old trivia
Clare Yow is an independent visual artist working in a library in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
She is a fan of nightbirding and shutter depression,
heartthrobs, blueprints, and changes of scenery.
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Tonight, I substitute-taught at Emily Carr. It was such a strange feeling leading a seminar at a different institution. It’d been about six months since the last time I was in a classroom with students, and I’d been running critiques on that last day. This time, it was just discussions, and I led two seminars back-to-back. I was nervous beforehand and made a lot of notes on the readings, but I knew making them was more of a security blanket issue. I think they went well and the nice thing to come from this is that Simon said he’d put my name forth the next time they’re looking for TAs at ECU.
On other work fronts, I received my placement with the Vancouver Community Network earlier this week. I was supposed to meet with someone from the Women’s Resource Centre in Richmond this morning but we’ve re-scheduled for next week. I’ve had a little bit of experience working with a not-for-profit organization (Médecins Sans Frontières) and I’m looking forward to this position and possibly being able to design and run workshops for the community members there. This is only a contract position but I think it’ll be a really valuable learning experience for the next little while.
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Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery | MFA Graduate Exhibition 2010
The exhibition opened on Friday and the reception is on Thursday. It’s been wonderful hearing back from friends through email and Facebook after I made my various attempts to mass-promote our show. As well, we’ve received the first comments from the visitor kiosk (digital guestbook) in the gallery.. I think it will be a nice next few weeks.
Images L-R: Clare Yow, Maxine and I (detail), 2009; Zoe Tissandier, Home Away From Home, Away From Home (detail), 2010; Fan-Ling Suen, study for The Teeter-Slaughter (detail), 2010; Sydney Hermant, After Second Nature (detail), 2010; Keesic Douglas, Blanket #3 (detail), 2010.
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Man and Spam (installation view), 2010
.. This is a new piece I showed last Friday during the fourth and final Open Studios of my MFA career. It was a pretty good night. The video doesn’t do the piece justice because when you look down on the floor into the mirror to read the piece, there is a real sense of depth and wanting to plunge into the reflective surface. Man and Spam comes on the heels of Women and Song, which I showed at the Open Studios before this (it was a pile of 8.5” x 11” sheets of paper printed with uncut fortune cookie fortunes from popular songs sung by females).
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New piece I’ve been working on for the past short while (week and a half?). This picture was taken in the late afternoon, after I’d struggled to (at one point I had a tack lightly poking into the roof of my mouth..), and then finally, successfully, pinned the sheet to my studio wall. The whole paper is 12 feet x 48 inches, and this is only a fraction of the sheet covered (maybe 70%? I’m not so good at math). The work is tentatively titled “Women’s Studies.” I was getting excited at the prospect of maybe this piece appearing as part of my contribution to the grad show. But I think how I procured this work - or rather, the elements that make up this work - might be frowned upon by the institution; seeing as it is vandalism of sorts :|
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I’m going to try my hand at letterpress again tomorrow. The last time - which was also the first time since my demo from Marijke - it was difficult getting the ink to warm up and apply smoothly. That, and finding all the letters I needed was hard! I need something like 20 ‘O’s and 20 ‘E’s along with many others.. there’s such a wealth of letters and in so many different types and sizes I guess I wasn’t prepared for the task at hand. Next attempt, tomorrow.
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Am battling my Roundtables presentation paper right now. Abstracts are due to Audrey on Friday. Friday! Abstracts are abstract. Never forget. On the bus today, I wrote up a rough outline on my iPod. I was trying to come up with a title even before having written anything. I think it actually helped. Usually the title is the last thing, right? This evening, despite feeling a bit worn from the day, I actually made a small dinner and am eating a small wild salmon filet and steamed bok choy and potatoes. I used my new metal steamer; it was about time that I got one. For dessert, a slice of apple pie, grapes, and a fuji apple (or is it a pear? I forget) - all to go with my night of reading. Yum yum. A few days back, I was suffering from a few of my starvation-induced headaches. When I get busy, I really do forget to eat which I know is so unhealthy… I tutored this afternoon and made Jerry chat with me about his daily activities, summer plans, and Victoria, among other things. And then we played hangman, which he has now decided and declared that he hates (along with Scrabble), because I keep guessing all of his, while my words are all hard. But he did good today - sometimes he surprises me - as instead of me giving him clues, he asked questions. We laughed a lot. It has been frustrating at times because he is a thirteen year old boy who doesn’t like to do work, which I do understand because he already spends the whole day in school, but I think when we make it fun, it’s all right. Oh, I saw Nine and Pirate Radio last night at the Hollywood Theatre. I like them both, and the latter was surprisingly really good. Murray from Flight of the Conchords!
