Mischa Bartkow is photographer who contributed a piece on the BC Gay and Lesbian Archives for the upcoming Issue 7/8 (The Vancouver Queer History Issue, launching at The Cobalt on November 3rd). Check out more of his photography at his website, and read on to learn more about him.

Sad Mag: Where are you from?
Mischa Bartkow: I was born in Vancouver and grew up here and on the Sunshine Coast. I moved to Ontario when I was 19.

After spending 10 years in Kingston and Toronto it was time to come back to Vancouver.  I knew this is where I needed to be to make my dreams come true, where I needed to share my art from. It’s been a pleasure falling back in love with this city.

SM: How did you get into photography?

MB: I’ve been shooting ever since I was a small kid.  It’s how I kept in touch with my family across the ocean.  I’ve always had a visual and spatial memory and photos have helped me share the way I experience the world.  It wasn’t until I was older though and working at an advertising agency, being inspired by other pro photographers, that I realized it was my dream to make photography my living.

MB: There’s one image of dozens of lightbulbs hanging on a stark background that I made in Hong Kong.  It has come to symbolize the power of creativity and positive thinking for me.  It ended up being selected as a design for a Scotties tissue box, you can see it in stores now.  My other favourite is an image I made in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.  It’s of a decaying jalopy slowly being swallowed up by vines and the green landscape.  I love making images of things most people dismiss as ugly and sharing the beauty that I feel is there.  I like blurring the line between ugly and beautiful.

MB: I hope to inspire others to make our communities more caring and progressive.

MB: Elisha Clement, Simon Hayter and Shannyn Higgins.

MB: I’m working on an exciting project as part of the CONTACT Photography Festival that’s coming to Vancouver in October, 2012.  I’m planning building sized projections of photography throughout Vancouver.  We’ll be showcasing local and international photographers throughout the city.

Sad Mag presents: The Queer Cultural Awards and Show

The Cobalt (917 Main St)

8:00PM-1:00AM

Advance tickets $6, at the door $8

Full details on Facebook.

Jeff Lawrence: What is this play about?

Dave Deveau: It’s about a man named Daniel who has two wives who don’t know anything about each other, and how he negotiates having two separate lives. Then inevitably, how things go wrong.

JL: What sort of themes are you dealing with in it?

DD: Trust. A lot of it is about trust. I think there also something in idea versus reality. We all have a certain idea of what the life we’re leading is, so then when something happens that totally fucks with that idea, and the reality sinks in, it can be quite devastating.

If you think your husband is your husband and you have this wonderful life together, finding out that he also has had a simultaneous wonderful life with someone else is a total sucker punch.

JL: What’s the motivation behind exploring that concept?

DD: When I was a kid, my dad used to travel a lot, and my mom and I had this joke that he could have a different family with a different set of kids and we would never know anything about it.

When I was going to UBC, I had a musical theatre songwriting assignment and I wrote a song in which a man has two wives who he’s singing to simultaneously. I decided that would become a show, it’s been about four years and it’s finally happening.

JL: And it’s a musical, right?

DD: It is a musical.

JL: Is this the first time you dabbled with that form?

DD: It is. In the class I was taking I had written for opera before, but I had never written song lyrics. After that assignment, once I decided to actually continue writing, I wrote a whole bunch of songs. Of course I have no musical ability so I would just record the tune—just me singing the tune—because I don’t have sheet music, I don’t play any instruments.

I hunted for a collaborator and finally found this amazing guy named James Coomber. We took a course together, a weekend workshop in songwriting, and I learned he had a lot of musical abilities. After our first meeting he brought in a stack of sheet music, which was the sheet music for all the weird little tunes I was singing. He transposed it.

JL: How did that translate to the songs, are they classic musical theatre numbers, or something else?

DD: In theory they have a bit of a grittier, almost a southern blu—I don’t want to say bluegrass because that might misrepresent it as being a bit more country than it is. But they don’t sound super campy—it’s not “A Chorus Line.”

I wish I knew more about musical theatre so I could say “It’s like ‘this’ show meets ‘this’ show!”

JL: Are the songs tongue-in-cheek then, or more serious?

DD: There’s probably a 50-50 split; there’s definitely a little tongue-in-cheek. I think the show has ended up being less comedic than I originally thought it might be. In previous drafts it was much more comedic and it just wasn’t working. It just felt really inconsequential, I guess. When we are in a world where there is so much consequence for what this dude is mustering up, it just didn’t sit right.

JL: So your portrayal of bigamy is more of a realistic one.

DD: Yeah, it gets kind of dramatic. But I think the joy of a musical is that you can let the singing be the dramatic part, rather than have people yelling and screaming. The lesson I learned is when someone becomes too emotional to talk, they yell, and when someone becomes to emotional to yell, they sing. And when someone becomes too emotional to sing, they dance. I think West Side Story is a really good example of that.

Homecoming King

Part of the Neanderthal Arts Festival

The Cultch (1895 Venables)

6 performances from July 21-31.

More info on Facebook.

This Wednesday, drop into the Cobalt for comedy, ladies and cheap drinks! Girls Girls Girls brings you its third ensemble show, this time featuring an all-comedy line-up including Sad favourites Morgan Brayton, Alicia Tobin, Lizzy Karp and Daniel Zomparelli. Sad Mag contributors Michelle Reid and Rebecca Slaven will also be doing something entertaining on stage (NO SPOILERS HERE).

If that’s not tempting enough, your $10 admission will all go toward the LACE Campaign‘s team in the Underwear Affair, to benefit BC Cancer Foundation. So you can feel great about spending your evening pointing and laughing while drinking beer! How often does that happen?

Girls Girls Girls: Comedy Edition

The Cobalt (917 Main St)

June 29th, 8:30-10:30

$10 at the door

RSVP on Facebook