MONDOmagazine

Photo by Yanick Macdonald

By Matt McGeachy

I had the opportunity to sit with renowned Canadian actress Nicola Cavendish the afternoon after her fabulous performance on the opening night of Shirley Valentine at The Canadian Stage Company’s Bluma Appel Theatre.  We talked about acting, about her future plans, about Shirley, and, yes, about donkeys.  In short, Cavendish’s agile and empathetic mind made for an uplifting interview, and left me feeling just as I had after opening night – ready to go out and live my life to its fullest!

MONDO: First of all, congratulations on a fantastic opening night performance!  There were so many very moving parts of the show.  What parts of the play do you find most moving?

Nicola Cavendish: I’ve never been an actress that analyzes everything — I work from instinct, and empathy, I think.  I’m very empathetic to Shirley.  But I think the places [in the play] that you find moving are the pieces I find very accessible in myself.  But the other pieces — cooking the eggs so they don’t burn, or when she tends to ramble on a bit… I think it’s the writer in me that tends to want to edit really quickly.  But that’s not the piece, that’s just Nicola.  I have a different relationship with different aspects of the piece.

I believe, no, I know, that Willy Russell got the ideas for this play from the ladies in the chairs at the beauty parlour that he worked at before he was a playwright.  So, he’d only written a few things before Shirley Valentine, and this play became part of a project he was obliged to write when he got to college.  He went to college in Chester, once he earned enough money to get there, and he worked nights on the Liverpool docks where the men went up to make sure that the machinery was lubricated and keep these huge pieces of machinery in working order, and he made lots of money and was able to get himself to college in England.  The words that you heard last night come out of the mouths, primarily, of the women in the beauty parlour chair.  And when women get into a beauty parlour — it’s like getting into a cab, they talk.  He put his own words and thoughts into the mix, but it’s really good material.

MONDO: Shirley Valentine captures a certain place and time in English society, but at the same time, it’s so beautifully updated to the present time.  It’s not really dated at all.

NC: It’s funny, in Montreal where we just were, a lady came up to me — and it’s rare that I meet the audience, but with this particular play people tend to need to come back and make touch with me, they need to be able to reach into my eyes a little bit further and speak with me about their experience — and on this one occasion this lady said, “I can’t believe that situations like this where people marry people they don’t want to marry still exist!”  I said, I think that’s naïve of you to think that way, perhaps you’re more privileged than most, perhaps you’ve got the ideal marriage, but I think this situation will always exist as long as two people get married, or even have partnerships.  Sometimes the language can get really rough at home, and sometimes the angers and frustrations that you bring in from a day can completely erode whatever it was that made you fall in love with the person in the first place, if there was indeed love in the first place.

I think the power of this piece is that it’s accessible not only on the kind of life that Shirley is living, even if her marriage was fine, but there is the question that we all ask of ourselves: are you actually living your life?  Are you allowing yourself the spontaneous unpredictable things in a day that actually fuel you?  I was thinking today that so many of us get stuck in a routine, whether it’s where you go to buy your groceries, or where you walk your dog, or if you jump in the car (if you have a car) and take the dog to a place you’ve never been before and meet new people.  Shirley and I part ways because that’s how I have always lived my life.  I talk to people who are complete strangers because there is so much to be mined out there.  So many of us get boxed in, and we must fight it!

MONDO: Is this political undercurrent I’m hearing something that motivates you in your character?

NC: Yes, I think so.  It’s a wonderfully powerful message, and it needs to be said more often than not.  Look at the money motivational speakers make!  There are obviously many people who are longing to buy self-help books and sit in an auditorium.  Here we have a lovely evening, in comfy seats, where you get a nice story and get to play pretend and imagine — a lot.  That’s the other kick with this play, it reminds you that you have an imagination.  You get to imagine her son, Brian, her daughter, the neighbour, feminist Jane; you get to imagine where she is on the beach.  Willy Russell has written a gift of a play that began in 1987, when it first opened in London’s West End, and here it is in 2009, and it has been performed all over the world, made him millions of dollars — he has lowered his royalty fees on the play — and it appeals to a huge mass of people.  It’s obviously quite something.  I’d like to write, I wish I could be a millionaire like him!  Look at me, I’m the pawn who goes out there every night, he’s just written it!

MONDO: If it’s millions that you’re after, you could always go into motivational speaking.

NC: You could, couldn’t you, as an actor?  It is about performance, and hopefully a good reason to be motivated.

MONDO: No, don’t do that, it would be our loss!

NC: I wonder.  You know there are a lot of young people coming up out there, and that’s another part of myself that I find lately is connecting with the young people particularly who want to be in theatre or any art form.  There are always a granny and grandpa who’re frightened about going into a profession with no promises, and there are no promises here.  You’ve got to be strong and you’ve got to be good, and that’s the way it is.

MONDO: You’re directing something next year at UBC.  Could you talk about that?

