Crawling for Culture on a Hot Summer Day

There were rumors that the temperature at the King and Carleton intersection had shot up to over 40 degrees, but that didn’t stop hordes of arts and crafts lovers from swarming the downtown area, crawling from gallery to gallery and shop to shop.

It was the July Culture Crawl, a chance to showcase the work of local artists, drink beer and wine. They had Picaroons at Gallery Connexion and white and red wine served up by the immaculate JC at Art+Concepts …

I was at Ingrid Mueller’s Art+Concepts after eating a glass at Gallery Connexion. Ingrid was featuring the former Beaverbrook Gallery’s artist in residence, Jennifer Pazienza,

… who posed with fellow artist, Deanna Musgrave …

Who then posed with my daughter Cassie …

Both of whom then posed with Ingrid …

… and then got really silly …

Deanna put together a remarkable documentary on Jennifer and photographer Lindsay McKay did a pictorial on the project. That’s Lindsay on the left talking to Jennifer …

One of Jennifer’s paintings ate an art lover …

In retaliation, another art lover ate the guest book …

Jennifer said, “What an odd array of behavior.”

The turnout, as usual for Ingrid’s affairs, was intense and included the city’s cultural elite …

Smoking Art Outside Gallery Connexion

Dana was sitting outside Gallery Connexion smoking pieces of his latest work. “Hi, Biff,” he said. “I’m smoking art.”

“Wow,” said Biff. “I wonder what Keirkegarde would say about that?”

“Fuck Kierkegarde,” said Dana. “Sarte ate art.”

“And I thought that was just a rumor,” said Biff. “No flies on Sarte, eh?”

“Fuck you too, Biff,” said Dana. “I’m smoking art.”

Meanwhile, inside Gallery Connexion, Meredith was getting some last minute instructions from the Picaroons guy in preparation for the culture crawl.

“They’ll be crawling by the time they get this far,” he said. “So you have to serve low. If you serve too high, you’ll confuse them and they’ll snort the beer instead of drinking it. Now, for the ones who start at the other end of the crawl, you’ll have serve high or you’ll make them look like they peed their pants.”

“Why don’t I just serve them right between the eyes?” said Meredith.

“And then there’s that,” said the guy from Picaroons.

Later on, Meredith was looking at an edible beer glass thinking, Hm … I wonder if you can really eat these or if people just choke on them, roll over and die.

I’m certainly not going to test them out on myself … I need to stay alive to find out who got Carnevale 3.0 pregnant. I’ll bet it was that little bastard, Biff. I knew he was trouble the moment I saw him.

Enter Biff.

“Oh hi,” said Meredith. “Did you have sex with Carnevale 3.0?”

“I don’t think so,” said Biff. “Does she wear red wigs and hang out at questionable bars?”

“Yes,” said Meredith. “She does. Frequently. Would you mind eating this glass for me?”

Brand Spankin’ New biffmitchell.com

It took nearly a month, but the overhaul of biffmitchell.com is finished. It still has the same banner …

It still has the very strange song to all the dead bugs in the world …

and the free godawful poetry books ..

and the chance to be published …

and links to fellow writers …

and Oscar Pool reviews …

and the house of madness …

and historical stuff on Pisa …

and my first triathlon bike ..

That’s my daughter Cassie and my old friend Matt Savage from Savage's Bicycle Center.

There’s even a chance to be murdered, or at least, there was …

and lots of back story information on my books …

and stuff about ebooks …

and links to short stories for less than a buck …

and no salesperson will call.

A Dark and Forbidding Story on the Deck of Wilsers on a Friday Evening Not Too Long Ago

It was a dark and forbidding evening on the deck at Wilsers on a Friday evening not too long ago and Beth and Eric and Joe and I had a strange feeling that things were in the brew. Beth was creating Beer Glass Condensation Art on the table top ...

Then we heard a voice. A voice. It was Whitefeather.

She said, "I'm on my way over to see Deanna and watch my new tape with her. It's strange, but artful. And every time I watch it a little girl calls me and reminds me that I have to do something in seven days."

We all noticed a strange lack of features in this otherwise beautiful woman's face ...

She said, "How about if I come up and play it for all of you ..."

Beth said, "Um ... I think I'll pass. I have lots more Beer Glass Condensation Art to finish before I get to watch movies?"

Joe said, "Uh ... no thanks. I think I feel a poem coming on."

Eric said, "Nope. And pass this on to the little girl who keeps phoning."

Our bartender, Ms. Picaroons, said, "I watched it six days ago and I feel just great!"

An artificial life form that escaped from Gallery Connexion jumped out and ate her.

Mirelle came right out of the blue and said, "Evil thing, get thee gone from Whitefeather's face."

