One Week to Go - Put On Your Party Hat!

Crawl this Friday! Hanging shows this Monday! Really, really, really burnt out!

One show hung, three to go, MediaNet to set up, artist statements and contact info typed up, pack of musicians coming over from Vancouver, PA and sound set up mostly figured out, ladder found, food and booze planned, beds secured, promotion sent out, posters up, handbills out, hands shook, installation in our home gallery nearly ready, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, radio show aired, keys picked up, labels cut, didn't even forget Juli's birthday...

Can we party now? Is it party time? The next time I feel like organizing something, I'm just going to find an enormous jar of buttons and put them in different piles over and over and over. Kidding! I'm excited. Let's have a really good time Friday!

Locations, Times, Important Info for Guests to Crawl

Click on each blue drop to open up information about each space!


View Larger Map

Poster Proof

Click on image to enlarge to reading size, design by Robert Marks (thanks!) Check out his photo work at www.robertmarks.ca

CJ Taylor

CJ Taylor is an internationally acclaimed artist and author of children's literature.Her books have been translated into several languages. Traveling across Canada and the U.S., she tells her stories to both children and adults, sharing the wisdom and spirituality of her North American ancestors' mystical tales. C.J. Taylor's Paintings are in many private collections across Canada and the U.S.

Native Waves Radio Show

On Tuesday February 24th from 2-3pm on CFUV 101.9FM a number of the participating crawl artists will be talking about this project with host Janet Marie Rogers. Ukjese van Kampen will be calling in from the Yukon and Romy Pritchard will be on hand also. Up to date information about the crawl and interviews with artists - tune in or visit

http://www.cfuv.uvic.ca/

to listen online.

Make Love

Make Love are a Vancouver outfit consisting of Andy Dixon and Merida Anderson. They're coming over to play the Ocean Island gig as pat of the crawl on the 13th of March. Set starts around 9:30pm!

Info for PARTICIPATING ARTISTS, First Floorplan Drafts for your reference

Hi folks,

Posting a first draft of curatorial plan on the blog seemed easier than emailing bits and pieces, please let me know how you feel about this initial plan for hanging and if you'd like changes. Decisions were based on your space preferences, size requirements and my best first guesses at arrangement. You can either email me privately to discuss, call me or comment here among yourselves so we can sort out these details. Thanks for all your cooperation so far, great group of people to work with.

Fifty Fifty group show:




CACGV group show: Had problems with PDF, dimensions are:
wall - 38'
ceiling height - 11'
width - 15'

8'x8' Courtenay's wall




Camas - Wanted to show your work (Lindsay and Dan) in more than one spot, let me know what you think! Smaller pieces here, Lindsay's three silk screens and Dan's smaller works.





Cornerstone Cafe- Wanted to put Sherry's painting series here, this space needs fairly large work as you can see, there may be room for another artist to share here, it's just the one large wall, on the left when you walk in.

Crawl Program Guide and List of Events!

FRIDAY MARCH 13th, this is all there is to see and do during the crawl night. Times posted are *very* approximate - basically, if you want to see everything this is a listing of where you'll want to be when. That said, people are free to linger at will wherever they like, the evening is a sort of free-for-all with a video screening scheduled for 8 pm SHARP at the CACGV and music at Ocean Island starting around 9:30pm and going late. Art shows will be up for at least one week before and one week after the crawl on the 13th so if you miss something, you can come back during each venue's regular hours.

Another performance by Cris Derksen is tentatively scheduled for Logan's Pub Sunday March 15th in case you miss the music event (which is by donation and will fill fast) scheduled for Friday. Make sense? Yeah! Tell your friends.

