It’s time to reclaim Valentine’s Day from the Hallmarks of the world and dedicate it to the ones we really love: CATS.
They are the ones that offer endless snuggles, unconditional love, and endorse your plans to lay on the sofa all day watching Angelina Jolie movies. Their fluffy physique demonstrates the need to delete My FitnessPal off your phone for good, because really, if I eat a serving of Oreos, I don’t really want to know how many grams of sugar that is, thank you.
Don’t have a cat to snuggle? Now’s your chance to see what all the fuss on YouTube is about.
For the month of February, SAD Mag has teamed up with the Vancouver Orphan Rescue Association (VOKRA) to help connect you with the life-partner you’ve always dreamed of. It’s simple:
Adopt a cat or kitten from VOKRA in the month of February and we will give you a free 1 year subscription to Sad Mag, starting with the Cat Issue!
The Cat Issue, launching February 21st at Make Gallery (257 East 7th Ave)
Simply email hello@sadmag.ca your address along with proof of adoption, and we’ll hook you up with some thematically appropriate reading material for your long stints on the sofa in a puddle of cuddles.
Happy Feline-times day!
SAD Mag and BLIM present CAT WALK
Want to celebrate your love of cats? Join us in fawning over SAD Mag’s latest release: the Cat issue (no. 18), dedicated to our feline friends (somebody had to do it)!
A 48-page full-colour stunner filled with original art, photography, and stories by Kristin Cheung, Dina Del Bucchia, Ola Volo, and more!
We’ll be kicking things off with a feline-inspired fashion show, curated by Blim and Keiko Boxall, at 9PM. Then we’ll knock your cat-themed socks off with a dance number by the infamous Light Twerkerz dancers ft. MC AutoKrat and DJ Rich Nines.
Come early to see the magazine & check out the art show (by Ola Volo), stay late for tunes and drinks.
Party hosted by Cynara Geissler: writer, editor, book publicist, and fierce defender of the selfie. Cynara is a print enthusiast (in both reading material and frocks) and her closet houses a litter of cat dresses. She co-hosts Fatties on Ice, an independent feminist podcast on pop culture, film, and new media.
In November we put out a call for a new Editor-in-Chief, hoping to find a talented, creative individual who wanted to join our strange, eclectic, magazine-loving family. We were floored and delighted by the responses we got from applicants, but one person stood out in particular: contributor and pal Sara Harowitz, who you might remember from her interview with Raffi in our last issue. She’ll be taking the wheel for our upcoming issue, MOVEMENT, and we couldn’t be more thrilled! Get to know her a little bit with the Q&A below, and then come say hello at our upcoming CAT issue launch party on February 21st. – Michelle Reid
Where are you from and what do you do?
I was born and raised in Richmond (DON’T STOP READING, IT GETS BETTER, I SWEAR) and moved to Toronto to attend Ryerson University’s Journalism School. I came back to Vancouver about a year-and-a-half ago and now I live in Mount Pleasant and work as a full-time journalist and editor.
What makes you most excited about SAD Mag?
Oh man! Everything. I’m so excited to help grow the magazine and continue producing the type of wonderful work that has been done so far. I’m jazzed to be working with such a great team, and am thrilled that I get to help tell interesting, bizarre stories to all of you beautiful people.
What do you love about magazines?
Magazines are my favourite way to consume journalism, and I have a very large collection of them in my apartment. I love knowing how much thought goes into each page and seeing how each piece in an issue fits together. Magazines are beautiful, and each one is so different. They allow art and writing to come together so perfectly.
Some of the local magazines I really like are The Lab, MONTECRISTO, Vancouver Magazine, Nuvo, and BC Business. I could go on.
Who is your dream interview subject (now that you’ve already tackled Raffi?)
This is’t a very unique answer, but I would have to say Truman Capote. He seemed like the perfect combination of eccentric, honest, talkative, and insightful. I’d love to hear what funny and painfully on point things he would have to say about modern culture. I wonder what he would think of “Twilight” or Taylor Swift.
