Strathearn Mural: “Free Rain” in Edmonton

James is working on this mural for a wall in Edmonton next week, with an opening event on the 19th. Here’s the invitation, and if you happen to be in Edmonton, please come by.
If you follow the link to the site for the project, you can see a slideshow of the work so far.

Free Rain

A 16’ x 16’ public mural

by Vancouver artist James K-M

Opening Sunday, July 19, 2009

3 – 5 PM

at 9206 95th Avenue (west wall)

Edmonton, Alberta

For more information call Joe Clare at 780-913-5447

RSVP at project web site: http://strathearnmural.net

About the artist:

James K-M lives in Vancouver, B.C. and has exhibited internationally since 1978.

His most recent exhibition of paintings was at the Simon Fraser University Teck Gallery in 2008

His next exhibition will be in Camagüey, Cuba in December 2009. Artist web site is at http://jameskm.wordpress.com

“Out of extremely objective systemization comes extreme subjectivity”

Bill Jeffries, SFU Gallery Curator

A public mural commissioned by Joe Clare

RSVP: Free Rain Mural Opening

Hyper-Local on Carrall Street

This post is a duplicate of a page in my Carrall Street Journal.

I started a blog named The Carrall Street Journal in March 2006, and it has been an on and off activity for me. My original ideas for it are listed below. They were a little bit out of scope, and I began to see it simply as a vehicle for my own personal expression of life here in Gastown/DTES. As it was a very personal hyper-local blog, a place-based personal log of my observations, I’ve just now integrated all the posts from the old Carrall Street Journal here into my personal blog.

March 2006, this is what I thought the Carrall Street Journal would be:

• The Carrall Street Journal documents people, events, development and transitions along Carrall Street.

• The Journal offers reflections on the physical and social developments as the greenway plans take hold and become a reality, and is open to any comments and community suggestions.

• Descriptions and profiles feature people, businesses, events and associations located on and near the street.

• The journal is volunteer-based and is an independent voice, with no particular affiliation.

• It doesn’t take any advertising, and isn’t commercial.

• Any member of the community can contribute to the discussion, as long as you have an email address to send from and to be contacted at.

Finally, a Reason to get the i-Phone

Retribalization! Ocarina! blowing on the phone makes beautiful music.

Mindworld Overload

Mindworld overload and altered sensory threshold!

In an intensity of activity on Twitter Monday morning, I was involved in a kind of flood or overflow of following and followers. A Twitter surge. It fried my brain, I was too electrified – all at once too many new follows. I couldn’t digest it all.

Who are these people? Why are we doing this? What’s it for? I asked myself. And for a time, wished to undo it. Just gathering people for no reason is like asking strangers to a party, or like broadcasting on the radio to unseen listeners to a call-in show. Was I an attention-seeking twitterslut?

I realized I’d wanted to decide who, or choose sympatico people in the niche, etc. But why not be open to whoever, whatever, wherever? What’s the harm in being open?

This is the whole idea in the world of social media. How the personal is social media actually, and how social is this network? It is many to many, one to one and one to many all rolled into one.

Maxed out from this bolus of people, I found myself seeking solace in the relatively private world of friendfeed. Set up an account. Maybe there I could have some control! But after sweeping through my Facebook contacts to see who’s on friendfeed, I just gave up for a time, unplugged. It was like reading a phone book. Why do that?

Oh, just one more thing, I thought, and I opened Finnegan’s Wake to find a quote to post to the Open Source Spirit twitterfeed. The book opened to me, the words all (get this!) made sense! I danced with it, mind alert and light. It was never more clear.

The poetic mind was somehow triggered into integrative activity by the factual overload. Social media pushed to its extreme yields the poetic being. At least in me! “HCE” Joyce had said, Here Comes Everybody!

Warning: don’t turn your back on the ocean. Face it so you can tell when the big waves are coming and ride with them. When your back is turned, they can slap you down. (Or you don’t have to even go to the beach, of course.)

Inadvertent National Exposure

James K-M’s art got some inadvertent national exposure during the CTV coverage of the Canadian leadership debate last week. Students from SFU were gathered in the Teck Gallery space at Harbour Centre to give their feedback. Watch as the camera swings to the left: there are his paintings adding some flash and colour to the environment. To see more, go here to his site.

Culture in Danger

This video is definitely worth sending around;

Carrall Street Journal Returns: Hi Yo Silver, Away!!!!

After a too long hiatus, I’ve gone back to the Carrall Street Journal. Client work and a general disillusionment with the entire public process conspired and I left that blog to lie fallow. It was still getting hits, and now, after my recent meeting at the Gastown Heritage Area Planning Committee (the unpronounceable GHAPC), I was moved to go back into the old blog. Frustration at the length of time it takes for anything to be accomplished on the civic level combined with a simple urge to blog about the street again, and I got my groove back.

I’ve got new ideas for the Journal and have scaled down my expectations, so will be posting there a little more often than once in 6 months!

Over the years the events that seemed so significant have faded into the past, and ideas I had for the street and contact through it still haven’t come to fruition.

Talk about big ideas!

