Poerty is Dead's Editor Daniel Zomparelli sandwiched between Sad Mag's Deanne Beattie and Brandon Gaukel
Sad Mag loves magazines. It is even more exciting when your friend starts up a new Vancouver publication!
The Sad Mag team was very happy to attend the launch of Poetry is Dead at the Grace Gallery on Superbowl Sunday.
If you would like to learn more about editor Daniel Zomparelli’s take on poetry and learn about the magazine check out here.
“I am waiting for the zombie poetry to come back and seek revenge on the world that killed it.”-Daniel Zomparelli
In the next couple of weeks we will around town. The city is a buzz with some culture thanks to you know what. But importantly keep March 19th free, we have many surprises up our sleeve.
If you wanna be in tune to what Sad Mag is doing in this great city of ours, follow us on Twitter! We also love fans on Facebook.
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.
Sad Mag is taking the holidays easy. Some of our team is flying to California and some of us are retreating to the Fraser Valley for family time. Festive cheer is around us and we raise our (several) glasses to you Vancouver! Sadmag.ca returns full force in 2010. New posts, new content, interviews with Vancouver’s interesting and insights into Issue Three.
Wanna take a look at the brand new Issue two? Download here.
We had the pleasure of inviting filmmaker Jocelyne Chaput to contribute to Sad Mag. She came up with a dreamy short film about the anticipation of Issue Two. Featuring music by ok vancouver ok. Check out their Myspace here.
Getting together for the Holidays is Naughty and Nice. Lola Frost and Villany Loveless will entertain you!
However we will be combining Burlesque forces, Season Greetings and Publishing Magic to give you a treat! Vancouver’s burlesque sister act, Lola Frost and Villany Loveless will reveal more than some Yuletide Joy on December 17th at our favourite, The Anza Club. Cover is cheap! The Beer is good (sponsored by Phillips Brewery), the spirits are high, and the buzz is around us. Join us for the exclusive look at Issue two and have a fun evening with the Sad Mag Family.
Details on Facebook, RSVP!
Sad Mag contributor Rebecca Slaven started something that Sad Mag had to be apart of.
Stacked Collective presents:
Book of the Month
A vintage calendar of literary heroines & villains. Proceeds from the calendar go to support Sad Magazine Publishing Society’s media production workshop for teens (Summer 2010) in the form of a bursary for promising young women. Check it out, get your twist on, and support a good cause!
Music by Lazerbomb!
Proceeds to go our future media production workshop launching 2010!
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.
The 28-year-old painter said she gets “late night energy.” Since the start of the year, she has spent the evenings working on this project. Her work came to an abrupt halt, however when she was in a car accident, which resulted in months in a neck brace. Taking time off her “Joe job,” she spent the months creating and planning. She was forced to reflect and spend time with her art. The experience made her more involved with her art and more confident about her work. When I joked about having a Frida Kahlo moment, she corrected me: “Less intense.”
Over tea, I asked Gibson about her upcoming show and we watched the rain fall.
Sad Mag: Tell me about the title of the show. And the significance to the work?
Shari-Anne Gibson: Now The Trees Have Grown Up is intended to make the viewers think about trees as having sensibilities, accumulating experience, losing innocence. I want the trees in the pieces to be seen in a new way, and allow the fragmented landscapes to become personal, perhaps reflecting the viewer in some way.
SM: Where were you trained and how long have you been painting?
SG: I studied both at the University of the Fraser Valley and at the Ontario College of Art and Design where I received my BFA. I’ve always loved to draw and paint, so a long time.
SM: What do you think is missing from Vancouver’s art scene today? Or do you feel it has a mighty strength?
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.
SM: Some of your favourite visual artists?
SG: Johan Creten, Janet Cardiff, Peter Doig, Laura Owens, Katja Strunz, Nan Goldin, Egon Schiele, Fra Angelico, Makiko Kudo.
SM: Where did you grab your inspiration for this collection of work?
SG: I love the natural environment and also appreciate work that is psychological and philosophical. I wanted to create spaces which interrupt our experience of nature, which play with our sense of perception. I wanted to depict the natural world in a way that reveals something about our human experience.
SM: What inspires you in your daily life?
SG: Colors. Photography. Music. When people are free and comfortable with themselves. One evening I went for a walk and a man was singing opera at the top of his voice while I was strolling through his neighborhood. I love that.
SM: After the show, plans? New work? Vacation?
SG: Oh! Right! There is life after the show! Ha ha. I am planning to shift my practice a little and focus on drawing for the rest of the year. It is something I love and haven’t spent enough time with recently. My friend and I hope to start a daily blog together sharing our pieces. I also plan to go on holiday in February. . .maybe to Iceland!
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.
A Cabin by Daniel Elstone
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 ThingsAre 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 Rise Collective Gallery
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.
