Art Bits

This just in on the mojo wire:

DEADLINE for SUBMISSIONS: MAY 3RD

RBC NAMES DISTINGUISHED PANEL FOR

ELEVENTH ANNUAL CANADIAN PAINTING COMPETITION

Nine curators, artists, and gallery directors from across Canada will award a total of $55,000 to winners
RBC, with the support of the Canadian Art Foundation, today announced the jury panel for the 2009 RBC Canadian Painting Competition.

“The RBC Canadian Painting Competition supports and nurtures emerging Canadian artists by providing them a forum to display their artistic talent to the country and hopefully open doors to future opportunities,” said Gay Mitchell, deputy chairman, RBC Wealth Management. “The competition gives these artists the opportunity to showcase their work to some of the most respected members of the Canadian visual arts community.”

The 2009 jury panel is made up of nine distinguished members of the visual arts community, including curators, gallery directors and artists, representing every region of Canada. The 2009 RBC Canadian Painting Competition jury panel consists of:

Nathalie de Blois, Curator of Contemporary Art, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec
Victoria Page, Owner, Gallery Page and Strange, Halifax
Etienne Zack, Artist, Montreal
Benjamin Diaz, Director, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto
John Kissick, Artist & Director, School of Fine Art and Music, University of Guelph
Josée Drouin-Brisebois, Curator, Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Canada
Ken Lum, Artist, Vancouver
Nancy Tousley, Senior Art Writer, Calgary Herald
Kathleen Ritter, Assistant Curator, Vancouver Art Gallery
“RBC and the Canadian Art Foundation work closely to deliver a top quality competition and a big part of that is the selection of top quality judges,” said Ann Webb, executive director, Canadian Art Foundation. “The members of this jury panel were selected because each has unique expertise to offer. We feel their diverse backgrounds and experiences will serve the competition and the entrants well.”

Entries are now being accepted for the 2009 RBC Canadian Painting Competition and must be submitted by May 3, 2009.

Details and rules of the competition may be found at www.rbc.com/paintingcompetition. The submitted works will be short-listed to 15 semi-finalists by independent panels of regional judges. All regional jurors come together in May in Toronto to determine one national winner and two honourable mentions.

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Michelle Bush
Director
Eastern Edge Gallery
72 Harbour Drive
po box 2641 station c
St. John’s, NL, A1C 6K1
709-739-1882
easternedgegallery @gmail.com
www.easternedge.ca

Warning: Cow Pun Ahead

Cow Ride 2009
Unique fundraising initiative for Eastern Edge Gallery gets mooooovin with artist Sarah Hillock

Sarah Hillock will be braving the elements to fundraise for the non profit organization Eastern Edge Gallery. She will ride her bike 2700km across the continent of Europe. In tow with her will be her bike, her trailer ‘B.O.B.’, an antique wooden travel easel and a good attitude.

Sarah’s main interest as a painter is the Cow. By alternating between painting cows and traveling between farms she is attempting to make the plausibility of a bike-able world more realistic. Being seen inserting herself into the landscape as both a cyclist and a painter is her main ambition. This will bring visibility to the issues of transportation in tourism and putting faces to food in art. Like her contemporary Mike Flaherty said of his tour ‘Bicycle Rehabilitation Project’ “, hopefully, everybody who sees me on the road has thought a bit more about cycling.” Sarah’s hope is to be a part of the same revolution in transportation and attitude, one that respects the limits of our planets resources, as well as our own physical limits.

Similar to how Cheryl Rondeau explores the physical limitations of the body in her “Art Ride 2007” by riding from Biennale to Biennale. Hillock plan’s to integrate art and cycling in a more pastoral setting, borrowing from Rondeau’s “Art Ride 2007” Hillock will keep the tradition alive on “Cow Ride 2009”.

Sarah is asking the public to support Eastern Edge Gallery by donating one penny for every km she rides. A kick off party will be held at Eastern Edge were people are free to show support. There will be door prizes and a raffle for a piece of Art worth over $800 as the top prize.

You can follow Sarah’s progress as she Cow Rides across Europe at www.easternedge.com and on her official blog http://cowride2009.blogspot.com

For more information please contact Sarah Hillock at super_star_rah -at- hotmail.com or Mary MacDonald at Eastern Edge Gallery easternedgegallery -at- gmail.com.

Well, at least it’s pretty…

Thanks, Sheilah, for your brush of love, and one last taste of Winter Wonderland.

ONE last taste. One. Thank you.

This just in on the mojo wire:

Resource Centre for The Arts Theatre Company is looking for a Stage Manager for an upcoming production of Rocking the Cradle by Des Walsh, Directed by Richard Rose

Rehearsals are scheduled to begin in September 2009.
Rocking the Cradle will play in St. John’s from October 7-17th and at Tarragon Theatre (Toronto) from November 11th –December 13th 2009.

Interested Applicants should forward their current resume to:

Amy House, Artistic Animateur
RCA Theatre Company
3 Victoria Street, St. John’s NL, A1C 3V2
rcat@nfld.net
Deadline for Applications is April 15, 2009

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This just in. ‘Grats to Michelle, our powerhouse Director at Eastern Edge:

Artexte presents Michelle Bush at La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse

It’s  not easy being GREEN

A Performative Presentation of Research Findings
Thursday, April 2nd  17h30 – 19h30
Centrale Galerie Powerhouse
4296 boul. Saint-Laurent
Montréal (Québec)
H2W 1Z3  Canada

Newfoundland-based artist Michelle Bush will undertake a performative research residency at Artexte this spring (23 March to 3 April). This residency will be part of the fourth-year installment of her 7 Years of Living Art, a continuation of the homologus work by seminal American artist Linda Montano.