NC: Yes!  That’s exciting!  I’m already looking at music for that extraordinary event, The Laramie Project, which needs to be seen by everyone, everywhere, all the time.  In Vancouver we haven’t had a professional production yet, and we have a huge gay and lesbian population, wonderfully rich with writers and artists.  But it’s not exclusive, it’s a play for everybody.  I’m going to do it with some university students in the fall.

Of course it honours Matthew Sheppard, the young university student in Wyoming who was beaten within an inch of his life and tied to a fence — one of those huge ones that go along the highway — and he was still alive when a man on his morning bike ride was out and thought he saw something hanging on the fence.  He’d taken a different road that morning and the closer he got he realized it wasn’t a plastic bag flapping, it was a human being.  And the young man was still alive and he phoned for an ambulance.  The whole town is represented in this play.  A group went to Wyoming and interviewed people from this part of Matthew’s life — the bartender at the bar, the parents of the boys who did it, who are in jail as we speak (and right they should be) and the theatre class at the university that he took — so, it’s a really important play, especially for students.  Sometimes theatre students are fighting their own demons themselves, or are in the process of opening themselves up to all that the world gives us that is wonderful, and all that it thrusts at us that is horrific.  So you have to be a sieve for human kind, and that’s what they’re going to cut their teeth on with me!

It’s going to be a hellish work, and there isn’t any money involved to speak of — of course we all have to worry about that, about putting a roof over our head – but this is for something else.  First, I love my alma mater, love the theatre grounding I had there, and I care about students.  This is a vital play to get out to the audience.  Maybe it will be able to make one of those transfers [to professional theatre].

MONDO: There was something I noticed about Shirley and I wanted to know if it was intentional.  Every time things got really heavy and we saw her loneliness and depression, you’d let us have that for a brief moment, and then crack a joke.  I want to know if this was something that was in the script, or if it was your interpretation of it?

NC: I love these kinds of questions.  It’s on the page, but an actor can interpret any line any way they want to with the support or endorsement of the director.  And if the director says, “I don’t think it should be that way,” but you think it should be, or it wants to be that way, then you have to fight for it.

I believe that comedy is something that we use, consciously or unconsciously as a survival skill.  From a kid in a schoolyard being bullied, to deflect the punches, to Shirley.  I think Shirley has learned, as witnessed by the scene in which she’s in school and she describes that she’s picked on, she became a rebel after that.  And in becoming a rebel, she’s become in some ways a person who can crack a mean joke if she wants.  She has learned to crack a mean joke if she wants, and uses jokes to take herself out of that darkness and out of that sadness because what’s she’s doing progressively is looking at a truth, which is something that is very hard to look at.  This is why we have so many people who are subject to unhappy lives — children who are subject to unhappy marriages that should be over and the children would be happier, and the parents would be happier with each other if they were apart.  This ancient Victorian thing of staying together because the Church says so or because society says so — there’s a lot of fall out in terms of damage.

To answer your question, the role I play in that choice is that I am in agreement with Willy Russell, and when it’s not there, I think it’s a more powerful choice, when she’s talking about someone like Marjory Majors [a character in the play] whom she used to pick on, while all the time she wanted to be like her, and then she’s having tea with her 20 years later, and then she leaned forward and she kissed me [Shirley] on the cheek.  And there was real affection in that kiss — this is what she’s thinking in her head – and she thinks, when was the last time she’s had a kiss like that?  I could say that a different way, but that does not have the teeth under it, and it’s vital for the audience to feel that something.  Canadians are known for that quiet humour, have lots of grace, they aren’t laugh riots like the American humour, and aren’t so subtle as the British humour is.  I think we are more joined to the hip to Brit humour than American humour.  That said, the kind of self-deprecating humour that Shirley has, has a kind of grace and acknowledgment of manners: we’ve gone too far now, it’s time to pour the tea and change the subject!

MONDO: You were born in England and raised in Canada.  Does your heritage offer you a certain perspective on exactly that kind of humour?

NC: I think so.  I’m a product of my tremendous father’s ability to see humour in everything and my Irish mother’s ability to see the truth, and speak the truth no matter what.  That’s what Shirley does.  When she says at the end of the first scene, “He says he loves me, but he doesn’t.  It’s just something he says.”  It’s a terrible thing, isn’t it?  Like it’s supposed to make everything all right.  Now she’s saying there are other things that aren’t all right.  There’s almost a bitterness coming out of her.  To be an actor, you have to have the ability to be instinctual and be able to go the distance, which is a most dangerous thing to do.  I don’t remember who told me this, but it’s true: he said, “Nikki, always remember when you’re on stage performing any character, there is always somebody out there who knows what you’re talking about more than you do.”  Which means you have to play to the highest stakes, you can’t short sell anybody.  You have to do your research, and you go the distance.  That’s a fabulous piece of advice.

