Inviting friends and colleagues by email to drop by while I am gallery sitting @ Arcadia Gallery 680 Queen's Quay W, Saturday afternoons, June 11 and 18, 1-6pm, where there is a show I am in with Philip and David, first, the in-line photos were not showing in the sent email, and then I sent another email with them attached and apparently those were not opening either! How irritating. It is either Google or Apple or, perhaps, both conspiring as their supercomputers take over deciding who is to see what images in what email when! :)

So. Last ditch effort. A blog post with the images, and even more images. Here is the email:

Dear Friends,

I was honoured to be invited by Philip Cairns to join he and David Bateman in a group show at Arcadia Gallery, a small, non-commercial gallery at the foot of Bathurst St in an artist's co-op. I bought a roll of Canson 48" x 5yd cold-press 140lb watercolour paper and got to work. My portion of the show is what I did on that single roll of paper!

The Opening on Sunday was low-key, and wonderful. I set up chairs near my paintings and people came in and we sat and chatted for awhile, half an hour maybe, and then, when they left, more would come. It was one of the best experiences I have had at an Opening in that there was time to connect with everyone at some depth.

I even sold two of my small drawings, portraits done at poetry & music events, and commissioned two more graphite portraits! Both of those portraits will be begun, if not done, during the hours I will be sitting the gallery.

Please come on down if you'd like to see the show - the three of us are quite different as artists and our work syncs well together - and to chat and hang out a bit and then I can catch up on you, your life, and what's going on (my favourite part).

Here are a few photos from the Opening (photo taken by John Oughton) and iPhone pics of David's and Philip's & my paintings from when we hung the show. The final 7 images are the 'official' photos of my paintings, taken in direct sun, the full spectrum, and colour-corrected.

After, you can browse Harbourfront, take in whatever show is on at the Power Plant, enjoy the lake.

Hope to see you either Saturday June 11th or 18th, 1-6pm.

And hope all is well and you are enjoying the Spring! Such a beautiful season!

love, Brenda

Here are the images

            David Bateman's paintings        Philip Cairns' paintings    

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My latest painting, finally finished. Portrait of the Artist’s Son, 2016, 40” x 48”, watercolour on 140lb archival paper. It is in the show at Arcadia Gallery, which runs from June 4-19, and the Opening is Sunday afternoon, June 5, 1-6pm. Arcadia is a small gallery, 680 Queen's Quay West, at the foot of Bathurst, in an artist's co-op. The Facebook event page is here: Three on the Scene.


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Some paintings are a gift, this one, torturous stroke after stroke, first drawn a month ago, and painted in sporadic marathon sessions since then. Burst a blood vessel in my eye on thurs, my eyes were so sore from painting for many hours, up close, step back, up close, and today, another marathon, all afternoon and evening. This detail was taken in artificial light and the colours were quite washed out so I deepened the tones in photoshop, and hopefully within the week I will get a chance to photograph the whole painting in daylight and post it.

I'm calling it quits on the painting! It's done when you abandon it.
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Poetry & Music Salon
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We had an exquisite Poetry and Music Salon in the Theatre at Palmerston Library in early May! Our features, Elana Wolff and Susie Berg, who read both collaborative poetry and some solo pieces, and Jim McCuaig, who made his guitar sing extraordinarily detailed and resonant East Coast Blues, were outstanding. All of those who read or performed on open mic were terrific - Steve-Paul Simms, John Oughton, Stanley Fefferman, Cate Laurier, Stedmond Pardy, Sharon Goodier and Roman Romaniuk. Palmerston Library is a wonderful place. I have received much support from the librarian, Iana Georgieva-Kaluba, and the branch manager, Misuk Hedman, for these Salons that I am still quite star-struck with the amazing space and the beauty of everyone. George, the sound technician, was so knowledgeable that I can’t imagine the new system of sound recording for the videos that I am embarked on without his help. Thank you to everyone who came out to enjoy the Salon. You all made the evening marvellous! Much gratitude and love to all. xo

Here are photos I have taken from the video. For names, please go to the album on Google Photos.

