And Yet Another Adventure

Barbara: Deb and I have been regaling you this last week with stories of our happy adventures—and today will be no different. We hope you enjoy peaking into the “Spring into Fall” fun we’ve been having lately.

Don’t you love how life does that sometimes? I mean, sometimes it’s all seriousness and work and troubles and woes, and sometimes—even while the seriousness and work may still abound—there is a surfeit of interesting, eye-opening and wonderful new experiences to be had. And relished. And, well, shared here!

As you may remember, Deb is in New York this week with her man and several of their friends. It is a time to celebrate milestone birthdays and lifelong friendships. I’m sure when she gets back she’ll have more goodies to share with us, but for now she’s going to check in here only if she can (I reassured her we could carry on quite nicely without her for a few days … yes, only a few days!).

So today we’re going to pass the time by reveling in a bit of Nuit Blanche fun. For those of you who don’t know what Nuit Blanche is, you can read a past post about it here or you can just believe me when I say: it’s a one-night, all-night, all-city, free and open to the public contemporary art exhibit, where the wild, the amazing, the weird, the wonderful, the thought-provoking and the truly inspirational are thrown together with, like, oh, 1,000,000 excited fans. It’s an incredibly special night that Deb and I now look forward to (we’ve gone for 6 of its 7 Toronto-based years) like kids look forward to Christmas.

Obviously if you don’t live here, going to Nuit Blanche isn’t an option (and for some of you living here, it might still not be an option, for many reasons from lack of interest to lack of patience), but I still think it’s worth a page-full of blog time. Deb wanted to bring her shmancy camera that night so she could take some epic shots, but then realized she didn’t want to schlep the beast around for the 7 hours we spend hiking the city, so all the photos are from our iphones.

Hope you enjoy!

I'm too lazy to caption all the artists and piece titles, but if you're curious you can find the credits at the Nuit Blanche website. The theme this year was apocalypse and resurrection.

This entire exhibit took place in a parking garage under Nathan Philip Square, downtown Toronto. An amazing space for an apocalyptic exhibit. Creepy and lonely (even full of people). These pieces were very provocative.

Deb in art silhouette

The effect of these commercial images being "sucked" into this huge City Hall beam was eerie and mesmerizing. 

Another creepy discovery: we watched this real-life tableau of zombies on a set and took our photos, but it wasn't until Deb sent me this image that we both saw the aliens on the ground.

Candy!

Without flash.

With flash.

Nathan Philip Square and a stunning video montage.
To the right of this, a choir singing revival hymns to glorious perfection.

This Nuit Blanche was supposed to be a Pluie Blanche (which means we expected rain, rain, rain rain). But we had a spectacular night, warm and clear, and were doubly honoured to find ourselves near this church as the full moon floated into view near the spire. Thrilled to see this, Deb and I began snapping photos then sending them to our husbands. As you can see, the image did not quite capture the rapture. Aaaand the husbands weren't at all impressed. To add insult to injury, Deb captioned her email to Colin with "Best exhibit of all: God's handiwork.".Sadly, auto-correct sent the message to him as, "Best exhibit of all: Fob's instagram." ??? ... Haven't laughed so hard in years :)

And In Recent News: Human Beings Continue To Amaze!

Deb: This was sent to me by the lovely Seana who is alway always finding inspiring and life affirming things—both in the world and in her heart. Please watch and be inspired.

Tourists In Our Own City

Barbara: Yesterday, every single person in my family had the day off. Or could take the day off. My kids are working hard this summer and always on weekends (which is when Phil and I usually take our breaks), so it is rare rare rare that we all have a free day and then make a point of spending it together. A “play day”, if you will.

As Deb mentioned in her earlier post, Picasso and Paul, there is a gorgeous exhibit at our major art gallery—The Art Gallery of Ontario (or AGO)—featuring Pablo Picasso’s masterpieces from the collection at the Musée National Picasso in Paris. The exhibit features a retrospective of work from Picasso’s entire career, many of which were in his private collection until he died, including private sketches. Being lovers of modern art in general and of Picasso in specific, we knew we HAD to go. The stars aligned, the free day presented itself, and off we went for a day of hometown adventure.