*Film still from Adam, dir. Max Mayer, 2009
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Some images from after it got a bit quieter at the opening reception of Sights/Sites of Spectacle. These pictures aren’t so good but I’ll be back to properly document it better this week. It’s been a hectic but enjoyable couple days of the Symposium and I’m happy that the piece has been received well and I quite liked that people were taking pictures of it on their camera phones. Congratulations to Shaun Dacey who brought all these artists together. It’s been so fun getting to know him and the other artists (Shaun is also from the same area of Mississauga and went to school at Erindale! a couple years before me though).
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Hi! I am participating in an exhibition as part of the 29th Annual Art History Graduate Symposium: Sights/Sites of Spectacle, running Wednesday, 27 January to Saturday, 20 February (which happens to coincide with the Winter Olympics festivities). It is my first official showing in Vancouver so I am very excited and anxious, but it is also the first time I am exhibiting a sculpture (and it is the first sculpture I’ve made). Installation day is mere days away and I completed the painting of the wood panels this evening. Hard parts are coming up… wish me luck :) Images to come…
“Sights/Sites of Spectacle ponders the ubiquitous nature of spectacle within our everyday lives through the work of contemporary artists. Spanning broad conceptual and thematic grounds each artist approaches spectacle from a different entry point. At times disparate, contradictory, and confusing, this collection of contemporary sites of spectacle considers how our culture is engaging or disengaging with the concept of passive consumerism and mass media control.”
“Since the release of the seminal book Society of Spectacle by Guy Debord in 1967, the concept of spectacle has informed the practices of many artists. Sights/Sites of Spectacle ponders the ubiquitous nature of spectacle through the work of contemporary artists. Spanning broad conceptual and thematic grounds including 1960’s new wave cinema (Claire Hodge), gay pornography (Jade Yumang), Chinese immigration fantasies (Clare Yow), technological and public displays of affection (Laiwan), Las Vegas Marquee signage (Kristi Malakoff), the death of analog television (OMG TV), optics (Jon Reed and Christina Gray), the contemporary art market (Mo Salemy), newspaper headlines (Zoe Tissandier), Olympic branding (Katie Brennan), and binning culture (Eleanor King), each artist approaches spectacle from a different entry point. At times disparate, contradictory, and confusing, this collection of contemporary sites of spectacle considers how our culture is engaging or disengaging with the concept of passive consumerism and mass media control.”
Opening Reception: Friday, January 29th, 5:30pm
Artist Talk: Friday, January 29th, 12-1pm
Location: University of British Columbia - Gallery, Located in Room 112, 1st Floor of Koerner Library, 1985 Main Mall
Artists: Katie Brennan • Claire Hodge • Eleanor King • Laiwan (I.K. Barber) • Kristi Malakoff • OMG TV • Jon Reed & Christina Gray (Lasserre Building) • Mo Salemy • Zoe Tissandier (I.K. Barber) • Clare Yow • Jade Yumang
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If you are in the city, the rest of the Symposium schedule can be found here.
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I finished teaching my labs for this week last evening after 9. The lab takes place right after the lecture and they seem like a good bunch (perhaps because about half are upper years? many in computer science and biology among others no less!). This is just a gut feeling even though I haven’t decided what I think yet, about the Monday group. These classes are the 8th and 9th classes of my teaching career, and I’ve gone through this material times before, but somehow, it always seem new and I do still get nervous. It boils down to the students - and they do aid in making (or breaking) my experience. There was another TA’s lab happening right after mine on Monday afternoon, and there I saw a number of my past students and chatted with a few of them. It was strange to see them together in the same room - those from Winter 2009 or this past term or even further back: from my first semester teaching. Not to be a sap, but it is a little bit emotional for me. I can’t believe how far I’ve come in a short while and all the things I’ve learned. As well, with all the students I’ve had (it will be about 180 including these new groups), I definitely remember faces better than names!