There’s another piece of advice from a show — oh God, you’re too young you wouldn’t know this, but it used to play on the CBC — The Beachcombers.  It had this glorious actor, his name was Robert Clothier, a fabulous man.  I was young and I’d read some reviews, because you did when you were young, and he said to me, “Now Nicola, if you’re going to read reviews, you better believe all of it.  If you’re going to believe the good, you’d better bloody well believe the bad.  So you don’t read reviews.”  And I’ve never read a review since.  Such good advice, isn’t it?

MONDO: Well, I don’t know.  I hope somebody reads my reviews!

Photo by Yanick Macdonald

NC: Well, that’s right.  But it’s true.  I think that’s what that wonderful play Art was all about.  You get three people and they’re friends, and the man in the middle has bought a piece of art and he loves it.  And the other two people pitch in their reviews on the piece.  But when push comes to shove, art is a subjective experience.  It begins with the person interpreting it, and it then with each individual person.  So the critics are — well, you’ve got to be really good as a critic, don’t you?  You’ve got to choose your words really well and be inside the piece, and we all know what deadlines are like.  People come to see a show, and the critics have popped up before the curtain call to get the review on the wire.

I got a lovely email from a critic in this town this morning.  He said, “Dear Nicola, I know you don’t like to read reviews, but I don’t think you’ll have anything to fear in this.  Here’s the link.”

MONDO: Did you read it?

NC: No!  I had a part of it read to be by accident in an interview this morning, but no, I don’t want to – it’s really scary being on stage, isn’t it?  It’s terrifying.  I can’t even begin to examine – I’m not interested anyway – why one chooses to get up on a stage in front of people, who thankfully sit in the black, and who hopefully respond where you anticipate they will respond with empathy, or with love.  Often in this production I hear muffled sobbing.  I always hear sobbing at the end.  But that’s all I need.

[Nicola caught sight of a dog walking outside the window.]

Oh, look at that dog with the little black sock on!  Isn’t he adorable?  Do you like dogs?

MONDO: Yes, I do.  Do you have dogs?

NC: No, my brother has a dog, out in the Okanagan Valley where I grew up, and he just loves me!  He doesn’t get to see me very often, so he associates me with long walks along the beach.  You know I like dogs more than humans, actually.

There was a woman I met years ago up in Muskoka, who was at last night’s performance.  Her name is Gillian Valentine.  I gave her my opening night tickets.  When I was visiting my friend up there I came across some animals and they weren’t in good condition.  In fact, it was appalling by my standards of keeping another creature on the earth.  So I made it a point to go to the house and find out what was going on.  I ended up meeting Gillian Valentine, and if it hadn’t been for her these animals wouldn’t be alive.  And she brought me a picture last night of this donkey, this beautiful donkey that I dream about named Charlie, and I would give anything to find a home for this donkey!  I will get my brother to drive out and get him to wherever he needs to go.  Donkeys are fiercely intelligent creatures, and very wise, and they like for 25 or 30 years.  I just don’t like that he’s lonely.  Now, it’s my mission this visit or this year to fix this situation.  I’d like to get a film crew and drive across the country and get back to British Columbia where he could live in my brother’s apricot and peach orchard.

MONDO: That sounds wonderful!

NC: You could come!

MONDO: I would like to know how your interpretation has change in the 20 years since you first played Shirley.  How has your way of communing with the character changed?

NC: I think it’s about recognizing that the age that I am, in the beginning I was 37, now I am 56, I think it’s about recognizing as soon as you can that a situation that doesn’t enliven you, enlarge you, enlighten you — if it doesn’t give you a sense of being alive, say thank you very much, I’m off now, good-bye!  The sooner you can do this, the better.

I think that’s the central message of the play.  You know, before, Shirley was a laugh-riot, everything was funny, and the show was synonymous with a great big evening of laughter.  Now the show is about taking a deep introspective look at your self and the life you are living, whether you’re 19, 59, or 70, whatever.  It’s never too late to make changes for yourself.  It takes great courage, great courage.  I think you should be surrounded by laughter and happiness and joy, and that’s in the play now!

MONDO: Well I can’t think of a finer place to end.  Nicola Cavendish, thank you very much.

By Kerry Freek

Hey guys — it’s getting warmer, despite (as I type) potential Monday snow. The birds are chirping (pigeons cooing), and people are coming out of their hermit caves to flood the city streets, budding with creative bounty – the results of their winter-bound solace. Toronto’s gangLion is no exception. Late last week, I spoke with Dave Missio, one of gangLion’s co-founders, to see what’s transpired over the cold months, and find out what we can expect from the comic zine’s upcoming Talent Show + raffle fundraiser.

MONDO: When you say gangLion, are you talking a cluster of grey matter or a centre of intellectual or industrial activity? Something completely different?

Dave Missio: “The basal ganglia (or basal nuclei) are a group of nuclei in the brain interconnected with the cerebral cortex, thalamus and brainstem. Mammalian basal ganglia are associated with a variety of functions: motor control, cognition, emotions, and learning.”

