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DEPT OF OPPROBRIUM: Q and Sports and I
Some of you may have caught my letter yesterday (see below) on CBC radio’s Q, where I (ever so gently) criticized the shows producers for the creation of a new segment devoted to sports. –
I would like to apologize to any listeners I may have offended with my remarks. My aim was to question the show’s producers for the decision to create a new segment devoted to sports, which I believed was a bit of a stretch for the show’s traditional mandate. After all, the sports section in any newspaper is kept separate from the Arts and Culture section and there is no shortage of play for sports news in the media.
My main mistake, I realize, is that I came off as speaking on behalf of the entire Q listenership; that by claiming that they were like me - skinny armed, fine boned, daydreamers, with the reflexes of a koala bear – I may have inadvertently offended a not-so small portion of the audience who appreciate both sports and the arts.
Let me be more clear: it is I who doesn’t really appreciate both sports and the arts.
I should have mentioned of course that there are plenty of artists out there who love and follow sports, as well as athletes who paint; and that I myself like to play, on occasion, what could be called a reasonable imitation of soccer, tennis, or road hockey.
Still though, if the reality remains as it seems – that the jocks and their admirers still outnumber the wimpy and the disinterested, and that the sports-fan’s voice is still the loudest one in the room – then I am glad I spoke up.
Our numbers may be smaller than I had imagined but I know that there are more than a few like me out there. Those of us who must continue to feign interest in draft picks, who will lose our friends each year to another playoff season, and who are forced, all through life, to make excuses as to why we never caught the score of last night’s big game.
I know that there are more of you out there my non-sports fans. I want you to know, that the next time you’re standing in right-field with the crowd roaring, and a mysterious white object drops from the sky beside you and snaps you out of your thoughts, just remember that though you may be outnumbered, you are not alone.
P.S. Keep the segment Jian, if it ever goes I know that I will be blamed for it.
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For the Record: The aired version of the letter — Which was edited down from the original.
Consider for a moment that most of your listening audience has likely spent much of their lives actually trying to avoid sports — their artistic limbs and day-dreaming minds not being attributes that lend themselves well to a game of tackle football.
Long after the wasted hours in mandatory gym classes, this audience was probably more inclined to watch a rerun of Seinfeld than catch the latest game on TV. Perhaps because sports broadcasters, as a rule, tend have that very distinctive Sportsman voice –the one that’s too loud and reminds you of that guy who flushed your wallet down the toilet in seventh grade.
We, your average listener, are Lit students and cinephiles, introverts and cat-people!
It’s not that we don’t like sports per say, (personally speaking I do own at least one pair of tennis socks), but it’s just that we’re probably not the types of people who actually read the sports section or follow sports news.
OK, maybe it’s wrong to keep the cats and the dogs separate. Maybe if we’re brought together we can start to understand each other and save a few wallets in grade seven. Perhaps you’re trying to forge a better world by getting both sides to work together. But then again, maybe that sort of thing just doesn’t work.
INSIDE THE ARIST’S STUDIO: Interview in PLUS 1 magazine
Sit down with me in the virtual environment of an online down-loadable magazine, and hear the TRUE, untold story of my origins. — A must read for fans of me, British magazines and the INTERNET.
DEPT OF GOOD TASTE: “Fashion Minute”
phoho Raji Soha, Leather Vest by “New Dad” fall/winter collection 2008.
Fashionista Raji Soha has done me the honor of selecting my Christmas card as her all time favorite of 2008. This I understand was a new category; there wasn’t —I’ll admit— any favorite Christmas card of 2007, and I doubt that there will be for 2009. But nevertheless, it’s an hour to finally adorn the digital pages of Fashion Minute, Raji’s blog. I just want to take a little aside here to mention, that despite the vogue-like qualities which I so clearly process, I myself actually know very little about fashion, but I found Raji’s articles completely entertaining, and yes, informative. So even if you think that you’re one of these people who is not really interested in fashion, I sill strongly recommend to you that you check out this site. It’s extremely well written, (Raji is actually a “real” journalist, and a sometime host on CBC’s radio3), and there are is a lot of content on here that goes beyond what you might expect: From articles on “mom jeans” and Kurt Cobain in advertisements, to tips on how you can book your own hip-hop tour in New York.