Also, there's a preview article in Camosun College's student paper promoting the crawl, link is:

http://www.nexusnewspaper.com/story.php?ID=609


CORNERSTONE CAFE
1301 Gladstone Ave at Fernwood Rd
http://www.fernwoodneighbourhood.ca/cornerstonecafe.html
Meet up for coffee and early opening 4:30-6pm

CAMAS BOOKSTORE AND INFOSHOP
2590 Quadra St
http://camasbookstore.blogspot.com/
Check out art show en route, open 6pm-late

THE FIFTY FIFTY ARTS COLLECTIVE
2516 Douglas St
www.thefiftyfifty.net
Large group show here, visit around 6pm-late

EAGLE FEATHER GALLERY
904 Gordon St
http://www.eaglefeathergallery.com/
Carving show with three local artists, stop by, show open 5pm-7pm

THE COMMUNITY ARTS COUNCIL OF GREATER VICTORIA (CACGV)
with MEDIANET
G6 1001 Douglas at Fort St (look for sandwich board)
http://www.cacgv.ca/
Group show and screening of indie video projects at 8 pm SHARP, show opens at 7pm

OCEAN ISLAND BACKPACKERS CAFE
791 Pandora Ave at Blanchard St
http://www.oceanisland.com/cheap_eats/
9:30pm - midnight
Music and schmooze, wrap party, licensed

Eagle Feather Gallery

Eagle Feather Gallery will be open during the crawl night and will have a special show up for the crawl. Details below.

Eagle Feather Gallery will be featuring a wood carving exhibition of masks, panels, and three dimensional pieces by local First Nations artists. Feature carver Wayne Thomas will be carving onsite from the opening of the Aboriginal Art Crawl, through the weekend. Visit the gallery to meet the artists and enjoy a refreshment. Located at 904 Gordon St. (corner of Courtney St.), tel. 250-388-4330 for details and hours.

Courtenay Louie

Courtenay was in her last year of high school when she participated in the crawl last year and brought a significant number of her family down from Ahousaht to see the show. She's currently studying art in Victoria.

My name is Na? nah xomiis, meaning creative and generous, my English name is Courtenay Louie. I was born in Vancouver B.C and grew up in the community of Ahousaht, the largest Nuu Chah Nulth village in the heart of Clayoquot Sound. I originate from the house of Tlak-ish-peelth and Manhousat as well as having roots with the Frank/Hunter Family.

Recently moving to Victoria, I continue to return home, always with a camera in hand, and often the official photographer at many special events, including potlatches and weddings. In visits back home I participate in the potlatches by dancing, recording the songs or just visiting with family and friends. However, I am also able to balance that life with the life of a ‘city girl’.

Photography is my passion, and I believe it all started with my first nail clippings that my mom taped on a 35 mm camera when I was a baby. It is believed that when the first clippings are put with or in something it will ensure excellent ability, skill and competence in that specific subject. I received my first camera at the age of 13 and on my 19th birthday I received a digital 35 mm Canon Eos Rebel XT that I pack almost everywhere. I don’t have a specific subject for my pictures, instead, the beauty of my surroundings always provides something or someone to take a picture of - whether its the mountains, the sky, eagles, whales or most importantly, family and friends . For every picture I take I know it encapsulates a moment, writes it into your memory, and it brings you back to the moment each time you see the picture again and again. Photography is documenting my life and how I see it.

Cris Derksen

Cris Derksen is scheduled to play the wrap party on crawl night (Fri March 13th) at Ocean Island Cafe. Her website is:
http://www.virb.com/crisderksen

Cris Derksen is a young half-cree classically trained Canadian cellist whose captivating melodies and steadfast baselines have captured the attention of local and international audiences. She is a diverse musician, easily melding into hip-hop, rock, folk, country, or whatever type of music to bring an intense ball of musical passion to her work.

Using a loop station and effect pedals, she is able to create an inspiring multi-dimensional auditory experience. She uses her voice in spoken word and song to layer melodies on top of each other to construct a song form in a way that is uncharted for most classical players. Using sounds from her inherited past Cris mixes the traditional with the contemporary over and over again in both the cultural world as well as the music sphere.

Although Cris is an emerging artist, she has built up a strong resume performing at festivals such as WOMEX (World Music Expo) in Sevilla, Spain, with Inuit Throat Singer Tanya Tagaq. The Respect Festival and Colors of Ostrava in the Czech Republic. SXSW (South by Southwest), The Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Dawson City Music Festival, Edmonton Folk Music Festival, Brandon Folk Music Festival, The Talking Stick Festival, National Aboriginal Days, Gay Pride, Rock For Choice and Under the Volcano. Cris is a seasoned performer, performing at Vancouver's premier venue, The Commodore Ballroom with Led Zeppelin cover band 'Michael White and the Whites'; she has also performed with international Hip-Hop artist Kayne West at GM place in Vancouver.

