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It’s difficult to describe Vancouver-based cultural “badass” Amber Dawn in a single sentence–poet, editor, teacher, mentor, filmmaker, performance artist, and now award-winning writer, it might actually be easier to list all of the things she isn’t. She is the author of Sub Rosa (which received a Lambda Award in 2011), How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir (which won the Vancouver Book Award in 2013), and most recently, Where the words end and my body begins, a debut poetry collection which continues to draw outstanding reviews. One thing is certain: Amber Dawn is a literary force to be reckoned with.
SAD Mag was lucky enough to chat with Dawn about her teenage years to celebrate the upcoming launch our High School edition. Turns out, Teenage Dawn was every bit as cool as Adult Dawn, even if she didn’t know it yet.
Amber Dawn at Age 17
Tell me what you were like in high school: would Teenage You get along with the person you are today?
I don’t think I’ve changed that much since high school. Back then I valued humility and kindness, and yet I was a badass who liked to kick holes in walls, still do. I coloured my hair red then, still do. I listened to Bongwater and Siouxsie and the Banshees then, still do.
Any strange high school hobbies?
Shoplifting. Food mostly, I was hungry. I became so good at stealing food, I’d steel foot-long submarine sandwiches for other poor students short on lunch money. For a while, It became a daily “thing” to see if I could nab a couple of foot-longs and a couple cans of 7 Up from the cafeteria.
What did you think you would become after graduation? Were your sights already set on becoming an (award-winning) author? Or did that come to you later?
Many kids leave the small community I’m from after high school. Most go to Toronto. But I heard that Vancouver was like Canadian San Francisco (and Toronto like New York). I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do with my life after graduation so I came to Vancouver before my 18th birthday to be a “Canadian San Franciscan queer hippy punk.”
What was your most mortifying teenage moment? If you could send Teenage You a letter (or maybe an instant message) about it from the future, what would it say?
I was bullied a lot. I could draw a great number of mortifying memories of surviving bullying. But all these years later, what truly darkens my memory are all the times I was a bystander to witnessing other kids get bullied. It took me a long time to learn about strength in numbers organizing. I wish I could have banded proudly together with all the other outcasts back then. This is what I would tell Teenage Me: build your army of misfits now. Love each other. Keep each other safe. And try smashing the system while you’re at it.
Find out more about Amber Dawn on her website. Stay tuned for more High School Q&As on sadmag.ca.
CATCHING UP WITH ANGELA GROSSMANN AND DREW SHAFFER – SEPTEMBER 2015
An artist interview by Sunshine Frère
Angela Grossman and Drew Schaffer
It is a stunning September afternoon at the Thierry Cafe on Alberni Street in Vancouver. The melancholy music that Yan Tiersen created for the French film Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulin is wistfully resonating throughout the sunny patio where I have just sat down with artist Angela Grossmann. Her longtime friend and fellow artist, Drew Shaffer, has arrived from inside the cafe. Shaffer gently places a beautiful piece of cake, with luscious raspberries adorning the top, on the table for us all to share, and off we go, tumbling into the jiggery pokery world of Angela and Drew.
Installation View
Angela Grossmann and Drew Schaffer recently exhited their work together in a duo exhibition called Jiggery Pokery at Winsor Gallery. The exhibition ran from October 15 – November 14th. This interview was conducted a couple of weeks prior to the exhibition opening. Grossman, who is represented by Winsor, was very much looking forward to showing alongside her longtime friend. The joining of these two sets of works in the same space, provided Grossmann and Shaffer an opportunity for their ever evolving conversation about art, language, game-play, memory and life to be experienced anew.
Angela: How I met Drew was that I rented my studio, which I am still in–it was above the Salmagundy shop store on Cordova. I would go by and it’s a friendly neighbourhood, but its really changed. Drew was the proprietor of the shop and we got to chatting. Though, we were never never allowed to just chat were we?
Drew: No.
A: I’d walk by and I’d see a face through the window and he’d give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down if the owner was in.
D: So Ang would come in looking for photos instead.
A: And you!
D: Yes, she was looking for me, and images of stuff to do her work with. When I was first at Emily Carr we would do one of those class field trip type things, and once we went to Diane Farris Gallery and I saw her work there and was just amazed. So it was quite exciting because I knew who she was. She would come up and buy photos and things like that, and I thought, oh yeah, this is really cool! I don’t just have a shitty job right? It was a very interesting place in those days. Those types of shops are great places for people like us to find the raw materials to make the work that we make.
BALLOON, 2015, Angela Grossmann, 16 x 20”, mixed media collage (detail)
A: It was.
D: So, yeah, we both start from a similar place, we go and find something that inspires us that already exists and then talk to it, bringing it into being somehow. For me, generally it will become a 3D object and nine times out of ten for Angela its going to be something two dimensional. We use these found objects as a starting place, to start the dialogue. And sometimes it’ll be something very humble, I ask myself, why does this grab me the way that it does, and what is it about this particular object that is so inspiring? Is it the functionality of it? What is it saying to me?
Sunshine: Do you decide instantly always what you are going to do with the found object or do you sometimes hold onto it not knowing what it will be for?
D: Yes, sometimes its instantaneous, but more often than not things have to stick around for a while. I have this massive collection of old suitcases full of things like that…. I have this recall memory in my head of what all the suitcases hold. Suitcase encyclopedias.
BLUE ROPE, 2015, Angela Grossmann, mixed media collage, 16 x 20”
A: You know, when I was in school, it was a going thing, you had to have an image bank. A bank of things, photos and images things you liked, images that made you think of things, whatever it was. And there used to be this incredible image bank at the Vancouver art gallery, that had been kept over a hundred years, but they got rid of it–I couldn’t believe it. Anyway, I’ve got my own image bank, but its not just images. It is full of things that I like, things that I respond to, my materials. But I don’t like to collect things for the sake of collection, I only collect to use them. Because I don’t like stuff hanging around. Sorry, I just thought I’d differentiate myself there. (chuckles)
D: I on the other hand do have a lot of stuff hanging around that I may or may not use at one point.
A: Exactly, I get very anxious about things hanging around…
D: Yeah, you’re more purist than me.
S: Do you purge more often Angela?
A: Yes, but not of things you would think, for example, I’d never throw out my old buttons, but I would throw out a pair of old gucci loafers, no problem. But my old buttons, bits and swatches of materials are all stuff I keep, but only for collage purposes. Because I think materials make me associate and associate is what I do. It’s the very nub of what I do as an artist. I’m an associate. (chuckles) When something is happening for me it is because I am able to make to make associations that day or in that work and can clearly see when it’s a great one or when it’s a forced one. You really learn how to associate. When you’re trying to go down those paths but it’s forced, you can tell when it is good or no good or when it’s great.
D: And, I as well as Angela do that with language. I’ll phone her up and say, I’ve got a pun, it seems to be a current that runs through my work and everything in my life. Like I call my brother up on Fridays and we trade spoonerisms back and forth. Sometimes their just sonorous, and they don’t really mean anything. But the best ones are the ones that can be read both ways and mean something, like the The Taming of the Shrew or The Shaming of the Trew. You know like that kinda stuff. And I see objects very much the same way.
A: Turn them upside down, turn them inside out, put them back to front, see what happens, see where it goes.
D: Yeah, because there is something there. Whenever you pick something up, there’s something there–you know, you know that it’s loaded somehow. You know that, that object or image has something for you. It’s the weirdest thing.
I HATE WHAT YOU’RE DOING TO ME, 2015, Drew Shaffer, 30 x 39 x 10”, mixed media
A: I love that. It’s loaded with possibilities.
D: It’s loaded with possibilities, you see that thing and you know right away that you gotta have that because there is something there for you.
A: I think that’s true for everybody that ever collects anything, not just with art.
D: Oh yes!
S: But all the potentials that are and were there for the object disappear once you connect with it as you are taking it in one particular direction.
