The Daily Planet Book of Cool Ideas

Halloween - check. Ashley's birthday - check. Remembrance Day - check.

...I know what you're thinking! It's that time of year when thoughts turn to Christmas, and also to the horror that is Christmas shopping.

Oh, but fear not, my good friends and fans! Because Mrs Hilksom has the perfect thing for you to stuff into stockings this year.

You may have already seen it at the local bookstore or on the bestseller list, and here it is with a personal endorsement:
The Daily Planet Book of Cool Ideas, by Jay Ingram.



This was my contract for the first half of 2008, working on this book. I didn't talk about it on the blog mainly because it's just a good idea not to talk about your current work on your blog. ...So's to save yourself the understandable headache involved in possibly being fired, likesay.

This book was originally conceived as a published version of all the 'environmentally-themed' segments done over the last couple of years by Discovery Channel's daily science news show, Daily Planet. The show's host, Jay Ingram, well-known and beloved science popularizer, was on board to be the book's author. Eventually the project concept evolved into a book involving the complex re-contextualizing of these Daily Planet stories, plus other, new material gathered from around the world on what's going on right now in climate science and technology. Illustration and photo-heavy, it was designed to target the Daily Planet viewer demographics as well as having broad appeal to kids and adults alike.

The job basically entailed managing and coordinating the research and logistics between Jay Ingram, Discovery Channel, and Penguin Canada. I worked on designing the chapters and overarching themes for the narrative and guided portions of the contract negotiations; re-cleared all the publication rights to the material we already had from the television show, and sourced new material and imagery; screened, shortlisted and selected footage from Daily Planet and myself shot some new photographs for use in the book; and generally liaised with the source subjects, promised them copies of the finished book, negotiated use fees, and overall spent most of every single day, seven days a week, for five and a half months, constantly on the telephone and sending emails at all ungodly hours, even ones you've never heard of. Although it was a vaguely ungrammatical title, my email signature told people I was the "Managing Research Editor" for the book. Go slowly through the words, and yep, that's the best description, overall, of what I did.

And I loved it. As a contract it was a fantastic fit for my background and mad diverse skillz (yo). Jay Ingram and I worked fabulously together. He's a man who doesn't suffer fools gladly, has a fantastic work ethic and focus, and possesses a great absurdist sense of humour. And he's a real person. When I came to Toronto to meet the Daily Planet team in January, he picked me up at the airport.

I worked damn hard on this book and I was really, really proud of what we accomplished with this all-out-sprint of a project. When we left for Australia my portion was mostly complete, and after a few long-distance calls at really ridiculous hours to clear up last details, my contribution was finished. 

...And then, about a month ago, we came home from the September/October travels to find a little something in the mailbox. My contributor's copy. The book turned out beautifully - 265 pages of text and photos and illustrations, wonderfully laid out and clearly presented. Turner did one of the blurbs on the back cover: "The Daily Planet Book of Cool Ideas is as concise and accessible a primer as you'll find on the subject, and its calm and ultimately optimistic tone makes it that rarest of reads - an invigorating climate story."  True dat. Honestly, a great book for anyone interested in the climate question.

And then, in the back, from the book's author:



In case you can't read the text, it goes thusly:

This book might have set some sort of record for the number of people who made significant contributions to it, but one person stands out. Ashley Bristowe was, as she puts it, "managing research editor" of this book, but actually, she ran it. If there's anyone out there who's better at cajoling, researching, challenging, organizing, record-keeping, or working 24/7 to keep a project on track, I'd like to know who it is. (She's pretty funny, too.) Without her this book would simply not exist.

Categories: Ash | Work work work

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The "Nine" Show Opening

Ya, ya, how did it go? It went well. Fairly well attended, not as packed as last year but not bad. As I've told many people: Sloane ate her weight in chips, friends came to cheer me on, people said nice things about my work, and Turner got me a corsage for the occasion.

     
One Lane/One Planet, Queensland Australia. 2008. Colourchrome print and acrylic

From my "Artist's Statement" for the show: I’m interested in language and words, and in particular Found Words – misspellings, graffiti, ironies in signage, language as backdrop for larger themes. One of the pieces in this show, the One Lane/One Planet work, is from this series and was shot at the side of the road in Queensland, Australia. We were visiting Crystal Waters, the noted permaculture eco-village northeast of Brisbane, an environmental and idealistic enclave surrounded by very conservative farming culture and remote countryside. One road lead to the community from the bush highway, and a resident had, with two well-placed letters, provided a note-perfect introduction to their overarching philosophy.