As a session musician her diversity continues as she has built up a strong resume recording with Tanya Tagaq, Rae Spoon, The Switfy's, Kinnie Starr, Lightening Dust (Member's of Black Mountain), Ladyhawk, Bison, E.S.L, FanDeath, Girl Nobody as well as working with Native composer Russell Wallace.

Cris obtained a Bachelor of Music in Cello Performance at UBC and shared the Principle Cellist of the UBC Symphony Orchestra title.

Ukjese van Kampen

Ukjese is considering sending a photo series from the Yukon for the crawl. An outspoken and provocative artist, his work is finding an audience internationally. An explanation of his work follows:

This series is performance art, it is the demonstration and/or the execution of an idea using one’s own body or bodies. The body in space or it incursion into space and the act is the medium of transmitting the message. This is what my work started as, the idea is to investigate and then demonstrates the present condition of people’s desire to not to get involved. For the general public, unless somebody is getting hurt (and then sometimes not), people will prefer to pretend that what ever is happening-is not. I demonstrate this by placing a nude body in a space that is not deemed an appropriate place for a nude body-a public place. People who have a choice will ignore a nude body in a public place even if it goes against their morals.

The performance is the act of placing a nude body in a public place and recording it. The message is transmitted through the exhibition of resulting photographs. The photographs themselves are also an investigation of the nude in a public place but the difference is the nude photograph is not an incursion to public space because art galleries are an appropriate location for nudes. People will not say anything, or little, when confronted with real nude in a public place but will feel free to speak in an art gallery. The actual nude is removed because of the barrier, the photograph and is now safe to observe, examine and critic. The act of being nude in public is the message and the message is then muted by it’s medium, the photograph.

This series mirrors the artist’s experience when they have an art exhibition. Through their art they are exposing themselves to peoples examination and criticism. When an artist show their artwork in an exhibition they are thus exposing themselves. My series has taken this exposure a step further by exposing in public and now exposing in photographs. What I do will be open to people criticisms but having the results hanging on a gallery wall makes it safe for people to say what they want...while the photograph was being created people said nothing.

This idea started when I was staying in Amsterdam in the fall of 1989 when one afternoon I was walking down a pedestrian-only street. I saw on one of the small side streets a stoned man squatting and shitting. I stopped and watched peoples reactions. People just walked by as if nothing was out of the ordinary, the worst reaction was a sneer. I realized that people would not do anything because the would not want to get involved and the only people that would get involved would be those people whose job was to get involved, such as the police. I decided to investigate this social condition. About the same time I was thinking about doing a self-portrait series but was not sure in what form this series would take. I decided to combine the two and started this self-portrait series of myself being nude in public places in Europe and Canada, including Winnipeg. Since then I discovered that when the photograph was taken at night, people react quite different that then do in the day. They are often going out for a good time and want to meet people and have fun. When they see these photographs being taken they will laugh, ask questions and talk to me during the photo taking. I am sure that during the day these same people would walk by and ignore the happening. Since I started this series another aspect has evolved and that has to do with my self identify as a First Nations person. I love going to Europe and when I ask myself why I realized that it was because the Europeans love their culture. They live it, breath it, are surrounded by it. And then I realized that the culture of my people in the Yukon is almost erased. There are very few of us that speak our language and our languages is dying. We have lost much of our spirituality, almost all our art, our connection with the land and many of our customs. We are not living in our culture but some strange hybrid that is mostly the dominate culture, western culture. So when I travel to these cities that are filled with their own culture I feel culturally naked and this is an aspect I am expressing in my situation. We Yukon First Nations are a people with almost none of our culture, but because we have adopted the western approach, we deny the truth. In showing this truth about being culturally naked by being naked, thus I am being psychically as truthful as possible.

I have included non-nude photographs in this series to demonstrate I have a life beyond art, as we all do. These additional photographs are societies accepted exhibitions, when people are in the act of being recorded, recognized or acknowledged. The additional non-nude photographs is to illustrate that an artist such as myself is made up of more than the exhibited art.