We decided to head downtown so we could also grab a bite to eat before going to the gallery. Now we could easily have gone to one of the lovely restaurants inside the AGO itself, but we decided to take advantage of the gallery’s fortuitous location in the heart of Chinatown. As we drove into the city, Stefanie googled restaurants. She found an excellently rated place a few blocks from the gallery. We parked the car and did something we (and by “we”, I mean Phil and I, because the girls, of course, walk everywhere) walked this part of the city.

There are so many areas I visit in the city—visit so often that I take them for granted. But this area is one I usually drive—along Dundas Street past the long sweeping avenue of University, which extends down to the water in one direction and up around the beautiful Queen’s Park government buildings in the other. But this was the first time Phil and I walked it. It was a sultry-hot day and the streets were crowded with people. As we made our way to the restaurant, we decided this is what it might feel like if we were tourists in Toronto—seeing parts of the city that we never really notice, trying a restaurant we would never otherwise try, and then seeing a world class exhibit.

Here are a few photos of our tourist adventure in our own city:

The food was delicious at Spadina Garden, spicy and robust.

This is my attempt to take a photo of us as a gang of tourists, but I pressed my video instead—and thought this was so funny, I had to share!

The AGO itself is stunning. One of my favourite places in the whole city. Frank Gehry did the redesign of the architecture several years ago.

The exhibit was stunning. It felt intimate and immense all at the same time.

And this is us relaxing afterward. What is it about going through a gallery that makes you so tired afterward??? We decided it was the intensity of your focus, taking it all in, absorbing and processing. It’s a lot for our sometimes lazy brains!

Deb: I am so glad for your adventure to this wonderful exhibit. We adored it, as you know. We took our meal in the AGO at Frank and it was wonderful as it was the weekend and, as a result—brunch!!!!!! Art. What would the world be without it? I loved seeing some of his realistic stuff! 

The Ridiculous And The Sublime

Barbara: What a weekend.

I mean, really. Was there something in the air? Some kind of kinetic gale wind that blew through these parts and wreaked havoc and beauty in almost equal measure?

So much happened this weekend that instead of feeling prepared to share something profound and clear with you, there is a riot of stuff swirling around in my mind. It makes clarity, succinctness and sleep pretty damn hard! There is—literally—too much to tell.

I’m not a journalist (as you well know!) and this won’t be your one-stop shop for all things factual. But I can prism this world for you from my own perspective and sum up what, for me, was an amazing, magical, seismic, strange and transformative few days.

On the side of “sublime”, I spent from Friday morning until Sunday night in the quaint city of Guelph to attend and do the PR for my sister’s dance organization—the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival. As I said the other day, if you know anything about contemporary dance, you know that it is never the same, never the “expected”, it doesn’t follow any rules (other than the fundamental one: you must tell the truth), and it lives to challenge you. This weekend was no exception as dancers from all over Canada brought works so diverse that in one moment you would be watching two hilarious/tragic dancers clipped to a tree on bungees interpreting their final moments as they drown at sea, to four muscular men tearing up the stage, 500 newspapers, and each other, to five suited male dancers in reverential prayer-dance reinterpreting the “davening” ritual of the Jewish faith, to an exquisite and intensely personal and powerful duet between two people grappling with love.

Dress rehearsal shot of Kaeja d'Dance at the GCDF 2012; Armour/Amour.

Not only did we get to witness artistry at its finest and most electrifying, I got to meet all these amazing artists afterward and hear firsthand what dance means to them, what it means to perform in Guelph, and what it means to create despite so many obstacles. My daughter, Michele, was at my side the whole time, filming each artist as they shared their thoughts. We intend to amalgamate this footage over the next few months into a short documentary about the festival. I already told you how wonderful it was to be part of my sister’s extraordinary work, but to be able to also work with my daughter on something so special was an unbelievable experience!