INSIDE THE ARTISTS STUDIO: Village Voice Interview
 POP Montreal Interview: Poster Boy Jack Dylan
I first met visual artist Jack Dylan at POP Montreal a few years ago. He was living with Graham van Pelt, the guitarist for Think About Life and the front man for a band-you-should-love-by-now, Miracle Fortress. At the time, they were both based in Friendship Cove, a massive, bi-level loft space that doubled as a weekend show venue. (They’d previously been evicted from a similar space dubbed The Electric Tractor.) Dylan has been handling poster duties for POP Montreal for the past four years, combining images plucked from superhero comics with portraits of Mile End’s hipster royalty. (He’s also responsible for some truly epic oil paintings, including one that showed a bereaved Al Gore cradling a dying panda bear.) I spoke with the artist about the newest round of posters for this years POP, which include inspirations from Edward Hopper, Woody Allen, and local Montreal make-out spots. — Scott Indrisek
How did you first start doing the posters for POP?
It was four years ago. I had been doing some posters—at the time our venue space, The Electric Tractor, had just been shut down. We hosted some good shows there: Japanther, An Albatross, The Gossip, AIDS Wolf. POP rolled around. I did five posters then, all of different artists who were playing the shows battling super heroes. Very standard, the way when Wolverine meets Spiderman, and there’s a misunderstanding, so they fight, but then they become friends. It was kind of based on that premise, that genre of comics.
When did you start working with the superhero theme?
Right then. That was the first time. I consider it playing the old standards, when an illustrator does a superhero. Each illustrator will typically tackle a superhero one time for something, and they’ll do it in their own way. Chris Ware draws superheros, Adrian Tomine draws superheroes, all the contemporary underground comic book artists who aren’t Marvel guys still do it. Like a jazz standard.
The Works of Jack Dylan to be Translated in to French, sort of.
Okay, so I did a little radio interview last week for a show called READY MADE hosted by Roxane Hudon , Shawn Thompson, on CISM 89,3. The neat thing about this is that the program is ordinarily in French, so host Shawn Thompson had to do the job of remembering all the things I ramble on about and then repeating it in our other, classier, national language. Listen to the interview here. Or check the Ready Made web site here.
CBC Radio 3: “Raised By Musicians: Artist Jack Dylan”
Raised By Musicians: Artist Jack Dylan
Posted by Marie Bartlett Dec 10, 2007
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Jack Dylan is a pretty snappy artist who has been designing posters and creating images for many festivals over the years, such as Pop Montreal, Sled Island and Le Guess Who. Along with Jack’s gifted sense of design he’s also a co-founder of Friendship Cove; a hang-out space for musicians and artists that turns into a venue for live music and events. Jack’s partner in creating some of the coolest lofts around is Graham Van Pelt of Miracle Fortress (they also recorded their latest album Five Roses at the Cove).
Making it in the poster industry requires a lot of hard work and dedication. For many artists it requires staying in on weekends, spending days on a single drawing, spending lots of solitary time and for Jack, talking to his cat for long periods of time.
“Illustration, at least the kind that I do, can be a very consuming process, and when you’re starting out, not getting paid, or being paid very little it’s going to take even more time away from your life just to make ends meat” says Jack.
For the Christmas season Jack has already started feeling festive. His recent work is decking the “Holiday Shopping” covers for the Eye Weekly in Toronto, and The Mirror in Montreal. He’s also going to be selling posters at the Whipper Snapper Gallery on Dec 22nd.
Although often busy at work and no time for play there are still moments of bliss “adoring girls constantly accost me, and members of all the right bands frequently dial my cell. What can I say?” says Jack jokingly.
To learn more about Jack continue reading after the jump..
Ion Magazine, “Poster Art, Jack Dylan”
Ion Magazine, Vol 5 Number 9 Issue 44, Vancouver Canada.
“According to Dr. Dakota Block in Planet Terror, at some point in your life, “you find a use for every useless talent you ever had.” Jack’s useless talent is he’s read a lot of comic books.
