Inside the Artist’s Studio

Back from a long weekend at the cottage, I immediately fed my scanner with a few more sports trading cards - I have a bit of catching up to do. To celebrate Alexandre Despatie’s silver medal for Canada in the 3m Springboard, here’s a card featuring diving:

“Arthur Mundt doing the backward pike dive”

I checked my Flickr account today and noticed that I had received a message from an on-line Montreal guide called Schmap. They had picked one of the photos I made during this year’s St-Patrick’s Day Parade to add it to their search engine (pending my permission, of course, which I gave).
Let’s see if I can manage to insert the widget here:

Cute, no? Not my best photo ever but, hey, where else do you see bishops wearing green?

More info about Schmap here: www.schmap.com

With the imminent demise of softball at the Olympic games (it appears the Americans are hogging the gold), I thought I’d scan in the one baseball card I have amongst my 1932 German sports trading cards.

Japanese Baseball-Trainer on the Tempelhof Field

I’m surprised to find out that the Japanese were already involved in baseball in the 1930s.

The Starmail vernissage was a lot of fun. It’s amazing how many people squeezed into Central Stamp & Seal for a peek at the mail art (and the store itself).
My friend Kim Vallée came to the opening and was kind enough to mention my show on her stylish blog At Home with Kim Vallée. Thanks, Kim!

Photos by Kim Vallée

I also up-dated my own website and created a page for the Starmail series. If you’d like a sneak peek into some of the envelopes, click here!

As promised, I’m posting another of my collection of German 1932 sports trading cards. I received a request for a card featuring gymnastics. This is the closest I could find:

“One-armed balance on the parallel beams

Again, if you’d like to see a particular sport, leave me a comment.

I’m catching up with my blogging. I realize I haven’t posted an pictures from the Kaléidoscope Latin Finissage yet!
The “Finissage” was basically a closing party, to thank my two Latin American Mariana Escribano and Maria Idilia Martins (form Mexico and Venezuela respectively) for making their way north and staying in Montreal for a month to show their fabulous work.

Left: Mariana chats with an art critic, Right: Allan tearing away at his typewriter

To add a little extra to the event, I asked New York poet Allan Andre to come to the gallery and set up his “While You Wait Poetry” table. Allan was in great form! The staccato of his old typewriter mixed with the Latin music playing in the studio, making this a fabulous farewell party.

When I was a teenager, while rummaging through the attic of our newly acquired family home, I found a small stack of vintage trading cards left behind by the previous owner. They featured illustrations of a variety of sports: swimming, golf, water-polo, even ice-hockey. When I turned a card over to check for the date, I realized I was holding a piece of history in my hands. The cards were printed in 1932, just at the beginning of the Hitler era.
Suddenly I held the cards more gingerly, suspiciously eyeing the aesthetics of the images: the dynamic poses of the athletes, the old-fashioned clothing, the vibrant colours, all executed in a near impressionistic, painterly style. Most of the athletes featured were German, of course, with a small sprinkling of other nationalities thrown into the mix.
Here’s a good example:

“An exemplary start: in the middle Ellen Braumüller”

I remember sitting on the attic floor, examining the cards for undercurrents of Nazi Art. There certainly are a lot of blonde, Aryan types in these images, especially the women. The athletes are mostly captured in mid-stride, probably painted from photos taken during sporting events, though some cards feature the “hero poses” found in the Nazi aesthetic. It’s tough call. So, in celebration of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing I’ll be posting examples of these cards every few days for the next four weeks. You’ll be the judge.

“The Handbook of Sport”

By the way, if there’s a particular sport you’re interested in, leave a comment and I’ll see if I can dig up a corresponding card.

I’m in full-fledged production mode (hence my lack of posting recently). Friend and creative dynamo Jennifer Hamilton invited me about ten days ago to show some of my art at the Central Stamp and Seal store on Park Avenue, here in Montreal. We had been discussing another project relating to rubber-stamp art, and within ten minutes we had organized a stamp-art exhibition at Visual Voice and set up a show for me at Central Stamp. Talk about efficiency.
So, I had some rubber stamps made featuring Amelia Earhart and spent the last week or so enthusiastically printing away. I decided to make some more Mail Art, since rubber stamps, envelopes, air-mail and an aviator all dovetail beautifully.
Here’s a sample of what I’ve been up to:

The show runs from August 7 - September 4, 2008 at Central Stamp & Seal, 3418A ave du Parc, Vernissage: August 7, 6:00pm - 8:30pm.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to go back to work.

I had noticed the young man with his typewriter, sitting on a stool in a shop entrance on Ste-Catherine Street a few days ago. I had glimpsed the signs which offered “poetry while you wait” and asked for “donations here”, but by the time I decided that I should investigate further my feet had carried me a few blocks down the road.
So yesterday, walking a little more slowly, I passed the young man again and decided to check out his poetry stand.

“How much for a poem?”
“It’s donation based. Whatever you decide.”
I decided on ten bucks.
“Anything specific?”
“Something about astronomy.”
And immediately he started pounding the keys. After about five minutes he handed me my poem:

We chatted a bit. His name is Allan Andre, and he hails from New York City. A professional poet, he also writes songs and is a musician who occasionally goes busking. He’s spending his summer in Montreal with his poetry gig.
I was impressed with Allan’s work for two reasons. One, because he can actually produce serious art, on the spot, with people breathing down his neck. And two, because what he writes has real content. His “Astronomical” poem carries a profound message; it’s more than pretty words, it’s an opinion piece. I may even work it into my “We are Stardust” series.
So, if you see Allan hiding in the shade somewhere, hitting the keys of his ancient writing machine, make sure you stop and ask for a poem. You won’t be sorry.

I had just about touched down in Montreal after my two-week trip to Germany when preparations started for the Festival International Montréal en Arts (FIMA). My gallery is partnering with FIMA, helping the festival to attract a more international component. So, starting with the FIMA dates and continuing through the month of July, Visual Voice Art Gallery is presenting Mariana Escribano, a painter from Mexico, and Maria Idilia Martins, a sculptor from Venezuela. The exhibition is titled Kaléidoscope Latin - you can read more about this show in the Belgo Report here.

left: Mariana Escribano, right: Maria Idilia Martins

Besides providing a down-town location for the festival, I also contributed in another way: this year I awarded a Discovery Prize to one of the participating artists at the FIMA. I must say, it was a pretty easy choice. Partly because I thought that about 85% of the artists exhibiting at FIMA this year were very main-stream, some extremely kitschy (borderline tacky), with few fresh, new ideas. Which made the artists I ended up choosing stand out even more. I immediately fell in love with the works by Christophe Heldt and Florence Hupin.

This creative duo combines their talents to create stimulating, innovative prints which are part photography, part screen-print. The Discovery Prize is an exhibition of their work at the gallery, so look out for Heldt and Hupin’s work in the 2009 season at Visual Voice.