Initially this photo looks political, and in word content it does skew that way. However, the reason I included it in the show was actually due to my pleasure with the background after a very long process of work & tweaking in Photoshop. Not evident at this size, the trees and grass and hills in the background have been distorted and rendered very "painterly" after much effort. I think 'artists' always have other reasons for why they like their own work - this is mine for this piece.


  
A-frame Advice, Nakusp BC. 2005/2008. Colourchrome print and acrylic

From the artist's statement: Another piece from my Found Words series featured in this exhibition is the “SMILE, SOMEBODY’S WATCHING” work. During the Vietnam War Canada took in many American draft dodgers, and communes sprung up along the remote valleys of British Columbia. One such group built an A-frame on land now owned by my mother outside of Nakusp. When we first began visiting this structure it was full of old clothing and kitchen utensils, Kahlil Gibran posters and letters detailing concerns that the FBI would somehow find and extradite them back to the US. This old bottlecap, bearing a cheerful phrase I remember from my own childhood, also echoes through the decades another message, the uneasy melody of paranoia and tension that affected the lives of these exiles.


    

L:  Motel Knowles, Saskatchewan. 2005/2008. Colourchrome print and acrylic
R:  Roxy Theatre, Coleman AB. 2006/2008. Colourchrome print and acrylic

From the artist's statement: I’m also interested in the neon signs still in evidence on the Canadian Prairie. Neon gas, brought into widespread use in signage during the 1920s, changed how we light the night, bringing amazing vivid colours and dancing shapes to the palette of our nighttime world. Even today, neon signs are compelling as a combination of practicality and nostalgia. But neon’s initial impact, especially on our rural Canadian landscape of wild space and distances, must have been magnificent beyond our imagining. There are two pieces from my Neon Signs series in this show, from Saskatchewan and Alberta.

     
Netcasters I and Netcasters II, Queensland Australia. 2008. Colourchrome print and acrylic

The Australia spiderweb 'diptych'. The green one should look greener and the blue one should look more teal-ey. Limits of the internet, etc.
...Only Melinda Topiko called me on the fact that this is not an actual diptych! (I would expect no less from you, Melinda!)

I didn't sell any work, but I didn't really expect to. There was a commission I had to factor into the pricing, and I'd decided to backmount my pieces to acrylic, which is an expensive process at the best of times. The prices were higher than the show's 'market' could bear, and in general people don't like to pay for photography, especially now in the digital age.

Mainly I was participating to nail down my Canada Council qualifications, which, for the Visual Arts category, seem to stipulate that you have to have a certain number of gallery shows. Never mind whether you make your living taking and publishing photographs, never mind the artistic merit of those publications, never mind the other work you may have done in other artistic fields... last year I didn't have three gallery shows on my cv and I was deemed ineligible for funding.

So, ok, whatever, fine. I've got the chops, and now I've got the gallery shows. Woot, hear me roar, august federal funding agencies!

Categories: Art school | Ash | Work work work

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Turner At WorldChanging

Hey hey hey. This is to announce a new GeoHope collaboration with the illustrious and definitive WorldChanging. Turner has been brought on board to do a monthly-ish column on his work, The Geography of Hope, climate change, hope in general, and etcetera-type-stuff. I have a tiny role as the contributing photographer to his columns, the first of which has now hit the site. See it here.

This photograph was taken down in Taber, Alberta in September 2007. I was originally down there to do a shoot for the Globe & Mail at the big Enmax wind farm south of the town. (For the record, this was indeed the same site shoot during which I lost my shit, spooked by the giant scary wind turbines whooshing high above, and I had to hide in/shoot from the car, with the radio on full blast.) This photo was taken out the passenger-side window, and of course the text on the mirror reads, "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear".

Enh! ENH? Symbolism, see? Metaphor! Wind turbines, wind power, sustainable and renewable energy are... CLOSER than we think! Get it?

Turner's blog posting about his new WorldChanging column, here.

Categories: Ash | GeoHope | Turner | Work work work

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"Nine" Show At Arthouse

Categories: Art school | Ash | Work work work

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Garlic!

Categories: Work work work

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Unlimited 3.0

This month's issue of Unlimited magazine features a multi-excerpt from The Geography of Hope, accompanied by my photos. Cheers, Malcolm!



Split-level Earthship at the quarry "subdivision" in the Earthship Greater World Community, outside Taos NM.