Originally I had wanted to walk the street as Joyce walked Dublin, and using the names and references seen on the street, through the history, from the stores and shops along the way, to create a poetic integrated image/bank. Oh I envisioned projections on the 4 corners of each intersection, digital audio tours that were poetic and resonant with the past, present and future. I imagined Carrall Street as the microcosm of a whole new world, including East, West, Chinese, Aboriginal roots, Colonial overlords, high-tech infrastructure, homelessness, high-end glamour, art galleries, corner stores, contrasts between more expensive restaurants like Chill Winston with Wing’s Cafe, tucked in between the Gospel mission and the alley by Pigeon Park. A symphony of a city, as the early filmmakers created them. I didn’t pursue funding for this, and it remained simply an incubated idea, which others will surely find and follow.

UPDATE NOV. 2008: I’ve just decided to integrate the Carrall Street Journal posts here in my personal blog, and all the posts can now be found here.

Video Talks from James K-M’s Opening

Here are the remarks from James’ Cave Paintings exhibition opening at SFU Teck Gallery in Vancouver from Bill Jeffries, James K-M, and Oldhands.

Benefit Concert for midwife Joanne Daviau

The support for Joanne continues:

We need your help!

Please forward this to all your friends and family-This is a grass roots way for us to promote this fabulous event! Add a personal note and tell them how much Joanne means to you and by supporting her, it will help her continue to provide excellent midwifery care to many more women in the Valley!

Benefit Concert for Local Midwife

On Saturday, September 13, the Native Sons Hall will be filled with the sights and sounds of local performing artists who have volunteered their time and talent to support local midwife Joanne Daviau.

St Joseph’s Hospital in Comox, BC attempted to revoke Midwife Joanne Daviau’s hospital privileges in May this year, implausibly claiming “lack of collegiality and inability to adhere to a 20 minute rule”. Joanne successfully appealed to the Supreme Court for a stay. In June, the Hospital Appeal Board reinstated her privileges until the appeal hearing process is complete. (Hearing date, yet to be announced.) For more information, please see SupportJoanne.net

Joanne has been practising midwifery for 21 years, the latter half, in the Comox Valley. She is greatly respected and loved by her many clients who have benefited from both her professionalism and caring manner. Letters of support have been sent to various levels of government from both clients and colleagues.

All proceeds from this benefit concert, organized entirely through volunteer effort by Valley supporters, will go towards Joanne’s legal fund. The eclectic line up includes well-known faces such as Helen Austin, Judy Norbury and Linda Safford, along with Bruce and Judy Wing. Exciting additions include singer/songwriters Brodie Dawson, Nathan Senner, Shayne Stuchbery, as well as Roger Helfrick on harp and vocals. Rounding out the evening with rousing performances to get the audience kicking up their heels, are folk duo Mud and Molasses, the Blue Lotus Belly Dancers with soloists Cathy Stoyko and Edith Jacobs, accompanied live by Marco Zonka and Robin Shackleton.

Advance tickets for this wonderful family event are available at Little Me and Orbitz Pizza. Prices range from $5 – $20. (Pregnant women, kids under 5 FREE.) Limited tickets will be available at the door. Show starts at 7 pm sharp, doors open at 6:30 pm. Come out and revel in a superb concert, and feel fantastic about supporting a worthy cause.

Remembering 9/11 at VFS

On 9/11 I was Program Manager/Administrator at the Vancouver Film School New Media department (now transmogrified many times since then). It was the start of the new term, and when I arrived at work that morning, my assistant came quickly out of the office saying, “It’s World War 3.”

I thought there was one of the usual administrative problems. But there was a cluster of instructors in the hallway, and soon it became more than clear: something big was happening.

Students were sitting in the main theater, which was playing a live tv news feed onto the big theater screen. Some were going along as normal waiting for their class. Instructors were asking, “What do we do?” People were frightened.

I flashed on Britain, wartime, a strong cup of tea, and said, just teach the classes as usual, and those who want to, or who are American can watch the news. I went into each classroom, and told them we were carrying on, no one knew what was happening, and we were waiting to see what would happen next.

I told them that they could phone their parents and relatives in the US if they needed to, or leave if they needed to. I gave some students messages from their parents who had called the school already.

Then word came from the main administration, a “communications statement”, and the directive that students not watch the news in the theater. This was difficult for us. So we kept the feed going on through the tvs that were all mounted along the main hallway.

I remember a young student from Pakistan standing beside me looking up at the news, in shock. She said she was concerned that now her people would be blamed. At that time, I couldn’t believe that would happen.

I recall that I asked for the CBC newsfeed, thinking that it might be a little less frightening and inflammatory than CNN. It was all shocking, scary, unbelievable.

We all called our close ones, carried on with the day as best we could, and close to the end of the day, the head of the school came by with the communications person. By then the news had been absorbed, and we were going into the next phase, the repeated viewing over and over again of the events. And the mention of the name, Osama bin Laden.

An Israeli student in the 3D Animation department set up a gathering about a week later, for us to remember and connect together. She said it was common in Israel to do this when there was a bombing, and that it was a real help.

I was surprised that noon hour to see very few (if any) members of the staff, but the head of the school at that time was there, and we stood there with the students for that significant time. Even the students who came to this were just a small number compared to the total enrollment. I don’t believe many were aware of how truly world-changing these tragic events were.

So today, so many years later, I felt I should mark that time in memory.