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.

——————————————-

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.

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.

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.

Nuff said!

 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.

Do you consider the poster work a calling card for your fine art career?

Originally it was that. But then, as can happen to painters, illustration can take precedence. Postering was a gateway into professional illustration. Now I do a lot of work for magazines, fashion illustration. And I’m doing less posters. It’s probably going to go that way as I get older; I can’t afford to work for like $25 a day or it becomes more and more intolerable. I’d say the practice was the most important thing I got out of it. Also, there’s no better audience than having your stuff right out on the poles.

Do people take your work less seriously and say, well, you’re a poster artist, not a fine artist?

There’s still some skepticism. I think that’s probably fading as they realize—anytime the artist ‘arrives’—in that their name is already known—that’s an advantage. Nothing to sneeze at. Some posters are really shitty and they just carry a message and they’re what you would expect. Some go above and beyond and really take it to that art form. They discovered there was a huge market for those vintage posters; things that used to be advertisements fifty years ago for Coke, [they’re] now revered like fine art. The Moulin Rouge posters, vintage posters for wine.

After communities and scenes and decades fade away, the poster remains as the chronicle of that time—there’s articles and recordings, but the poster art is left as the really major visual touchstone for what people will think of when they look back at that time. It’s nice in that way.

Do you have any ambitions to work on a graphic novel? Has there been a Montreal graphic novel that tells the story of the past couple of years?

I don’t think there has. I do feel kind of pressure to fill that void. I’m hopefully going to be working on a comic book that’ll be set in Montreal next year. This being Quebec, I’ve applied for a nice grant for that. Unfortunately that’s probably the only way I could really do it at this point—it is a really time consuming process. [It’ll] probably take me three months to make something that’s twenty-four pages that you would consume in ten minutes or less.

Let’s talk about specific show posters from this year…

I try to stick with the superhero theme, and the theme of Montreal as a template overall, and I try to make them look like comic book covers. Within that I try to make it as original as I can. I found an extra concept this year: reinterpreting classic, iconic images that would tie into the different events of the festival. For Film Pop, I did a famous scene from Annie Hall—except I made them super hero hipsters and I set them in Montreal, atop of a popular theater that a lot of people like to sneak up on and make out on top of. It’s called the Rialto. You can get up the fire escape and just have a beautiful night with that special girl after the show. [Laughs].

One of them is a reinterpretation of the Edward Hopper painting, “Nighthawks at the Diner.” I used a really popular greasy spoon called Nouveau Palais, the place to drag yourself to at 4 a.m. for that extra plate of greasy fries or something—definitely an after-show ritual a lot of people would relate to. I put in some local artists: members of Plants and Animals, other visual artists.

The last one I’ll mention is based on a photo of John Kennedy from the ‘Ask Not’ speech; I used that for the POP Symposium. That one has the creative director Hillary, in the Kennedy role, and another creative director as Jackie O…and then a crowd of about 400 hipsters—a lot of real ones, some fake ones, like Batman. I tried to include the Montreal heavy hitters; Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, [plus] a lot of the new ones. Some of the guests from the festival: Nick Cave, Irma Thomas.

What about local acts or bands you’re excited to see this year?

I think Caroline Keating is really gonna get some fans as soon as she gets out of Montreal and Quebec. She’s super young, she hasn’t had the chance to leave the nest. She plays piano and sings—kind of a little bit of that Joanna Newsom power. Then there’s D’Ubervilles from Toronto. Mothers Fathers are cool.

What about the political posters you’ve made?

Were in the middle of a Canadian election, as I’m sure a lot of Americans don’t know. A lot of Canadians don’t even know, because we don’t care—everyone’s fixated on Obama and McCain up here. We have this real liberal leader candidate this time. He’s the one who’s supposed to overthrow the conservative government if he can. His name is Stéphane Dion. He looks like an accountant who’s about to microwave a TV dinner. He has no visual charisma, or charisma at all. He’s the exact opposite of a Barack Obama. The case is kind of hopeless unfortunately—a lot of the blame is put on him. I feel sorry for him. I feel like people just say that because he happens to be a small guy who wears glasses. I redid an image of him in the same exact style as Shephard Fairey’s Obama poster.

