re: coming home.....

hello lovers,

ahhhh, so you have seen the photos of the wild and crazy "crawling, weeping, betting," exhibition, festival and shows in vancouver, bc at the Unit/Pitt gallery/projects space. i'm not sure how many people were involved? 50? a 100? a 1000? it seemed like it at time, but it was brilliant. and damned.

so, after such a high, i have to come home to my smallish city in the southern interior of BC. kamloops, bc in fact, and it's quiet at night. painfully quiet. i'm often bored. and we've had very long winter, it started in October of last year, and we've had snow until the past week. imagine that. 6 months of snow. it drives you mad. plus the short days. booze helps, but even that turns against you after awhile. haha. 

but now that it's warming up, i'm out every day, hiking, walking, doing art outside, reading, taking photos, anything to get out of the house. it's a strange place, kind of bleak, not much art stuff going on unless you make things happen, which is why i started the arbour collective back in 2011 when i moved back from Kelowna, BC. 

i like it here though, something about this place, not sure what it is yet. 

it does fuck with your head though, traveling to other major centres in canada and then returning home to the silence. i've got my kids here, which is probably the main reason why i'm here still. i'm undecided about that one though. it's nice to return home and chill out and get outside in the hills or along the river, or going for drives. that's why when i'm in the cities, i rarely sleep, i'm out walking the streets, looking up at the towers, or down alleys, or wherever, seeking adventure, and stories. when i get home from touring i'm exhausted and often takes a few days to get back to normal. so now you see what i see when i get home. 

as it is getting warmer, i'll post some nicer photos tomorrow. 

until next time lovers,

c,

re: unit/pitt and battery opera show continued.....

hello lovers,

ahhhh winter, it's still snowing in kamloops, bc, and we still have snow on the ground, but the sun is shining and we've got that "golden hour" of light as i type this out. the kids are eating and i thought i'd take a minute or two to type this out.

here are some more flicks of the vancouver show with david mackintosh.

the final night of performances, music and stories. it was amazing. i was there for the opening night and the closing nights. how it worked was thursday night, 11:30 to 12:30 was a "witching hour" solo performance opportunity for an invited guest artist. they would do what they wanted for an hour inside the unit/pitt at 236 pender, un-interrupted from the audience, who had to stay outside and watch voyeuristically as the artist did their thing.

friday nights 10 - 12 pm, were a cabaret style performance opportunity with guest musicians and a storyteller sharing some story of their choice as well as dancers performing reinterpretations of the 12 stories/poems david and i told in the book published for the event, "crawling, weeping, betting." which were based on our experiences in vancouver, bc.

saturdays, 12-5 pm were guided tours throughout the vancouver based on the 12 stories in the book we published. they were amazing. i was told people wept, or got emotional when the guides took them on various routes through the city and read or told the pomes and stories from memory.

it was an amazing experience, one i'll never forget, and one i wish to repeat now in europe.

gotta go, the kids are done breakfast and demand attention. haha.

kids.

cb

Various Vancouver, BC, photos from the end of February 2014

while shutting down the exhibition at the Unit/Pitt gallery.

"Bitch please,

I'm fabulous!"

a strange toy figure

in the display case at

"Golden Age Collectibles,"

on granville street. 

great comic store.

i also like "lucky comics," 

which is way down on main st.

the "loose moose," downtown vancouver, just off granville 

towards the granville street bridge, it's a heavy metal

bar and i drank with the band "children of bodom,"

a few weeks ago here. it was awesome, 

they drink like champs.

pretty much a great hidden gem in vancity

always blasting great music

and all food is less than $6.00

fuck. yeah.

re: new posts....

hello lovers,

it's been quite awhile since i've been here. many hectic things have prevented me from posting as well as a general laziness i can't cop out on. haha. i think i psych myself out more on posting than the time and effort it takes to post new stuff. plus, sometimes i feel no one reads this stuff anyway, so why bother? haha. but when i look back to stuff four or five years ago, it's interesting, to me, what the heck i was doing back then. i've got a shitty memory. i'll admit it. so i think blogging is important that at least.

well, the kids are still asleep, it's 6:45 am and i'll post a few pics from the past few months or couple months at least. i had a really big show with David Mackintosh, co-found of Battery Opera, at the Unit/Pitt galleries the past couple months, and i've been trying to kick start contracts and generally get paid. check it out here!

http://www.helenpittgallery.org/exhibitions/past/crawling-weeping/

some flicks from that show!

i sort of snuck painting on the walls

of the Unit/Pitt early one morning.

David had no idea what i was going to do

(i think!)

but i got the keys to the gallery and arrived at about 8 am

and started painting.

it's an allegorical painting. 

this part shows my throwie style

and leaving kamloops, bc

running away to vancouver, bc back in 1986

that's my little silhouette leaving the mountains/valley of kamloops, bc

with the owl pictograph watching over me

as i enter the forests.

moving through the forests i go through a charred and burning

landscape, the desert, or semi-arid desert of the interior

plateau of southern british columba. 

it's bloody hot here and kind of looks like new mexico.

i enter the blue and white mountains of the coast

hitching all the way down to vancouver, bc

and descend into the city.

which i painted gold, silver and copper to represent 

the wealth and promise it holds

but for the most part is a lie.

as the exhibition/performances/dance/music and booze

went on for 7 weeks, we invited artists and guests to attack

and paint on the wall. so all the other stuff you see

was added by guests.

it was awesome to paint on the walls of a gallery

even though i probably wasn't allowed. haha.

i also found their beer stash and drank about 8 beers

in the 4 or 5 hours it took to paint the walls. haha.

i don't think keith or brynn really cared about that. 

well, the kids are waking up and i was right

this is a pain in the ass to do

just this little part took half an hour. fuck.

i'll add more photos later. 

adios,

cb