This definition was provided via email by one of our contributors (the illustrious Dwight Schenk) after he suggested the name “ganglia” for the project. He also pointed out that we could be a gang and, “Who doesn’t want to be part of a gang?” We ultimately decided to go for the singular form (ganglion) and adopted the lion as a mascot (read: logo). It helps to give a project with this many contributors a name, I think; it promotes a united front and a common goal to work towards. With comics kind of requiring the artist to hole themselves up for hours on end, the social group aspect helps too.

MONDO: Who is gangLion? How did gangLion come to be? What is gangLion trying to accomplish in this bustling city?

DM: GangLion was first conceived by Georgia Webber and myself through long distance telecommunications (Google Chat). We had both experimented with the comic form and agreed that, if I ever moved back to Toronto, we would collaborate on some ideas. We then realized just how many talented artists and writers we happened to know in the city, and proceeded to round them up and sell them on all the things Georgia and I had already discussed. In some cases we act as facilitators, teaming writers up with artists in order to help them tell their stories. I find that so many talented people just need a little bit of direction now and then and hopefully gangLion can serve as an outlet and as a hub group for artists and writers looking to be published for the first time.

MONDO: What draws you to making/sharing comics?

DM: As much as I love reading and watching films, there remains something distinctly unique about graphic novels and sequential art being able to tell stories in a way that no other medium comes close to. Developing the skills to create these stories involves practice, criticism, and experimentation, and sharing our work helps build confidence and a more critical eye to our own work. We all have stories to tell, learning how to tell them well takes time.

MONDO: Why should attendees/participants come to gangLion’s upcoming talent show? In other words, what can you promise that other talent shows cannot provide?

DM: The Talent Show is basically going to be amazing. We have so many great people coming out ready to entertain with their ten or so minutes bathed in the limelight. This is going to be the type of show where people you know may reveal a previously hidden talent. They may not end up juggling swords, but crossing only ONE eyeball? Now that’s talent. Anyone that shows up can participate, all talents welcome. There will be lots to laugh about (and at) mixed in with some truly amazing performances. We’re hoping to raise a bit more money for the production fees on our next issue, so there’s also a raffle that we’re holding. To the best of my knowledge, we are the only Talent Show to also hold a raffle at the same event. This knowledge is based on absolutely nothing.

gangLion’s Talent Show + raffle is happening on Thursday, April 8 at the Smiling Buddha around 9 p.m. Come on out to showcase your weird talents and maybe win a cool prize.

Alda Escareño; Quatro Hermanas; 2008, screenprint on fabric

By Kerry Freek

From FADO to 640 480 to Exploding Motor Car to Team Macho (the list goes on), Toronto’s art scene (past, present, and hopefully future) contains an astounding number of talented, relevant, and productive artist collectives. One such group, the newly formed inPrint Collective, is focusing on promoting printmaking in the city.

This Saturday, they’re holding a benefit to raise funds for a community printmaking centre that fosters an eco-friendly, cooperative, and encouraging environment and serves as a link between emerging artists, local galleries, and printmaking spaces.

Educated at York University, Alda Escareño began with one class in screen-printing that evolved into a full-fledged obsession with all paper and print arts. Her experience has taken her to new printmaking studios, including the Pratt Center for Fine Arts in Seattle, where she’s temporarily located. (She’s returning to Toronto soon.) Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger, also a York graduate, is interested in the fusion of visual and written work, as well as sculpture, fairy tales, and medicine. She’s currently working on a project about an artist known only by a pseudonym.

Earlier this week, I spoke with Alda and Maaike about printmaking and the benefits of being part of a collective.

Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger; The Tramp Printer Etches her Plate; #8/9, 2008, lithograph

Hi, ladies. Let’s talk about printmaking. How does this medium serve you best?

AE: I love everything about print. I could talk about the paper, the ink, the versatility of the medium, but it’s the printing process that is unique to printmaking that I enjoy most. I’m referring to the ability to work alongside other artists in a community studio. I find I’m most creative when I see other creating. Seeing other printmakers work inspires me and challenges me to create more. You can print on your own, but then you’d be missing the best part of printing.

MBW: Printmaking is an amazing medium. I’m interested in the written word as well, and bookmaking is inherently related to printmaking as a process. As a medium, printmaking is incredibly flexible, creating everything from very loose, flowing drawings to very industrial and crisp images. The step-by-step processes and repetitive nature of printmaking is another thing that has attracted me. Even a simple, single-layer print has such a process behind it. I find the methods that go into creating anything like this to be both very relaxing and meditative and incredibly frustrating at the same time. My favourite print method, lithography, is very chemical-based; the scientific side of it is one thing that attracts me. Lithography works by desensitizing parts of a limestone to water, and then using that to roll an oil-based ink over the sensitized parts without blackening the desensitized areas.

Alda Escareño; Vital Signs; 2008, lino-cut artist book

Alda, your printed dolls, hand-sewn books, and scissor portraits point to an appreciation for craft. And your five steps for the Nuit Blanche 35 Steps project were participation-, “making-”, and craft-centric. What attracts you to craft?

