Archive for April, 2011

Community Spotlight: Cristian S. Aluas – Artist and Teacher, Kanata, Ontario

April 14th, 2011 by sbattle

As many across the country are starting to organize activities for Culture Days 2011, people are writing in, sharing their stories and what they’re planning for this year’s event, happening September 30, October 1 & 2. Here, we’re profiling individual artists who will be sharing their craft with those in their communities over the 2011 Culture Days weekend.

My name is Cristian S. Aluas and I am a full-time artist and art teacher, with a new art school here in Kanata (suburb of Ottawa). For starters, I was born in Romania and came here when I was 8 years old, fostering a love of art that grew here in Canada, at Canterbury High School, Algonquin College, and Concordia University (all specializing in the visual arts). I am proud to be Canadian, so that is one of the main reasons I love being part of Culture Days, and sharing my artistic gifts with my community.

I started my professional career in 2002, and have been teaching privately for art schools in the Ottawa area for 8 years. I noticed that in my area, Kanata, there was a demand for art classes, and I began taking students privately. This year, I have decided to focus on forming my own art school in Kanata, to serve my community by providing fun and creative ways that they can pursue a drawing or painting hobby, or develop skills in the visual arts. I teach ages 7 and up, and adults, subjects such as Cartooning, Drawing, and Painting with Acrylics (or water soluble Oils). Art can be a great creative outlet, I am passionate about it, and I love to share my knowledge with others.

Being part of Culture Days, I hope to spread awareness of the services that I provide, and to have an easy way for people to come by and get a complimentary art class, and know that there is a place now in the constantly growing Kanata area where young people and adults alike can pursue their dreams and interests and learn how to draw and paint.

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday October 1st, from 2pm-3pm, for a free Culture Days Art Class!

More info can be found at www.CSA1.ca

View Comments | Posted in Community spotlight, Culture Days stories, Ontario, for activity organizers, role of arts and culture, ways to get involved |

Community Spotlight: G-Luve – Artist, DJ & Event Promoter, Vancouver, British Columbia

April 14th, 2011 by sbattle

As many across the country are starting to organize activities for Culture Days 2011, people are writing in, sharing their stories and what they’re planning for this year’s event, happening September 30, October 1 & 2. Here, we’re profiling individual artists who will be sharing their craft with those in their communities over the 2011 Culture Days weekend.

Having participated in Culture Days as a guest artist during last year’s Craftivism (Downsized) Art Show in Vancouver – which brought attention to artists’ economic precarity in BC by presenting miniature canvases and pieces at discount prices – visual artist, musician and event promoter DJ G Luve will be organizing his own Culture Days event this year. Artistrun.org, the group that organized Craftivism (Downsized) for the September 25 and 26 2010 Culture Days inaugural edition, has a successful track record for audience developement. The group art show, which was held at Raw Canvas and featured in a Globe & Mail Culture Days ad, created a precedent that G-Luve intends to build upon.

G-Luve’s plans include live entertainment and art shows at downtown Vancouver’s Club 560. Named “The Factory” in homage to Andy Warhol’s famed New York studio and hangout, this series of events aims to help up and coming artists of various disciplines promote their work and grow collectively.

Adding an innovative digital component to the artists’ in-person, self-promotional initiatives, artwork presented during The Factory’s Culture Days event will be accompanied by QR codes.

When scanned using a camera phone, these two-dimensional barcodes direct the user to special mobile web pages. In this case, Club 560 patrons (and potential art buyers) will gain immediate access to a page where they can read the corresponding artist’s bio, statement and website URL.

“Culture Days and The Factory’s goals are to help artists reach new audiences and build partnerships locally,” says G-Luve. “We look forward to being a part of the celebration”.

View Comments | Posted in British Columbia, Community spotlight, Culture Days stories, for activity organizers, ways to get involved |

Community Spotlight: Ed Schleimer – Woodcut Printmaker, New Hamburg, Ontario

April 14th, 2011 by sbattle

As many across the country are starting to organize activities for Culture Days 2011, people are writing in, sharing their stories and what they’re planning for this year’s event, happening September 30, October 1 & 2. Here, we’re profiling individual artists who will be sharing their craft with those in their communities over the 2011 Culture Days weekend.

We heard about Culture Days through Martin DeGroot’s Saturday column in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and we’ve elected to participate to give the public a window on our world and an opportunity to explore the possibilities of the woodcut medium.