Tell us about your favourite local hangouts
As far as my ‘hood goes, places I frequent include Caffe Barney, El Caminos, and the Cascade. I’ve only been to Burdock and Co. once so I can’t call it a favourite yet, but the meal was so good that months later I’m still thinking about it. Some other places around town that I like are the Alibi Room for beers, Revolver and Black Echo for coffee, Earnest for ice cream, La Taqueria for tacos, Teaja for tea, The Diamond for cocktails, and the Oakwood for everything.
Do you have a secret talent?
I was a fairly serious dancer up until second-year university; now I take recreational classes. I still have my pointe shoes and sometimes put them on in my apartment and play around, just to remember how it feels.
SAD Mag chats with Jamie Smith about her upcoming collab involving 18 local artists, hundreds of anonymous letters and a whole lotta love.
Shannyn Higgins Photography
SAD Mag: Hi there! So tell us who you are, and a little bit about how the Love Letter Project came to be:
Jamie Smith: I am Jamie Smith. I am an artist myself and I have started getting more involved in creating shows and experiences for people, such as ROVE. Within this community-based art activity I naturally meet lots of different people, one of them being Fiona McGlynn.
Fiona and I met because we were at a little dinner with a group called Loaded Bow, run by a group of sweet ladies who do lots of interesting things in the city. At the dinner, we all had to share a story and so I shared a confession. I had just finished a project called “Confessions” where I painted different anonymous confessions and so I read someone’s anonymous confession as my story. Fiona read a love letter from someone else–also anonymous—so afterward we both came together and thought, “Ok, who are you and what do you do?” (laughs).
She had started a project and a blog, based on her own experience. She was going through a difficult time and didn’t really have a lot of direction and people gave her all sorts of advice, but a mentor said to her, “Why don’t you stop worrying so much about yourself and instead think about how you might make something better for someone else?” And that clicked, so she thought about her life, and difficulties, and her parents’ divorce when she was young, which was really hard on her. So she decided to write a children’s book, to help kids navigate around divorce. Surprisingly, there are very few books that deal with divorce.
The book is beautifully illustrated, so very kid-friendly, but really about communicating the message: “it’s not your fault.” So this jumpstarted her life in a totally different direction: then she thought, what if I gave people a platform where other people could write letters about an experience they had, but directed at someone else going through a similar problem? So that’s how The Love Letter Project blog, started! Now it’s been a year and there have been over 180 letters from all across the world.
SM: And so are these old-school letters, with pen and papers and coming through the post? Sorry, I’m totally an analog girl over here.
JS: No actually, most of them come through online. That being said, they’ve done different letter-writing parties at a community center and that’s all hand written letter writing. Whether they’re submitted online or in person, the letters are written to help others overcome life’s greatest challenges. Topics cover many areas of life including relationship, loss, self image, illness, and many others. Authors can write anonymously or under their own name. Letters are then posted on www.theloverletterproject.ca where readers can go to find support and encouragement, and be inspired to create change in their lives.
SM: That sounds amazing! What can people expect at the opening tonight at Omega Gallery?
JS: What you can expect is a spectacular little event in a cute, small venue that is perfect for an art show/book launch. The art show includes all of the works which appear in the book, with the letter displayed beside it. Each artist chose a letter that resonated with them and responded to it in a 20 x 20 canvas. If you feel moved to purchase a piece, all of the funds go directly back to the artist and the book sales go back into producing other Love Letter Projects. We’re going to have beer and wine for $5 and cupcakes for $3–then of course all of the art with the letters.
DEETS:
Friday February 6, 2015 from 6:30pm – 10:00pm
Omega Gallery (4290 Dunbar St.)
FREE
RSVP here
The Capture Photography festival is in the works, hitting Vancouver full-swing with a knock-out line-up of photo shows, events, and workshops during the whole month of April. But for now, you can support the festival–and help make is even more amazing–by attending their fancy-pants Capture Photography Festival Annual Fundraiser.
For those who love all things miniature (as much as we do), Capture’s Annual Fundraiser marks the launch of ‘Mini” Artist Editions, while being hosted at the MINI Canada dealership in Yaletown. Along with the chance to go home with a mini photo series, you could also have yourself immortalized in mini-bust form by local 3D-printing company Tinkerine.