D: Yes, its a fork in the road I think.
A: As visual artists all we do is associate and make these connections. Poets also, because all they do is use language to open stuff up and make connections and refer to things, its always referring to things, it’s never as it is.
D: Ang and I are not exchanging images and seeing each other’s work until we install the exhibition. We’ve been wanting to do something together for quite some time and now we are.
A: We first thought of doing something together that was theme based. Where we would both do work on the same subject. But this show has morphed and it is us both doing work at the same time instead. I’m not looking at Drew’s work and he isn’t looking at mine.
PUPPET, 2015, Angela Grossmann, mixed media collage, 16 x 20”
D: Those are the rules, that is the game plan.
A: That was the game because, I can’t do work about you, and you can’t do work about me. We’re just going to hope that in the show there is some kind of relationship there, as there is with us.
D: I am sure there will be.
S: How did the title for the exhibition, Jiggery Pokery, come about?
D: Ang came up with this name…
A: It’s not a word that I came up with, it exists…it’s sort of a bit higgledypiggledy, hocus pocus, jiggery pokery. I mean it’s all word play. The reason why I think it’s nice wordplay besides the fact that it actually means something, but also because it’s also associating sound with what we like. We like these associations… and that the sound, it …it tumbles out.
D: Yeah, it feels good on the mouth to say it. It’s really interesting because it dates back to the mid to late nineteenth century and it was a word initially used for subterfuge.
A: Like, “he’s up to some jiggery pokery over there!”
D: Yeah, its a little bit sneaky, I think it is a great word. But then that’s the first meaning and then there’s a secondary meaning that they started using in around nineteen twenty, where it started meaning to cobble things together. Like, it’s a bit of jiggerypokery that got the engine started. And you can also spoonerize it piggeryjokery. It was also really interesting, I discovered this American poet who used these archaic words and phrases and wrote these really cool poems, purely for the fact that they had great rhyming capabilities and their sonorousness. Once again, yet another level of what we are doing. I discovered this poet Anthony Hecht who uses phrases like jiggery pokery, he did some work with another guy called John Hollander. I was pretty happy when I discovered him. Anyways, one of the lines in one of his poems describes what jiggery pokery is and he explains it as: “using whatever you’ve got around to get the job done.”
A: Absolutely! We could quote that!
D: Yeah, its great stuff! A lot of the stuff that I’m dealing with is the seduction and abandonment of inanimate objects. I find that really interesting. You come across these things and they look so helpless and you can see a vestige of what they were to somebody at one time, but they’re no longer that anymore. In the fact that they’ve been discarded, they become, to me at least, so much more interesting.
A: Ditto!
AND YOU NEVER WILL WHILE YOU’RE LIVING UNDER MY ROOF, 2015, Drew Shaffer, 20 x 20 x 14”, mixed media
D: I’m also really interested in how we choose to define ourselves by what we own. The general view of the object when desired is that it is hip. My general view is that it becomes more interesting when its not hip anymore or when its discarded. It’s not trying to prove itself anymore. I often turn the use of a functional object into more of a narrative or metaphor rather than a practical perspective. It’s a different kind of practicality I would say.
A: If I may interject here for everything that you’ve just said, I would reiterate that my own work uses likenesses of people who are long gone. So, they’ve got that echo of being familiar, but at the same time not existing anymore. I think I like to play between that which is still current and that which is gone, but what is it, that remains, that we have a connection to. What is the humanity that crosses over from then to now. So it’s all about that bridge.
S: The way you’re approaching the installation of the work is very much attached to the notion of game play, just like how you two approach your friendship. Drew’s objects will arrive at the gallery, Angela’s will arrive at the gallery and then the two of you will connect the dots on site.
D: Yeah.
A: It will be very fun, the thing is I have absolute respect for what Drew does, so I have total trust in whatever he does. I’m excited to show with Drew.
D: This is a great opportunity, and I’m excited too.
A: Drew and I have a lot of echoing in what we talk about and what we think about.
D: Both Ang and I are interested in fashion, people’s clothes and the items that they choose to wear to express their identities. On a small scale from a personal perspective and on a large scale. Because fashion moves at such a fast pace, the whole seduction and abandonment rate happens so much quicker. Things that are beautiful become almost instantly ugly. Because art has this hallowed niche, people are like ‘oh it’s art, its sitting on a plinth hanging on a wall and blah blah blah’, you give yourself more time to contemplate it, or to reflect on your relationship with it in a much more sort of hallowed way. Because that process happens much more quickly in fashion it doesn’t have that chance to be self-reflexive and because of that it is very interesting in retrospect. Certainly with Angela’s work when you look at the old photographs of people and the types of clothing that they’re wearing what they thought was really great at the time and of course these things come full circle and they become great again.
A: Yes, we’re interested in that sort of stuff. But who isn’t!?
S: Who isn’t indeed!
Special Thanks to Angela and Drew for the interview. The exhibition was a great one!
If you would like to see works in person, you can visit Winsor Gallery, they can pull out any remaining works from the show.
In 2000, Bloomsbury Publishing released Sarah. The author of the novel was JT LeRoy, a teenager from West Virginia who had prostituted himself at truckstops, lived on the streets while addicted to drugs, and eventually became HIV positive. LeRoy credits his therapist, who urged him to write about his experiences, for the novel’s genesis. Two more books followed (Harold’s End, a novel, and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, a short story collection), as did a slew of A-list celebrity encounters, photo shoots, magazine articles, and two feature film adaptations. The author himself cut an enigmatic figure; too shy to read his work at public appearances, his famous friends were obliged to read on his behalf. When LeRoy was seen, he was typically wearing a blonde wig and sunglasses, and rarely appeared without an entourage comprised of former outreach worker Emily (AKA “Speedie”) and her partner Astor. Eventually, LeRoy began identifying as transgender. In 2006, Stephen Beachy wrote an article in New York Magazine questioning LeRoy’s identity, and shortly after, a woman named Laura Albert revealed that she was the true author of LeRoy’s fiction. She gave phone interviews as “LeRoy” and orchestrated his public appearances. Too old to pass for a teenager herself, Albert had a younger woman named Savannah Knoop appear as LeRoy in public. Albert took on the persona of Speedie in order to accompany Knoop.
Filmmaker Marjorie Sturm documents LeRoy’s bizarre story from emergence to death in her new film The Cult of JT LeRoy. After watching it at this year’s Queer Film Festival in Vancouver, SAD Mag had a host of burning questions Sturm.
SAD Mag: Can you describe the process you went through to make The Cult of JT LeRoy? I’ve read that it was a long journey from initial concept to finished piece.
Marjorie Sturm: Yes, indeed, it has been a long (and strange) journey. I worked on the film for five years over a twelve year span. I began in 2002 with the understanding that “JT LeRoy” was a real person when in fact I was filming Savannah Knoop pretending to be a fictional character. At that time, I worked on the film for close to a year. I re-opened the film in 2006 when it became the clear that “JT LeRoy” was a massive, global, literary/entertainment deception. I gathered up the majority of the interviews that appear in the film at that time. Post-production is where the film took a nose dive; I waited many years to find funding that would allow me to control the direction of the film.
If I had been willing to allow others (men) to ‘co-direct’ my film or ‘merge’ it, I would have been able to get my film done faster. Apparently, this is not a unique situation in the documentary industry. Filmmakers who aren’t established ‘brands’ and have limited access to resources, who have stumbled on to some form of “documentary gold,” (as my early JT footage could be construed) are pushed and cajoled with the sword of Damocles. I can see why people would surrender as it is a terribly frustrating situation to find oneself. However, I thought it would be short-sighted to go forward making a film that didn’t represent the topic in a way that I would have control over. Eventually, I got extremely lucky and found funding and a team of supportive people that helped me create the film.
I imagine that there are many great films sitting on hard drives waiting for a break.