For Culture Days, I would suggest that the interested come in with a drawing to be reversed and transferred using a mirror or carbon paper. I recommend a straightedge slant because the image has to be transferred to wood, and grain is a determining factor. Participants will therefore be able to work through the wood and translate their ideas to a print using ink and press. I will show some examples of colour approaches, but the basic exercise will be in black water soluable ink – I have done reduction cuts as well as offset multiple blocs in colour, but there is much more involved – jig saw puzzle approaches are another variant of colour possibilities.

Woodcut Printmaking is the oldest method of reproducing images. Its earliest application in the Western World was to give “everyman” the opportunity to understand scripture through the “universal language” of art.  I have embraced that slant and was told early on, before I put knife to wood, that my work had a religious flavour. Curiously enough, my wife and I now find ourselves retired from the workplace in a refurbished 123 year old church I call the “Chapel of the Glass Stoneman”. We are adrift in this Ark on a See [sic] of Landscape.  In the last 3 years out here, I have done about 55 blocs inspired by the land, its history and architecture on my mythic journey.

Self-portrait by Ed Schleimer

View Comments | Posted in Community spotlight, Culture Days stories, Ontario, for activity organizers, ways to get involved | Tags: , , ,

Activity Ideas for Libraries

April 12th, 2011 by Reuben Finley

In 2009, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Ray Danyluk, communicated his support of Alberta Arts Days by challenging libraries to participate as activity hosts and organizers through local partnerships. Here are a few of the activities that were suggested in a newsletter from South-Central Alberta’s Marigold Library Network. The full article, which also provides some great promotional and media relations tips, can be downloaded here.

1) Shoot and Click @ Your Library:

Invite teens to take your/their digital or video camera on a walk around the library and capture some unique moments. Host a premiere party.

2) Cover Story @ Your Library:

Ask teens or other age groups to design a jacket of a book they’ve read, or one that they imagine. Have them choose the artwork and fonts, and write a “teaser” description and snippets of reviews.

3) Story Slam @ Your Library:

Gather local writers and story tellers (or aspiring writers). Throw out a theme and have them create a story on the spot. Encourage young writers to share their experiences.

4) I Remember When…@ Your Library:

Invite seniors to the library. Ask them to talk about “the good old days” or retell a story from way back when to children and teens. Consider recording them and/or writing down their stories and creating a book.

5) Glorious Texts @ Your Library:

Ask teens in the library to take an actual text or social media message they wrote and commit it to paper. Encourage them to decorate it as lavishly as a medieval manuscript, to make it a true work of literary art. Does it change their perception of what they wrote?

View Comments | Posted in Alberta, community organizers, ways to get involved | Tags: , , ,

Innisfil Public Library – “Where Culture Lives”

April 8th, 2011 by Reuben Finley

Nazanin Shoja, Ontario Arts Council Culture Days Animator/Coordinator, recently spoke with the Innisfil Public Library, which hosted a number of Culture Days activities in 2010. Here’s an account of their experience and thoughts on the active role that can be played by libraries in promoting local talent.


Celebrating Culture Days 2010

Innisfil Public Library is a multi-branch system within a geographically diverse community located in central Ontario.  The Culture Days initiative complements the library’s mandate as a community gathering place providing progressive, user-oriented library service that anticipates the educational, cultural, leisure and other informational needs within the community.  Participation in the program achieved several organizational goals including collaboration with local partners to enhance community involvement, promotion of the library in order to encourage the widest possible use of services, and focused attention on the achievements of local artists.

Innisfil Public Library has participated in artist studio tours and regularly displays artwork in its main branch.  However, through the Culture Days planning process, staff realized that we had neglected to promote artisans in our communities.  As a result, Culture Days became an opportunity to highlight a neglected aspect of local talent.  Through previously established partnerships with arts groups, possible participants were identified. We were specifically seeking artisans whose work would engage the public with hands-on activities.  For example, at the Cookstown Branch, woodcarving and quilting were highlighted and library customers were fascinated to watch the works unfold before them.

Through Culture Days, the perception of the library’s role within the community is shifting.  Libraries are viewed, not only as a source of information, but also as a place “where culture lives”.  Library customers have come to view the library as a destination that will continually surprise and delight them with the breadth of arts programming and variety of experiences to be shared.  This perception will continue to grow as the library continues to participate in futureCulture Days weekends.   As a largely rural population, Innisfil residents can take pride in participating in a cross-Canada celebration of culture.  Participation in this event was worthwhile for the Innisfil Public Library and we will most definitely continue in the future.  In 2011, the Culture Days theme will be “performers” and we anticipate an even more exciting celebration of community talent.

View Comments | Posted in Community spotlight, Culture Days 2010, Culture Days stories, Ontario, community organizers, for activity organizers, role of arts and culture | Tags: , , , ,