In the advertising for this exhibition it will be apparent that there is nudity and the people who come to see the works are voyeurs. They want to see because that is the relationship between the artist and the viewer. The artist exposes, the viewer voyeurs. Of course they are all also a mixture, as I am, beyond being voyeurs, they are critics, art lovers and maybe just curious. This is the ingredients of an art exhibition and this exhibition has all these factors.

Romy Pritchard

Romy Pritchard, also new to the crawl, has started a Metis cultural organization in Victoria. Her thoughts are posted below.

Romy Pritchard, Red River Metis. My grandfather moved my family from North Battleford in the mid 1950's to Victoria where I still reside. I am the Vice President of our Metis Nation of Greater Victoria. I have always done art. In the last decade I have started to show my work and participating in several collective art shows. I work in all media and have been most noted for my raku work, clay sculpture, and mixed media work. Currently I have focused on learning more of Metis traditional bead work and incorporating these concepts into other media. I can be reached through my business, Connecting Cultures' website www.healthandsocialdevelopment.com.

Lindsay Delaronde

Lindsay is a new artist to the crawl and is currently earning her Masters in Visual Art at UVic. Her statement is included:

My name is Lindsay Delaronde, I am part of the Mohawk Nation, originally from Kahnawake, Que.

My work visually expresses the relationship between spirituality and the physicality of the environment. Also, conveying the social, political and economical issues relating to First Nations peoples; through printmaking and installation-based work. I integrate traditional Native art, relating to culture and way of life, with my own personal experience and perception of my Native culture, history, art and identity.

In medium sized, brightly colored screen prints, which are digitally manipulated photographs, are juxtaposed images inspired and influenced by Native peoples and their culture within archives of photography and personal photographs. I portray these prints to create the viewer to re-think their perception and understanding of First Nations peoples. In other installation based work, I re-create and express the experience of Native rituals, using traditional means of ceremony and healing. I construct and create with materials gathered from the natural environment, and create narratives that express and expand the relationship between the individual, and nature.

Throughout the colonization and attempt to assimilate First Nations people, anthropologists, art historians and art critics have written our history for us. They concluded that Native art along with my culture was “dead”. But I am very much alive, breathing and creating. I’ve been influenced by all the static and false conclusions upon Aboriginal peoples, culture, art and history and use them as the starting point for my research process.

Works like, Spirit Hut, a human size hut made of all natural material, red willow and cedar bows, is a space that can be entered. Inside there is sage, sweet grass and cedar bundles for smudging, which represents an act of cleansing and prayer. The Spirit Hut, signifies the relationship between the environment and it’s connection with human spirituality. The installation was constructed and sustained outdoors of The Emily Carr Institute. Spirit Hut's purpose is to reflect and express ones personal interpretation of spirituality. The architecture, scale, materiality and traditional functions were inspired from a Native sweat lodge. But was also designed without the usage of heat and rocks. The installation carries the traditional aspect of re-birth, cleansing and prayer, expressed in a contemporary context, which creates a new understanding and interpretation of my Native culture and its traditions.

As a First Nations artist I am a visual interpreter of my own culture's history. I find myself integrated in this continuum of contemporary Native arts and culture. As long as I continue to define myself through self-exploration and consumption
of knowledge. I am able to grow as a Native woman with an identity all my own, influenced by the past while constructing the future.

Daniel McRorie

Dan is new to the crawl and came all the way from Vancouver just to find out about it. His webpage is at:
http://danielmcrorie.com/about/

Daniel McRorie is a young Metis artist, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, who is constantly looking for different mediums to create art and present his pieces in ways that are unusual and provocative. Dan's body of work takes on many forms and has, lately, been focused on the textural possibilities of leather as a fine art form. Dan is always inspired by the world around him and hopes to affect change in his audience.

Dan is currently exploring the textural possibilities of leather as a fine art form. Dan's newest work deals with deconstruction and the effect of personal relationships on his own unique arrangement.

Sherry Williams

Sherry Williams also showed with the crawl last year and is definitely an artist to watch, her sculptures are particularly powerful. Information about her latest work is below.

