown Remixed runs until June 12, so there's still time to wander over to Somerset West and check out local artists hosted by this neighbourhood's interesting and diverse businesses.

I set up my show on the Friday before opening day at Zen Kitchen.  The vernissage went splendidly, with a steady stream of friends, acquaintances and other curious folk passing through.



Thanks to all who came for your kind words and comments and of course a special thanks to those who added  my work to their own art collections! A huge shout-out as well to all the organizers and volunteers who made this unique event happen.  My only regret was that I was too busy to take in the festivities going on outside along Somerset street!

A hearty thanks to the staff and proprietors Dave Loan and Caroline Ishii for making me feel so welcome at Zen Kitchen and creating such an inviting atmosphere.  Caroline kept platters filled with chipotle hummus and poppadums and gluten free bread for dipping, not to mention pieces of delectable chocolate cake!(see menu).  Understandably, many visitors lingered! Check out Caroline Ishii's on CBC's All in a Day where she serves up a fiddlehead recipe and plugs my show at the restaurant :-)

While Chinatown Remixed will be coming to a close June 12, my exhibit will be held at Zen Kitchen until August 31, so please stop by and see my work and while you're at it, check out what this fabulous restaurant has to offer. (see Restaurant reviews).

Riveting! -- Chinatown Remixed 2012

 My friend Randy Cartwright introduced me to the pop-rivet gun back in Sudbury, when we were working on a friend's rusted out Camaro.  He could fix or make anything and won all possible awards in Shop class from grade 7, right through high school. 

   The hand riveter I use now, I bought at the old Pascal Hardware in Montreal for seven bucks.  In our street-vending days on
Ste. Catherine st., I used it to rivet pieces of hardware to leather bracelets, and it has been useful for making and repairing all sorts of things since.

  It has been especially handy for making masks, like the ones I'll be showing at Zen Kitchen for Chinatown Remixed. A true craftsman like Randy would find a way to hide the rivets, but I like the way they look.  Like my old math teacher used to say..."show  your work!"

Hope to see you all on Somerset St. this Saturday!!!

Where do you find this Stuff?--Chinatown Remixed 2012

One question I am asked most often by those viewing my artwork is, "Where do you get this stuff?"
The odd bits of junk I use to make collage, sculpture, and the masks for my upcoming show at Zen Kitchen for Chinatown Remixed, are culled from here, there and everywhere.

I have a large collection of scrap metal pieces that have fallen off cars that I pick up off the road and throw in the milk crate on the back of my bike on my rides home from work in the wee hours.  Most of these have been sculpted by rust and salt and flattened by traffic.

I am also a collector of bikes and a lot of bike parts make it into my work.  This bike was rescued from the canal--Check out the zebra mussels that have attached themselves to the bell.
















Friends an neighbours who see me at work offer me things from their garages and basements and trunks of cars.


Don't kid yourself, Ottawa is not all tulips and Parliament buildings.  We have our share of nitty gritty vacant lots, dead ends and it is sad and surprising how many things show up in and along the banks of the Rideau River where I canoe with my sons.

We throw out a lot of good things, some of them admittedly obsolete.  When I find beauty and mystery in something useless, rusty, and broken, I take it home and try to make something out of it.

Junk Sketch, May 2012

Chinatown Remixed 2012- Sorting things out

With Chinatown Remixed coming up, I have been hunting and gathering and sorting through my materials for my show at Zen Kitchen, May 12.
I am working on a series of tribal masks for urban culture and in order to get the creative juices flowing , I need a critical mass of objects to draw from.
Once I have the items sorted into somewhat recognizable categories I can begin to lay things out and start to piece them together.The masks change a lot during this process; objects gravitate to one another, grouping together by size, colour, shape and texture. Once a piece feels "right", it is time to drill, screw, rivet, solder and wire things together.

Occupy: the show continues

Occupy continues at Cyclelogik , 1111A Wellington St. Opening night was packed to the rafters and I was pleased to sell one of my pieces. My "Longhorn" sculpture is hanging in the window (thanks Andrea!). I snapped this picture on my way home from work in the wee hours. The show continues until the end of the month, so drop by for a coffee and check out some local art over the holidays.

Urban Masks at The Linda Street Gallery--Dovercourt Community Ctr.

At the Linda Street Gallery, in the lobby of Dovercourt Community Centre, 411 Dovercourt Ave., until Oct. 23, 2011.

Artist's Statement

Alright, I collect junk. Let's just get that out of the way For over 20 years I have been making art from "found objects", not to reduce my carbon footprint ( a happy byproduct), but because these are the things that inspire me. Rusty nails, bicycle parts, things that fall off cars and all manner of unidentified corroded objects make their way into my carefully selected inventory of art supplies. I'm never sure how I'll use these items when I find them, but each one has a sense of history an purpose that I can't pass up. This series of masks is a continuation of a series that was selected for the Lumiere Festival this past summer. I see them as tribal masks of our urban culture.

Rin Tin Tin

Goalie

Longhorn

Bad Idea

Babar


Erik The Red

Artist's Statement

Alright, I collect junk. Let's just get that out of the way For over 20 years I have been making art from "found objects", not to reduce my carbon footprint ( a happy byproduct), but because these are the things that inspire me. Rusty nails, bicycle parts, things that fall off cars and all manner of unidentified corroded objects make their way into my carefully selected inventory of art supplies. I'm never sure how I'll use these items when I find them, but each one has a sense of history an purpose that I can't pass up. This series of masks is a continuation of a series that was selected for the Lumiere Festival this past summer. I see them as tribal masks of our urban culture.

Lumiere Ottawa, 2011

I set up for the Festival early Saturday, and was finished installing my six masks in the beautiful sunshine by 1 pm. Shortly thereafter the skies opened up and we had a heavy downpour. Fortunately, by late afternoon things cleared up and the Festival got underway on schedule. Here are some images of the masks I made for the festival as they appeared in the daylight and then at night.






The crowd that walked through Stanley Park was estimated at about 8000. This Festival holds it's charm with handmade lanterns, candlelight, local visual and performing artists, acoustic musicians and actors. Many come to the Festival in costumes and carrying lanterns.

The grand finale was the spectacular firedancers, whose performance coincided coincidentally with the Lac Leamy fireworks, which could be seen and heard in the background.
I was pleased to meet photographer, Louise Imbeault who took some lovely photo's at the festival and posted them to her website.