It really made me realize how “storytelling” comes in many shapes. For me, this recent experience of being behind-the-scenes in a creative project has offered—surprise, surprise!—just as many opportunities to tell stories as sitting at my computer and writing them down from my own perspective. The stories we collected for the film have the bonus of incorporating other people’s voices and experiences, other ideas and visions, other viewpoints. In the end, we are all “writing the story” together.

But not very far away and at the same time, there was also another, wholly different, horribly dark story unfolding. While all this sublime, intense, cathartic creativity was going on, I would hear these spurts of information from the “real world”. Back home in Toronto, rain was stopping traffic and filling sewers past capacity and then bursting into the main subway line. Then the next day, a shooter let loose in the Eaton Centre—our most central and crowded shopping mall—killing his target while injuring several innocent bystanders. It didn’t seem possible that suddenly this world that was—in that same second—filled with exquisite beauty, honesty, and insight, with the language of artistry and wonder and cooperation was the same world filled with random, violent, and incomprehensible destruction.

But it is always thus, isn’t it?

It has filled my mind to capacity. I am a bruise today: blued and sensitive, aching, wary, but also smitten and loving, intensely aware of my humanity and the other bruised and aching people near and far.

Deb: Yes, the violence was so shocking. I am glad that it is still a shocking thing to hear these stories, but that doesn’t remove the shock. It has also been a weekend of peace in a funny way as we have taken a well-needed break from reality and have not strayed more than a mile from home. Your experience sounds like pure heaven and next year I am soooooo going. 

Presenting Shalaka Kalyanpur!!

Barbara and Deb: Yesterday we promised we’d share with you the amazing artwork that our regular reader and commenter, Shalaka, created for us and which she presented to us over Skype and email on April 1^st to celebrate our 2-year blogiversary!!  Needless to say, Deb and I were gobsmacked. And deeply touched. And absolutely floored. This girl is brilliant. We predict an amazing career ahead of her.

Shalaka told us that she started painting as a young girl and kept changing mediums, even trying fabric painting when she was a young adolescent. Now her medium of choice is the digital pallet of Photoshop. She explained to us that she uses a photograph as a template, “cutting” out the basic shapes and then digitally layering on all the colours and lines until she is satisfied. She said each painting usually takes her a few weeks to complete.

Shalaka asked us for a few photos from which she could choose to paint—one of Deb and I together and one of Colin—which I emailed her a few months ago. The painting of Phil was a total surprise for me—she used a photo off one of our older blog posts. One of the reasons she wanted to present the paintings over Skype was so she could see our faces during the reveal. I don’t think she was disappointed as we literally gasped in awe as we looked at them. The painting of Phil--which is of him goofing off during a ski holiday that we took with Deb and Colin--makes me laugh every time I look at it (which is a lot!).

Now keep in mind that this talented Mumbai-based artist is only 19-years-old! Thank you so very much, Shalaka. We love them and we love you!!

PS If you have any questions for Shalaka, I’m sure she’d be happy to answer them in our comments section.

Dance Like You Mean It

Deb: Nothing that Colin and I don't do on a regular basis!

Seriously though. Beauty beauty beauty. 

Our Nuit Blanche

End Game by Max Streicher

Deb: We are so lucky in Toronto to have this wonderful Art Festival called Nuit Blanche, which literally means White Night, All Nighter, Sleepless Night (in French), or Light Night, which is my favourite name for it. Paris, Berlin and St. Petersburg still duke it out as to who actually founded Nuit Blanche. Clearly none of these cities has a functioning calendar! All I know is that Toronto was inspired by this wonderful Light Night and now we have our very own Nuit Blanche in its fifth year!  It is a wonderous event for the urban explorer that goes from 7pm to 7am on one lucky October day. The city is jam-packed with hundreds if not thousands of art installations of every kind.

Barb and I have been Blanching together for four straight years now and it has become one of the highlights of our year. The latest we have ever made it to was 2:30am and we were thrilled ... I, who am usually in bed by 11. We have always vowed that although we might not make it all night (as if!) we would focus on what we saw and not what we didn’t see and as a result it has been an unusual, magical, stimulating experience.