The Tinkerine team will be onsite capturing scans and printing complimentary miniature 3D busts of each attendee. In addition to cocktails and canapés, guests will graze on food and wine from Gotham Steakhouse and premium wines, and have the opportunity to speak with Capture’s participating artists and galleries.
Funds raised go towards Capture’s programming and installations, including major works at the Dal Grauer Substation, Lonsdale Quay, and other public spaces. Tickets for the Annual Fundraiser are on sale now through Eventbrite. Though the ticket prices may not be “mini”, we still think this event is going to be an amazing boost for the photo community in Vancouver.
The Essentials
The 2015 Capture Photography Festival Annual Fundraiser
When: February 5, 2015, 7:30–10:00 pm Where: MINI Yaletown, 1039 Hamilton Street Vancouver, BC, V6B 5T4 Ticket price: $175
I’m painfully on time for everything, so I arrive at Yuk Yuks for Yo! Vancity Laughs Vol.9 with a friend at 7pm sharp. Which is great, except it turns out that it doesn’t actually start until 8pm. So we grab a seat and chat as we watch the night’s comics filter in.
Two of the comics, who turn out to be the show’s MCs (and who will later transform into their glib hip hop alter egos, Game Genies, complete with literal money bags, a Tupac mask, and a comically large watch that I could have used earlier…) come over and introduce themselves.
Gracious and welcoming, they joke that they want to say hello because, in a minute, we’re going to think they’re “really ignorant.”
And in a minute the show does start, but they don’t start it – because no proper hip hop show starts without a hype man. As I learn the minute the show starts. Then, once we’re all hyped up, Game Genies take the stage.
“If you’re here tonight this means you must love comedy, and you must love hip hop,” they exclaim. “Who is your all time favourite hip hop artist?”
With their pick of people who look like they hail from Kitsilano, they choose a young woman who doesn’t manage to dart her eyes away fast enough.
“I like musicals?” She says, in the kind of adorable upspeak that gets the other guy the job.
But the hosts are charming and adept at loosening up a crowd, and the diverse pool of talented comics doesn’t hurt, either: Devon Alexander, Kwasi Thomas, Jonny Paul (who is never more charming than in those improvisational moments brought on by “helpful” audience members), Brendan Bourque, and headliner, Patrick Maliha (who does one dope urban impression that is as natural as me typing dope – but it was hilarious).
By the end, the audience is as comfortable screaming “How old school iz you” as they are asking if that loaf of bread is gluten free. The only thing the show was wrong about is that you have to love hip hop to have a great time – you don’t. You just have to love comedy and let yourself get swept up in the hype.
For information about upcoming shows, visit: yukyuks.com
“We’re all boxed in inside our cubicles, glued to our technology,” says Diane Brown, director of Ruby Slippers Theatre, when I ask her what the inspiration was behind this week’s double bill. Après Moi and The List are two translated Quebecois plays running from January 28th to February 1st at Studio 16. In addition to their francophone origins, the plays share a common theme: human isolation.
“People are not getting the human connection they need as social beings,” Brown explains, “We don’t know how—or we don’t have the courage—to reach out and build those connections.” Apparently, she’s not the only one who feels this way. In a Vancouver Foundation survey conducted in 2012, one in four residents of Metro Vancouver reported feeling alone more often than they would like and one in three reported that they found it difficult to make new friends. This trend toward increasing isolation and disconnection may be linked to poorer health, decreased trust and hardened attitudes toward others in the community. The Foundation poetically calls this effect a “corrosion of caring.”
Theatre, Brown hopes, can be part of the solution to our “corroding” community. Unlike TV or online entertainment, attending a theatre performance is interactive, “a conversation.” Viewers don’t just plug into a screen, they experience the action in an engaging way. A play doesn’t just give viewers a way to pass the time; it “gives [them] something to talk about in the car ride home.”
My commute home from Studio 16 is testament that Brown has achieved her goal.