I love this photo, and was thrilled to see that Malcolm decided to use it. The original shot has a lot of very very blue sky with amazing puffy clouds, above. It looks fake, it's so beautiful. The house itself is symmetrical and unusual to the pink-suburban-box-ized eyes many of us come with to the notion of "housing", and so it immediately flips you into another world to think about living in one of these things. The domes are undeniably "futuristic" and the solar panels flared beautifully blue in the midday sun. But what I like best is the stark landscape - evident in the sandy foreground and hardscrabble bushes trying to take root on the desert - punctuated by the weird abandoned appliances and kicked-in old cardboard boxes. It's anyone's unanticipated backyard garbage. The owner of this house didn't know I'd photograph her yard and then publish the picture all over the place 18 months later. In this way the Earthships give back as "real": it's not a Hobbit hole or a hippie hideaway. It's just some dude's house and he hasn't gathered up the yard trash this week yet. I love it.



Dr. Soontorn Boonyatikarn's amazing biosolar house, in the suburbs of Bangkok, Thailand.

Categories: GeoHope | Photography | Turner | Work work work

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2007 Year In Review

I learned and re-learned some lessons this past year. Wouldn't it be great if we knew it all at 18? Think of the world = oyster situation. Amazing.




On metabolic regulation: Remember to take your damn thyroid meds. Yes, every damn day.

On owning cats: One day you have a cat, the next day he's eaten by coyotes. So you grieve, and pull it together and get another cat. And then one day that cat is run over and you find yourself digging a second pet grave beside the house. So you reflect on your animal track record, but decide you still want to be a cat owner, and you get two more cats. And Sloane says, "Mama, please may we not let these new cats die?" Heh. We'll do our best.

On getting what I want: Patience and humility have done wonders for my win ratio. From photo assignments to getting Sloane into the right playschool, shutting up and being polite and proceeding with grace have been such amazing lubricants this year. Shoulda learned this one at age 20.




On getting fired for other people's bullshit: Sometimes you get fired for other people's bullshit, nothing you can do.

On parties: People will not come at the appointed time. The best people stay late, but the worst'll hang around until then, too. Exits define your attendance, particularly if you stomp the shrubbery on your way out. If you're serving mulled wine and beer, some friend-of-a-friend will still march in and ask for a good scotch straightaway (and we will give it to them). And we'd still love a few more invitations to other people's parties, please... a reminder to publications and corporate friends: freelancers have no Christmas parties or schmancy fundraisers to go to unless you invite them to yours.



On accounting people at various publications: People will take as long as inhumanly possible to pay you.

On finances: It's good to be able to mean it when you say, "Well, if we have to sell the car and the house, I can live with that."

On funding: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.




On freelancing: Turner - "You will sometimes do your best work for free, you will sometimes do the most work for the least pay. The tradeoff is that you are your own master. ...Most of the time." September 26/07

On continuing education: As it turns out, I'm a complete obsessive, bent on perfection. If only Farokh could see me now (Farokh Afshar, my M.Sc. advisor, 1947-2007, peace be upon you).

On parenting: There are tough days. There are days when you are so flayed and raw and every smile and moment of concentrated attention is a huge effort. We want to keep her away from sugar, and tv, and crappy plastic toys, and the moronic cult of the fairy princess pervading the under-six crowd. But grandparents will still give her Smarties for breakfast, and Thomas the train dvds are incredibly helpful in moderation. So you try to find the middle way and hope to keep the scarring to a minimum.

Also on parenting: We are such good parents, way better than the rest of the parents out there. Also better than our own parents, of course.



On Sloane: She's the best. The talking, my god the talking. Being able to see into her little 2 year old mind has been such an amazing blessing every day. Even her temper tantrums are the best. And the hair is getting fabulous! When she hugs my head and says into my ear, "Ma-mee, Ma-mee, Ma-mee!" in this purposely hilarious pitched voice, I know she's going to have a great sense of humour and inner dialogue.

On attending weddings: Still a good idea, particularly when you've arranged babysitting.

On photography: Everyone wants to have their picture taken, even the ones who say they don't. Creating a meaningful photograph is one of the greatest gifts you can give a person. When they're ninety-nine and in a home and the caregivers ask for a photo from when they were young and beautiful, you bet they'll choose one of mine.

On sending out photos I've taken of people, having promised to send them copies: Managing expectations does wonders. Once I started saying, "Don't expect to receive these for quite a while," people were more grateful when they finally arrived. Take note McConnell Reunion-Goers, you still won't get your photos for quite a while.




On drinking: Sourpuss shots have their time and place.

On politicians: Disappointing liars, 98% of the time. I'm cautiously optimistic about the other two.

On marriage: I'd still rather be poor with Turner than rich with anyone else.



On Turner: I had this awesome and terrible realization about Turner. He is well aware of my many many failings, my ego, the judgemental edges. You think marriage is about loving someone so much. But the worst of it is that you have the love of someone else. Turner loves me despite everything he knows, and in the face of this I am appalled, and thunderously grateful.