Stefanie's creation in her set
Photo by Michele

This year included a special exciting feature. Barb’s lovely and talented daughters were involved in a fashion installation. Stefanie, a budding fashion designer, was selected to compete in a very select collection competition as one of the Ten Most Promising Designers, the theme of which was Belle Epoque. And Michele shot a film and several photographs to enhance the installation that housed Steffi’s modern, ethereal, romantic collection. We started our night at 6pm with Stef, and then moved on to the “official” installations around the city.

Auto Lamp by Kim Adams

When I started writing this Nuit “Blogue”, I was going to talk about the fact that after we got into the body of the night, we were a tad disappointed in this year’s effort. But I have changed my mind. I have decided to stay true to the feeling of Nuit Blanche and the fact that anything can happen, from the tiniest sound to the largest light installation. I also love the fact that there are official installations and fringe installations so you can get a taste of everything from successful world-renowned artists to the young artist with a vision making his or her statement. It is not the grandeur that I need judge, it’s how it touches our hearts and tickles our senses. So in that way, it did not disappoint at all this year, as I was still moved and titillated, and in awe. What I love the most about Nuit Blanche at any time is that it does not take itself too seriously. It has a great sense of humour and irony.

But for me, the best part of Nuit Blanche will never change. It will remain the same from year to year. And that thing that I adore, that I revel in, is the fact that our city becomes ART. The transformation for one special night that is Toronto in glorious sexy movement. Toronto the Good, Hogtown, comes alive and brings with it its citizens in all their unique global colours and traditions, and trots them out in a peaceful, exciting, moving event lasting just one Light Night. The audience as art.

Deb and Luke in front of Arrivals/Departures
by Michael Fernandes

Barbara: Funnily, Deb, I had a similar experience—first I was disappointed in this year’s event, which in the past has had so many incredibly magical moments that I vibrated with it for days afterward. And this year, there only seemed to be a few such experiences. And then I realized: this year, I was so wrapped up in Stefanie’s big moment that most of our evening was spent with her (both before and after her event) that I didn’t see nearly as many installations as I usually do. So, at first I realized my magic was really about sharing with my daughters their creative glory.

Proud Mom and Stefanie

Then I realized there was another magic experience: I ended up spending the evening primarily with my husband. You see, because this event is so precious to me, I have been loathe to share the night with too many people. You know how it is: for each extra person tagging along, there’s extra time catering to their needs (real or perceived) and less time just reveling in the art slash experience. Deb has been my perfect Artner-in-crime (couldn’t resist). She and I move symbiotically through the night and never complain about any of it, never hold each other up, and always seem to want to linger for the same amount of time. And of all the other people I could share the night with, I had the worst, most baddest feeling about sharing it with my husband (sorry, sweetie). Because I was so sure that if he of all people went with us, he would just spend the night whining about lines, crowds, bad art, bad breath, bad karma––no, stop me, not fair. Because he was an AWESOME Nuit Blanche partner. Hiking the city with me while everyone else left early, one by one, for various excellent reasons. He hung in there to the bitter (but relatively early) end (we had to get back to Stef to help tear down her set at 1am). And he was a real trouper. I had completely underestimated his stamina. And we had a bit a sweet romantic revelry. Even if we only had the chance to dabble for just a few short hours of Nuit Blanche when I usually get to explore for a huge 6-7 hours. This was an unexpected treat—where I learned the art of not underestimating the people I love.

So, Deb, like you, I was able to find my way back to realizing the magic of the evening. And, even if this sounds strange to some people, I too really REALLY enjoy the energy that radiates from hundreds of thousands of people thronging together.

As Nuit Blanche is so specific to a few areas, I wonder if any of you enjoy festivals with similar energy, or if this kind of thing goes completely against your grain?