On the flip side, I’ve also been exposed to the trickier sides of teaching, the stuff that comes with having to deal with marks and administration. Right now, I and the prof are still dealing with multiple student issues from last term. I’m contractually obligated to be done with last term’s classes so that I can focusing on teaching present ones, but I’ve had to send a very honest email to a student who is trying to appeal their grade. We can’t expect that every student will be satisfied with her/his mark, especially in a foundation art course where many might be taking the class for reasons that it is seemingly easy or effortless. In this email - because I’ve had time to sit with his project and to look over all the coursework he’s done - I think I was able to be more truthful with him or any student than I could have ever been in a critiquing situation, where I’m put on the spot and expected to have something to say about a piece right away. It’s hard to be that honest, to have to tell someone that their piece was not successful because of X reasons, but I think if someone asks, it does show that they care and that they do want to improve, and I commend that.
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Yes, yes, crunch time is most certainly underway. Ten days until my interdepartmental critique. It’s mainly people from our department (from the three streams of visual art, art history, and curatorial studies) who attend these but it’s open to the public as well. I’m not really nervous [yet] I guess, more of trying to get my pieces finished. I have my sculpture (“Gold Mountain”) which I put together last week in order to take pictures of it for my submission to the Art History Symposium, but it will be dismantled and installed some blocks away in another building for the crit. It’s still being added to. And then I have a small series of four black-and-white negs that I’ll be making 20” x 24” fibre prints of. Series tentatively titled “Invisible Minority.” Aside from that, my English paper is due the day before my birthday which is the day after the critique.
Open Studios is on December 7th and this year I’ve had to do quite some prep as the MFA rep (compared to little effort last year). Our evening reception is joint with the BFAs and so planning has been heightened. We put an ad out in a publication that has a readership of 70,000 (which includes that of Artforum). It’ll be tiring but hopefully enjoyable-tiring (12-9pm). I’m trying to put together another piece for then - three is a good, solid number to have. “Year of the Ox” has been a work in progress since January and is due to be completed next year. I showed some of the actual 6” x 6” sheets in the last two Open Studios but this year I’m going to try - in the next however long I have before the 7th - to present them in a more finished form. I came home this evening to eat dinner after tutoring Jerry, then left for studio, only to return home before 11:30. Tomorrow I meet with my advisors.
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UBC’s AMS and AHVA Galleries present WEAREART, a collaborative show and fundraiser featuring works from Faculty, Staff, and Students from the Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory at UBC. WEAREART is a mixed media event centered on each artist’s interpretation of the grey monochrome. The exhibition and fundraiser will also display and sell protest posters and T-shirts, designed by 4th year BFA and BA visual arts students. The opening event will include a silent auction of all the works held at the AMS Gallery from 4-7pm, on Friday, November the 13th, followed by a show at the Gallery in Koerner Library from November 18th–21st.
The use of the grey monochrome is inspired by the work of the group “greysquare.ca”, an organization dedicated to restoring public support for the arts and culture in British Columbia. This show takes place in the shadow of the announcement of devastating cuts to arts funding in B.C. The use of grey is meant to symbolize a future without art and culture – “a future we are working to avoid.”
Silent Auction: 4-7pm, Friday, November 13: The AMS Gallery is located in the main concourse of the Student Union Building (SUB), 6138 Student Union Boulevard, UBC.
Works on Display: Wednesday Nov. 18 to Saturday Nov. 21: the Gallery is located on the first floor of Koerner Library________
This is the piece I made for the fundraiser and am going to get it printed tomorrow (44” x 15” in size). I felt the idea of the grey monochrome and what it stood for (the loss of art and culture in BC) related well to these grey monochrome paint samples from the Disney Color paint collection. The provincial government’s cuts to the funding of the cultural sector, juxtaposed against the Disney corporation (mass produced and mass consumed entertainment) speaks to me of the disjuncture between what we are spending money on and what we should be spending on.
