I took this photo series while I was creating the Warhol in the Forest treasure hunt for Val and Garry at Starshine Valley. It was mid-September, and mushrooms were blooming shyly, peeping out from grasses and bits of wood.
This is a treasure map for Val and Garry, to help them find the 28 pieces of gold hidden in the Starshine Forest.
When I contemplated taking the step of offering my artwork for sale online, Ella Fitzgerald’s version of Love for Sale came into my mind. Hence this post’s title. However, the two are not so far apart, as creating art is an expression of my heart that has a component of love in it, whatever else might be part of the stew.
Now that I’ve had my first exhibit, the next logical step seems to be to offer my work for sale to a broader audience. So it’s official. If you saw the video and liked the creative inspiration that arose from my photo series Shadow Play, I invite you to send me some money and make one or more of these images your own.
Since the series is about playing with an image and seeing its different moods, most people found it hard to pick just one that they liked the best. So I am going to offer variable pricing based on the number of pieces you select:
You will receive the artwork printed on glossy photo stock, 8.5×11.
To expedite shipping, I will mail the pieces unframed and ready for mounting. I’ve adjusted the prices accordingly. I suggest using a 10×13 frame, but you can do whatever you like with the piece once it’s in your hands!
Contact me if you’d like to put my shadows on your wall.
P.S. The grand-daddy print, 7 ft x 9 ft, ink on canvas, is $1,900.
* Because everyone deserves bliss!
As many of you know, I had my first art exhibit at the Havana Art Gallery, 1212 Commercial Drive in Vancouver, August 6 to 19, 2015.
The opening was on Sunday night (August 9), and it was a really fun event with family and friends choosing which piece they liked the best. I made a video showing their choices, and something strange happened–they started morphing into the picture!
If you like it, please give it a thumbs up. The video takes the art project to the next step of its expression, from applying the concept to a single image to applying it to dozens of faces. I think it’s pretty cool! (Of course the music helps!) A big shout out to Miguel Wisintainer for the remix of Gary Numan’s “You Are in My Vision.”
I have started a new project, inspired by the sounds of New York. Check out this playlist of audio meditations on YouTube. Each meditation is more or less a New York minute. It all started when I was drawn into Washington Square Park by the sound of a piano playing. How could this be? A piano in the park? Friends have since told me there is also a piano in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, and in fact there are pianos all over the city, including on the corner of Hastings and Penticton, which I visit at least two or three times a week to go to London Drugs and other businesses in the area. I guess I am usually wrapped up in my own world and don’t notice what is going on around me! But I digress…
I went into the park and sat down on a bench to listen to a person playing an upright piano. I wondered how the piano got there. I wondered about the person playing it. As I sat there, a drummer started off in the distance, playing the drummer’s proverbial different tune. Soon after, a third busker began playing saxophone behind me. Each instrument was playing its own tune, creating a discordant harmony. The vocals soon joined in, in the form of the quintessential New York soprano, a siren. And thus the New York minute sound project was born.
I will be adding sounds to the playlist every week, so check back often to hear new corners of the New York soundscape. Remember, this is about what you hear, not what you see. Some of the visuals are going to be a bit freaky, let me warn you! But I hope you feel the love in this love affair, and maybe you will fall in love (again).
I am currently on an inspirational visit to New York. I loved this artistic bulletin board in the East Village. (A little older than Vancouver’s East Village, but with some of the same spirit of the urge for expression.) There are layers of comments added as one artist responded to another. I especially liked the suggestion to look up Eckhart Tolle. A Vancouver guru, infusing the streets of New York!
I am very excited to announce that my photo series Shadow Play has been accepted for exhibit at the Havana Art Gallery!
Please join me for the opening reception on August 9, from 4 to 7 PM. If you can’t make it to the reception, the exhibit will run from August 6 to 19, so you can check it out another day.
What is the difference between the substance and its shape? Is it an absence of light, a reflection of light? The shadow seems to reveal new potentials for the object. New possibilities, alternate realities. A hint of magic, hidden within the ordinary.
The Heart Sutra in Buddhism includes the statement “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” A shadow is empty, yet it has form. Perhaps a single shadow is a doorway into understanding deep universal truths.
The creation of this series was a playful act, form arising spontaneously from emptiness, yet never really existing. From light and shadow waves to eye, electrons, neural circuits, to pixels and bytes to dots of ink on paper, the final result is a tiny form, reflecting the inconsequential temporariness and changing insubstantiality of a shadow on a living-room wall.