On building community and having good friends: Pick the good people who love us back. Get rid of everyone else. Life is too short.

Also on friends: Sometimes people drift away. There're all sorts of reasons. I try not to take it personally, I figure the soul mates will resurface eventually.

On changing the world: It's exhausting. When you can't even convince your family to recycle their cans and bottles, the uphill battle seems that much more uphill. But boy, you take pride in your work, and you know you're on the side of good. Call it sanctimonious if you like, but it feels good to work hard.

On holidays: There are no holidays.

Categories: Ash | Married Life | Mom-ness | Photography | Sloane | Turner | Work work work

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I'm A Real Photographer!

Okay. Like, remember I took a course in the spring semester? Art History? And I completely crazed out and became one of those lunatic mature students and ended up with the highest mark in the class? And swore that I'd never take another spring course again? Yeah. All that's true. But I did come away with the impression that I needed more out of ACAD. The Alberta College of Art & Design clearly had a thing or two to teach me. I might not know it ALL, see.

So at the end of August I dutifully trooped down to ACAD and, after a few glitches, received an official dispensation from the Head of the Photo department to sign up for MADT 305: Photography. A FALL course. For the record, let us all bow down before Mr. Mitch Kern, M.F.A., my benefactor and truly the most inspiring and generous professor I've ever had the honour of having. Under his able and open tutelage I've had the most amazing semester of my life. Folks, I have nearly eight years of post-secondary under my belt. Mitch Kern is the best.




Okay. So I put this on the wall first. Second class, first crit. We were told, "Bring something that tells us something about you." So: I was in southern Alberta, south of Taber. In the middle of fricken no-WHERE, all by myself, kilometres from all living life. Shooting the wind farm for the Globe & Mail. I drove onto the wind farm (with permission from Enmax) and got out at the base of this turbine. Nothing about this photo suggests how huge the windmill is. I've been to a wind farm before, I shot the McBride Lake farm near Pincher Creek a few years ago. But these turbines are newer, and they're much, much bigger. In truth, they were so big that I was truly, unaccountably, afraid of them. I was fighting the new phobia when I was taking these photos: setting up the shots for later when the sun was lower. Without fully realizing why, I was keeping my head down, so I couldn't see the turbines, turning hugely above me. I was taking this shot and then I realized there was... something. A sound. Above me. Shhoooosh. Shhoooosh. Shhoooosh. The blades, turning, somewhere up there. The sound of the turbines.

I panicked. For the first time in my adult life, in broad daylight (shown), I panicked. I bolted for the car. I sat there for five full minutes. I drove away, CBC on full blast. I shot from the car for the next half hour. Finally ventured forth to do the real shoot in the twilight. Terrified, I won't lie. But I got the shot (in the Globe: Sept 2007).

So it's not the best photo of my professional life, not by a long shot. But it was the only one that felt honestly relevant to the class critique, six days later. Mine was one of the last ones chosen to discuss. I wasn't surprised, the rest were awesome. But I didn't mind mine sucking - I knew it looked crappy there on the wall, next to the rest of them, but it had a good explanation. It was a great starting point. In some ways there was nowhere to go but up!




So. Crit #2. We had this field trip to Kananaskis, most of the Photo program and classes. I rode up with Melinda, who basically taught me what from what as far as art school is concerned. In retrospect, I realize that the conversation we had between Calgary and Kan Village that day was the best thing that happened to me all fall.

I've known Melinda for a few years, I met her first through Cousin Jana in Tuscany. But it was totally unexpected to find her at ACAD this year. She's in the middle of her second year, majoring in Fibre. We both have kids. We're older than many of the profs. She's smart, and articulate, and funny. She let me ask all the stupid questions (ex. Q: "is some of the stuff people put on the wall total shit?" A: "Yes." ...You need to know this kind of thing) and brought me forward about a hundred km toward being 'an artist' (whatever that is?).

This day I resolved to just be in the zone when I was shooting. I took pictures only of what was interesting. I ended up with a triptych: a "solid shot", something that could be the cover of a magazine. Black and white image, bare poplar trees with mountains and clouds in the background. Then another shot, way more "arty" - a fisheye shot from way close, of a barren and dead pine tree, distrorted and beautiful, mountain range in the background. The third was this one. This was the first "piece" that I've ever seriously/obviously Photoshopped, the first where I was like, "well, I'm not sure what the hell this is, I'm not sure what it says, or why I'm happy with it. But it's done." I have to say, that's a pretty cool first experience.