Reviews In LIfe And Art

Barbara: I’ve been thinking about reviews lately because a) Gae at Trying to Stay Afloat in a Sea of Words brought up the subject last week in her blog, and b) my film opened last Friday and obviously got some reviews. Now, the question Gae asked was how can we accept reviews when they are often so unreliable for our own standards. She had just seen a Broadway show that she and her friends hated for many sound reasons, only to read later that the critics loved it for all the same reasons. It threw off her sense of judgment. It made her question how we can possibly have—if not consensus in art—some kind of accurate barometer. How can something be so completely wonderful to one person and so loathsome to another? And how are critics truly different from any other discerning, intelligent, knowledgeable person with an opinion?

The truth is, as much as I’ve hated a critic or a review—both for myself, my projects, or my favourite pieces—I think it’s also what makes art art. It reminds us that anything created by the human imagination can also be examined and evaluated. And so it should be! Art is like a crystal prism: you turn it one way and one colour is refracted, turn it another and a different colour shines through, and on and on in infinite variations. It isn’t a static thing that is either GOOD or BAD, end of point.

Let’s face it, it sucks to have someone hate your work. Yes, the film did have a few detractors—it is a quirky, complicated vision—but it also had great reviews and zealous fans. Of course, I obsessed over the negative words. I’m funny that way (omg, are we not all like this?!). But then, after awhile, I found myself slowly shifting from disappointed to galvanized. Critiquing is actually a sexy process if you think about it. It undresses the work, then tweaks and prods and strokes. It sees everything from close up. And every critique is a little different and performs the deed in its (his/her) own way. You hate the process, love it, resent it, desire it, dismiss it, yearn for it, push, pull, push again, grab it back. When it’s through with you, you lie worn and exhausted on the bed. Spent. But strangely satisfied.

Many of you are creative people and will be subject to reviews of some kind. I just want to remind you that if and when you ponder the reviews or the possibility of reviews, you should also see it as a part of the whole experience. Your work is now bigger than it was before, bigger than you. So make sure you take your satisfaction.

Deb: Barb, I LOVED your take on critique completing art despite the pain it may cause the artist. My husband and I have a theory about critics and critique of art. They fall into two categories. Those who loved Moulin Rouge and those who hated it. We use that one as an example because we have discovered that there is no one in-between. You loved it or you hated it. The same with Across the Universe. Now I know that the same could be said of many, many films but there are a scant few films that fall into the love it or hate it category.

We were having a dinner party with two couples who are dear to our hearts. Both couples hated It’s a Wonderful Life. We stared at them and time stood still. What? Are you ... and we stopped ourselves from saying ... are you fucking crazy? We even tried to lure them with the fact that Jimmy Stewart’s performance (particularly on the bridge) is one of the most brilliant acting moments of all time. So here is the thing. Do you a) berate them? b) belittle them? or c) respect them? Well, despite the fact that we a’d and b’d them behind their backs after they left, we had to live with the fact that this is their opinion and that makes it of real value.

We tease our sister-in-law about loving Rat Race because we thought it was the lamest film ever. But is it? She loved it. She laughed. It spoke to her, therefore, it is of value. After all, a critic is just one opinion. A film-educated opinion I grant you, but one opinion nonetheless. I saw Terms of Endearment weeks after losing my beloved aunt at fifty-two and my dear friend in her twenties after childbirth. I HATED IT! The timing was awful for me, given the subject matter. Was I being objective? No. Neither are critics. They are influenced by what they think is cool and current and avant garde and by what affects where they are in their lives right at the second they saw the film. They would deny this, but it is true. Because they are human.

I watched Date Night (which got panned) on a plane last week and I slapped my leg laughing several times. My reviews of comedy movies are based on not the two thumbs up but the leg slap. My problem is that I sometimes do not see a film because of the critics. That is a shame and I hate it when I do that. For, as Barb so brilliantly put it, they are necessary to the industry and to the art, but not necessarily to us as people. As artists, we put it out there to be judged and despite the judgment, good or bad, we keep putting it out there. As an audience, as individuals, we laugh or we cry or we slap our knees or we get up and walk out. We are our own critics.