princess house

it is snowing leaves of gold the wind shaking them loose as they flutter down in front of the pale pink house full of slow shadows and faded doubts
the mesh-veil framed around the porch held up by dark pink columns muffles the light and mutes inconsequential secrets pulled back into the dark hallway
a hand quivers behind the drapes blinded by the inaction of certain grey days running damp and dirty down princess avenue of the unroyal house and home
continues up the warped stairs to sit in dusky rooms and lie a while on the saddled bed of mechanical emotions rolling over onto the final broken sacrament

a mud-slinging screamfest

a clay orifice upon flesh -

fill the dark hollow with a howl...

sonic containment within,

psychical release without -
mouth to mouth resurrect.

If you feel the need to unleash the mother of all screams without disturbing the peaceful setting of West Vancouver, go and pick up one of these clay pots at the West Vancouver Museum and expand your lungs for a major howl into it. Your muffled bellow will barely ruffle the feathers of any sedate West Van matrons around!

These "scream pots" are the objets d'artifice of an exhibition conceived by the not so vociferous Babak Golkar whose magic persian carpet mushroomed a miniature city of intricate buildings at the Charles H. Scott Gallery last year. The terracotta pots are hand-crafted into varied shapes and sizes to affect the tenor of the screams emitted into them. Even if one does not feel the need to cry out, the tactile nature of the clay invites one to touch, hold, caress...

*****

The second part of the exhibit includes a digital projection of blobs of clay being hurled at a wall with the accompanying plopping sound effects - the aptly scatological visual [and audio] is somewhat mesmerizing to watch and presents another release of sorts in the physical force of flinging mud...
[Gabriel Orozco also once pitched clay balls in one of his projects, but at the pots themselves as they were being turned on the wheel...[Cazuelas (Beginnings), 2002]

The "turds" dried and fell off with the resultant staining still manifest on the wall, creating a monochrome messy dot "painting" a la the Japanese eccentric Yayoi Kusama - with the baked pieces scattered on the floor below their previous elevated surface like so many dropped and inedible crumbs...

in the end, a lumpen being of baked clay

lies dejected, hardened, unused -

and failing to rise again,

sinks to the floorboards of life...

Dialectic of Failure
New Work by Babak Golkar
October 11 to December 7, 2013
West Vancouver Museum 

prowling the parker...

2012 eastside culture crawl eviscerated at 1000 parker street...

the annualvisual feast commences in the early darkness...

the artbeast awakes, sprawling twisting puffing, just this side of the tracks...

the sainted lights flare ominous signals, the holy rain holds off...

sidle along the scaly walls towards a glowgreen orifice...

slide down to the cavity depths of its devouring mouth...

as the hotbreath of  digested deliverance vaporizes into the night air...

+++withinthebeast+++

blaze the bedrock of creative deposits...

spark the pushbuttons of textual ordinance...

radiate the fulgent rings of truncated perennials...

she arterialized...[arleigh wood]

he flashfaced...[david taewook cho]

they unhung...[artmemes of unit 100]

nonentities in abductive idle...

do believe everything you read...

Eastside Culture Crawl, November 16-18, 2012
1000 Parker Street and 69 other voracious venues

ididiom = my id ++ your idiom
[please visit my new tumblr site for photoimagery of textual art]

seaforth detailed

75 years forth and the Seaforth Armoury still commands its whitewashed and castellated presence at the south end of the Burrard Street Bridge - a protective fort and comfort zone for The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, a Primary Reserve Infantry which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year...

It is a building that I have been curious about but never had the urge to go right up to and really train my savage eye upon until this sunny weekday morning when I was nearby and had the time [and courage!] to approach...

There was a recruiting board set up outside the large front and side entrance doors and as I rode up on my bike to peek through the grated side door window, the door opened and a friendly reservist* welcomed me in...

He was kind enough to give me a tour of the great hall and adjoining rooms and  let me take some pictures...

I am always excited to be in an older building with its original interior still intact and retaining the atmosphere from another era...

The Seaforth Armoury was designed by the long-standing architectural partnership of John McCarter and George Nairne, [who had also built the downtown art deco landmark Marine Building in 1930 and who would eventually erect the modernist General Post Office building on Georgia Street in the 1950's], with the completion date in 1936 [the Armoury is now listed as a Class A Heritage Building]...

 

within the sparse gymnasium room hangs a lone black punching bag, almost poignant in its symbolic and literal stoic-ness, while the silhouette of an armed soldier lurks above...

[I was told that the recruitment age is from 16 to 55... - so I still have "lots" of time to think about it!]

*Thank you to Michael the Reservist for his time and generous info session.

tunnel vision

 in the underbelly of Vancouver General Hospital, hollow arteries snake between the main organs...

walkways the colour of dried blood disappear into nether regions, the cold lights casting a ghoulish pall...

 a small heart lies unbeating on the hardened vein...

a microbial creature is tethered by its umbilical cord...

 the efficient processing of the elimination system...

a mysterious instrument clogging one of the vascular tunnels...

*thanks to the intrepid Jan Snow for forging ahead through some of these underground capillaries of the VGH - with me ever so squeamishly following along!

 

the wenonah

 

The Wenonah building has sat comfortably on the southwest corner of Main Street and East 11th Avenue for close to a century now...

The elegant neo-classical doorway to the apartments has been maintained and adds a grace-note to this side of the building on East 11th that houses a theatre studio and a massage and therapy centre on the street level...

The residents have also greened this section of the sidewalk with lush plantings...parting for a back view of the Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Church on East 10th Avenue...

Many of the casement windows still retain scenic and intricate stained glass panes adding sparks of colour and light to the solid brick façade...

[I would like to know more about the Wenonah - if anyone out there has information about this building and/or knows someone who lives in the apartments, please do let me know...thank you!]