"Solitary" is my most recent work.The sculpture is about 6.5' tall and about 6x7 wide. The piece is a spiral that gradually becomes narrower as the viewer enters until they reach a small room. The floor has small bit of wood that snap with each step creating a certain rhythm that concludes with a pause once in the room.
The interior space of "Solitary" is just enough room for the body. There are 4 concave mirrors above that create an illusionary escape for the viewer, while creating a sense of surveillance.
The piece is a continuation of my "Door Series" which is a body of work that studies domestic architectural elements and their relationship to the body. They are autobiographical in content, metaphorical mirrors for the domain of the private and public.
The paintings are mostly are recent as well, combining collage and domestic paint. The collage materials are carefully collected pieces of 'womens' handiwork, overlaid with paint. A sort of archive if you will of cast-off domestic labor.

Cara-Lyn Morgan

Cara-Lyn showed with the crawl last year with a series of paintings about slave ships and their relationship to her identity. Cara-Lyn is also a gifted writer and will be showing new paintings as part of the event. Below is her artist statement.

The series is called Dialogue. Through a collection of abstract/representational paintings, I intend to focus on the dialogue thatexists between colours, between the texture of materials and the painting’ssurface, between artist and artwork, viewer and painting, and of course thedialogue that springs between viewers as they stand before a painting. I became fascinated by the spontaneousdebates that arose while touring the major art galleries of New York City wherepeople from all over the world meander from room to room, commenting on colour,texture, and subject.

In this series, I am experimenting more with medium than with subject—integrating beeswax and acrylic paint, moving away from the more deliberately representational subject matter of my past (the slave ship) to amore “abstract” focus. I’m also using the grain elevator as a subject in some of the paintings, integrating an iconic prairie image with a graffiti style. This is the focus, a combining of old ideas with new ones, old images with new styles, and the conversation that erupts when opposing ideas are integrated.

Welcome, News, Where We're At

I'm currently in the middle of organizing Victoria BC's second annual Aboriginal Underground Art Crawl, slated for the evening of FRIDAY MARCH 13th, 2009 with seven very exciting artists.

Currently, we'll be showing work from:

Sherry Williams
Cara-Lyn Morgan
Courtenay Louie
Daniel McRorie
Lindsay Delaronde
Romy Pritchard
and newest onboard
Ukjese Van Kampen

The follwing spaces/programming has been confirmed with more details unfolding as I'm able to confirm space/participation:

The Fifty Fifty Arts Collective
2516 Douglas Street
http://thefiftyfifty.artvictoria.com/index.php

The Community Arts Council of Greater Victoria (CACGV)
G6 - 1001 Douglas Street (at Fort, in the breezeway)
http://www.cacgv.ca/
MediaNet, a local video and film resource centre will be curating a program of independent video projects to be screened at the CACGV on the crawl night, time TBA
http://www.media-net.bc.ca/

Music program at Ocean Island Backpackers Cafe Bar
791 Pandora Ave
http://www.oceanisland.com/cheap_eats/
Music program being assembled to wrap up the crawl and unwind, cafe open til midnight, show starts at 9:30pm featuring sets by cellist Cris Derksen. More TBA. Interested musicians, also contact us if you'd like to play - space is intimate, licensed and programming is leaning towards experimental.

A third art space is being confirmed currently, there have been some challenges securing space and confirming participation, keep an eye out for an update on more gallery space. If you are able to offer gallery/cafe/storefront/etc space for this project, please contact me to discuss, we're trying to find a place downtown to facilitate flow/transportation/schedule of events for the crawl night celebration.

Shows at various spaces will be on before and after the crawl night which is when all spaces will be open for food/drinks/mingling. Show dates TBA very soon.

So, the idea being we have several art shows at several locations downtown that will be open the evening of the 13th of March. The screenings and music will be at set times and a program drafted soon with map and carpool information. I'll be leading a bike team to the various venues and we'll also have some drivers to help anyone less mobile.

Confusing? That's because there's so much going on! It's going to be crazy. And excellent. I'll be posting artist bios and images as soon as I'm able to get permission. Keep an eye out for more information and thanks for visiting.

marlainabuch@gmail.com