SM: I also understand that you have a background in mental health. Did you recognize Laura Albert as someone suffering from mental illness? Does that in any way mitigate her responsibility for her actions?
MS: Mitigating responsibility because of mental illness is an extremely tricky situation. First off, there are all types of mental illness, and like many things, there is a continuum. One could argue every pedophile, rapist, con-artist, murderer on some level has mental illness.
JT LeRoy’s therapist, who appears in the film via a trial deposition, agrees that JT/Laura Albert is not psychotic and out of touch with reality. If someone is psychotic (schizophrenic, severely bi-polar), it would be easy to understand why that could mitigate their responsibility. Laura did her damndest to present a case for her mental illness during the trial over a period of eight days, and the jury quickly concluded that they weren’t buying it. However, no one is arguing that Laura is not a disturbed individual. And if people choose to have compassion for her, that is their choice, but it doesn’t mitigate responsibility for her actions. I don’t believe our compassion for a victimizer should ever outweigh the compassion we have for those they victimized, as it fuels them and allows them to abuse again.
SM: As a filmmaker, you don’t insert your thoughts and opinions into the film much. Can you talk about that decision? Were you surprised when JT’s true identity was finally revealed or did you have suspicions earlier?
MS: How much to insert myself into the film was a question that I contemplated quite a bit from the beginning. I knew I needed to be a voice in the film in order to give my early footage some context. As well, there were gaps to fill in the narrative. At first, I used all text but it was just too much reading and was seriously nixed by almost everyone who saw the earlier cuts. With a lot of discussion and help from the editor Josh Melrod, I feel like I struck a balance that I am pleased with. I really didn’t want this documentary to be an overly personal one. I think there is a time and place for personal documentaries and I love many of them, but this particular topic was much larger than myself. I really wanted to create an active viewing experience that left the viewer thinking and analyzing. Even reading the views that I am expressing here in this interview could potentially distract from the experience of the film.
There was always something weird and cagey about the JT gang, but I absolutely believed that JT was a real person. Even after I read Stephen Beachy’s article in New York Magazine, I thought JT existed and Laura just ghost wrote the books for him because he was uneducated. It wasn’t until I had some back and forth discussion with Beachy, where he made so many lucid points, that I really came around to understanding that the whole thing was an utter fabrication.
SM: In an interview for The Paris Review in 2006, Laura Albert tells a story from when she was 16 and called a child therapist from a Village Voice ad. She recounts pretending to be a 14-year-old boy. When she later revealed the truth, the therapist told her never to call him again. Albert observes: “He responded angrily instead of asking himself, ‘Why did this kid invent this story? What would make a child do such a thing?'” Do you view this as deflection on Albert’s part or is it a valid question that you see your film responding to?
MS: I guess I view it as a bit of both. It is indeed a deflection on Albert’s part, a way of not taking responsibility for her actions and blaming others. The glaring problem with the deflection is that Laura Albert is a full grown woman and not a child. We judge a child’s behavior at a different standard than an adult’s, or at least we should. Laura Albert pretends to, or doesn’t seem to, grasp that.
And yes, in a sense, my film is responding to the question, “What would make a child (a person) do such a thing?”
SM: Posing as male in order to feel safe and be heard emerges as a strong theme throughout the version of Albert’s life presented in that interview. To what extent do you think a sexist society contributed to Albert’s decision to create a male persona?
MS: On one hand, I don’t think there is a woman alive who doesn’t feel, consciously or unconsciously, the implications of living in a highly sexist society.
When I was six and seven years old, I had a repetitive dreams that I was a boy in a wheelchair. Night after night after night. I have a brother who is two years older, and I saw the permission that his gender gave him. I resented it, and felt handicapped. Or at least that’s my armchair dream analysis.
My point is, using sexism and the need for a male persona is a compelling tale, one that is hard to refute, and many women can relate to.
But, JT wasn’t just a male. He was transgender, before people even knew what that term meant. Does a heterosexual woman really need to pose as someone transgender in order to feel “safe and heard in this world”?
What she did, and in a sense it was quite savvy, was a create a much more sensational persona than her own identity provided. Hustler on the run, being pimped out by his mother, strung out on heroin, yadda yadda. Or middle-aged woman from middle-class background with an eating disorder.
SM: One issue the film explores is that of who has the right to represent pain. In some ways the recent Rachel Dolezal story touches on this. In both instances the cultural outrage seems to stem from individuals laying claim to pain that doesn’t belong to them. I felt your film made clear that Albert crossed a line with the fabrication of JT, but how clear is that line? How mindful of this sort of appropriation do writers need to be when writing fiction?
MS: My personal opinion is that writers don’t need to be mindful of this sort of appropriation when writing fiction at all. Not one iota. Fiction is a work of the imagination. I think we can write from the point of view of anything–a duck, a chair, the sky, other races, genders, classes, and so on.
The line is crossed and problems begin when we market our fiction as non-fiction in order to manipulate and gain sympathy. When we start picking up the phone and pretending to be that fictional character in real time. When our marginalized ‘fictional’ character asks for resources of time, money, and gifts.
Laura Albert did countless interviews in the voice of a little boy and the work was marketed as “autobiographical fiction” with a bio to match. She had the cover-my-ass forethought to put only the word ‘fiction’ on the back cover, but everyone thought Savannah Knoop was indeed JT LeRoy, who grew up at trucks stops in West Virginia and was pimped out by his mother. Really, the level of disingenuousness, gall, and relentless spinning is appalling when not laughable.
As far as Dolezal, I was really struck by the fact that not only did she pretend to be black when she was in fact white, but she actively prevented other white academics from speaking about race on the campus where she taught. Um . . . no.
SM: I thought your film did a great job of showing the emotional impact the deception had on those in contact with LeRoy, while also examining to to what degree those individuals might have been complicit. Do you have any sense of Laura Albert or Savannah having any empathy for those they deceived?
MS: As far as Laura is concerned, I have seen absolutely no empathy towards those she has deceived. In fact, the subtext is more, “How could they all be so stupid and fall for it? Savannah looks like a girl.
Till now, she seems committed to “not apologizing” as if that would be somehow backing down. It’s actually kind of fascinating in a sense, and on a meta-level might lead one to having compassion for her because what a fractured and sad way to live.
Of course, at any given moment, she may change course and decide to mimic empathy/compassion for others, but to the best of my knowledge, I have only seen those emotions reserved for herself.
As for Savannah, my sense is that she is conflicted emotionally about the whole thing. When the deception was first revealed, she gleefully traipsed around with Laura to parties and receptions. The news picked up on “The Hoaxers are Out on the Town” and it seemed like public opinion was working in their favor. People enjoy[ed] seeing mud thrown in the faces of The Establishment. Celebrities. The New York Times, HBO, Cannes, Hollywood. Without the personal, it is kind of a hoot.
Laura and Savannah fell out when Savannah wrote her book about her experience around “being JT.” I think she got a good taste of Laura’s wrath at that point, and perhaps that increased Savannah’s empathy for those they deceived? But I have read her book, and it really was about her experience and I don’t recall empathy for others or much [of a] sense of shame or guilt. It was about “her growth” as JT. Laura uses that one, too. We’re supposed to be elated about their psychological, individualistic “growth.” This type of consciousness is extremely, profoundly American.
“I’ve always had a purpose to my creativity,” says Pomona Lake, a Vancouver graphic designer and artist. She found that purpose fast and early, when an image from a high-school art project went profoundly, monumentally viral.
Pomona Lake by Grady Mitchell
This particular picture shows the back of a woman’s legs with her skirt pulled up. Running up her left leg is a sequence of markings, each labelled with a different qualifier, starting with “matronly” just above the ankle and finishing with “whore” just under the cheeks. It was a simple and scathing commentary on sexism – “I think that art came out of feeling my sexuality for the first time,” Pomona says, “feeling sexualized by external people,” – and it understandably took off.