                                                      

Here is a video of the entire salon! With a cord and the know-how of the sound technician at the library, I recorded directly out of the the library's mixer and the sound in this salon is simply the best.


direct link: May 3, 2016 Poetry and Music Salon

In order of appearance:

1. Roman Romaniuk 3:06
2. Cate Laurier 5:43
2. Stedmond Pardy 8:19
4. Elana Wolff and Susie Berg (collaboration, features) 13:36
5. Steve-Paul Simms 34:13
6. John Oughton 39:31
7. Stanley Fefferman 42:30
8. Susie Berg (feature) 47:06
9. Elana Wolff (feature) 54:52
10. Jim McCuaig (feature) 1:02:38

Poetry Features:

ELANA WOLFF is a poet, editor, essayist, and designer and facilitator of therapeutic community art courses. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies in Canada, the US, the UK and France. Her bilingual collection of selected poems, Helleborus and Alchémille, (Noroît, 2013; translation by Stéphanie Roesler) was awarded the 2014 John Glassco Prize for Translation. Her essay, “Paging Kafka’s Elegist,” won The New Quarterly’s 2015 Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest and is nominated for a National Magazine Award. Elana’s fifth collection of poetry is forthcoming with Guernica Editions in 2017.

SUSIE BERG is the co-curator of Toronto’s Plasticine Poetry Reading Series, and the author of the poetry collection, How to Get Over Yourself, the blog The Starbucks Poetry Project, and three chapbooks: Paper Cuts (CreativeJames Press, 2007); Awaiting Butterflies (words (on) pages press, 2015), and You Will Still Have Birds, a conversation in poetry with Elana Wolff (Lyrical Myrical Press, 2015). Her work has appeared in such journals as carte blanche, ArsMedica, and Switchback, and in the anthologies The Mom Egg Review, Desperately Seeking Susans, and Body and Soul. She is the editor of the upcoming anthology Catherines, the Great, due from Oolichan Books in 2017. Visit her online at http://www.sber40.wix.com/susieberg, or follow her @SusieDBerg on Twitter.

Music Feature:

Ex roady, ex theatre tech, ex subway driver, JIM McCUAIG is now finding joy fingerpicking East Coast Blues and some originals.

The Salon is organized, hosted and videoed by Brenda Clews,

Poetry and Music Salon Facebook Group Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/poetryandmusicsoiree

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The painting is no further ahead, but I like this moment of beginning, with a backwash, some quick block-in of paint on the features and yet with the pencil sketch still visible. So I re-photographed in bright sunlight. The detail is clearer.
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Are we the way we look in photos? Are there other iterations? Other resemblances?

This is the 3rd iteration of a painting-in-progress. The figure is nearly life-size, the painting's size is 40" x 39.5", and he is one of the loves of my life, my son.

It is a bit risky to post paintings-in-progress because people often think it's finished. On the other hand, posting can be part of the process of showing the way you work, for inspiration, for teaching. And a bit clairvoyantly perhaps, I often get sense, a 'crowd-chat,' of energy back focused on the painting, indistinct mingled voices, perceptions, that might guide the direction of the piece even if no-one says anything.

Also, painting portraits in this style, without a firm guarantee of photo-resemblance, is an area of current exploration, and I may ....be open to commissions.
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Next month, an upcoming show: Three On The Scene, paintings by Philip Cairns, David Bateman and moi, June 4-19th. Reception Sunday June 5th, 1-6pm. Arcadia Art Gallery, 680 Queen's Quay West, Toronto. I have done some new pieces for this show, and am sharing them with you. They may all be in the show, or not, depending on space.

Mark your calendars! Philip and David are accomplished artists, poets, writers, directors, actors, and I am delighted and honoured to be invited to show with them. My theme is celebrating the masculine.
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Split Mask is a political poem. It is an interlaced, layered, multi-media piece that took 3 years to complete. It is about dictators and refugees, about the masks we wear, what the torn mask hides and reveals. It is about what I hear on inside of the mask.