Number Three. This was my crit submission for "(Wo)man and the Environment". I amalgamated it from a number of photos I took in New York City, during our trip there in October for Carla's wedding. People called it "painterly". For my part, I have no idea where this came from. This looks like nothing I'd ever produced before, frankly. I was happy with it, and it felt finished. I'm not sure I would've liked it if someone else had produced it, and found this fact interesting. Something of a transition piece, to be sure.




Next crit, "Object obscured". I'd never done a self portrait before. But I knew what I wanted and after much pondering was not optimistic about convincing Turner to half-suffocate himself on the plastic bag that comes with our morning paper to achieve the look. I came to think these had a lot to do with my experience of motherhood. Although initially it looks like a really alarming image, you'll notice I'm not struggling. I was thinking a lot about how motherhood confines and constricts you, how it limits and binds you, and yet how we, or at least I, give ourselves to it without real struggle. I was thinking about the weird suffocation of the pre-parent life that motherhood brings about; alternately how it's a fair trade, and ultimately incredibly worthwhile, the only thing really worth living for. But also about how it's not easy - that everything about your old life still feels so close and accessible and real, tantalizingly so. And all those experiences inform and support you, how grateful I've been for this aspect of my new life. But, they're all, ultimately, gone, nonetheless. I'm on the other side of the jam wall now, and there's no going back, and I miss it, but I wouldn't trade it. A willing death of that old life, falling into the new.
 
Ah. These. Well, this is a diptych, and they both have borders, fyi for the weird formatting, above. I'm very pleased with these. They're the best thing that came out of this course.

The idea was "The individual in the city". We were sort of meant to go downtown and photograph ourselves amongst the buildings or something, I think. It was a fun day of "FIELD TRIP". We all took the train downtown, we ran into each other on the street, we all met for lunch together to scarf down bad Chinese and take funny pictures of each other, and went off in pre-enforced pairs in the afternoon.

I knew this area of downtown well. There's about two blocks square, an area that starts at the Palliser and diamond-shape ends at about the old Eaton's Centre, that I know backwards. Lived it on foot for years as a teenager. I did everything valuable that day within an hour of arriving downtown.

The one on the left is Devonian Gardens, the top floor of TD Square. It's an indoor botanical garden, been there for years. The photo is a re-imagining/revisiting of an event I lived, myself, at 16 years old. December, 1989. It was the first time I'd ever been turned on. Like, for real. Making out with a guy, turned on to all get-out. And like an idiot, I played it ice-cold. This photo grabs at all the moronic teenage embarassment and bravado and later disappointment and eventual re-living (over and over), I caught it here. Right from Napoleon Dynamite: IDIOT! Initially I'd tried it in focus, but it was wrong. Had to be blurry to smear the time in between.

The photo on the left is an image of something I've been talking about for years. In grade eleven I used to meet Melissa and Olivia and Margaret downtown and we'd drink in the Eaton's Centre bathrooms, all crowding into the stall together, passing the mickey of tequila around. It might have been once, or half a dozen times. But there was something about being young, and under the radar, and drunk on tequila in public in the late winter of 1990, that sunk into me and stuck to my soul. I've been carrying the glee of those few moments with me for years, infecting my everyday life in all manner of wonderful ways. In this piece I was consciously touching backwards to those moments, the reflection/shadow depicted is me reflected in the bathroom stall wall paint, both then and now.



This was my final crit image. It's not quite "finished". But basically I was really inspired by a few of my classmates who are true genius artists. One had drawn on top of a photo of him and his siblings, and another had shown us an animation she'd done for another of her classes. Although I have no drawing skill whatsoever, and was working with a clunky mouse for the first time, I wanted to experiment with doodling on top of a photo I loved.

So. This is a picture of me, rightso. Taken by Jenna, in the car on the way back to John's wedding reception in Kelowna, in July 2006. Me an' the cousins, we'd been drinkin' and such in the hotel after the ceremony. I was wearing a dress that, even if I looked fat in it, I could rest assured was as flattering a garment as possible under the physical circumstances. We're using my fisheye lens, which appeals in a most ridiculously huge manner to my inner idiot - a character in full force this day.

Basically I feel this photo captures me perfectly. As in, as perfectly as a photo can capture a person. But for the first time I saw the opportunity to IMPROVE (for me, the only viewer, mind) the image, to help it BETTER represent me in these circumstances. I do love it, but it's not "done".