Just 18-years-old, fresh into her first year of design at Capilano University, she suddenly became to thousands of people worldwide the face of young feminism. She was inundated with messages, both caustic hatemail and proclamations of support from likeminded supporters worldwide. She was interviewed by major publications like The New Statesman and cited in university classes across the globe. At one point it took her to Belgium to battle a racist group who co-opted the concept for their own agenda.
Pomona Lake
Few creatives get such an all-encompassing response to their work, especially as a teen. And even people decades older would have been hard-pressed to handle it with Pomona’s level-headedness. While the outpouring of support was empowering, she didn’t let the anonymous attacks faze her. “It’s really easy to see through the hate mail,” she explains. “They’re just scared.”
Although she’d been declared an expert, the unexpected success of the photograph was what actually sparked Pomona’s activism. At the time the piece came out she didn’t even identify as a feminist, she was just working off her own experiences. “I realized I was completely ignorant and needed to know things,” she says. She embarked on a serious self-driven education, focusing on feminism but spiralling into other areas, and hasn’t slowed since.
Today Pomona makes a point of offering her design services to deserving people and companies that otherwise couldn’t afford them. During business hours she works at Yulu PR, which she describes as “the Robin Hood of PR firms.” Off the clock she helps out worthy causes.
Pomona Lake by Grady Mitchell
Through her work she hopes to change the flawed and unbalanced system of capitalism by gaming it from the inside. It’s not that she thinks the system is run by some cat-stroking, monocled super villain. She just recognizes that most people are looking out for themselves – “everyone’s just dumb, not evil,” – and with a little readjustment life could be a lot more fair for everyone.
She’s a proponent of “liberating funds,” using money earned through her work in responsible ways like shopping at small, local businesses, finding alternative ways to meet needs, and re-investing in the community. It’s all part of her life mission, which she’s honed down to this: “To open eyes and ears and bring people together.”
She pauses for a second, thinks, then nods. “And fix bullshit.”
Jacob Wren is a writer and performance artist whose work often theorizes about the state of contemporary art. He is the co-artistic director of the interdisciplinary art group PME-ART, the members of which sometimes “believe in being naive on purpose.” He has been blogging for ten years at A Radical Cut in the Texture of Realityand his book, Polyamorous Love Song, was listed as one of The Globe and Mail’s top 100 books of 2014. In the final essay of his newest book, a hybrid of non- and short-fiction called If our wealth is criminal then let’s live with the criminal joy of pirates(BookThug, 2015), Wren writes: “Like many of us, I am in crisis (with one possible difference being that I have a compulsion to announce my sense of crisis as often as possible). I am in crisis about art and also about everything else.”
SAD Mag’s Shannon Tien interviewed Wren to discuss this crisis of artistic ambition, naïve activism, hope, cynicism, and animism, among other meaty ideas.
Shannon Tien: What are you doing in Calgary right now?
Jacob Wren: I’m co-leading a project organized by the New Gallery that’s an art writing residency. There’s me and Jean Randolph co-leading it. We have a few participants that we’re working with for one month in person and then another four months long distance around questions of art writing.
ST: Cool. So let’s start the official interview. In your essay “Like a Priest Who Has Lost Faith” from your most recent book, you write about artworks having their own agency to get us to think in ways we might not have previously considered. Are there any artworks that have made you feel this way in particular?
JW: There probably are. We were talking the other day about this well-known artwork, the name of which I don’t know, by General Idea, where they took the famous “LOVE” graphic and replaced it with the word “AIDS” and that image, I think it was called “The Image Virus”, and that work traveled an enormous degree on its own through various media and became one of the many iconic images in the AIDS movement. I think that’s an example of a work that traveled a great deal on its own.
Image Virus (1987) by General Idea
Maybe that’s a very literal idea of an artwork having agency. I could also use a cliché historical example: the Goethe novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. A young man kills himself for unrequited love, and then there was a rash of suicides in Germany by young romantic men who read this and imitated it, which was not Goethe’s intention.
But I also think there are less literal examples. In a way all artworks that have any impact on us or enter into our lives make us do things that we don’t know are coming from that artwork. Things we might not have done had we not encountered that project. They might change our thinking or actions or raise questions about our lives that we might not have had otherwise. And I feel with these things, there are no guarantees. Like, maybe you did something because of the artwork, but maybe there were a number of factors that influenced how you thought and acted.
ST: And what is the consequence of assigning the agency to the artwork instead of the artist or the viewer?
JW: I mean, there’s multiple agencies acting on any decision or thought or action. There’s never only one factor as to why something happens. So of course the artist has agency, the viewer has agency, the artwork has agency, and when the different agencies come together, maybe something happens? Or maybe nothing happens?
As a writer, one thing that becomes very clear is that people read your work in ways you never intended or never thought of and also that this is a beautiful and positive thing. And that as a writer, trying to control your work’s public reception is a recipe for insanity and also probably a recipe for very mediocre work. Knowing that you’re making something that has a life outside of you and changes in its interaction with different people and different contexts–I think that’s an essential thing for making anything.
ST: Was there a moment in your writing career when you realized this? That the work had a life of its own? Did it change things?
JW: I don’t remember a specific moment, but I feel like it happens all the time in little ways. For me I might be a control freak, but I’m definitely not a control freak in that way. So I’ve never had any problem letting go. I feel like when it’s ready, people can do with it what they will.
ST: What is art writing? Is this how you would describe the genre that your book falls into?
JW: Well, it’s two short stories and an essay. So, it’s a hybrid book that brings together fiction and non-fiction. And I think one of the reasons we wanted to do this was because for me–and Malcolm Sutton who was the editor–we would like there to be more back-and-forth, more fluidity between fiction and nonfiction. And we don’t see a strong boundary between them.
ST: Yeah I like that idea. In your other book, Polyamorous Love Song, I felt like the short stories presented a lot of nonfiction theoretical ideas, kind of.
JW: Yes, I mean, you know, my fiction is always a fiction of ideas, and ideas are often presented in a…well I try to present the ideas in a clear, non-fiction way. And, for me novels are essays and essays are novels. It’s all in the same swirl of writing and thinking and presenting.
ST: I noticed on your blog, A Radical Cut in the Texture of Reality, that you were celebrating your blog’s 10-year anniversary. How does blogging influence your art and writing?
JW: Doing A Radical Cut has an enormously positive effect on my writing in that it’s allowed me to share short paragraphs or short excerpts as I work on them and get some response–put them out there in the world before they’re finished. It’s kept me writing, in a way. Often it could take me four years to write a novel and it’s kind of a secretive, lonely time. Having this way to share little bits and pieces as I go has really given me the energy to continue at many different points.
Also, it goes without saying that we live in the age of the internet. In general, how I’ve shared my work on the internet, mixing things I’ve written with quotes from other people, with songs and videos and having it all mixed together in a kind of giant internet pastiche has very much changed how I see writing and how I see art.
As you probably know, though, this little book was done as a special edition for Author for Indies Day. This was like a desire to have something for independent bookstores similar to Record Store Day–where there’s special editions and special records you can only get on that day–to try and create some excitement about small bookstores in the same way Record Store Day created some excitement around record stores. And I was really unsure that it would work. I was curious. But when I showed up at Type Books at Authors for Indies Day, there was a line up of people wanting to get in to get the special editions. So that gave me a really strange and excited feeling, that people would line up in the morning at an independent bookstore to get these things. I think it gives me a bit of hope.
Faced with the pile of submissions for this year’s Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Director of Festival ProgrammingShana Myara had her work cut out for her. “The struggle of curating the festival is really when to stop,” she told SAD Mag in a recent phone interview, “We only have ten days!”