Montreal Gazette: “No Boring Art”
Artists (from left) Billy Mavreas, Jack Dylan, Lisa Ceccarelli, Tyler Rauman and Todd Stewart show off their posters that will be on display at Art Pop, the visual arts element of Pop Montreal. — Pierre Obendrauf / The GazetteArt Pop’s pledge: “No boring art”
Natasha Aimee Hall, Special to the Gazette
Published: Wednesday, October 03
Three years ago when Shawn Petsche griped to Pop Montreal creative director Dan Seligman that the visual arts component of the indie music festival left something to be desired, he didn’t expect to be handed the job of Art Pop director. That’s what you get for complaining.
“Two days later I was in their offices organizing art shows,” Petsche said. “It was like, ‘You don’t like it, you fix it.’ ”
The art aspect had been there since the very inception of Pop Montreal six years ago but it was getting lost in the shuffle of a burgeoning music festival on the brink of becoming huge. Artists displayed their work here and there, but there was a lack of cohesive direction.
“They had the music part figured out,” Petsche, 25, said, “but were missing the point on how the music and art communities are so closely tied.”
Petsche himself is a case in point. He’s currently completing a master’s degree in Art History at Concordia and he plays guitar in the band The Adam Brown. (Oh, and he’s the director of Art Pop, of course.)
Under Petsche’s command, Art Pop presents a curated visual arts program of a dozen or so exhibitions, performances and public art projects each year for the five days of chaos and joy that is Pop Montreal.
This year’s edition asks the question: Art Pop – Art or arse? Clearly, these Art Popists don’t take themselves very seriously. According to Petsche, the only rule is “no boring art.”
Vibrant tableaus, vivid silk screen prints, raucous live performance art, album art, videos, sculptures, photographs, objets, paper cuttings – there is no shortage of candy for the eye, ear and heart at Art Pop.
“I’ve tried to keep a good balance of those sorts of inevitable exhibitions, the kind that arise so organically from the music side of things, with some more intellectually pointed exhibitions, examining those same kind of organic links,” Petsche said. “Basically, so that the art section, like the music section, is just a big celebration of interesting art.”
It is not a commercial affair. Posters sell for as low as $5, while some paintings are priced in the thousands. But no commission is paid to organizers and some works are not even for sale: They are just there to be seen. “It’s about bringing art to people,” Petsche said. “If we can line an artist’s pockets or help someone pay their rent – that’s the cherry on top.”
Artists range from the renowned to the unknown. Joseph Arthur, whose work is being shown at Le Kop Shop at 77 Pine Ave., was nominated for a Grammy award for the album art for his 1999 release, Vacancy, and has his own gallery in Brooklyn. Tyler Rauman, of the Montreal band Telefauna, got into the art scene by doing posters for local bands, including his own. His intricate silk screen poster for Patrick Watson and the Polaris Music Prize, which Watson won last week, is on display alongside nine other posters for Polaris nominees at Notman House, 51 Sherbrooke St. W.
“Audiences are more enthusiastic about music than art,” said artist Jack Dylan, whose poster for Miracle Fortress is also showing at the same exhibit.
“That’s why it’s good to tie them together,” Rauman agreed. “One leads to the other, they go hand-in-hand.”
“I see it as music giving visual arts a leg up,” said Billy Mavreas, the artist behind the Arcade Fire poster that’s also being exhibited at Notman House.
While the name Art Pop might suggest that this is a pop-art exhibit and conjures up images of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, it’s more than that. Many of the works are indeed linked to pop culture, but the festival is not limited to what people normally think of as pop art. “Pop art didn’t start and end with Andy Warhol,” Petsche said. “We’re out to challenge as many boundaries as possible.”
In keeping with the underground, DIY spirit of Pop Montreal, Art Pop deliberately groups unusual art with unusual venues, such as the Portuguese Association of Canada at 4170 St. Urbain St.
As Petsche put it, “It’s all about launching into it headfirst, maybe being naive about it but making it happen anyway you can.”
Pop Montreal continues until Sunday, but many Art Pop exhibits will run for longer. Go to popmontreal.com/art/en for details. Poster art will be sold at Puces Pop, the fest’s annual flea market, Saturday and Sunday at the Canadian Grenadier Guards Armoury, 4171 Esplanade Ave.