HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THE FRIENDLY BUTCHER!

ALL MY BEST TO YOU AND THE ONES YOU LOVE AROUND YOU
MAY YOUR HOLIDAY BE FULL OF LOVE, PEACE, CREATIVITY AND OPTIMISM <3

Ah, as I’ve said before, I’ve been a silent reporter these past months… keeping quiet, growing my hair long. I have done a lot lately and some have been asking me to tell stories or put pictures on bloody facebook…. Neither of which I have done, yet.

I had been preparing for a gallery exhibition in Holland in September and was then at residency in Spain. So in the past few months have travelled to Roosendaal, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Berlin, El Bruc, Barcelona, Paris, and finally now back home to Scarborough-crazytown-Ontario, woot woot! I am living with my folks again, I have turned 30, and am fleshing my way around this other side, my oncoming thirties. I must admit it feels ok so far. I have also heard that 2012 according to the Mayan calender means a prediction of major CHANGE, not necessarily in the apocalyptic direction. Next 20,000 years of light!

In order to tell of what I’ve been up to, I’ll start off the coming year with some retroactive nostalgia and looking back, trying to reminisce all while living every present moment~ the lively and the boring, joyful and dreadful to its fullest!

OK, more to come in the new year. I am excited to make watercolours with my sister Polly and bake a Pavlova for xmas dessert tomorrow (email me if you want the recipe). Then a cottage in Lost River Québec, Montréal for New Years, and I’ll be back real soon to meditate on things.

BIG CHEERS, AND SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE xxxxxxxxxxxx

More shameless self promotion, come May 12th!

Dear Artpost,

I'm sorry that my last two articles are press releases, but this is what happens when an artist changes from observation to making mode. The following is a pretty casual and experimental show in the gallery of the White House where we both have studios, and I am excited to be collaborating once again with one of my best friends Dessa Harhay. We've known each other since we were 9 years old and I'll never forget fond memories of being teenagers, er aimless idiots in Toronto, trying to find something creative to do. We even took summer class for kicks in Parkdale where we found a loaded gun up top a cabinet during our snooping meanderings, and I don't know if she remembers this, but once she decided to colour each of her teeth in with different colour permanent markers. That's pretty inspirational to me still.

In some ways we are very different people now, I don't think she would do that anymore whereas I totally would, but don't want to rip her off.
Anyway, please come to the opening, where Dessa brings the hip and I'll bring the grunge!


Exhibition opening 'Sick!' - Amy Wong and Dessa Harhay, May 12th 2011 7PM-1AM
exhibition on display through May 20th
Gallery viewing hours: daily 1-5pm

New Work by Dessa Harhay and Amy Wong

www.dessaharhay.com/
www.amywongwebsite.blogspot.com/

'Sick!' presents new work by Toronto born artists Dessa Harhay and Amy Wong. The two painters will be exhibiting work that reflect the ambiguity of the word 'sick' - referring to notions of either being affected by physical and mental illness, or as a compliment - a word that takes on both a positive and negative light depending on context. The exhibition contemplates decadence, beauty, consumerist culture, information overload, the recent election results in Canada and the search for spirit throughout.

Having exhibited together as founding members of local art collective, the YPF, Harhay and Wong have often developed their practice side by side as Concordia University fine arts graduates (Montreal, QC). Since living in Montreal, both artists have taken different paths, leading them to live in separate parts of the world such as Chicago, Amsterdam, China, and New York. They have now regrouped in Toronto to show a collection of new work reflecting their growth while apart.

Opening Thursday May 12th, 7PM:

Featuring DJ dance party (DJ Ambulance Wolf)
www.ambulancewolf.blogspot.com/

Live musical experience with Parent-Teacher Night:
www.myspace.com/parentteachernight

and BON FIRE Jewelry line by Rachel Hawkes Cameron
www.rachelhawkescameron.com/

ASHITA: Artists for Japan

If you are in the Toronto area, please come and support this Tuesday at the Great Hall. I am donating a work, the only small thing I can do to help a horrible situation. Here is the press release, bless:

Tuesday March 29, 2011 7:00pm - Wednesday at 2:00am
The Great Hall
1087 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON
Cover: minimum donation $10 (students $5 with ID)

All funds raised through admission fee and sale of donated artworks
will go to Red Cross through The Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre's
Disaster Relief Fund
Tax receipts available for over $50 donations and art purchases

Our heart and minds are with the Japanese people and now its time for action!
The Toronto arts community felt the shock much like everyone else when images first started to appear on the news and stories through friends started to come in

Many of the artists have traveled to Japan as visiting artists or to study its rich culture and its embrace with nature and nurture. We have made many friends and built bridges through collaborations and deep friendship

Curator Rafi Ghanaghounian and Artist Daisuke Takeya are organizing a fundraiser event that will bring the arts community of Toronto together to support our friends in Japan both mentally and financially. All artists and performers will give their time and efforts for this very cause

This night will include musicians, artists, poets from both Canada and Japan. As well galleries have donated books and other items available for purchase

Thank you for your support!

