Dragon crossing

Looking back, I sometimes think that my youth was not nearly as mis-spent as it should have been. A case in point: the night I helped to erect the dragon crossing.
The idea began as a joke at the university Medieval Club. Newly moved out from my parents’ house and feeling I had missed out on [...]

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Converting our old vinyl

I’m old enough to have live through four formats for home music: vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, and computers and portable devices (I’m excluding 8 Tracks, which I never used). With each change of formats, some of my music has been left behind, especially since much of my music collection is from small distributors, some of [...]

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The society around the pool

One of the few services we receive for the maintenance fees in our townhouse complex is a swimming pool that opens a third of the year (I’m excluding the landscaping service that cuts the grass every week and consistently destroys the beauty of the cherry blossoms by pruning the trees down to nothing a month [...]

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Morgan Green: Mouse Woman Platter

I have two great weakness when buying Northwest Coast art: I love to see artists trying out new media, and I love work that shows the lesser-known figures of mythology. With these preferences, it seems inevitable that I would have bought Morgan Green’s Mouse Woman platter.
Morgan Green is a twenty-five year old artist who seems [...]

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Exhibit Review: John and Luke Marston: “Honoring the Ancient Ones”

Mostly, I know the work of Salish artists John and Luke Marston mainly from pictures. These days, they seem to be working largely on commissions, and such smaller work as they do is displayed mostly in galleries in Victoria. The few I’ve seen have been mostly at the Inuit Gallery, which has now taken the [...]

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Technological nostalgia and I

The other day, I read that Kodak would no longer be producing analog film. The newspaper did its best to make the new an end of an era story, with people lamenting the end of a tradition. But I admit that the laments left me cold. Technological nostalgia simply is not part of my personality.
It’s [...]

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Review: “Continuum: Vision and Creativity on the Northwest Coast”

(Note: Because the staff was unsure which exhibits the artists had given permission to photograph, I was unable to take pictures)
When I go to an art gallery, I come prepared to be pleased. Just as when I go to a movie or go to a book, I generally arrive with few expectations. I try to [...]

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Review: Alano Edzerza’s Gift of the Raven Exhibit

Last night, I was at the reception for Tahltan artist Alano Edzerza’s new exhibit, “Gift of the Raven.” The show features Edzerza’s work of the last six months. Also on display were a number of pieces by Morgan Green, a recent recipient of the YVR Art Foundation Scholarship and (as she may be tired of [...]

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Ron Telek’s “Shaman on His Throne of Power”

Earlier this week, we received “Master Shaman on His Throne of Power,” the latest sculpture by Ron Telek. We had been waiting for it since last December, so I consider it an act of supreme will power that we did not scream with frustration as we unwrapped the layers of paper, towels, cardboard and duct [...]

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North Star pendant by Lyle Wilson

With no Northwest Coast art on layaway and no must-haves in the galleries or on the web, we didn’t expect to buy any new pieces this month. But luck struck unexpectedly, and early this month we were told that Trish’s ticket had won the pendant being raffled as part of Lyle Wilson’s North Star exhibit [...]

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