So, that was my little ‘sneak peek’ on the latest thing I’ve been working on. It was a little bit of a last minute notice but this was one of three ideas I had. I know I’ve been really lacking in sharing my own stuff on here. I’ll do that more.. soon.. promise.
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Two consecutive days of working in the studio. Paint, all over my fingers and some in my hair and open cut yesterday. I might have to buy another can but the guy at Home Depot took away the swatch listing the colour I selected and I cannot remember the name it (it’s a creamy, white, oil-based). Without my laptop, I’ve been listening to CBC Radio 1 where every half hour there is a news segment. Yesterday it was all about the swine flu pandemic and the sentencing of a man in Montreal (he was allegedly going to attack the Danish newspaper that published the cartoons on the prophet Mohammed four years ago). Today it was about the discovery of a severed foot and possible human remains on a beach in Richmond and the Olympic flame coming to Victoria, BC. Yesterday I listened to a segment with Jian Gomeshi where he spoke with Rosanne Cash (what a gorgeous voice) and another host spoke with Baker Stoker, who is related to Bram. Today, I listened to a few different shows. One was looking at the Internet and the broadcasting of news in Cambodia and how keyboards are being adapted to the Khmer language which is quite difficult to type, as well as interviewing the author of The Teeth May Smile, But The Heart Does Not Forget, which is about the memories of individuals who lived under the rule of Idi Amin in Uganda. It’s so different hearing talk radio compared to my music playlists, and I’m really enjoying it.
The other segment replayed news stories from October 31st from years past — in Ottawa, a part of the city was under curfew because of gun violence and interviewed children were mad their night was being spoiled; a shopkeeper from a costume store on Yonge Street spoke about how Nixon masks were all sold out and that Kissinger ones were still available; radio hosts recalled Halloween pranks around their small town - many tales involved horses and buggies… such as putting buggies on rooftops or switching it around so that the horse was backwards when attached to the buggy.
Halloween is in two days and I have a costume idea but no costume per se yet. It’s all in my dresser as I’m not actually buying a costume. But I do have to d-i-y the most important part of it though. I like this, working with my hands. In some sense, photography does not give you that. Or at least, not to the degree that stringing a small baked good, then dipping it in paint, then tying it to a rod to let dry (repeat this 500 times), does. Large format photography certainly does force one to use their hands moreso though — (in my case) bringing the camera around in its silver box, setting it up on the tripod, attaching the dark cloth (which is really a changing bag), focussing, checking that the bellows is properly attached, inserting the film holder, removing the dark slide, ‘shutting’ the lens, cocking it, firing, etc.
Today while I tutored Jerry, when he was writing a story that I asked him to write, I was writing in my agenda, listing down places where I’m to shoot a series I want to do. Saturday seems un-rainy, perhaps I should do it then, prior to any Halloween festivities…
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One thing I find kind of remarkable (okay, maybe others won’t find it equally cool) is that in a school of around 46,000 students, about 140 of them are past and present students that I’ve taught. So, combined with staff, fellow classmates, and any other people that I may know and have come into contact with and recognize, on any given day, there are maybe 200+ people I could see, thereby sparking some sort of a memory up in my head! This week (critique week) has been a test to see how I stack up against remembering their names. So far so good! I’ve seen people around and have desperately tried hard to remember their names.. it can be difficult because some students are more memorable than others.
Also, there are two present ones who remind me of my little sister (Zara / Jamie) and my brother’s friend (Albert / Anthony) respectively. The resemblance is quite uncanny. There is also a boy in my English class whose looks and mannerisms parallel that of this boy I know back in Toronto. Scary business. Earlier this year, one student came up to me and said her best friend looked just like me and was going to be visiting from China soon. I said, bring her to class! So one day after lecture, it was an amusing moment when she brought her friend up to me and we (her friend and I) just stared at each other smiling, because we knew we didn’t resemble each other at all! Sweet girl, that student.