Participating groups, sponsors and partners:
The Great Hall, GUU restaurant, K6cards, Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, Japanese Visitors Association (JAVA), Nihongo Art Contest 2011, Toronto Artists Fund Raising, Orange LLP, Healing Japan, Hardboiledinc for doing our shirts!!

Special Thanks to: Kateryna Topol, Christine Seki

Participating galleries (more coming!):
OBorn Contemporary, Le Gallery, Show and Tell Gallery, Art Metropole, Koyama Press, Narwhal/Magic Pony, OUCHI Gallery NYC, Orbital arts

Participating artists (more coming!):
Howard Podeswa, Laura Horne, Fiona Smyth, Yuriko Kubota, Tomori Nagamoto, Winnie Truong, Nicholas Di Genova, Shigeko Okada, Keiko Tokushima, Ayako Bando, Sonomi, Kobayashi, Bernice Lum, Ron Loranger, Pierre Julien, Richelle Forsey, Jae-hong Ahn, Juno Youn, Miki Shinozaki, Keita Morimoto, Shinobu Akimoto, Yumi Onose, Shinya Kumazawa, Martin de la Rue, Joshua Choi, James Fowler, Martin Ouellette, Patrick DeCoste, Daisuke Takeya, Matt Evans, Martin Reis, Aisha Simpson, Harvey Chan, Peter Chan, Shary Boyle, Akira Yoshikawa, Rie Aikawa, Bud Fujikawa, Laura Adams,Tanya Reed, Dasar, REN, Amy Wong, Risa Kusumoto, Chrisopher Hayes, Takashi Iwasaki, Seth Scriver

Participating performers:

Your MC's for the evening:
Rafi Ghanaghounian and Nana Akimoto

music:
Clara Venice and Ken Ogawa
Nobu Adilman: Choir!Choir!Choir!
Rambunctious featuring Michael Louis Johnson
Ashely Ingram
Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy)

performance:
Visual Assault
Yakudo: traditional Japanese drumming
AKA Dance (Keiko Ninomiya, Amy Hampton, Mike Dell)
Natasha Bailey, Nayeon Kim, Adam Herst, Yumi Onose
VPV (Daisuke Takeya, Ayumi Sawada, Tatsu)

tea ceremony:
Tomori Nagamoto and Mika Sato

poetry by:
Ewan Whyte, Bonnie Bowman

DJ
Luis Jacob
Derek Mainella

It’s been long overdue! Sophisticated Boom Boom

One of my bestest friends, the wonderful Jen storey, is my heroine and my wife. She graciously put up with me since our class together, painting 101 at Concordia University 11 years ago. God…

Her and I, back in the old days of Montreal loft parties used to go where she calls ‘The other side’, meaning that we would get so drunk that all inhibition was lost, then we would take over dance floors by holding hands and spinning around until we flew apart, with everyone around us hating our guts. Human Bowling! The Big Lebowski, or rather, the Dude, would have been proud.

This is also so Jen: I always distinctly remember once how she was solicited in the red light district when she came to visit me in Amsterdam. She caught up with us after some polite chitchat and she asked me innocently what the word ‘sexytime’ meant in Dutch? I look over and crack up at this scrawny old dude hustling her with the pitch, ‘Cocaine? Ecstasy? Sexytime?’

She is one of my biggest inspirations and she never gives herself enough credit. Her first oil painting was a naïve still life with a large knife sitting in a cup of water, pinks and peachy colours with rainy days wallpaper, all something around slightly sinister. Also, in her bathroom of her old apartment I remember she used to have next to the toilet a rectangular painting of a pack of birth control pills in acrylics. Aqua’s, peachys, our favourite colours are the mint blues greens, pastels from the 50s. Sooo feminist Pop Montreal baby!

She has also been a strong and true supporter of my work, like good friends are. This gal is like a sister to me, so it’s hard to find things to say without sounding like a boner. What I am trying to say is in general, she is the sweetest good-hearted person I know, a lovely artist, and the only person I know in the whole world who doesn’t act out of self-benefit. Ever. There was one time I visited her at her job at the Westmount diner, she was being so genuinely nice to all these grumpy assholes that it gave me a flash of Bjork in Dancer in the Dark (not Bjork the woman, I love her too but she’s clearly a hard bitch in real life).

Jen both talk about having to soup up ourselves on the internets, I hope she puts up those paintings I was talking about. We also talk about chips n hash, nirvana, nine inch nails, twin peaks, hockey. We have also been talking about a reunion period where I go back to Montreal and sublet a studio with her for a time. I know it’s gonna happen someday. Anyway here’s her site, buy her prints!

http://jen.theypf.com/'http://jen.theypf.com/index.php?\'/about-this-site/\\'

Further more on guardian angels kindred spirit s

Do you know that feeling when you are sure and assertive even though the ideas may not be totally sound, and then you grow older and wiser and get the shaky hand
?