Myara’s work has paid off, however; with over 70 films from 21 countries included in the final bill, and themes ranging from transgender athletes to gay camboys to bearded ladies, the 27th VQFF promises to wow audiences with a seriously stacked international lineup. Throw in a handful of Q&A’s with visiting filmmakers, a series of free workshops, and three special galas, and you have the creative smorgasborg that is this year’s festival. Film fans, mark your calendars: August 13 to 23 is going to be a busy–and eclectic–ten days.
It’s this eclecticism, Myara believes, that sets the festival apart. “We see so much of the samey-same out there that individuality is really quite a strength,” she explains. “That’s what Queer film festivals are all about.” Instead of selecting films by theme, Myara selects them by quality, and only later organizes them into categories.
The categories or “spotlights” that emerged this year are Canadian queer films, DIY Gender, queer youth culture and queer films from Latin America. Among the festival highlights are: a showing of Cannes-award-winning Korean filmmaker July Jung’sA Girl at My Door(and accompanying Q&A with the artist, Aug 19); a tailor-made archival program, Still Not Over It: 70 Years of Queer Canadian Film(Aug 18);and an 87 minute collection of shorts–made entirely by youth, for youth–called Bright Eyes, Queer Hearts(Aug 18).
The transformative power of film is one reason Myara likes to keep the bill so diverse. “Film really has the power to help us change our worldviews–to experience a life in another way,” she says. “At VQFF, we’re really mindful of those intersectional stories that speak to life told from the margins–stories that have the potential to make you feel more accepting, rather than close-minded–stories that don’t necessarily have all the right answers, but ask the right questions.”
VQFF takes their mission out of the cinema and into the classroom with the Out in Schools program, run through Out on Screen. The program brings age-appropriate queer films to schools, using film as a “springboard for a discussion around acceptance and understanding.” By helping to create an accepting learning environment through film, Out in Schools hopes to prevent bullying, exclusion, and violence.
In a city that’s been called the gay-bashing capital of Canada, it’s easy to see why these discussions are so important. “Unfortunately violence against the community is a very real part of our history and our present,” Myara sighs. “But I often look at violence as having a rebound effect; violence against a few creates a feeling of solidarity in a community.” And community, she continues, is what VQFF is all about. “From the beginning it’s been very open-armed; everyone who wants to come is welcome.”
“It’s a really exceptional feeling to feel welcomed when you arrive somewhere,” Myara observes, and her smile is almost audible over the phone. “The festival, first and foremost, brings people together.”
The Vancouver Queer Film Festival runs from August 13 – 23. For showtimes and locations, visit the festival website.
When I first met international Queer performance artist Coral Short at the Queer Arts Festival’s opening art party, she was wearing boxing shorts and a determined expression. Donning her gloves, she walked onto stage and began to perform her opening piece, Stop Beating Yourself Up, a literal boxing match fought entirely–and mercilessly–against herself. When I met Short a few days later for our interview, she was a radically different person. Relaxed, smiling, and as I discovered later, a little concussed, Short was nothing like the fierce fighter I remembered from a few nights ago.
As we talked performance, meditation, and travel over afternoon coffee, I realized that Short is actually both of these people: open and friendly, but also strong and, honestly, intimidating. Despite her gentle nature, Short clearly has no problem being ruthless when it comes to what really matters: creating powerful, boundary-pushing art.
Coral Short performs Stop Beating Yourself Up, photo by Katie Stewart
SAD Mag: You first performed Stop Beating Yourself Up in 2013 at Edgy Women in Montreal. In a recent interview with Daily Xtra, you said that you chose to add some modifications to the piece for this year’s performance: decreasing the length from the original three hours to one and keeping a paramedic on hand. Why did you choose to perform the piece again, if it was so damaging the first time?
Coral Short: I actually never wanted to do this piece again, but Artistic Director SD Holman, through the General Manager, Elliott Hearte, really wanted me to do the piece and offered to fly me out here. And my little sister Amber just had a baby–the first baby in the Short family, so I said, “Okay, I’m going to do this for this nephew.”
SM: You mean, beat yourself up for her child?
CS: Basically! After [the performance] I sent my sister a text that said, “This will make a good story one day, but my head really hurts.”
SM: Did you get anything new out of repeating your performance? Has your original intention or relationship to the piece changed since 2013?
CS: I think it did. The first time I did it, I didn’t do it with full body awareness. Since that time I’ve been to three vipassanas–ten day silent retreats–and I have a daily meditation practice. Being more inside my body than I used to, [the performance] was more impactual on the cellular structure than it did originally. Each time has been a ritual, but I think this [time] was more like a closure: “I will stop doing this now–stop doing this very literal performance–stop beating myself up.” We all need to move forward from this internal struggle, myself included!
It’s also really, really hard on the audience. This performance, people are more with me than any other performance I’ve ever done. They’re horrified, but they’re with me. There’s blood spurting out of me, but people try to stay the course with me. Psychologically, it’s really hard on people. I can’t make eye contact with them, so I have to look at the wall or the cameras or the floor. I’m a channel for the audience–a visceral symbol for the struggle inside themselves.
They want to protect me–they want to stop me. But no one does. When I first did the piece in 2013, I was asked by my curator, “What if someone stops you?” And I said, “It will just become part of the piece.” But no one stopped me then, and no one stopped me now. I think the audience becomes transfixed with a hypnotic morbid fascination.
Photo by Katie Stewart
SM: Do you think that’s because it’s art, or do you think that’s just human nature?
CS: I think there’s a “This is art” thing going on. But, I think if someone would have tried to stop me, I would have stopped. I think all it would take is just one person.
I think people almost want to see it play out. If you look back across humanity, or to Game of Thrones, there’s always been a love of fighting and blood. The fighting pits, the colosseum, the beheadings –I think there’s an element of humanity that wants to see that. Blood is powerful.
SM: In addition to performing at the festival’s opening party, you also curated a film night this year called TRIGGER WARNING. How did you find the “fearless Queer video art” for that event?
CS: I travel a lot. I have about ten home bases. I move with a lot of ease in the world due to the privilege of being a triple passport holder. I have all these different communities that I have lived and worked in, so I meet so many more creators than the average person. While I’m moving, I talk to other curators, interact with other festivals, other artists, everywhere I go. I come across incredible filmmakers some of whom I have been working with for almost a decade. I’m part of a huge Queer network of cultural producers in Asia, North America and Europe who I can reach out to at any time on the internet. We are all there for each other.
Photo by Katie Stewart
SM: And how did you choose which ones to include? What qualified the videos as too triggering–or not triggering enough–for the event?
CS: It’s actually really hard to find triggering work. I cut out pieces that I found problematic in terms of race and trans issues. I didn’t want anyone to feel unwelcome in the space. In the end, I created a bill that I felt comfortable with and I felt other people would be comfortable with, but there were definitely pieces that push the limit in terms of sexuality.
SM: Were there a lot of strong reactions?
CS: Well, actually it’s funny, I feel like my bill was not triggering enough. Perhaps I have to try harder! There was blood and piss and someone kissing their parents and performance art on the verge of self harm. But it was a fine line, because I didn’t want to make anyone feel so uncomfortable that they would walk off in a bad state alone into the world.
SM: What’s been your experience as someone who works both with film and performance? Do you think people react very differently to the two art forms?
CS: I think people are wary of performance art, because they feel that it’s an unpredictable medium–which it is – that is the joy of it! A lot of my video curations make performance art more palatable in a way. And video makes it possible to get all these artists with dynamic personalities from different locations on one bill. That’s why I love video: all that talent within three minutes. It’s amazing. For example: Morgan M Page, Eduardo Resrepo, and local artist Jade Yumang.
Photo by Katie Stewart
SM: In that same Daily Xtra interview, you refer to Vancouver culture as “very PC compared to the east coast,” and in another interview with Edgy Women, you describe Montreal as “one of the few remaining metropolises that is affordable to live cheaply and create art.” Vancouver culture receives a lot of this sort of criticism–among the well known, of course, is the Economist‘srecent inclusion of Vancouver in the list of “mind-numbingly boring” cities. Do you think our attitude will ever change, or are we forever doomed to be small-minded, unaffordable and ultimately, boring?