In Canada we have now five political candidates, only one of them being conservative—which means even though we’re all liberals we wind up electing a conservative because the left vote is totally split. Good system, eh?

People aren’t excited about any of these candidates?

That is the complaint. People have definitely lost enthusiasm. Our government keeps on collapsing now. A lot of people don’t have the patience for it. I love it though, I love following it. I think our Canadian politics can be just as exciting—especially when you have the Marijuana Party in Canada, and other major parties pick up their former members and run them as major party candidates. Quebec marijuana is really on the grow, as an industry.

How would you say Montreal has changed? Is it a better city than five years ago?

The gentrification is very real, rents have gone up, a lot of people have moved here. It’s become a little more Anglo. A lot of people moved here to kind of make it in an artistic gold rush, five years ago, and a lot of those guys are signed now, working full-time as artists, promoters, managers. I think the Montreal story is a pretty positive one. We haven’t ruined it yet. The condos haven’t driven out all the artists yet—maybe in another five years, [but] for now it’s still a beautiful city. Good things are still growing here.

Someone was talking last night about a neighborhood behind Mile End, called Parc Extension?

Parc Ex. Basically, Mile End would be akin to your Williamsburg. Parc Ex would be Crown Heights. So basically it’s a much less nice neighborhood that’ll be the next frontier, farther and farther away from the actual downtown. Unfortunately the nice architecture runs out after Van Horn. When the artist community has to cross the other side of the tracks—literally—it’s not gonna be nearly as beautiful of a neighborhood. A lot of the buildings are from the ’70s…Whereas the classic joke of a Montreal apartment is something that has high ceilings, bay windows, crown molding, marble fireplace, hardwood floors, for $300 a person. Now that rents are going up, that’s going to be harder for the average hipster to get. [They’re] gonna have to start living in some uglier places.

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.

Raised By Musicians: Artist Jack Dylan

Posted by Marie Bartlett Dec 10, 2007
2 comments | » Post a Comment

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 22^nd.

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..

R3: What are your inspirations when designing posters?

JD: Because my subject is usually people, for inspiration I only have to keep my eyes open. I take note of the things people around me do, how they behave, how they dress – I’m an avid eavesdropper. So because of all this, my work has become, what you might describe as very contemporary. In that there are a lot of scenes from everyday life: Indie-shows, cafes, apartments, street scenes, that kind of stuff. But that topic of “the every day” is actually a very traditional approach to illustration, not a modern one.

Many of the publications and poster that have inspired me, such as The New Yorker, Harper’s, and vintage poster artwork; all frequently showcased moments from everyday life. And often times this could be quite seasonal too. If it was a fall issue of the magazine, you would see images of fall on the cover. Now that sounds kind of boring, but I actually really like this sort of thing, and I think it has made for some of the centuries best contemporary works of art. (Meaning art, which really reflects the nature of the time it was created in.) Harper’s magazine was originally great for this, and the New Yorker still does it. But more modern publications and advertisements tend to veer away from this kind of subject matter, and prefer instead to portray the extraordinary: Models, costumes, Rock Stars and Modern art and design. But for me, I enjoy illustration which has a narrative at work. So in other words, it’s not just a splashy image to draw your attention for a few seconds. But, hopefully there’s going to be at lest a few hundred words behind the picture.

But here’s where you’ve got to be careful as an illustrator. Because it’s easy to become really cutesy and overly sentimental with the subject matter. (Think Norman Rockwell, or Charles Schulz). And I don’t have to tell you, that it’s often the kind of thing that a lot of people might think of as a “low art.” But we needn’t be too afraid about that anymore. I think the growing popularity of comics has done a lot to re-popularize this kind of illustration, let alone the effects that modern film and reality TV might have had on us. And again, looking historically at it. Many artists and movements have approached these kinds of scenes from the everyday: The Impressionists, and Rembrandt, come to mind for instance. And this kind of artwork is often scorned in its own time, but later might become one of our greatest windows into the past. Things don’t stay the same for very long after all.

It reminds me that I was recently listening to a debate about the merits of popular wildlife painter, Robert Bateman. Who critics have called just an “illustrator,” or a “poster artist.” (As if that was the lowest an artist could ever possibly sink.) So many people were calling into the show to defend Bateman. One caller pointed out that 100 years from now half the wildlife that Bateman painted might no longer exist. And I thought that that was a pretty good point. Maybe I sometimes can get a little too cutesy though.