**

So there's two reasons for the post title. One, this fabulous book I bought at the International Center of Photography bookstore by Keith Arnatt, a visual artist and professor at an art college in the UK. Seriously, hilarious. Worth reading. The guy has produced a book of photos of his dog's poop. And notes to his wife. And shots of garbage from the back alley. I was thrilled with the title: "I'm A Real Photographer!" Exclamation point. On a book. Like it needed to be underlined or reinforced or told over again. I hear a specific voice when I think of that title. Mine. "I'm a REAL FO-TOG-RAFFER!" Smiling with all the zane. (Post-note: checked the book, there's no exclamation mark in the title. I made that up.)

The second reason is to thank the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for the official stamp of approval. On Christmas Eve the envelope came. They gave me a big grant, Merry Christmas. I'd applied to attend the "master class" of MADT 305 at ACAD at the invitation of the instructor. I'd proposed, way back in September, to expand my artistic sensibilities, to engage in an aesthetically rigorous investigation of my work and practice. Whoa. I re-read the grant I'd written and couldn't believe how my flowery-worded and hopeful explanation of what I'd officially wanted to achieve with the money had been so amazingly accurate and true to what I'd thought I quietly accomplished only for myself, in the end. Mabuhay to me.

And to AFA, and Mitch Kern, and the awesome & awe-inspiring classmates, and especially to Turner who took Sloane from 6am to 6pm every Friday every week without complaint: cheers. Cheers cheers cheers. And thank you.

Categories: Ash | Photography | Work work work

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Globe n' Mail

Today Turner's sustainability column premieres in "Canada's National Newspaper", the Globe & Mail. This first one was titled "The Secret Greening of Calgary", and talked about the city's quiet commitment to sustainable energy solutions, despite the larger city's love of sprawl, SUVs and all things bling.

I was contracted to do the photos, which took me to southeastern Alberta to shoot the Taber wind farm (colour, Focus section cover photo, below the fold) and to the Erlton Ctrain station (three times, with three different children, to try to get the b&w ctrain-and-pinwheel shot they chose for page F9).

Categories: Ash | GeoHope | Sloane | Turner | Work work work

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And Now For Something Completely Different

Aha, have I given you the impression that I am a photographer? Yes? Well! Suddenly, and minus the majority of the usual qualifications (I own not even a single cravat), I am also the curator of a gallery in a most hip and chic part of town.

Since last year I've been working with an aesthetics salon called Chic Studios down at Mount Royal Village. The owner, Amy Nicole, and I barter our services and generally cross-promote our businesses. I love working with them. All the people who come through are awesome, and everyone has good ideas and the energy to back them up.

The studio is on the lower level of a fabulous location on 16th Ave SW, facing the park on 17th Ave. The other businesses in the area include an Asian furniture importer, an art supply house, fancy clothing and shoes and flowers for the ladies who lunch in the area, a bunch of coffee and teahouses, and hip bars and restaurants. It's at the western end of what's known as "The Red Mile" when the Calgary Flames hockey team is doing well in the playoffs. In any case, it's a great location.

And so back in June, Amy and I started talking about turning the very wide and empty hallway space just outside the studio into a sort of gallery that I would curate. Eventually the arthouse-appropriate track lighting I bought will be installed in the ceiling, and the wall will be painted white (with the tops and end being the hot pink of Chic Studios), and we'll have gallery postcards and some signage. But before I left for out east in early July, I did the real jumping-through of the hoops, which was getting the art framed and hung on the damn wall, for starters.

This first show includes my two neon sign pieces that showed at the Vertigo space in early June with the Mob Hit festival, and three pieces from Erin Pasternak's winter oil rig series. Erin did the nameplates on her old-timey typewriter and there's a price list for the works behind the Chic Studios front desk. The next show will likely be two local painters, and then I'm looking to bring in some drawings from Tara Lowen Ault Chowdhry, an artist based in Mumbai. Later on I'd like to bring in a graffiti artist to paint the walls themselves. But first, we're going to have an opening show/gala in September. The date isn't set but will likely be mid-month.

Categories: Ash | Calgary | Work work work

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Grateful

Last Monday evening Turner and Sloane left for Nova Scotia and I was left here in Calgary by myself. This was by design. I needed a period of me-time, it had been decided and planned months ago.

I missed Sloane and Turner this week, but I have been using the time alone (the first alone time in more than 2.5 years) very wisely. Among the things I was grateful for, this week:

- My bicycle. Such a lovely and constant companion these last seven days. It totally deserves a tune-up, I realize. But I toodled my wobbledy way through the traffic every day to avoid the horrendous Stampede parking fees around town, and got enough exercise in the process to stave off totally gaining the 20 pounds I deserved to put on this week (I went off "the Plan" when Turner left and this week even had PIZZA. And REAL TEA. And a GELATO. And so on).