Really, part of me wishes I could have photographed my classes some how - to have concrete proof of what they looked like at that particular moment in that particular classroom. But alas, I have not done that because I think they might think me strange..
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I am presently actually extremely excited about my studio practice. It usually takes me a while to get going because I have all these ideas and it makes me frazzled a bit. I have four ideas I want to concentrate on and have been developing (this is from a list of probably ten). But I’ve been speaking to people and asking for help and advice so it’s been swell. Okay, so now you be my soundboard..
I started work on what I would call a sculptural piece this weekend. Because I haven’t really worked in a studio,I always forget I should really be wearing shoddy clothes but I don’t own any! I got paint on my jeans because I sat in a wet patch but at least it wasn’t a great pair. I hope for this piece to be done in maybe two weeks. It involves lots of fortune cookies and a reference to ‘land art.’ I painted fifty or so on Sunday and they are still drying as we speak. Better ventilation is necessary, I have to remind myself.
My other idea is a text piece, and I’d mentioned wood carving previously. It’s going to be a lot of work and for someone with zero experience, I’m simultaneously dreading and am excited about starting it. I envision thirteen or fourteen text panels with words/phrases made via relief carving. The phrases are related to borders - national, physical, imagined.The next piece is a photographic series - to do with land, and in particular Vancouver and the school campus and the land it is on. The rain is starting tomorrow and continues for a while apparently, which is unfortunate because I need it to not be wet out. I think I might need help with this work as it is a self-portraiture series, but I think it’s do-able to make on my own with some creativity.
My other ‘final’ idea (I use that loosely) is initially not really related to my present practice at all but I have ideas as to how I’m going to relate it. I was very fortunate to get a tour of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum on campus yesterday because I helped run a pilot project for elementary school students in the spring. The museum isn’t opening until next year and it’s still under construction, so the few of us saw the hundreds of empty cabinets without any specimens yet. Really amazing. A blue whale skeleton will hang in their great hall / lobby area and we were told that schoolkids will be able to lie down underneath it to see if they can match its length. Where the real goldmines were, were in the backrooms. Some of you might be aware that for my undergrad major thesis project, I’d been photographing natural history museum dioramas for months — Toronto (ROM), Ottawa (Nature Museum), Montreal (Redpath), Washington D.C., Pittsburgh (Carnegie), Buffalo (Science Museum). I have this magnet attraction to stuffed animals, you could say. Anyway, I’ll leave it at that because I don’t want to give too much away!
To add as well, I’ve been doing an overhaul on my website, particularly the Portfolio section to include newer works. It’ll be finished shortly and I plan on eventually moving the site to a more professional domain name as much as I love the current one.
![Yes, yes, crunch time is most certainly underway. Ten days until my interdepartmental critique. It’s mainly people from our department (from the three streams of visual art, art history, and curatorial studies) who attend these but it’s open to the public as well. I’m not really nervous [yet] I guess, more of trying to get my pieces finished. I have my sculpture (“Gold Mountain”) which I put together last week in order to take pictures of it for my submission to the Art History Symposium, but it will be dismantled and installed some blocks away in another building for the crit. It’s still being added to. And then I have a small series of four black-and-white negs that I’ll be making 20” x 24” fibre prints of. Series tentatively titled “Invisible Minority.” Aside from that, my English paper is due the day before my birthday which is the day after the critique.
Open Studios is on December 7th and this year I’ve had to do quite some prep as the MFA rep (compared to little effort last year). Our evening reception is joint with the BFAs and so planning has been heightened. We put an ad out in a publication that has a readership of 70,000 (which includes that of Artforum). It’ll be tiring but hopefully enjoyable-tiring (12-9pm). I’m trying to put together another piece for then - three is a good, solid number to have. “Year of the Ox” has been a work in progress since January and is due to be completed next year. I showed some of the actual 6” x 6” sheets in the last two Open Studios but this year I’m going to try - in the next however long I have before the 7th - to present them in a more finished form. I came home this evening to eat dinner after tutoring Jerry, then left for studio, only to return home before 11:30. Tomorrow I meet with my advisors.](http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/oldtrivia/250619574/1/tumblr_kteflxiJFi1qzoz7o)