AE: My interest in craft evolved out of my love of print and all things handmade. Craft is something comfortable to me; it’s something I associate with home and tradition. It’s something safe but also deeply political. You don’t have to look far to see the growing craft movement. This is a movement of people that know how to make things themselves, who don’t need to buy everything. Crafts encourage learning and go hand in hand with teaching others. They are also environmentally friendly. I like that crafts are so powerful, yet they are often underestimated.

Maaike-tell us about the Tramp Printer. I’m intrigued!

The first run of Tramp Printer, showing most of the edition. Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger, 2008.

MBW: The Tramp Printer comes about from a few different sources. It was inspired by a book called The Tramp Printer, printed in a limited edition back in the 1930s. It was about a bum who wandered around from printing press to printing press, selling his talent at typesetting for a bottle of whiskey, followed by a strong shot of kerosene to cure the hangover. The title, however, evoked a different image altogether – a pin-up girl printing. And since I had a bit of space on a litho stone, I just went with it. Printmaking is an incredibly chemical and somewhat industrial process, so the juxtaposition of girls tottering on heels and dressed up was a really funny one. Until fairly recently, I think printmaking has also been a very “male” occupation; in part because it was “serious” work – originally about publishing books and newspapers instead of being an art form, and also because it is a very time-consuming and expensive medium to participate in. Only recently have older forms of printmaking become outdated and obsolete to professional worlds, and has opened up to artists – and with a few changes to society’s rules, female artists also. While the tramp printers aren’t meant to be overly political, they are meant to stand as a juxtaposition to the very “manly” history of printmaking. Most of all, the tramp printers are set up to act as an in-joke to printmakers; they tackle some of the most dangerous, precise, and messy things that printmakers must do in completely inappropriate attire. I tried to create a different type of “tramp” for each print; the first in the series is supposed to look like a classic Betty Boop (only more human) sort of character. The next three are more modern but every bit as stereotypical: a wet t-shirt girl, a revealing evening gown, and a gothic cat-ears girl.

Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger; The Tramp Printer Grains her Stone; #8/9, 2008, lithograph

How did inPrint begin? How did you become a part of the collective?

AE: inPrint came together in the last few weeks of our last year in the York print media program. Like most graduating students, we had trouble visualizing what came next. We were concerned that we wouldn’t be able to find a similar space to that of the studio we all loved and we also were unsure as to what we could do with everything we had learned. Having worked together for so many years it only seemed natural to try to do something together. The inPrint Studio and collective is what came out of this moment.

MBW: Originally, we talked about it as a studio for ourselves, and then considered how many other recently graduated students were likely in the same predicament as we were. Although Toronto has a print studio already – Open Studio – it alone cannot handle all the printmakers in Toronto. We also wanted to create a space where we could get together with other artists and discuss and encourage art-making.

Why is it important for you to be part of a collective? What are the benefits? What are your goals as a group?

Alda Escareño; Let 'er buck; 2008, lino-cut

AE: inPrint is the kind of initiative that will support you as an artist but will also help you to grow. We don’t have a studio yet, and we are already learning every step of the way. We want to create a space for printmakers to work and learn from each other. A place where they can collaborate with other artists and get involved in how the studio is run. When it’s finally set up, we’ll have the studio and a space to feature the work being made. We are working to create the kind of space we were looking for when we graduated.

MBW: It is important to create support groups for artists – making art for a living is a difficult thing to do, especially considering today’s current cultural cutbacks. Toronto’s art scene seems very dog-eat-dog vicious, and by banding together, we feel like we can help support ourselves and other emerging artists as we all try to put ourselves out there. We’re hoping to start holding juried shows to promote young artists, and as soon as we have an up-and-running space, we’ll encourage printmaking by offering space for printmakers to practice, as well as holding printmaking classes for people who’d just like to learn how. And, of course, we’d like to run a printmaking studio that operates in as green a manner as possible.

Join inPrint this weekend! Hard Pressed to Print takes place this Saturday, January 17 at The Cameron House (408 Queen Street West). Doors at 9pm, cover $10. Featuring the musical support of Ten Thousand Creatures and Benhur, Kendal Thompson, Jeremy Gontier, and Scotty Stiles.

By Margarita Osipian

When I first set eyes on Benjamin Oakley’s work at the Gardiner Museum during 2007’s Nuit Blanche, he was creating an installation: a large drawing of a cabin on the museum’s wall using only black tape. It was fascinating to watch the image grow and take form. Almost exactly a year later I met with Ben in his studio, armed with an old tape recorder. The following is part of our conversation.

MONDO: I don’t want to limit your work, but what are your main interests?

BEN OAKLEY: I’m interested in both photography and painting, and I would say equally. The dialogue they can have with each other. Paintings that talk about photography or use it rather than mimic it. That real nice interplay between them, that kind of bouncing back and forth — that’s nice. I think that Gerhard Richter did that really well with some of his early painting. Pushing paint to create an out-of-focus image is interesting. A technical photographic element in a completely different medium. I like that. I take more photographs than I make paintings. In the last while I’ve done only three larger paintings. They happen a lot slower, and photography is quick. It’s immediate.