Both Après Moi and The List are thought provoking pieces. Written by Christian Begin and directed by Brown herself, Après Moi is a collection of repeated moments—the joining of five disconnected but parallel lives under one shabby motel roof off Route 117. Story lines overlap and interweave, resulting in a profoundly human examination of love, lust and letting go. Snippets of TV commercials and splashes of clever irony are integrated into the action, adding humour to an otherwise dark story.
The List, written by Jennifer Tremblay and directed by Jack Paterson, is a 50 minute solo piece starring France Perras. A stunning examination of obsession and guilt, love and family, friendship and sacrifice, The List is the story of an isolated and anxious woman who believes she has murdered her only friend. Evocative set design and dramatic lighting compliment a powerful performance by Perras, drawing the audience into her character’s desolate life in small town Quebec.
Poetically scripted and compellingly executed, Après Moi and The List will give you something to think—and hopefully talk—about.
Studio 16 1555 West 7th Avenue Show @ 8PM Tickets: $18.50(student/senior) / $23 (general admission) Purchase tickets
We are now well into the winter months but the phrase “Winter is coming” (not just a pop culture reference!) is one that haunts us Canadians even on the balmiest summer days. Love it or hate it, we can’t avoid having some kind of relationship with the winter.
Brie Neilson and Ian Moar are local artists and musicians who recently collaborated on a show exploring the connections we have with our longest season. The exhibit ran from November 20–December 19 at the Lookout Gallery. These two are worth keeping on the radar—it’s always a pleasure to see what they’ll be up to next.
SadMag: What was your process for coming up with inspiration for this exhibit?
Brie Neilson:After moving back from Montreal last year, I was over for a visit at Ian and Tracy’s (Ian’s wife). We were talking about project goals and Tracy said, “Hey you two should do a painting show together!” We were lightly brainstorming different themes and someone jokingly blurted out something Game of Thrones related and we ended up settling on ‘Winter is Coming’.
Ian Moar:We instantly started getting cool winter images, so we decided to go with that theme.
SM: Do you feel that there’s something about the experience of winter that is quintessential to a Canadian artist’s identity?
BN:When I lived in Montreal and winter was especially long and cold, it was very important to get out into it. To embrace it and use it—go skating and skiing and walking, and not hide inside. It was the only way to get through it. Many of my childhood winter memories growing up in BC were from our cabin at Whistler where we were always outside. Going back in was so nice, so cozy. I guess I like the contrast, the extremes.
Because we experience true winter here in Canada, I think it can make us more active people. And maybe more creative, because having seasons provides boundaries and limitations. Summer is wide open, while winter binds us—having the flow from one to the other is interesting and inspiring and provides momentum.
IM:Winter in Vancouver is such a different experience than the rest of Canada (with the biblical rains here) but I think winter shapes all Canadians, and the colder harsher places can turn out great artists because you’re not sitting around sunbathing on the beach, you’re escaping winter via music or painting or whatever.
SM: You each took a unique perspective on the winter theme. How has your relationship with winter shaped your pieces?
BN: I have a very positive relationship with winter. My paintings are all inspired by family photos: old and current and from all of my ‘homes’: Vancouver, Whistler, Montreal and Nova Scotia (where my husband is from). I went with a more literal interpretation of winter and ended up painting snowy landscapes and cabin scenes, my parents on the ski hill and friends in fur coats. I was hoping to evoke in the viewer the kinds of feelings I get when I think of winter.
IM: Winter for me has a bleak, dark vibe. Aside from skiing I could really do without it altogether. My pieces have a bit of that moodiness and darkness. I tried to combat my natural inclination to paint only ruins, graveyards and the like with some things a little more life-giving as well.
SM: Did this particular exhibit present any new challenges for you as artists?
BN:Timing was an issue! We thought we had so much time when we planned the show, but we both ended up cramming which is challenging and exciting, and almost always inevitable. Also, it was an interesting approach to plan the show and then make the work. Usually a show comes out of work, I think.
IM: I really have not painted much since I finished my fine arts degree in the late ’80s, so it took a bit to get my groove on. Hopefully this will kickstart me into painting on a regular basis as I really enjoyed the process of creating pieces for this show.
SM: Do you have any projects lined up next?