CS: I feel like the Vancouver art community is thriving these days! There’s been a much needed show of city support: a bunch of money given to VIVO and the art organizations in that area. There seems to be some new stuff happening; there’s always some great work. I always like to find out what’s happening here–who the new upcoming artists are, like Emilio Rojas, Helen Reed and Hannah Jickling.
Photo by Katie Stewart
SM: Obviously you’re familiar with the theme of this year’s festival: drawing the line. As a performer and artist, you’ve crossed many lines: from hole-puppet protests to physical self-abuse, you don’t seem afraid to “go too far” when it comes to your craft. This might be cliche, but where (if ever) do you draw the line? And why?
CS: When I was a young artist, I used to repeat some kind of mantra that went something like this: to keep pushing through my limits to go to the other side. I really wanted that to be my work: to not be afraid of anything. Push it as far as you can go and then push it farther. That’s where it begins and where my practice has grown – when I take risks and walk my own path.
But my artistic practice has changed since I did vipassana. I’ve started to make places for people to sit down, because people want to relax; it’s a really fast-paced life. So I made a giant, portable nest. I give people rides with these brown, velvet cushions while they hold this egg, and they become very birdlike. People love to sit in it. I’ve also started making this incredible earth furniture that is opulently growing with plants on radical faerie sanctuary land in Vermont and at IDA. I’m building places for people to repose, relax and be comfortable.
Photos courtesy of Nikol Mikus
SM: Is this experience of comfort something you’re trying to communicate in your art? Is that your intention?
CS: I think it just kind of happened. I have almost 15 years of sobriety, and each year I grow into my body and cellular structure a little more. That’s coming through in my work. It’s all tied into meditation and slowing down. The Queer scene is soaked in substances and lack of self-awareness, so living inside our bodies as queers is revolutionary. Self-love is radical.
The Vancouver Queer Arts Festival runs from July 23 – August 7. Event listings are available on the festival website. For more information about Coral Short, follow her on Twitter and Facebook, or visit her website.
Imagine this: you’re a Vancouver comic—and dang! You’re pretty good. In fact, you were recently a Yuk Yuks fast tracker (a program where Vancouver’s finest up and comers are hand-picked to work consistent nights, among other perks). Night after night you’re getting out around town and killing it.
The catch? You also get up in the morning and go to your nine to five job. What I’m saying is, in this particular scenario, you may be funny but you put your pants on one leg at time like anyone else and you know it. In real life, this mix of talent and humility combines to make one Stuart Jones.
This month I got to chat with Stuart, a real life nice guy (please refer to his joke about why this may mean you’re not sleeping with him) who loves food but sensibly draws the line at dog. That part actually didn’t make the interview cut, but trust me, it’s true.
Photo Courtesy of Stuart Jones
Stuart Jones: I’m just gonna’ grab a coffee.
Kristine Sostar McLellan: You drink coffee this late?
SJ: Well, not regularly. [Dramatic pause] But on a Friday?
KSM: Cut loose!
SJ: I’ve been pretty wiped. Waking up early and then being on shows at night.
KSM: How often a week do you go up?
SJ: Two or three times a week. On a regular week. On a good week, four or five.
KSM:And you’ve been doing this with a full time job for how long?
SJ: Almost a year.
KSM:Do you remember your first set?
SJ: I was talked into it by some people at work. This was in Kelowna and a colleague was going to try. I thought, I’ll give it a shot. I had a few topics written down, but some people are just natural performers.
KSM:Are you?
SJ: Half and half. I think of all these people who are way more charismatic on stage.
KSM: Your material is probably funnier the way you deliver it.
SJ: There’s a way to perform it… But I’ve also found that it seems like a cheap trick if you put too much energy into it. Because a lot of the time it seems funnier if someone is screaming.
KSM:Totally. Okay, back to the beginning. Was this something you thought about before?
SJ: Sort of. I had a few premises, but it was pretty nerve-wracking the first time. I had six or seven people there for support, and the other comics were supportive.
KSM: I think that comics are generally supportive to first timers here in Vancouver, too.
SJ: Depends on your material.
KSM:How?
SJ: Well, there’s quite a few newbies and all their jokes are just shock. It’s like, this is what you find funny? Can’t you find humour in something else? If someone’s like that, or extremely arrogant, they aren’t going to get much support.
KSM:How soon did you do it again?
SJ: The week after. It was a cool show hosted and run by Tim Nutt who’s an awesome comedian in Kelowna. I remember watching him on the Comedy Network in middle school, so it was really cool that he was there. And he’s got a great laugh. If you can make him laugh, it’s awesome.
KSM:Who are your other favourites?
SJ: I like Doug Stanhope. Bill Burr. I like Brian Regan. He’s like as far as you get here, and Stanhope’s way over there [motions a spectrum]. Regan is totally squeaky clean. That’s his great appeal.
KSM:What do you think you are?
SJ: I never found dirty stuff to be too funny.
KSM:Do you ever enjoy that kind of comedy?
SJ: It has to be clever. A lot of comics have great admiration for someone who can be so funny, and be completely clean.
KSM:There’s an interesting fixation on that. Like how Jerry Seinfeld feels he’s let himself down if he swears because there was another, better solution. But sometimes it just feels good, and it’s funny, and whatever! [Laughs] So what if audiences laugh when you yell or swear? What’s so wrong with that?
SJ: Well that’s the argument. Your goal is to make people laugh.
KSM: I think that anything, if it’s funny, is kind of worth it.
SJ: My friend Amy has this great bit. Both of her parents are clowns, so she’s got this bit about the first time her parents had a safe sex talk to her. It ends with her pulling out a balloon animal balloon and going, ‘so they gave me one of these and said to be safe. I had some fucked up expectations.’ She thought it was kind of cheap to use a prop, but I think it was necessary for the joke. It’s not cheap.
KSM:It’s funny because you’re supposed to be fearless and able to tackle anything. Then there are these weird, arbitrary lines about what is and isn’t okay. Is it more about worrying what other comics think?
SJ: I don’t know. You don’t want to deface the profession of comedian.
KSM:Yes.
SJ: If you’ve been on stage ten times and you’re doing just this horrible stuff. [mocking voice] Oh freedom of speech! Don’t call yourself a comedian. It’s the same reason I can’t go to a music open mic, strum a guitar not knowing what I’m playing, then smash it on the stage after and be like, I’m basically The Who.
KSM: Tell me about your worst show.
SJ: Hmmm. I have a temper.
KSM: Do you? I didn’t know that!
SJ: I’ve gotten very angry on stage before.
KSM:Tell me about that reaction.
SJ: I can tell you what my worst heckle was. It wasn’t even like a true heckle.
KSM: But it rattled you.
SJ: It was a fundraiser in Kelowna. I was doing a joke and a woman in the front row turns to her friend and goes, so am I driving you home? Like, they’re already planning how they can get out of there. It was, ohhhhh, awful.
KSM: I was about to say I love that… [Laughs] But I’m sorry that happened.
SJ: No, it’s funny in retrospect.
KSM:It’s funny because it’s totally different things than people expect that leave you feel feeling gutted.
SJ: Other heckles, like, you suck! They’re like, whatever. Or, you’re not funny! It’s like, well, some people think I am. So there.
KSM: What’s the best way that you’ve dealt with it?
SJ: One time I asked this person who making a lot of noise if they were a smoker and they said yes. So I went, well, why don’t you go for a smoke?
KSM:That’s good! Most people don’t realize that heckling isn’t usually insults. It’s mostly people trying to be helpful. Like, I love that too! And you’re like, shhhhhh, you ruined my punchline.
SJ: And sometimes there are jokes where the entire premise, entire bits, can be thwarted by a quick, simple fact. The whole premise of the joke is wrong to begin with. And then I can’t enjoy the rest of the joke because it’s based on this false premise.