MONDO: When photography came along, what painting was aiming to do with realism had to change since photography was usurping that space. It’s cool that you are working within that interesting shift.

BO: It’s a real active time right now, because even traditional photography (or what we knew as photography) is, some say, suffering some technical death throes. The reality of photography certainly is not dead or dying. And the same can be said of painting. We create and gather images more than ever.  The obsession of documentation through photography is stronger than it’s ever been.

And new relationships between the two are being formed all the time. So as long as you keep exploring those relationships, nothing can really die.

MONDO: You have a lot of images of sky in your older and more recent work. What is it about the sky, or the expansiveness of the sky, that draws you?

BO: I don’t know. If you go through art and all of its different histories, even photography, the landscape and the sky has always been a real muse for a lot of people. It’s been a real focus, so that interests me. Also for my own relationship with it, after a while of looking at it and thinking about it, questioning how to even look at it, how to think about it. You begin to watch it change. It becomes a bit meditative. You begin to realize why it’s been so important for so long. It’s a constant.

MONDO: The sky is just very large and takes up a lot of space. But I guess that’s just the reality of what it actually is, the sheer size of it. You can’t pinpoint it. It’s not static or planted in the ground. It seems to go on forever.

BO: You can add to it and you can take away from it. For a long time I was downloading a lot of photos of forest fires. I’d just google forest fires and print out all these images of really, really chalked-out skies. That interested me, the idea of adding, adding, and adding, until it became completely muddied and distorted. The images are great. I have a big stack of them and I still look at them when I do paintings. For a long time I was painting nice blue skies, and I’m not saying that they were boring or empty, but I guess they were empty in the sense that there was room for addition. I wanted to put something in the air. I thought smoke was an attractive and fitting solution. So, that’s what these new paintings are: like these weird forest fires, smoke and the cropping and isolation of those smoke-filled sections.

MONDO: You were telling me about the work you were doing using transparencies of multiple photographs layered over one another. I know it was more about the process for you, but what is it about this creation of a fictional space versus a pure photograph?

BO: I was thinking about media images and the truth of the photograph today, even the truth of my own photographs. It kind of came about when I’d taken some photos and I had them in the computer. I was going to print them out and there was some odd little thing in each photo, that I kind of thought, I don’t really like that. So I photoshopped it out, cleaned everything up and I kind of felt self-conscious for doing so.  I told a friend of mine that I had photoshopped out a bubble gum wrapper from the background of the photo. He told me it was really silly, like what was the point of that.  There is nothing wrong with an honest image. So I wanted to think about the fiction of the image and the ability to be able to edit as much as you want and whatever you want. That attracted me. Also the marrying of two or more photos to create one new, believable image. So I took separate photos, three or four, from different sources, and then combined them.  Printing them as transparencies and stacking them on top of each other.  Some of the images were really convincing. They didn’t look like fractured clips. It was about breeding imagery.

MONDO: You have several country landscapes, like cabins and trees. What’s the relationship between the countryside and your existence as a person living in an urban space?

BO: A lot of the photos are taken from cars. I’m never really out for a walk in the countryside. It’s always going from point A to point B, going from the city to usually visit family. To pass the time, I put the camera on the windowsill and shoot photos and look at them later. Sometimes it’s a really nice drive; it’s enjoyable. I’m not pursuing [the image of] a nice perfect barn, or anything like that. I’m not going to the county fair and trying to sell them. I’m sort of looking at those traditions and seeing if you can mimic them easily, and pass the time doing it. It’s a real lazy man’s tourism. You just have to sit and it all whips by. With a nice fast shutter speed, you can get these photos. It’s kind of like watching TV with a pause button.

MONDO: It’s like a way of documenting something that you almost never experienced.

BO: Yeah, it’s like documenting something I’m not part of. It’s all about fiction. The merging of all these images was to create fiction and doing these country landscapes is more fiction. If a songwriter was to just write about only familiar things, he might be a really dull songwriter. If he can branch out and speak of things he doesn’t know of, it can get really interesting.

MONDO: Do you have ideas for projects that turn out to be too large? I decided one night that I was going to make a bird and I was going to cut all the feathers out individually out of paper. After ten feathers I gave up because it was so laborious.

BO: Yeah, large projects usually involve lots of money. When it came to the Nuit Blanche installation, I did it with masking tape because I can afford that. That’s something that I can just go and buy. I don’t have to apply for a grant; I don’t have to rely on anyone else. If you want to make something out of cardboard, you’re a genius for picking cardboard. If you ever want to make small art, you’re a genius because it costs you nothing to ship it. If you find ways to work big with small means, you’re going to make something happen. So when I wrote the proposal for the Gardiner, I knew it would be totally possible. It was funny: they came back and asked “What are your material costs, what’s your budget, how much money will you need?” I emailed back and I said, “I think fifteen dollars.” They just laughed. But it’s true, I made it with fifteen bucks, and I still have a lot of the tape too. That sort of self-reliance is important to me.