R3: What’s going on in Canada right now with the poster scene?

JD: It really matters where you are. Because aside from the obvious necessity of having a healthy arts and music community. Whether or whether not you’re actually aloud to poster in your city is of course a political decision. You may recall that in Toronto a while ago there was some serious talk about this issue in city hall. A couple of councilors publicly announced it their mission to do something about the plague of posters that had befallen their cities once beautiful streets, and clean up the “garbage.” A long debate ensued, and apparently the new restrictions are coming soon. And what this will actually mean exactly, no body can say for sure, (depending on whether said law is actually enforced, etc.) But it obviously makes clear the challenges that face the art form.

However, the postering free-for-all that has existed in Toronto for so long, didn’t exactly do great things to foster an artistic poster community. I think most people would agree that 90% of what you see on the poles in a city like Toronto, just isn’t very good. And I don’t simply mean that it’s bad art. I mean that objectively speaking, there was just very little effort put into it; and certainly no indication of the “artist’s” name or anything like that. I have certainly seen some good poster in and from Toronto — but I have to say that in Montreal it’s plain to see that a lot of thought and care usually goes into each poster. They’re almost always illustrated; they’ve been signed by the artist, and sometimes they’re even hand printed limited additions. Perhaps if more advertisers put greater care into the quality of their poster design, the community at large would be more accepting of posters on their streets.

R3: You co-founded Friendship Cove – what’s going on these days?

JD: All and all, I’ve been doing the loft venue thing for almost four years now, and that means well over 150 shows in my living room. When we opened our first venue in 2004, The Electric Tractor”. that’s when I began doing show posters. I don’t think it would have happened if it weren’t for that.

One of my venue partners through all of this was my friend Graham Van Pelt. He’s the man behind the band “Miracle fortress.“ His new album “Five Roses”, was recorded at Friendship Cove, and was just recently nominated for the Polaris Award this year.

Graham, like me, grew up in Stratford Ontario, and I’ve known him since grade 7. We even went to our respective music and art schools in the same city, London Ontario. I’ve done the album artwork for every one of his recordings since his career began. Including “Five Roses”, though you might not recognize me in it, as it’s a pretty different style than I ordinarily work in. There are some photos of our cat Charles, in the booklet though.

As for Friendship Cove these days, things are still going good. But we’re all getting a little tired of picking up beer bottles and dodging noise complaints. Plus Graham and my own careers are different now. Living at the “The Electric Tractor” in particular was essentially like living in an artistic Frat-House. So naturally we have a lot of funny stories from that time. But I would never want to live that way again. Ever. These days we’re busier and we have less time to host shows and that kind of thing now. I can’t speak for Graham, but I know that I myself would like to sell-out as soon as possible and get a condo with a hot tub.

R3: You’ve been involved in many festivals, what’s it like being a scenester?

JD: Ha! It’s great being a scenester! It’s all that everybody makes it out to be… Adoring girls constantly accost me, and members of all the right bands frequently dial my cell. What can I say?

When I moved to Montreal, I was arriving as a painter with a background in fine arts; so I was immediately struck by the popularity and dominance of the music scene. There, was a great community of people that was enthusiastic about going out and supporting young artists, (though these artists were all musicians). In the same token, you had an extensive and willing media—magazines, blogs, college radio— that was eager to interview and promote these musicians.

But did the visual artists have it as good? As a painter I was supposed to only do one big show a year, and then spend most of my time applying for grants that take a year to receive, if at all. This vs. what the musicians were doing, which was playing two shows a month, going on tour and getting all sorts of press and fans along the way. It seemed like the fine arts road to success was going to be a 25-year plan. So even though I didn’t really understand the how of it at the time, I made a conscious decision to look at what the music community was up to, and see if I couldn’t learn from them. And of course all of my friends were musicians. And they were the ones who wanted to book such and such a band to play at our house, or explain to my why Aids Wolf would be jamming outside my bedroom that night. So it was all quite inescapable. Essentially, I was an artist raised by a pack of musicians.

LINK >>> here.

“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.

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.