Yesterday I met with a group of friends to participate in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. Our group of 6 people picked up trash for 2 hours and these are the amazing results:
The most interesting items we found were a VHS cassette entitled The Ancient Secrets of the Erotic Arts, an expired Visa card, a bullet, and a car cigarette lighter.
We concentrated on the area of the Trans Canada trail from Bridgeway at Skeena to the Second Narrows Bridge, as this industrial area seems to attract a lot of litter and dumping. We also did the gravel lot immediately to the west of the junction of Bridgeway and Skeena, and a light pick-up on the trail all the way to Willingdon. Check out the before and after photos. My East Van Pickers gang members found the concrete, visible results very satisfying. Not bad for a couple hours on a Saturday morning! Thanks, gang!
We had a lot of support from the Keep Vancouver Spectacular program, which provided pickers, safety vests, gloves, garbage bags, and buckets. They picked up the full garbage bags immediately after the event. I’d like to thank Riley and the other folks at the City of Vancouver who helped support our event.
I’d also like to thank Katie Rodgers, who hosted the cleanup event at this location in September 2013. The way you laid the groundwork, you made it very easy to follow in your footsteps. Thanks, Katie!
And thanks also to the folks and organizations at the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. Local sponsors are the Vancouver Aquarium and the Vancouver branch of the World Wildlife Fund. Nationally, the program is sponsored by Loblaw Companies Limited. And this group is part of a larger effort, the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup. Data that we collected at our event goes all the way up the chain to provide information for global initiatives to reduce garbage at the source.
The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup is one of the largest volunteer efforts in the world.
One of the most bizarre items we picked up was dozens of little bags of dog poo, neatly tied in a knot. We puzzled over how a person could take the time to pick up after their dog, doing the right thing, and then toss the bag into the woods, doing the wrong thing. What is the psychology of this? My friends came up with the theory of situational morality. Dog owners pick up the feces either because someone is watching, or because they actually feel bad about leaving poo on the trail. But then when no one is looking, they throw it in the woods, rather than walk another 100 metres to the garbage bin, or carry it home to throw away there. Grow up, people! We don’t need our tiny remaining amount of green space filled with little bags of dog poo.
This is the bigger question. Not why do people throw away the little bags of dog poo, but why do people litter at all? I confess, I used to throw away cigarette butts. I am probably responsible for thousands of butts on roadsides around the province. I had a technique for flicking the butts, and I thought I was pretty cool doing it. It seemed like an invisible item, that tiny cigarette butt. I had no awareness of how it makes the landscape ugly for people who come along after me.
So I imagine that littering is like this. People are not aware of the impact it has. There is a momentary relief of being free of a burden. Just tossing it away. Feels good, right? I noticed that around the park benches, there was a lot of trash just a little bit into the brambles, as though people didn’t want to see their litter, and thought if it was a few feet off the path, it wouldn’t bother anyone. So this indicates some awareness, some concern for appearances, and perhaps a lack of awareness of the bigger picture, that those bushes a few feet away are worth caring about too.
So to help increase that awareness, here are some factoids about the impact trash has on wildlife:
To find out more about the impact of shoreline litter, see the GCSC Learn More page.
Number one thing you can do to reduce waste in the landfill, litter on the trails, and unnecessary strain on our planet’s limited resources:
DRINK WATER FROM THE TAP
That’s right. Pretty simple. Something you used to do as a kid, right? Bottled water is a Coca-Cola and Nestle marketing scam. Don’t fall for it.
Vancouver’s water is the best in the world. It collects naturally from rainfall gathering in the mountains and streaming to the Seymour Reservoir. The City of Vancouver lightly treats it with chlorine to remove harmful organisms. If you don’t like the chlorine, use a water filter.
Other things you can do:
Thanks again to my awesome friends for coming to help clean up my favourite running trail. Hundreds of people use this trail every day for commuting by bike, running and jogging, and recreational enjoyment. Lots of people thanked us as we were working, and it was a great feeling to know that we were making this trail a more beautiful place for everyone to enjoy.
I’d like to follow up on my last entry about expressing my concerns about the Choices takeover of Drive Organics. I gave a copy of my letter to the staff and to one of the current managers of DO, Riley, who was also the manager under the old ownership. I spoke to him for a while. He thanked me for writing the letter and said it meant a lot to the staff. I also received a phone call from the Choices Community Relations spokesperson and nutritionist, Nicole.