MONDO: Really cheap art.

BO: Costless art.

MONDO: I guess that’s like using found objects. That plays into it.

BO: Yeah. It’s impermanence too. Even if it was to stay up, it wouldn’t be able to. The glue would corrode over years and it would all kind of fall off the wall. It would be like leaf litter. The idea that what goes up comes down, it becomes a big ball of nothing.

MONDO: We’re living in a disposable society in terms of our consumption and there is really not a lot of preservation. Yet there is a need to preserve artworks and historical artifacts.

BO: I see it everyday. They’re insane over it.

MONDO: The world always functions on these weird polarized lines that seem to not make any sense and you’re addressing that by making disposable art.

BO: You go to some artist’s studios and you’re hanging out and they’re getting stuff ready for a show. And it’s on the floor and they’re blowing smoke on it, walking on it. So it’s part of their life for a time, whatever it is, object or image, who knows. Eventually it ends up in a gallery or museum and it becomes instantly babied for the rest of its days. I guess that’s what some artists strive for, for their work to not just be conceptually respected, but physically as well. Just cared for. It’s sort of a nice idea. There’s stuff in the AGO’s collection that’s 80s work and it’s really falling apart. The 80s was all about synthetics, new glues, new mediums, acrylic paints and stuff like that. The pieces aren’t standing up at all, they’re totally crumbling.

MONDO: The idea of the art gallery in itself is a very strange and complicated one.

BO: Galleries will always approach art and artists differently than artists will approach art. Always. That’s just the nature of it.

MONDO: It’s also the construction of the artist, in the same way that we construct the author. There is this idealization, putting artists on pedestals. They move beyond being human beings. When you first meet people you have idealized images of them, but this deteriorates over time. I think the artist lives in that idealized space permanently.

BO: They like to roll around in it. Play the role. It’s a bit much. But it’s that sort of economy and the gallery expects that attitude because it seems to work. So a lot of times the artist says “okay” and they oblige. Then you have this relationship where the gallery gives the artist money and exposure and the artist gives them a character.

MONDO: When you get a grant from somebody, whether you’re an artist or a non-profit organization, it alters what you’re doing. You were saying that it’s really good to do cheap work because you can fund it yourself. You’re not relying on someone else.

BO: That’s exactly it. And that’s a nice feeling, too, to be a do-it-yourself person. If you can fix your own deck when a board breaks, you’re better off. If you can do a piece in a museum that seems to work on a budget of ten dollars, that’s also better for you. There are people doing things fabricated out of every high-end material you can think of. Made for them, shipped for them, set up for them. That whole exchange amazes me. Burning money.  Seems very arrogant.

MONDO: You’re more intimate with your work.

BO: Yeah. That was the whole thing with the Nuit Blanche project. The act of drawing it live, freehand, the progression, and letting people be part of that progression is important. It couldn’t have been done beforehand and just have had people show up. It would have lost everything. It would have looked like a vinyl cut-out.

MONDO: It’s hard for people to think about art as disposable.

BO: There can’t be a value on everything. And that’s again where we’re falling short a lot of the time. Where musicians make music to sell and artists make art to sell. That’s the wrong bottom line. And so a piece like the tape piece is not meant to be sold and it’s not meant to be put on a pedestal.

MONDO: The basic essence of its construction is that it can’t be taken by people and bought.

BO: I like the idea of a creative gesture just being for that sake only.

MONDO: So if an artist made art in their home and no one saw it, would that be okay?

BO: Yeah, I think it would be great. Henry Darger was a total shut-in and when he died the people downstairs went into his place and found a huge stash of decade’s worth of drawings, collages, and watercolours. They are really good. He lived his whole life and when he died no one had ever seen his stuff. Now there are major retrospectives of his work, it’s kind of weird and I wonder who’s capitalizing on that. He has no family, he has no heirs. His stuff is so weird, unedited, and no one was meant to see it. That’s interesting, because we all operate for the public, all of us.

Benjamin Oakley is represented by LE Gallery and pays the bills working as an art installer for the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Amy Belanger

By Amy Borkwood

Amy Belanger is a multi-talented artist, working with everything from embroidery to jewellery to printmaking. She lives and works in Halifax, but you can find her work all over Toronto: necklaces at Heart On Your Sleeve, “Canadian Ragdolls” at the Souvenir Shop, or online at Toronto-based goodEGG Industries. We chatted recently about her work and practice, and what has been inspiring her lately.

MONDO: Can you tell me a bit about your background in the arts? I know you went to school at NSCAD, and the first time I saw your work was at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition this summer. Can you tell me a little more about you and your work?