Every time I come back to Toronto I suffer a peculiar straightlace comedown, and it usually lasts at least a month before I fully adjust, I'm getting closer. Because of my best friend Ksenia living here again, we go on dates every weekend and I’ve recently been in the company of many other ex-pat Montrealers (there has been a steady stream migrating to Toronto in recent years looking for work past Portlandia…) We get drunk, shout and complain together; such social gatherings are almost more like meetings to express our feelings in Toronto’s otherwise polite social environment. This is my city for introverted reflection and calmer waters, but instinctively I try to carry on energy like an eager puppy, or more romantically speaking, like Bas Jan Ader, falling off paths and getting up again til death stops repetitive action. Nice to hold hands with Ksenia’s this time around.

If you may remember from a past article, I was emblazoned with a fabulous strength from my schizophrenic guardian angel just before leaving Brooklyn, and I forgot to mention that when I returned in October, that I was lucky enough to pick up another! At some stale old lady opening in Chelsea (Tom Phillips at Flowers Gallery), a Mrs. Eccentric something or other appeared out of the blue and imparted me with some serious strength to add to my stash. I caught her eye as the elevator door opened and she came emerged as a genie would, in pigtails and a red north face jacket. She immediately sat next down to me (possibly emitting heroin vibes) but anyway, lovingly linked my arm and asked me what a bee-u-tifal gal like I was doing, unhitched, hanging around all these crackers… she told me I was going be of the new generation to represent ‘us Orientals’. Er. When I laughed and corrected her to use the word ‘Asian’ instead, yknow, Edward Said and all that… she rejoiced, ‘See! What did I tell ya, the new generation.’ Then something to the extent that the world is shit and racist but now young people are gonna make it happen. She continued in a manner of poetic rants that really told the MAN from the perspective of American otherness, in an eloquent, insightful and impassioned way, things like her hatred for neo-liberal shenanigans and how it trickled down to the patriarchal structure of one’s home, for instance. It sounded by inference that she had lost many things in her life. On a very personal, ex-husbands, filial piety note, I think fondly of her best quote - ‘Hey. Family isn’t some asshole you meet’. She looked at me long and hard before moving on to bitch about another subject of love and loss.

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!

Hello lovely anyone who may be reading this, wishing you a healthy and happy new year of the rabbit, Wishes, wishes, wishes. Isn’t this a good time for a reunion, I’ve missed writing dearly but you know how it is when things get hectic and depressing in the brain, it becomes very difficult to avoid melodramatic details! I can’t keep up with the pace of reality television tweet blog instant diary time, why this is friendly butcher slow-on-the-uptake diary time, so I appreciate your patience. My mind of late has been too full of absorption squiggles (in an idea realm) and schlepping plans (in a practical realm), neither of which is going all that smoothly.

Feeling much like the woman with gun fun in the propaganda poster above but hopefully, aren’t we all. I have cherished my ambiguous love for this painting for a long time, and thought it was ripe time to share it with you.

So, I had real yummy dim sum in Scarborough. My heart is full when I get to be home with my fam for Chinese new years. I had never seen this in a restaurant before, there was a whole crew doing the lion dance, my favourite performance. Paper mache kid heads lure and flirt with the lion. The lion in turn flirts with the kids, bats eyes coyly, then seduces the lettuce and the lucky envelopes before devouring them. In 2011, this particular lion head was all new-age, decorated with plastic, neon paints and holographic fabric, so inspiring! I would love to have it as an outfit. The coordination, athleticism and grace of the sifu lion dancer made my heart melt as the room filled with the sound of drum and cymbals, it really feels akin to being at a good dance party. The whole thing is so sexy. Reminds me of the difference in aesthetics which Roland Barthes mentions early on in Mythologies where he writes of the difference between wrestling and judo (not to compartmentalize between east and west too much, but it’s true). Same with the fundamental difference between oil painting and Chinese brush painting is the strength in gesture: oil attempts to dominate with layers and layers, covering up everything, until all surface within the frame is conquered. Barbarism begins at home babes! Whereas brush painting covets the grace in the restraint of gesture: quick, slow, energy and vitality in one stroke, extravagant but never overdone. A swoop, a dash, practice practice, so fabulous! Same as that 40-pound lion head with the batty eyes, when done right is a grace and swiftness that makes me want to weep. Ever since I was a kid, I have always wanted to learn that big drum. Please contact me if you can teach me this? I’ll apply for a grant.

In other news, I have a new space to work at the adorable White House in Kensington market. Very excited about starting a new studio period, although I find it really cramped in there… wish me luck this new year. Oh by the way, I paint with oils largely.

So let’s talk about art baby, let’s talk about you and me, in 2011. Put up those machine guns!!!