BN: I’ll be back to focusing on my music again. I have a gig coming up on February 6 with Arnt Arntzen at Skinny Fat Jack’s on Main Street.
IM:Not right now, but I want to keep the momentum up and try to get a show together in the not too distant future.
“Oh, the skateboard man, the skateboard man, skateboarding down the road as fast as he can!” You sang to me while I walked down the alleyway. Before you broke out in song you had been raking gravel back and forth across the road, not collecting leaves or trying to get pieces of a broken bottle into a manageable pile; you were just raking rocks and dust while wearing a very comfortable looking ivory white sweat suit.
And I’m not sure why you began singing about my skateboard and me. Maybe you saw how upset I was and you wanted to cheer me up, or you were just looking for an excuse to play your rake like a guitar. Either way, I instinctively started to sing along and banged on my air drum-set like an Albertan Neil Peart, using my skateboard as an exaggerated drumstick. When we’d finished I thanked you and kept on down the road, face wet with tears, even more confused than before.
For the month of February, all new subscribers to Sad Mag will be entered to win an exclusive print of “i still dream about you” by Roselina Hung. Each subscription counts for 2 entires!
Local artist Roselina Hung still dreams about her last cat Ari, and isn’t afraid to talk—or draw—about it. In her latest piece, i still dream about you, she incorporates these feline reveries into a poster-sized collage print, piecing together a series of hand-drawn portraits her own and others’ past cats. For ex-pet owners, Hung writes on her blog, the print might capture feelings of love, loss and obsession; but “for anyone who hasn’t owned a cat before,” she warns, “the image can propagate the idea of the ‘crazy cat lady’ ”.
For the sake of all our self-proclaimed crazy cat readers out there, we couldn’t let this opportunity pass us by. Sad Mag sat down with Hung for the scoop on all things art, feminism, and of course…cats.
SM: So lets start with the basics. Where are you from? How did you get into all of this?
RH: I’m from Vancouver. I grew up here and did my undergrad at UBC in fine arts. After I finished there, I moved to London, England and I did my masters there at Saint Martins. I was there for about 3 years and then I moved back at the end of 2006.
SM: How did you originally get into art?
RH: I think I’ve kind of always been doing it. There was never really any doubt in my mind that this was what I was going to do. When I was growing up, I’d tell myself that I was going to do something else—you know, like a more “practical” job. But I always just kind of ended up going back to art. I just always knew.
SM: You’ve done some residences in some amazing places—Banff, Paris, Reykjavik—has any one place stuck with you in particular?
RH: Each one was so different. I got something different out of all of them. When I went to Paris, that was the first time I moved away from home…and the first time I moved somewhere where I didn’t speak the language. I had a studio there just off the Seine and across from the Louvre, so that was a very romantic idea of being an artist. [The residency] in Michigan was kind of like summer camp. Off in the woods, we were in cabins and there was a lagoon. We’d all come together for home-cooked meals. And the Reykjavik one was an even smaller group, and the environment there was so unlike anywhere else—almost no trees, everything’s low bush, shrubbery. Parts of it look like the moon!
SM: Can you tell me a little about the cat print?
RH: While I was [in Michigan] I found some fabric with all these animal heads on it. Something about it was so tacky and gross, but it also really attracted me. So I made some mock-ups with different fabrics I found—a cat one, dogs, horses.
SM: How did you find the cats you used?
RH: I wanted to find images with people’s pets that they didn’t have anymore—that had passed away or been given away, so I was asking people for pet photos. Not many people sent anything to me actually…I think dog people would send more. I even had people write me and say, “let me know when you do a dog one.”
SM: What about cats attracted you?
RH: I’ve always just liked cats, and I had a cat for a while. And my cat still comes up in my dreams—you know, every once in a while. Once you’ve had a pet and it passes away, you just always miss it.
http://roselinahung.com/
SM: Is that the same idea behind your pretty boys kill me collection?
RH: There’s a bit of a parallel. But with the pretty boys, I guess it’s a different kind of desire and love…
SM: I hope so!
RH: (Laughing) A different kind. I’ve done a couple now with different [themes].
SM: Where do the titles come from?
RH: They’re from text messages and chats that I’ve had.
