Agente Costura: Lisa Simpson at the grunt gallery

 I had so much fun today at the grunt with artist Lisa Simpson who is visiting from Brazil. She is doing a performed piece in which she will upcycle the clothing you bring in. I brought in a few things that had been lingering in my drawers. They were too precious to ditch, but too holey for me to wear out in public.

 We were directed to bring in some music to play while Lisa sewed but I forgot my CD, so I sang a kind of improvised psychotherapy song. Lisa bought a used machine at Value Village which she hooked up to a microphone. She put bells on her scissors which also became amplified when she used them.

 Simpson learned to sew at Home Ec class in school and has developed a natural talent for reworking clothing. I watched her tailor a woman's dress without measurements--she just did it by instinct. Anyone who sews will know this is amazing.

Here's a pile of clothes you can choose from to be reworked into a part of your clothing.

 There are also dresses on elastic hanging from the ceiling you can wear.

Et voila, Another fantastic event put on by the grunt!

The Slo-femist (Un)fashion Show

Some ideas for the Slo-femist (Un)fashion Show:

People in the audience are actually knitting, crocheting, mending clothes as the show is going on. The slow fashion on display is remade, recycled, mended and re-fashioned--the more times the better. If it becomes an annual show, the challenge is to show the same remodeled pieces from the year before, and so on.

The people who narrate the show are also the people wearing and creating the clothes--the division of labor among seamstress, designer and model are not hierarchical.

Artists bring the scraps they can not use to be shared and/or composted (if they are very wee).

Artists also display unique patches, mending techniques, natural dye methods.

One part of the space could be a clothing swap depot.

There would be no division between haute couture and ready-to-wear.

Some slo-femist uniforms could be conceived and devised, for slo-femist activities such as pruning, weeding, composting, beekeeping, feeding the chickens, victory gardening, etc.
 

Wearing Femininity

I've just discovered the costume photography of Carin Ingalsbe via a wonderful blog called Sweetpea Path. In the cabaret series, Ingalsbe has photographs of costumes from a collection of over 200 dresses worn by a cabaret performer who is now in her 90's. They a poignant portraits of the act of wearing femininity. They are also a moving depiction of the beautiful detritis a woman leaves behind as she ages.

When I go to second hand stores and look at clothes that have been previously worn, I am inspired to imagine whose life animated them and what secret stories the pockets and pleats hold. In pieces like Con Stars and 100 Housewives I created personas from inspiration taken directly from the used clothing. In these pieces the personas I create are a performed and improvised fiction. The fictional personas I create are made from fantasies born out of the frustrations with the limits of being a woman. The irony and some of the humor comes from the realization that even the fictions I create are crippled by preconceptions of what femininity is and allows me to be at the time I create the piece. As I have struggled to liberate myself from the pitfalls and traps that womanhood seems plagued with, I have struggled to become a person that doesn't let gender get in the way of their potential. As I am now an aging woman, I find that it's even more difficult to throw off the limitations of society's views of what being a woman (at this ages) means. It's disheartening, but it's another subject to make work about. If I don't make work about it, I'll just get caught in the same traps over and over again and my world will get smaller and smaller.

The costumes in my closets and chests are full of the memories I have of celebrating the fictional female and I'm not done yet.

The Venue

When you create a show, there is automatically a need to imagine what kind of venue you'll be performing in. This helps shape the piece. When you perform at a festival, all bets are off on what kind of space you'll be stuck in. So I must admit, I end up having some venue anxiety along with tech anxiety. Hours are spent in the middle of the night with my mind whirring through all the possibilities of what could go wrong. Performing is risky business and part of the process is all about dealing with the practical stuff so you can be relaxed and confident enough to give a good show.

 I was very happy we were going to have our tech talk 2 days before the show. I was able to find the venue, through a black door, nestled discretely between the "toy" shows of the gay village between Beaudry and UQAM metros. I headed up a narrow, well-worn stair case to find an intriguing space with a bar and a small kitchen.

The building was used in the clothing industry. This is one of the signs from that business. It may have included a sweatshop behind a heavy fire door, which is where we performed. It was a Chinese restaurant and there may have been a bordello upstairs where there is a series of small rooms off a hallway. This is why La Baraque bills itself a "performance art bordello". When I heard that term, I was very relieved.

The manager of the venue was very warm, respectful and accomodating. Our technician was serious, fun, and entirely competent. The audience was receptive. I made a few mistakes, dropped a few lines, we had some technical difficulties, but other things went really well.

I was inspired by the other performers. All created fascinating works in a program that was an eclectic bumpy ride. The program left me thinking about demystifying the female and transgendered body as a mean of empowerment.

We performers were asked to sign a messy contract, with full exposure on what kinds of solids and fluids we would be using. We agreed to a LEAVE NO TRACE policy. This made me think about what we leave behind in the spaces we visit. I felt compelled to deliberately leave 4 sequins in the plate of a planter. I inadvertently left gold glitter on the bathroom floor that fell from the bling I put on my skin. In the green room I left hair, skin cells, eyelashes--all mingled with the genetic material left by the other performers. This in turn mixed with the tiny traces left by the people who rent the rooms and the ghosts of memory left by the workers who inhabited this space in the past. LEAVE NO TRACE is impossible and perhaps on some level, wholly desirable and human.