- The band at Fionna McSomethingsomething (the Sheraton hotel downtown bar)'s willingness to play our yelled-out 'requests' of "RIGHT UP YOUR KILT" (Wild Rover) and "AND SHE WAS" (Black Velvet Band), and their amazing, miraculous, and fortuituously perfect timing on "Home For A Rest", which pulled Victoria and I out of the bathroom to madly pseudo-stepdance our hearts out, channelling the old Clark Hall Pub spirit.

- Sourpuss shots. Thank you, David Friese, for introducing these into our world. Far too tasty & dangerous!



- The weather. During the week it was 28C every day. I ran around outdoors working and carousing in the improbably humid air, loving every second. Then today, when I woke finally exhausted and worn out from the week, it was 14C. Perfect timing for turning on the furnace.

- Chic Studios. Amy Nicole of Chic Studios and I have been working together to cross-promote since December and I've really valued her amazing and ultra-positive business sense. A few weeks ago we hammered out the details of turning her hallway into a gallery that I would curate. This past week this has become a reality. Please visit the gallery at 100 - 850, 16 Ave SW (lower level). This is directly across the park from 17th Ave where the kids juggle and people hang out with their dogs in front of Mount Royal Village. You know you go past there every week, dawg. Drop in to see our hip shit on the walls.

- My house. Though I usually spend a lot of quiet brain time wishing my house had higher ceilings, or a second storey, or a back extension, or a rose window for the attic, or a properly sealed front walk... etcetera, this week I found in me a huge amount of genuine and unconditional gratitude for my house as it is. I love our proximity to downtown, I love the hollyhocks that are finally sprouting in the front yard, I love our freshly painted croft shed. I love how the house is cool even when it's roasting outside. I love that we have windows above our bed that let in the fresh early-morning air. I love that we don't live in a show home, so that our messy lives with our toddler and cat and million magazines can spill all over everywhere and it's okay. Plus, we live close enough to Stampede for the nightly fireworks to rattle the windows, so we've got that going for us, which is nice.

- And of course, the peoples! Among the peoples I need to thank for this amazing week of amazing fun whist being amazingly un-traditionallly-encumbered are: Chris Turner (my spouse and father of my child) and Sloane (said child) for getting out of Dodge without complaint; Alexis Bahry for finding a lot of really fun things to invite me to; Karen Krull and Victoria Coffin for calling and yelling into the answering machine, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TONIGHT???"; Bruce Bristowe and Peggy Bumanis for inviting me to the RCA Stampede party; Moonira Rampuri, Marcello DiCintio, Jenny Saarinen, Garth Kennedy, Jewels, Maryam Nabavi, Heather and Trevor for including me in their awesome, I-was-invited-last-year-but-couldn't-come Kensington House Crawl ('07)... what a wicked Georgian-toasting, bocce-playing, Reefer-Madness-watching, and piratey-minus-the-intended-eye-patches-ARR-me-mateys time was had by all! Thanks to my neighbour Rob Dermedy who was 100% cheerful about lending his electrical skillz to the Chic Studios gallery despite the repeated delays and logistical glitches. And of course three cheers to John Johnston, David Friese, and Bruce Manning, plus the guy Karen brought to the Sundowner. Thank you all for including me in your Stampede plans this year. (Marky Mark-Mark, we'll see you next year, yo!)

p.s. I read TWO BOOKS this week!!

Categories: Ash | Calgary | Friends | House | Work work work

Comments [0]

More About The Exhibition

As reported, I sent out this email saying "please come to the exhibition play" and told people that I'd be there on such-n-such dates. So as per the schedule, we headed down to the theatre as a family for repeat performances of the torture-of-watching-strangers-look-at-my-photos, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday this week. Turner would chase around after Sloane while I hid behind the structural pillars in the lobby, sucking on martinis. This, as part of our ongoing campaign to socialize Sloane into being one of those precocious kids who is at ease in 'thee-ah-tah' (and other "arts") circles.

We took some pictures (after everyone went into the theatre, so as to prevent me looking like a totally self-absorbed narcisstic asshole):

Categories: Ash | Calgary | Sloane | Work work work

Comments [2]

My First Exhibition (Not Counting Accidentally Flashing People On Dancefloors)

On Friday my first Calgary exhibition of photos opened. Long ago I was asked to be the artist in residence for this year's Mob Hit Old School theatre festival. They're doing a kick-ass Titus Andronicus, which we went to go see last Friday at the opening.