SM: Really? How do those pretty boys feel about it?
RH: I don’t know…I haven’t talked to any of them. In some ways, they’re so generic—anyone could say them with how people text and chat. I don’t even know that they’d know it was from them.
SM: It seems so much of our communication is like that these days—generic. And that we build so much of our identity through these almost anonymous texts and chats. Did you think about that while you were working on the pieces?
RH: I was interested in the way that we were communicating desire and love through these little snippets of text. There’s only so much that you can put into [them]. They aren’t even original; we’re just repeating things that we’ve seen or heard somewhere before. Kind of like lyrics from songs—clichéd and repeated.
SM: I also noticed that you opted for male instead of the traditional female muse for this collection. What was your intention with that?
RH: I was thinking about that a lot, actually. They had “pretty boys” in art history. A lot of times they’d be the angels or the gods—all quite young and angelic looking. But it was always men painting them. I just kind of wanted to see a woman do it.
SM: So, the women in your paintings, are they supposed to be you?
RH: Kind of…kind of not. They don’t look like me, but the stories are all ones that I identify with, events that have happened in my life. I put a bit of myself into it, but my identity is hidden behind those women.
SM: Is it hard to put so much of yourself into your work?
RH: Before, I was doing more self-portraits—I was putting way more of myself into the work. Now I can just put the work out there and stand back. It’s still personal, but not so personal that I’m…you know…taking everything personally.
SM: Alright, one last question for the cat aficionados out there: Do you have a favourite cat story?
RH: My cat was an indoor cat, because I used to live near the driving license place and I was afraid of letting him out. He was actually pretty big, almost 20 lbs. or so, and my bed was small. I couldn’t sleep sometimes, so every night I would close my bedroom door. For a small period of a couple months or so, I would hear my cat running around the house as soon as I went to bed. I guess he’d been chasing a necklace of mine that I had dropped on the floor, [because] in the morning, he left it at my door. A couple weeks later, he left this little artificial rose, and then the third time he left me a little teddy bear. You know how cats leave gifts for they’re owners? They’re usually dead animals. I had the best cat—he gave me romantic gifts!
The annual Blim Holiday Market is back! Join us and 48 local vendors at the Fox Cabaret on Saturday December 20th from 12 – 5pm for shopping, snacks, and Santa Garfield.
The Blim holiday market is the place to be, even if you’ve managed to finish your holiday shopping in November like a champ – it’s a cozy, intimate gathering of some of Vancouver’s most thoughtful and talented creators and collectors. You can expect handmade accessories, jewelry, vintage clothes and knick knacks, cards, gifts, and sweets to be abound amidst the glorious glow of the Santa Garfield photobooth.
There’ll be hot food prepared in-house by Japanese cook Open Sesame, and two free raffle draws at 2pm and 4pm. We’ll also be there selling back issue magazines, subscriptions, and gift packs at a discount! Feel free to swing by for a hang out or a high five.
As per usual, our vendors are going to be on top of their game. Here’s three to peruse:
Sleepless Mindz
Sleepless Mindz will be selling short- and long-sleeve T-shirts, denim jackets, denim shorts, and bandanas. Some of them are reversible, some of them are patched, and all of them are awesome.
Rachel Rainbow will be attending, selling accessories and jewelry! Shrink-plastic geometric unicorn earrings, tassels, and necklaces. Rachel Rainbow is grounded in whimsy, nostalgia, and fanciful colours, and as described by Rachel, is created for pretending.
Aomori Workshop will be on site with natural body soaps, shampoo bars, chapsticks and more. From ginger to australian coral, these handmade goods are perfect to check off the rest of the friends on your gift list. Everything is reasonably priced and smells delicious. Aomori also takes orders for bridal showers, weddings, and other events.
To find out more about the Blim Holiday Market, follow @blimblimblim and hashtag #blimmarket on Twitter. Admission is by donation.
Because we experience true winter here in Canada, I think it can make us more active people. And maybe more creative, because having seasons provides boundaries and limitations. Summer is wide open, while winter binds us—having the flow from one to the other is interesting and inspiring and provides momentum.