KSM:So you overthink things.
SJ: I find continuity errors.
KSM:But when it’s going fast, the audience doesn’t care. People seem to have an inherent interest in comedy. Actually, the question that I get asked most often is why I do it. What do you say to that?
SJ: I say it’s fun. It’s awesome. It’s a good creative outlet. You have to be creative somehow.
KSM: So what’s your end game?
SJ: I mean, I’m kind of a realistic person.
KSM:I can believe that…
SJ: Yeah. [Laughs] I don’t expect myself to get super famous. That’d be great, but, at this point I would just I would like to be able to live comfortably in Vancouver.
KSM:Off comedy?
SJ: I mean, if I could, and not be broke all the time. I just started a TFSA. [Laughs] I’m trying to play it smart. As a realistic goal, I would like to be able to keep my job and just do shows around BC. Get to Just For Laughs. That would be great.
KSM: I think that’s more than realistic. You will do that. So what, if anything, is off limits in comedy for you?
SJ: I don’t think anything is off limits. But I do think there has to be a joke, or something clever, or a point about it. It just has to be clever. Cause, if you’re doing something that is very edgy or controversial and you’re not making a good point, then you just look dumb.
KSM:I hear two things. It has to be funny and it has to make a good point.
SJ: Ideally. But that’s just my sense of humour. That’s just what I find funny. Some sort of opinion.
KSM:And continuity.
SJ: Yeah.
KSM: Okay, what’s one thing that you think people don’t know about standup.
SJ: I don’t want to say that it’s more rehearsed than people think, but to some people it looks like they’re making it up on the spot.
KSM: If you’re good, yeah, it looks like that. And what’s one thing that people don’t know about you.
SJ: I’m not a very interesting person. Hmmm, let’s see. I could list off a bunch of things. I’ve got really bad eyesight. I could burn things with my glasses. They’re like magnifying glasses. I’m a nerd, most people know that…
KSM: Something we don’t know, please.
SJ: I play magic cards. And I love pizza. Well, everyone knows that.
If you liked Stuart Jones as much as he loves pizza, you can catch him at Yuk Yuks where he will be advancing to the second round of the Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Competition in August.
Anders Nilsen is the Minneapolis-based cartoonist responsible for publishing a universally adored series of mini comics called Big Questions that features tiny birds with really deep thoughts on life. His newest book, Poetry is Useless, is a collection of images and doodles from the last several years of his personal sketchbooks. There are no birds in Poetry is Useless, but there are a lot of big questions—about art, why we make art, how we value it, and what it means to be an artist. Marc Bell is a Canadian cartoonist and fine artist who is perhaps most well-known for blurring the line between fine art and doodling. After four years of working in the art world, he’s made what everyone (who knows anything) is calling a “triumphant” return to the world of graphic narrative by publishing Stroppy—a madcap adventure tale about a song writing contest gone wrong. Stroppy also has thoughts on poetry.
Anders Nilsen by Anders Nilsen, Courtesy of Anders NilsenMarc Bell by Marc Bell, Courtesy of Marc Bell
Nilsen and Bell are at Lucky’s Comics in Vancouver on July 17th at 7:00 pm to launch their respective books. Shannon Tien from Sad Mag had the chance to talk to them about authenticity, capitalism, and self-help for writers, among other things. The best of their lengthy phone call is what follows:
Shannon Tien: Something that I think ties both of your books together is thinking about the process of creating art, or poetry specifically. How do your philosophies cross over or differ on this subject?
Anders Nilsen: Boy, that’s a tough one.
ST: It’s a heavy question to start with. I’m sorry.
AN: [laughing] I don’t know if I could do a capsule description of Marc’s philosophy. What do you think Marc?
Marc Bell: Well we made our books independently, but somehow they both ended up referencing poetry.
AN: That’s true.
MB: We did a tour together a few years ago so this is like a reunion tour…I don’t know how to answer that question either [laughing].
AN: I mean I think we both have a little off-the-cuff playfulness in our work. And probably a little—I don’t know how to put this—a little snottiness or something?
MB: Yeah we’re both sarcastic when we reference poetry.
I like writing poetry if I know it doesn’t have to be good. So for example I wrote Clancy the Poet’s poetry and that was super fun because I could do whatever I wanted and I didn’t have to worry if it was good or not. I could write reams and reams of Clancy’s poetry.
ST: But I love Clancy’s poetry!
MB: Right? It’s pretty good, in it’s way.
AN: I think it’s actually extremely deep.
But I think we’re both artists and we’ve both planted ourselves in that existence, but we’re both a little sceptical and like to make fun of ourselves…and the potential for being pretentious.
MB: Yeah and then I can’t exactly knock poetry so much because I do all these drawings and they have random text in them. They’re sort of poetry. Like my stuff is not that far from poetry really.
AN: Yeah, so I think we’re both sort of making fun of the thing we’re also actually doing.
MB: [laughing] Yeah, you got it.
AN: I actually sort of think of my book as my poetry collection, if there is such a thing, you know, making comics.
Clancy Recites a Poem from Stroppy by Marc Bell
ST: Ok. I guess I was thinking that Clancy, he’s a poet, and all his poetry ends up doing for him is…
MB: He’s sort of co-opted by the Schnauzers.
ST: Right. So it’s like the opposite of the idea that poetry can save you.
MB: He was against the song contest idea. He was against all of it. But I don’t want to ruin the end! There’s a twist to the story.
AN: Basically, poetry is a tool of the oppressor and we’re both in revolutionary mode against the aggressor. Right Marc?
MB: That’s it, exactly.
AN: Capitalism.
MB: Society!
Refer to Clancy’s poem called “Society”.
ST: Okay so this is more a question for Anders, but your book is fragments of your old sketchbooks. What ties the fragments together?
AN: Really the only thing that ties the fragments together is the fact that they all were in my sketchbooks. They were all just things that either kind of happened or ideas I had that were worth putting down but not worth turning into an actual book.
Poetry is Useless by Anders Nilsen
ST: And how many years back does it stretch?
AN: I think the oldest pieces in the book are probably from 2008. There are 22 or 24 books. There’s a funny thing about sketchbook collections because you know that they’re sort of bullshit a little. You know the artist is editing a little and not showing you the really crappy pages, which I’m not showing you either. So each of those notebooks, there’s maybe 6, 7, 8, or maybe 10 pages from each of them.
MB: We did a couple crappy pages in one of them.
AN: Yeah last time we went on tour together we made some crappy pages together and I didn’t show those. We promise to be better on this tour.
ST: Speaking of editing, what’s the point of leaving your editorial marks in the published version of your sketchbook?
AN: I try to maintain readability. So if there’s so much crossing out that it feels like it’s going to make it hard for the reader to understand what I’m writing, then I clean it up a little with Photoshop. But in general, it is my sketchbook so part of what may be appealing about it is the fact that it’s a record of me kind of thinking out loud, on the page. So the mistakes are an important part of that.
Also, part of that work is me responding to my own process. So as I’m doing a drawing and then it turns to shit, I sort of have this idea that I want to still turn that page into an interesting page if I can. So if it goes in a weird direction, I want to try to work within the stakes of those unexpected failures.
ST: One of your stick figures in the book asks how to maintain authenticity after the death of the author. Does this sketchbook have anything to do with that question?
AN: [laughing] Ah, you’re probably calling me out for not being as smart as I pretend to be.
Poetry is Useless by Anders Nilsen
ST: But it’s a good thing to think about.
AN: I mean, I sort of don’t believe in authenticity and, you know, the sketchbook has a sort of fake authenticity, as I was saying…you always wonder what’s getting edited out and you’re always getting this sort of idealized view of the artist’s supposed candid moments, which is partly why I’m showing the whole spread of the sketchbook, to show that I’m not picking and choosing the little bits, but the truth is I am. I am not showing the crappy pages. It is work for a finished book. So yeah I think authenticity is highly overrated.