Date:	Sat, 2 Jun 2007 15:39:32 -0700 (PDT)
From:	"Ashley Bristowe"
Subject:	Old School photo exhibition
To:	Select Calgary send list

Categories: Ash | Work work work

Comments [1]

The Nerditude

A funny thing happened on my way back to academia. I became a big nerd. It was an accident. It was a result of The Fear.

Since the beginning of May I've been enrolled, and embroiled, in Art History 110 at ACAD (Alberta College of Art & Design). Twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday, classes are three hours in the evening. The weekly readings number in the hundreds of pages. I've never been able to draw, or paint, or even make a good ceramic ashtray in grade four art class. I have no background in art history whatsoever and have been starting from absolute zero. I'm also 33 years old, 9 years out of my last round of post-secondary, I work full time, and I'm a mom.

I sound somewhat busy. It's true that I have "a full life". We try to keep it real around here, but there's always lots going on. I've got plenny of edjumacation already, there're several degrees on my wall. So you might be wondering: Whatever the sweet hell possessed you to take this course, Ashley? Or perhaps: Why now?

This is what happened: Waaaayyyy back in December, I applied for the Canada Council grant, under the Visual Arts category. I'm a photographer, right? I've been doing this ongoing project on sustainability, wanted to go to Toronto to attend the Contact Photography Festival (read: pay my way to Beau & Julia's wedding). It turns out the only non-kick-ass part of the application was the part where they ask you to list your "major influences". This was my answer:

The aesthetic or cultural tradition that relates to my work (optional)
I am a self-taught photographer and as such I’m not 100% sure of what this question means,
as I have no background in aesthetic or cultural photographic traditions from an academic or
“art school” point of view. I think I would be considered a ‘creative documentarian’, but I am
always working to expand my storytelling and technical abilities by reading and exposing myself
to other photographers’ work. (Maybe next year I’ll have a better answer for you.)

I shoulda opted out of this question, but decided honesty would be the best policy. Ahem. This didn't work for them. In April I received a letter from the Canada Council that stated the following:

Dear Ms. Bristowe,
Your application was received in December and after a preliminary
evaluation you have been deemed not to be a professional artist.
We hated your photographs and you will never amount to anything.
So there.

I'm paraphrasing.

So after stomping around the house for a little while and planning my vociferous appeal to the venerable CC and their racken-fracken gatekeeping bureaucracy, I came to a halt. And it finally occurred to me that their assessment was... accurate. I am not an artist. At least, not necessarily. I am certainly not an artist from the point of view of a jury of my so-called "peers" in the Visual Arts, a hearty percentage of whom would have slaved through lots of formal art school before going on to being the poncy cravat-sporting art directors in Toronto that we all know and love. I forgot that you should never, ever show the fleshy part under your arm. Never, ever give them a chance to tell you you're not qualified. I'd gone right ahead and told them point blank that I didn't know whozits from whatzits in the formal art canon, much less among photographers. Totally dumb.

So I thought about my answer on the Canada Council application. Am I really so lazy that I couldn't get to the damn library and read up on photography, photographers, techniques, style, history, innovation? Well... no. I guess I'm not THAT lazy. So it was off to the library for me. I brought home stacks of books. Henri Cartier-Bresson. Sebastião Salgado. Diane Arbus. Jeff Wall. Etcetera. After a couple of weeks it started to become clear that it was good to be learning about these folks and the photography canon of the 20th century, but that I should probably take some proper courses at ACAD to really force myself through the paces and learn about what and who art schools think are important. Likesay.

I'd already taken their non-credit photography course a few years ago, and knew I didn't need to take it again. As I read through the spring/summer course calendar it was clear that to get into the upper-level photography courses I'd have to do some of the first-year-level prerequisites. The first was Art History 110. Here's the description:

This survey course introduces students to selected
histories and methods of the visual arts. Western visual
culture is considered in its world context: artworks and
artifacts are discussed in terms of their function as
conveyors an complex cultural values and meanings.
Survey I deals primarily with visual art up to the beginning
of the 16th century.

Aw, man! What did the 16th century ever do for me? This was going to SUCK.

But I glanced at the Canada Council rejection letter. I guess I should start somewhere. And thinking about that, I got some other inspiration. After doing her nursing certificate, my mom earned her B.A. over thirteen years and finally graduated from Lakehead University just after my brother and sister were born. And over the last decade she's been taking her Bachelor of Science from Athabasca. She just finished her last course; she graduates in June. I've watched the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach to learning, so it doesn't seem COMPLETELY useless to plod, slowly, toward an academic goal. I resigned myself to learning about cave paintings and got my stuff together for the mandatory portfolio review. Which I passed. And into Art History 110 I went.

But let's back up a bit for a s