Amy Belanger: Well, I could go back as far as decorating pumpkins at my birthday parties and feeling like I had an exceptional talent over my five-year-old companions.  Soon after those youthful days I was in university for environmental resource studies. I had some great experiences in high school, and after that I travelled and worked on farms. Ultimately, this changed my perspective. I became and remain interested in working as part of a community. There are thoughts that a person is educated to improve herself and therefore become a valued citizen in society; or, conversely, that she can be educated in a community- and society-oriented way to make for a better individual. Both are important. Community involves food, culture, music, and arts. This is where I thrive as an individual…and why I decided to pursue art.  I studied textiles at Sheridan College and at NSCAD University in Halifax.  I am living in Halifax particularly because there is such an active group of people working for community efforts, at the amazing farmers’ market, on independent projects, and in the scattered little galleries across town.

MONDO: I’ve seen your gorgeous hand-embroidered black-on-white pieces, and your jewellery is all over Toronto. You’ve noted that you’re now working on silkscreened posters and postcards.  Can you tell me about all these different projects? What draws you to each new medium? And how is it that you’ve got such diverse, incredible skills?

AB: I was talking with my friend Jordan MacDonald about the work he was doing in ceramics and at the time he was being secretive about his project. I said “Are you not ready to show us your work because you’re too far from finished? Are you still in the development stages?” His reply was that he tries to always be in the development stages. I like that. That’s the best way I can attempt to explain why I enjoy working with a variety of materials and subjects. They all influence the other, the last, or the next. The posters and postcards involve silkscreening images that have been compiled in my sketchbooks. While working on the embroidery pieces that you saw at the Outdoor show, I started collecting sentences or things I would hear on the street, and writing them down as a way to reactivate my mind in the midst of all the time-consuming stitching. This collection turned into something like found-word poetry, I guess. It’s still something I’m playing with — in the developing stages, so to speak. The jewellery you mentioned…are necklaces made from broken tea cups and saucers. Similarly, they started out as a diversion project, using the glass studio at Sheridan to figure out how to make the pendants, while I was in my final year studying textiles.

MONDO: Your embroidered works are just stunning — they were by far the best work I saw at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. What inspired them, and what’s the process of the work?

AB: I have had a lot of time to think about what these pieces mean to me, but I still find this a difficult question to answer. I started filling up pages of my sketchbook with lines and mark-making. This felt foreign and exciting because, although these marks are familiar, they are less distinguishable or relatable to our everyday experiences. The connection to landscapes was from looking out the window of the plane. The fields and rivers made up similar patterns. It was interesting to talk to people at the Outdoor show during this time because people, instead of having personal connections [to the work], made many references to traditional craft and art: Inuit stone carving, Maori tattoos or tribal tattoos, Japanese landscapes, Indian traditional quilting and henna to name a few. The use of line is so prevalent in traditional work. It is a different kind of expression that escapes the physical reality in some way, like matter being broken up into molecules and atoms. I also enjoyed pretending I was a Mayan weaver or visiting an African tribe. The intricacies, simplicity, and universal quality are sometimes devalued or lost in our culture. I found these works so exhausting, but at the same time they are calming and reassuring. There is more to see than what is tangible, decipherable, and right in front of us — and although it’s always in-process, this is what these pieces are about for me at the moment.

MONDO: Why textiles?  How were you originally drawn to that medium?

AB: I was working at a summer art program for kids called ArtsKool (good name) after my first year at university for environmental resource studies. I worked for my high-school art teacher, and it was her and a friend and co-worker that convinced me to check out the Craft and Design program at Sheridan College. I think there was less than a month left before fall classes started so I took the first two studios available, which were textiles and ceramics. I really had no idea what they entailed, but I fell in love with textiles immediately! The splashes of colour all over the walls in the mixing room and sinks, the patterns layered all over the drop cloths, the versatility of the material, and their origins and history.  Yes, love! Prior to this, my experience with textiles came from an interest in fashion and cultural dress. I used to make a lot of my own clothes and always enjoyed hunting through second-hand stores for interesting finds and fabrics.

MONDO: I’m really interested in your community involvement. Do you consider yourself to be part of an art community, a craft community?  How do you combine working as an individual on your own projects with being a member of a specific community?

AB: I am often so inspired by the talent and great work in this little city. A few weeks ago, there was an event called Nocturne, an evening art event. It was fantastic. These are the events that I get most excited about and would be strong in any city. There was so much collaboration: from the event organizers, the individual galleries and participating artists, to the public transportation (free — with art and music en route). Every gallery was full and just walking down the street would take you to another installation, performance, or music in the street.

My involvement thus far includes attending events and being enthusiastic and participating in local crafty fairs. I would definitely love to be more involved in these events — which might involve showing my work here in Halifax. Currently I’m bartering, silkscreening for a local artist, Michelle St. Onge, in exchange for a beautiful textile space. It’s a great opportunity and definitely makes me feel like I’m a part of this craft and art community.

MONDO: Whose work are you influenced by?  Which local (Halifax) artists are you interested in right now?

AB: These people are all fantastic: Chris Foster, Lydia K, Laura Dawe, David Harper, Picnicface (comedy team).

MONDO: Are there any other mediums you’re interested in trying out?

AB: All other mediums! I would really like to build a house (cob or straw or wood) actually!