As the researcher in residence at Artexte, Bush will use her adaptation of Montano’s methodology to focus on the task of “performing research.” She will investigate material in the collection related to the state of compassion as her fourth year of enquiry reflects upon the corresponding fourth chakra (green). Bush calls into question the nature of conventional research in our quest for knowledge at work, in everyday life, and in more formal contexts (academia and cultural institutions).

More and francais after the break: Read the rest of this entry »

Hey hey! Set your maple taps and wake up the bears! Hallelujah, winter as we have known it has come to an end for 2009! Can I get a YEAH, BABY!

So here’s the last winter pic for the year. I’m happy to relate that I got a letter from the Rooms, and this one was just purchased for the Art Gallery of Newfoundland. First time since the 80’s the province bought anything of mine, so huzzah for me!

The Cemetery In Winter

Happy Equinox!

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Had some fun with the graphics of sound wave forms yesterday. Here’s something I came up with:

What is this? It is a peace mandala. What is that? It is a recording of the word peace which has been digitized, and the waveform transformed into a symmetrical pattern. Each of the squiggly arms of the mandala is the word “peace”. If you look closely, you can see the word being spoken. Look at the arm at the “9:00 o’clock” position. The first short mark is the explosive “p” sound. The next portion is the decending “ee” sound, and the innermost portion shows the “ssss” sound trailing off at the end of the word.

Peace.

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Hey Kids! What are you doing to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? Are you:

a) Putting on green socks and underwear?
b) Marching in a parade?
c) Drinking an ocean of Guiness stout?
d) Attending Midnight Mass?
e) All of the above

Very nice. Very Irish. But…

… did you remember to drop your NLAC Grant Application off before the DEADLINE first? Aieeeeeeeee! That’s right, you black-beer-swilling sluggard, the deadline for submissions for the spring 2009 session is this Tuesday March 17th. So get your shileileigh and whack out the paperwork and get it in or your application will have the luck o the Irish come Wed. morning.

Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council

Wondering what to do today, given that it’s too damn windy to fly kites? This just in:

SATURDAY March 7th at EASTERN EDGE

OPENING RECEPTION

Artist talks at 3pm. Reception following talks and performance by Nina Lassila during reception

In 100 Stories About My Grandmother, a four channel video installation weaves together portraits of male sex trade workers telling stories about their grandmothers.

Peter Kingstone

Slippery Terrain was brought to life because negotiating artistic territory can be momentous, despite the geographical distance.

These 4 artists utilize and appropriate strategic similarities in order, to mirror others, to imitate, to immerse and to become with a composite of different media, materials and influences. Their individual directorial freedom includes research into animal telepathy to animal rights, cartography and human behavioural studies and traditional folklore to contemporary tales of spinning lies and tall stories, all produced by women.

Thora Gunnarsdottir (Iceland], Nina Lassila [Finland/Sweden], Elin Anna Þórisdóttir [Iceland] and Co-ordinator, Juliana Espana Keller  [Canada/England]

and….

Third Annual
Women’s Work Festival

a co-presentation of White Rooster Theatre, She Said Yes! and RCA Theatre

A series of play readings from works-in-progress by women writers, in celebration of International Women’s Week.

All readings are at Eastern Edge Gallery, 72 Harbour Drive, St. John’s from Sunday, March 8 to Wednesday, March 11 at 7 pm.

With local playwrights as well as writers travelling all the way from Nova Scotia and Ontario to participate, the 3rd Annual Women’s Work Festival has become a national affair. Please join us for a wonderful series of intriguing new plays, read by a fantastic ensemble of local actors.

Sunday, March 8, at 7 pm
MONARITA by Shannon Bramer
With Ruth Lawrence and Sara Tilley

Monday, March 9, at 7 pm
Killzone: a love story by Wanda Graham
With Katie Butler, Karyn Dwyer, Darryl Hopkins, Luke Major, Dave Sullivan and Wendi Smallwood

Tuesday,  March 10 at 7 pm
Sweets by Amy Anthony
With Willow Kean, Nicole Rousseau, Monica Walsh and Bridget Wareham
AND
Tree by Lois Brown
With Nicole Rousseau and Dave Sullivan

Wednesday, March 11 at 7 pm
Bare Ruint Choirs  by Michelle Butler Hallett
With Rick Boland, Brad Hodder and Susan Kent

Admission is Pay What You Can. All proceeds go to Marguerite’s Place: transitional housing for women and children in crisis. For more info, contact Monica Walsh at whiteroosterproductions at yahoo.ca

This project is made possible with support from the Newfoundland & Labrador Arts Council and the City of St. John’s.

–
Michelle Bush
Director
Eastern Edge Gallery
72 Harbour Drive
po box 2641 station c
St. John’s, NL, A1C 6K1
709-739-1882
www.easternedge.ca

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Sounds like fun. Plus, you know how I love free films. And you get a bus ride! TRIPLE PLAY!

A feature length video by Peter Kingstone presented by Peter, in partnership with ACNL and PFlag

Van leaves Eastern Edge; 72 Harbour Drive at 6:30 pm.

Friday March 6th at 7pm
The Tommy Sexton Centre
47 Janeway Place
St. John’s
579-8656

The Astounding Adventures of Strongman and Quick Boy is a narrative about disease, death, love, getting older, and sex.

Dave and Adam have a meager existence as prostitutes in Toronto, when Dave receives a call from a friend in Sudbury. They must rush off in hopes of saving her. Adam spends most of his time writing comic books and is retelling his story as Strongman and Quickboy as they fly off to Nebulon 5 to battle Xenon and save Princess Ariana. He has also brought along his video camera to capture the action! These two narratives coexist along the road, until they meet King Kipling, who crystallizes their concerns through pop philosophy and changes the course of the tale.

Filmaker in attendance, and discussion to follow.
FREE

MATURE FILM CONTENT

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