Then she lambasted the evil thing a few times with no shortage of enthusiasm. And then she lambasted the video tape. And then Whitefeather was beautiful again and eating delicious strawberries.

"That was certainly exciting," said Beth. "Why don't we play a game now."

Eric said, "Just as long as it doesn't involve video tapes and girls with timetables and phones."

"How about ... can you find the pigeon?" said Beth.

Can you?

Take Me, I'm Yours

My good friend lori p morse, one of the most gifted photographers I know (in addition to being a beautiful and vivacious warm-hearted human being), did something really cool this weekend. She opened an exhibition of her art at the Green Turtle Clothing store on King Street and I can't think of a more perfect setting for this particular exhibit. You'll have to drop by the store to see what I mean (it's right behind Robert Simmons).

In the artist's own words ...

"Take me, I'm yours" is a body of work from a group exhibition at the UNB Art Centre called Bearing Witness, 2006. Each artist was to examine something closely in their lives and then express their response visually.

I focused on how much space I was taking up in the world. So, I collected my garbage for a year - nothing gross...just items that helped me evaluate my lifestyle habbits: ie: gum wrappers, coffee cups, styrofoam doggie bags, packaging from gifts...Doing this really changed my life. One idea/thought led to another and then I found myself looking at all the items I had collected over the years and was not using. So, I asked people to take those items from me, but only if they would find the item useful, or if they absolutely loved it. I still have items from this project that I would like for people to take from me and will bring them with me to the opening on July 14th...All I ask is that you leave your name and what you take with you when you leave...other than that - the items are FREE!!

This photography project has led me to a new project on collections that I am working on right now and will be exhibiting in Fredericton next year.

If you are a collector, and live in New Brunswick, (traditional or unconventional) and are interested in the potential of being part of my project, let me know!! (loripmorse at hotmail.com)

The show is up until August 11.

This is lori just before people started to arrive ...

And when they did ... they did ...

Veronica Pencil even brought flowers for lori ... something we might all keep in mind the next time we go to a place to stare in wonderment at art ... we should remember the artist needs flowers.

Some guy tried to be taller than lori ...

A very scary guy tried to figure out her secret for preparing finger food art ...

An even scarier guy tried to bite her neck, claiming to be a retired vampire who was down a quart or two. He was quite surprised when lori cut his legs off with her hidden katana and said, "No, you katana bite my neck, you silly beast."

Whitefeather said, "That was cool, lori. I think Chris may be a vampire too. Let's see if he turns to smoke while I strangle him eating this delicious strawberry."

After the vampires were vanquished, everybody watched art ...

Some of it was plugged in ...

And then people took art ...

This was one of the coolest things I've seen in a gallery. By selecting a piece from the table and signing for it ... and then taking it home free (no salesman will call, offer restricted to non-vampires and sentient life forms) ... the audience becomes part of the work itself.

You have till August 11 to get your ass into Green Turtle Clothing and become art.

Fredericton's Forgotten Art

I don't know how many times as a college student back at the dawn of time, I'd be downtown partying and hear the call and head for the closest alley to commune with all things natural, and almost always, staring back from the urine stained brick would be some totally unnatural painting of something that might bend the senses if I tried to figure it out.

Over the years I became toilet trained, but one does find oneself in alleys from time to time, and I eventually saw so many of these flash drawings and beautifully crafted scrawlings that they lost their sense of unnaturalness and became an expected part of every underexposed brick surface in the city.

I'm talking about graffiti, the stuff of hurried art, the execution of same as much a part of the art as the finished work. I'm not sure, but I think they used to shoot graffiti artists on sight. Their bodies were hung from lamp posts in front of city hall as a warning to anybody with a can of spray paint and a lack of respect for the sanctity of urine stained brick.

Graffiti was everywhere in the city, some of it just nasty batherings from sick minds, some of it proclamations of eternal love, some of it thoughtful statements worthy of their wall space, some of it downright brilliant art.

But recently, I've been taking pictures of graffiti art to post in the UNB Art Center's Facebook gallery of art found during the summer, and I've noticed that much of the art is gone, either painted over or blasted away or just dissolved in the bleach of time. And there seems to be few taking up the can and keeping the flow of alley expression alive. I did find a few cool pieces though

This one is more like graffiti lit ...

These are about twenty feet up and about ten feet from the top of the building. My good friend Beth and I sat at Wilsers tonight wondering how the hell they painted them.

This one, what I definitely call graffiti art, looked almost new ...

It was right beside this one ...

This one looked almost IKEAish on the Aliant building ...

I call this graffiti expressionism ...

Talk about rhythm ..

Pretty in Pink ...

Graffiti calligraphy ...

Mixed graffiti media ...

Where, o, where are those amazing young folk with their flying dreams?