My performance videopoem has been published in the inaugural issue of CrossBridge, an International Journal of Multidisciplinaryand Progressive Research. It's on page 21. The journal looks wonderful, and I'm honoured to be included. (The link will open a free PDF of the journal on-line; there is also a print version that can be purchased.)


direct link: Split Mask

Dr. Robert Caine sent an email responding to my submission to their journal, CrossBridge:

Your creative and artistic video is layered with powerful and thought-provoking messages that truly gives your viewers much to contemplate regarding an array of global issues....Again, thank you for your accomplished work.

Another comment that I received that I thought offered insight into Split Mask was from my friend, John Oughton, who I first sent the finished version to for feedback:

It's hypnotic. That prismatic beating heart, the overlays, the found stills and videos of suffering in Syria, the voice full of feeling... it made me realize that the split mask is a portal, not a disguise, a way to how everything/others are broken themselves, split from peace, from safety.

The story of how Split Mask arose and developed from a single burning image:

In the spring of 2013, an 'image' appeared in my mind of a 'split mask', and it obsessed me. Thinking I would have to build a mask from scratch, I put off constructing what I saw so clearly in my vision. But I found a cardboard base at an art store. I ripped it roughly and, with masking tape and cotton wading, papier-mâchéd it with white glue and water so that it was strong, and painted it white.

After the mask was made, I was compelled, in the way the muse compels, to write a poem so that I could create a performance piece wearing the mask for poetry readings. The poem was beating on the inside of my head and gave me no peace until I began to write it. The poem, 'Split Mask,' took a year to write, and went through a number of readers and poetry workshops until it was honed to the version here. The poem was completed in the summer of 2014.

In the meantime, I had a solo show at Urban Gallery in Toronto in January and February 2014. I needed one more painting for the show. For 3 days, just before New Year's, I turned my computer and phone off, and painted a 5' square painting, a self-portrait of the split mask and the art skeleton wearing the yellow lace that I stored it on. Earlier that fall, I had had one of those 'visionary' moments - I saw a large canvas with a diagonal mass of gold rising. 'Split Mask' is a copper and metal gold leaf, charcoal, graphite and acrylic painting and was ready for its early January 2014 installation.

In the summer of 2014, I was memorizing the poem, Split Mask, for a poetry feature at 100,000 Poets for Change in Toronto. I set up a video camera and performed it in front of the painting. This rehearsal became the core of the performance videopoem you see here.

Asked to feature at a fundraiser for a Syrian Refugee put on by the United Church in Toronto, I decided to show some of my unpublished videopoems. I made a very rough cut of Split Mask, adding war footage I found on The Internet Archives. Note: although I began writing the poem the summer the dictator of Syria began using chemical weapons on his own people, nowhere in the poem does it mention him or Syria specifically. The poem, rather, refers to these issues in a more universal way.

Wishing to complete the Split Mask video, a friend offered me a deadline to present it at a private poetry salon in January 2016, and so I locked myself away for weeks producing it. I added a number of effects. Looking through an old hard drive, I found various photo shoots in the split mask taken over the years (I use myself as model because I'm free - can't afford to pay actors or models). I also had an echocardiogram done in 2014, and obtained a medical CD of it because I wanted to use it in a videopoem - it was challenging, but somehow I transferred some footage onto my Mac (the medical imagery is Windows-based). I woke one morning knowing that I had to use that footage in Split Mask. The echocardiogram clips are untouched: the blue is blood from my veins, the red is oxygenated blood pumping out through my arteries, the pace is the actual pulse of my heart.

Split Mask, then, is a layered poem and performance videopoem.


I have a chapbook, Performance Poems (Epopeia Press 2016), with the poem, 'Split Mask' that I sell at videoperformances around town. Please contact me through my website if you would like to purchase the chapbook: http://brendaclews.com
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