The More Costumes, the Better!!!!

 I used to buy a French magazine called Photo, and I remember an article with a picture of a New York performance artist in her studio. She was wearing a wild costume that was like Barbarella to the power of ten and she was in front of shelves of accessories and costumes. "That's what I want to be," I thought. It just made sense. Especially as my parents had invested in all those singing and figure skating lessons I took from age 7.

 Theatre was too conventional and patriarchal for me, musical theatre was too naff, and opera was way too "parky/barky".

I have performed for over twenty years now, sometimes veering more towards theatre, sometimes more towards performance art. For my new piece I am going back to my roots. It's low budget, simple, and I am just doing whatever the hell I feel like, regardless of what the gatekeepers say. It's unmediated and genuine, (I hope).

Some performance artists who are protective of the "purity" of their genre have tried to keep me off the playground. I've been too comedic, too dramatic, too verbal, too . . . whatever. I'm a woman and I perform. So get over it! To (re)paraphrase Simone de Beauvoir, "One is not born a woman, one performs as a woman."

It's been a few years since I went back to my performing roots and realize how much I miss it: the colors and textures of the fabric; he lightness and silliness of life lived in costumes; the smiles and giggles I receive along with the thought-provoking feedback. I love the glamour of glitter and sequins and gold gogo boots. My good friend Donna has taken to organizing feather boa brunches in Winnipeg. Here, here! More of that ilk, je pense.

Waiting for Hummingbirds

 For about ten years now, I have wanted to make a performative hummingbird feeder hat. (This was even before I saw the bird feeder hat by performance artist Erica Fielder.) I decided that I had to make a prototype this summer. So I cobbled some bits and pieces together and made mach 1: Lori's Hummingbird Chapeau. I launched the chapeau at the birthday of Somerville Kitchen, which was exuberantly celebrated with borcht and birthday cake.

 I sterilized the feeder bottles with hot vinegar and water (1:1) and then made up a sugar solution 1 part sugar to three parts water. This is meant to be a spectacle feeder, not for sustained use. Anyway, hummers have plenty of flowers to sip from at this time of the year, which is probably one of the reasons they declined to visit the hat. It could have been the extreme heat (34 degrees C) or the disco ball. (See above.) We'll never know.

 The borscht was made by J and served with lashings of sour cream, yogurt, fresh dill, and lemon wedges. We chatted about Dutch licorice, fennel and orange salad, and Scandinavian mystery novels.

 The garden is full of delightful little surprises like this passionflower.

 The birthday cake, made by Anita, was light and dotted with fresh raspberries.

 Later the same day we had a family dinner and I put on the hat and waited. . .

 and waited. The hummers didn't come. This was weird, since they visit my inlaws' garden every night just about at the time we're eating dessert.

 Well, it just goes to show, hummingbirds live on their own schedule.

Meanwhile, I took off the hat and enjoyed a piece of raspberry pie with homemade vanilla ice cream. Happy summer! Happy Pride! Happy Birthday!

Twilight Tea Party Photos: Part 2

David Floren holds an MFA from Concordia University where he studied sculpture and integrated media. Currently Floren's creative work focuses on event collection, discrete networks, and remote systems. Floren's work has been shown internationally at venues including Berlin's Sony Centre, Répliques in Algiers, Send and Receive in Winnipeg, À la nuit tombée in Grenobles, and at Icons in Washington state.

(COME SEE) THE FRENECIRCES: A two-thirds scale Ottoman/Czarist styled gondola remembers journeys between oasis caravanserai. It absorbs solar energy during the day and at night it emits light, and text (wirelessly), and skitters along its support wire. Intermittently, the gondola will transmit prose to ground-based wireless handsets (iPhones or other WiFi equiped devices). The text alludes to Marco Polo-like traveller(s) in mid journey between oases, and to the context of the original gondola among the opulent architecture near the resort city of Gagri on Georgia's Black Sea. The Park-to-Spa line once carried czars, dukes, and aristocrats.

These are the solar lights designed by Peter Courtemanche and created by the community in a workshop at The Britannia Community Centre for the Light Headed Lanterns below.

Naomi Singer is the Artistic Director of the Secret Lantern Society and has been a practising artist since graduating with honours from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in 1989. She has created and participated in countless festivals and community projects as an artist, performer, director and designer and has taught workshops throughout BC and Alberta. She continues to produce and direct the annual Winter Solstice Lantern Festival in multiple Vancouver neighbourhoods, collaborating with over 500 artists and performers, dozens of community associations and countless volunteers. Over 15,000 participants attend this annual event.