Both of these folks were open to hearing my concerns and did their best to address them. Nicole spoke to me for about 45 minutes, going through the concerns in my letter one by one. She told me about the Choices commitment to local buyers. They de-list imported produce when local produce is available, but if organic is not available in BC, they will carry local BC non-organic, and also an organic imported option. That sounds fair to me. Currently, the DO location is still 100% organic produce, but that might be changing.
They are also committed to sustainability, and do their best with composting, recycling, and so on. In fact, Nicole wrote a book for Choices called Becoming a Sustainabilist! They carry Oceanwise seafood and support labelling to identify GMO products. They are not 100% GMO free. But they support programs like “Plea for the Bee.” I was really happy about this. You may recall I wrote about bees a while ago on this blog, and have been involved in activism to help save the bees.
Choices also supports cultural diversity, and inclusivity of people with disabilities and mental challenges. Nicole said they give appropriate work to people with these types of challenges, when possible. Choices also give $150,000 to $200,000 per year to community and charitable organizations such as Farm Folk/City Folk, a school nutrition program, Food Bank donations, and so on.
In regards to my concerns about long-time DO employees being forced to leave, Nicole said that Choices did not make anyone leave. She said piercing is an issue with WorkSafeBC for some roles, and that Choices needs to follow the rules for food safety. However, everyone is grandfathered in at the DO location to keep whatever piercings they currently have. So that sounds fair and reasonable to me. They gave severance to people who wanted to leave, and honoured all years of service at the DO location.
Choices is family-owned and started in Kits 25 years ago, in 1990. They have been pioneers in helping local producers, as well as bringing in US products that weren’t previously available here. The previous DO owners actually picked up the store as part of a bigger purchase and weren’t interested in developing it. The new owners want to carry the best selection of organic, natural, and specialty foods in the neighbourhood, while keeping the special vibe that we all love about DO.
One thing Nicole told me was that they wouldn’t expand the meat section, in recognition of the high proportion of vegetarian and vegan customers who frequent the store. She said the meat would be in a back corner. However, one of the first changes I noticed was that there is now a big meat section straight ahead from the front door, where the San Pellegrino water used to be. However, she said they will continue to carry only specialty meats that are from animals raised in pastures, with no antibiotics or hormones. Someone else will have to check whether that is true, and I will continue to avoid that part of the store.
So all in all, well done, Choices! I was very impressed, and felt a lot better about continuing to shop at DO after this conversation.
With the recent takeover of Drive Organics by Choices Market, I am very concerned that I will be losing the store I love. I walked into the store this week and already the apple bins had been changed. Staff had been “offered the choice to leave” due to Choices’ corporate dress policy, and a number of people I know and appreciate are gone. There was a section of pre-packaged, non-organic, pre-made food items. The bulk food section has been decimated. And this is just the beginning.
I am very sad to see the end of my beloved Drive Organics. I have written this letter to the CEO of Choices Markets, describing what I love about Drive Organics, hoping to stem the tides of change. And I am preparing to vote with my feet…
———-
Dear Ishkander Ahmed,
I have been a very loyal customer of Drive Organics for many years. I currently do all of my grocery shopping there, as well as purchase supplements and household cleaning products. My monthly spending at Drive Organics is between $500 and $1,000 every month.
I am concerned about your intention, as stated in Business in Vancouver, to rebrand the store as a Choices Market. I believe you do not understand the culture on Commercial Drive. It will be a mistake for you to rebrand the store to be like the other Choices Markets. The people on Commercial Drive value different things than your customers in Yaletown, for example. We value cultural diversity and individual expression, political dissent, and local and sustainable food sources. The current branding at Drive Organics reflects these values.
I am aware that you have already begun the rebranding by forcing employees to leave Drive Organics because of Choices dress policies regarding tattooing and piercing. Big mistake! This will drive away customers who are not only loyal to the store but to the members of our community who work there.
These are things I love about Drive Organics:
I advise you to think twice before making any changes that will change the vibe and ethos of Drive Organics. There are other grocery stores that Commercial Drive customers can choose, including Sweet Cherubim, Eternal Abundance, East End Food Co-Op, and Donald’s Market.
I will be watching closely to see the changes you make. If you try to make this store into a regular Choices Market, you will lose me and many other customers.
Kind regards,
Karen Rempel