ST: What gave you the idea to draw the back of people’s heads for their portraits? Are they people you know?
AN: Some of them are people I know, but a lot of times when I’m in an audience, like at a poetry reading [laughing], or other events with live speakers, I just want something for my eyes and my hands to do, so I’m drawing them. And also when I’m in public, I don’t always want people to notice, so it’s easier if they’re turned away from me a little bit. I guess I’m a little bit of a coward.
MB: A poet and a coward.
AN: All poets are cowards.
It’s sort of funny. People’s hairdos are really fascinating to draw, as are ears.
ST: I think because you can’t look at the back of your own head, it’s like the most vulnerable part of your appearance.
AN: Yeah sure. That’s a nice idea.
ST: So if poetry is dead, comics are…
AN: Um…stupid?
Actually comics are fucking awesome.
ST: What would you say Marc?
MB: STUPID!
ST: How was the transition moving back to narrative, Marc, after working in the art world for a while?
MB: It was difficult. I’ve mentioned this in a few interviews I think, but I was kind of scared and I started reading self-help books. The equivalent of a writer’s self-help, or if someone wants to get into the film or TV industry, this is the equivalent of self-help books, like books about writing screenplays. They sort of helped, I think.
ST: Do you mind me asking which ones?
MB: I wish I could remember the titles. One I looked at, it was very basic. It was just about the 20 different kinds of stories people tell.
AN: Which number is Stroppy?
MB: Oh man. I don’t even know if Stroppy…
AN: Maybe it’s 22.
MB: Maybe it’s 23. I made a new form of story for Stroppy.
AN: By the way my new graphic novel is going to be number 16, so…
Stroppy by Marc Bell
ST: Oh yeah? Is this book called STORY? Because I feel like I was reading the exact same book earlier this year when I was trying to write a novel.
MB: That could be it. Was it an orange book?
AN: Marc doesn’t care about titles. He only remembers the colours of books.
MB: Not interested in titles!
ST: No, mine was purple.
MB: Maybe it was a different edition! They were like the orange one didn’t sell so let’s throw purple on there. People LOVE purple.
Did it help you with your novel?
ST: No, not really.
MB: Well I actually wanted to try and find a formula to follow, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to do that.
AN: I’m trying to find a formula too. And I was thinking of inserting one of Hans Christen Andersen’s tales into my new graphic novel.
ST: Oh yeah! That would be great. He’s a weirdo. So the formula didn’t work out for you Marc. Did any other self-help books help you with building narrative?
MB: Oh no. There was one I was supposed to read…
AN: The Bible?
MB: [laughing] No. I never got around to reading the one I was supposed to read. I just started.
ST: Well, I think it turned out well. I like Stroppy.
Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber are the creative brains behind Pendula, an interactive art installation that uses the movement of swings to create music and projections, which premiered at Vancouver’s 2015 Jazz Festival. Nancy, the swing set builder, is a VJ, filmmaker and new media artist. Kiran, the music programmer, is a composer and performer whose artistic interests lay at the intersection of technology and music. Below, Sad Mag’s Shannon Tien talks to the duo about agency in art, teamwork, and the community value of swing sets.
Still from Pendula by Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber
Shannon Tien: Tell me about Pendula.
Nancy Lee: Pendula is a multimedia, audio-visual, interactive installation. We use both hardware and software to take the swinging motion and turn them into audio or visual parameters, which means their effects that can be seen and heard during our installation. Using swing sets.
ST: How did this idea come together? What was the inspiration behind it?
NL: I started building outdoor swing sets as a public interactive installation piece. And then I did an event where I installed 8 swing sets indoors during an electronic music night that I organized. And there I met Kiran for the first time–Kiran was there swinging on the swings. And at that time she thought, “Hey, maybe we could make this swing into an interactive piece.” I’d also had projections installed. At that time it wasn’t an interactive piece, I just had projections over the swing area.
And then we later met again at New Forms festival working as production assistant volunteers. And that’s when we had time to sit down and talk about the project and our vision for it. The swing set I had at the event wasn’t my full vision that I had for it in my mind. I wanted the projections to reflect the social interactions that happened within the swinging area.
Kiran Bhumber: Having seen the swings at Nancy’s party, not interactive, I was very inspired by the idea of making the visuals interactive and also adding audio elements [and a] musical performance element, which was amalgamated into the installation at Jazz Fest. We had a musical performance at the top of every hour where I played clarinet and we had a cellist and I programmed the swings to be an actual instrument and act as an effects pedal. We had the swings changing the sounds of these acoustic instruments.
Still from Pendula by Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber
ST: What was the timeline for this project to come to total fruition?
NL: About 8 months on and off.
ST: Can you tell me about the experience of performing it at Jazz Fest? Was anyone allowed to go in and swing?
NL: Yeah, after every performance, we invited people to come use the swing sets. And it was interesting, during the performance, because I’m playing the swings, it was interesting to see people’s facial expressions, how they reacted to the piece. You could see their “aha!” moments when they figured out what the swings were actually doing. I enjoyed seeing that moment.
ST: And how did you start working with swings? I’m just wondering because there used to be a public installation by my bus stop in Montreal where swings played different musical tones.
NL: Oh yeah I’ve heard of that! I started working with swings because I like climbing trees and I like building things out doors. Swings are kind of an easy thing to build. You just need rope. And I was dumpster diving and salvaging construction wood that I would use for swing seats. It costs very little to build a swing and the kind of return you get for the community or user is so much greater than the financial cost of building it. It is a really great investment for the community to build swing sets. You generate so much joy from it.
Usually we’re used to art installations being behind glass or a “do not touch area”. There’s a very definitive boundary between the observer and the art piece. And with this swing set, people do come up to us and ask, “Are we allowed to touch it?” But when people can play on the swing set they kind of become the piece. And some of the people who were using the swing sets, they kind of understood that, you know, “I’m becoming a part of the installation.”
KB: And also the addition of individuals on each swing. The piece is going to be different depending how many people are on the swings. So, the social adaptation and amalgamation of their swinging motion to create more aspects of the piece.
NL: We have three swing sets, so they’re kind of a three-piece ensemble. And [the people] all play the swings in a different way so the collective audio-visual output is different every single time.
ST: Did anybody get really into it at Jazz Fest?
NL: I think at the Jazz Fest, because of the setting, people were into figuring out the swings. People tested out different things. I think with public art installations, people are still pretty shy. People were more into figuring out how it worked than playing it as an instrument.
Still from Pendula by Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber
ST: Is this the first time you’ve set this piece up?
NL: It’s the first time that we’ve done the three swing sets with the audio and visual.
KB: It’s been challenging incorporating the audio into a space that will allow it. So there’s no sound bleed. That’s an issue we had with Jazz Fest as well. The previous installs have been just visual because of that.
ST: How did you overcome that challenge at Jazz Fest?
KB: We got bigger speakers. ST: Have you two collaborated before?
NL: This is our first collaboration together, but this is just the beginning of something. We plan to do more interactive musical pieces and performance pieces as well. We have so many ideas in our head that we would definitely like to explore in the future.
ST: Do you have any upcoming events?
KB: I just had my upcoming event today actually. I curated a show for Jazz Fest that was all based on interactive works. So technology and music. But at this moment Nancy and I are going to Kamploops in a couple days to start working on a new project. It’s kind of more vague now. We’re just going to check out the site.
NL: It’ll also be interactive, but more on the exhibition side of things, rather than a performance.
Pendula was on exhibition in Vancouver June 20 and 21st as a part of the Vancouver Jazz Festival. Visit www.swingwithpendula.com for further information on the Pendula Exhibit, and www.coastaljazz.ca for more information on the festival.
This interview has been edited and condensed. Thank you to Jelissa at Classics Agency.