Light-Headed Lanterns: In a workshop for the commmunity, participants created head-shaped lanterns using tissue paper, petals, twigs and natural materials from the MOP garden. Once complete the new lanterns were outfitted with solar technology created by participants in a workshop with Peter Courtemanche. Light-headed is a solar powered lantern project that plays on the concept of personal illumination. Ten head-shaped portrait lanterns will invoke the "eureka moment" we hope to inspire regarding the conversation between art and science. A head lit from within is inspired, it contains spirit, it holds an idea. And when we put our heads together, anything is possible.

Les Serveuses! Sharon Kallis and Jody MacDonald serve up garden tea and bannock.

Lori Weidenhammer is a Vancouver performance-based artist originally from Saskatchewan. For four years she has been appearing as the persona Madame Beespeaker on a regular basis. Lori created an Artist Run Bee Garden at the MOP (2009). Her collaborative media works with Peter Courtemanche have been shown in Canada and abroad. As a food security volunteer and activist Weidenhammer works with colleagues and students of all ages on identifying native plants, eating locally, gardening for pollinators, and guerilla gardening.

In her installation and performance Lori Weidenhammer will embody a psychic medium called Madame Moth appearing in an illuminated cocoon. She will enter into a trance state with the help of a sound track she listens to created from fortunes from a vintage scale and 19th century recipes. Moths have eaten away at the memory of Madame Moth as she struggles to channel her own past.

Twilight Tea Party Photos: Part 1

Crow hour happened during the twilight on June 26 above the MOP Garden. My son was on documentation duty and took this photo.


Robin Ripley is a Vancouver artist who often works with recycled and natural materials as they reflect her environmental concerns. Gathering sorting and reconfiguration are all processes she uses to draw attention to the often overlooked details of our world. She focuses on the re-examination of mundane objects as a way to explore sense, memory, and knowledge. Her working processes are often laborious, questioning current economic models of speed and "efficiency" while suggesting that transformation is still possible through small gestures if we make time to notice the details of the world. Her works have been widely shown throughout British Columbia.

TRACES employs a specific site, the Means of Production garden to draw attention to the complex web of often unobserved activities found in nature. The work was created in collaboration with students from Simon Fraser Elementary. Transparent plastic sheeting provides a surface to trace and illuminate the multitude of activities within the garden. The patterns of activities will be delineated with phosphorescent materials recording the ongoing transitory records left behind by insects, birds, and animals. Slug trails, paw prints, woodpecker holes, insect chewed leaves, bird and insect flight paths are some examples of the elements of the patterns to be transcribed. Painting on individual transparent sheets with phosphorescent paint participants created specific patterns to portray an aspect of the garden which intrigued them.

Peter Courtemanche is a sound and installation artist from Vancouver. He creates radio, installations, network projects, performances, curatorial projects, and handmade CD editions. His art works often have a literary basis - inspired by narrative texts and the history of specific installation sites. His "outdoor" works include: "Divining for Lost Sound"(1996-99), "Preying Insect Robots" (2006), and Poison Mentor (2009).

The Illuminated Shroom is a large tree fungus that has become savvy about science. It is inspired by the notion of wind-clocks and alternate scales of time. It perceives the wind as a variable force that blows during the daytime and goes quiet at night. Thus each day has a different length in wind time, and each night the shroom has an opportunity to stop and reflect on the day. The shroom is a solar powered creature that monitors and records the wind during the daytime, and at night it uses its findings to create a pattern of light, played-back on amber LEDs. Connected to the Time Inventor's Kabinet project at OKNO in Brussels, the shroom also sends it's wind data to the Internet.

Diana Burgoyne refers to herself as an electronic folk artist. Her performances and installations have been exhibited internationally. She was commissioned by Telus Science World to collaborate on a permanent piece which is exhibited as part of Contraption Corner. She has created a work entitled "Audio Quilt" as artist in residence at the Roundhouse Community Centre. "Audio Quilt" is an interactive installation that reflects the sounds and voices of the Roundhouse community by utilizing one hundred audio chips, each recording 10 seconds of sound. Many of Diana's pieces involve audience interaction to activate the art. Whereas we are usually taught not to touch anything in a gallery, her pieces rely on the audience handling the art.

Diana created the work in the Twilight Tea Party in three collaborative workshops with the community. In two workshops with students at Simon Fraser Elementary, the students created Buzzy Light Bugs. The audience can use their flashlights to activate the sound circuit enabling the viewer to experience both the audio and visual aspects of the pieces. The second workshop took place at the Britannia Community Centre. By weaving electronics around rocks or plant materials or by modeling the circuit into insect sculptures, participants created solar-powered audio creatures using light sensitive buzzers and make sound recordings. These are also activated with flashlights.

Behind the Scenes at the Cabaret

Many thanks to everyone who organized the Reading the Riot Act Cabaret, especially Anakana Schofield. Kudos to the intrepid members of the audience who had the courage to attend on such an unpredictable and volatile night. Thanks to the staff at the Waldorf for working on the occasion and to all the artists--the other Riot Grrlz and one Riot Boy.