events

Tales From Terminal City

~ Teresa ~ 2 Comments

I take this city for granted, sometimes. I know that I often write about my neighbourhood and its amenities, but I don’t explore the rest of Vancouver enough. Sometimes, I even forget to look up.

So it’s good to get a reminder of all that this city has to offer, along with a call to become more involved in its evolution. This past Saturday, I went to Granville Island to take part in Tales From Terminal City: 125 Years of Vancouver, presented by SFU’s Undergraduate Semester in Dialogue. The students developed a program of three workshops – a walking tour of Granville Island, a collaborative public art project and an urban agriculture presentation. Participation was open to anyone and each participant could choose two of the three workshops to attend. I chose the walking tour and the gardening presentation, feeling that art was better left in the hands of, well, people who are not me.

Each of the workshops was framed around a model of storytelling. For the walking tour our guides, Breanna Kato and Ryan Stewart, told us stories from the history of Granville Island, while pointing out places where new stories are being created. During the gardening workshop, each participant told stories of their connection to gardening and growing food and discussed the possibilities for food production in the city. Those who chose the art project worked together to create a visual story of their connections to Vancouver.

The entire group convened before and between the workshops and we listened to the students from the Dialogue program, as they told their stories of Vancouver. At the end of the afternoon, we broke out into groups for open discussion around questions posed by the students. They were interested in our connections to Vancouver, but were also gathering our thoughts around how to become more engaged citizens of this place. We came together one last time, to listen to one of the semester’s mentors, storyteller Naomi Steinberg, talk about the role of listening and storytelling in creating, as she put it, community awareness, individual validation, collective support and civic engagement.

It was a stimulating day, full of listening to people’s experiences and thinking about our city in a number of different ways. It’s exciting to see youth who are so engaged and articulate. I encourage you to go visit the program’s web page at the link above. The concept is fascinating and I can only imagine how rewarding the experience must be for the students who participate.

Sprung

~ Teresa ~ 9 Comments

Spring is in full force now. In my garden, the snowdrops are fading away, leaving mysterious clumps of foliage behind. Other bulbs are just starting to poke spears through the soil, while bleeding hearts and rhubarb are beginning to unfurl. Out in the neighbourhood, blossoms are appearing on the trees and the crocuses are still in bloom.

Spring is my favourite season in Vancouver. There’s something about the quality of the air, composed of sea and mountain breezes, along with the early foliage and flowers that makes me feel more alive at this time of year than any other.

The Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival is taking advantage of all this beauty and is organizing a number of events. My pick is Velopalooza’s annual Bike the Blossoms ride. I’m also excited about Simon Fraser University’s Tales From Terminal City project at Granville Island this coming weekend, in celebration of Vancouver’s 125th year.

That’s not all that’s going on in the City, of course. If the outdoors isn’t your thing, you could always hide inside the CBC Studios for a few hours. The Debaters are taping their television series until April 1st.

I also wanted to mention a couple of events that have been organized to help the relief effort in Japan. This weekend is the Vancouver Japan Relief Walk for Hope. In late April, there will also be a bake sale to raise relief funds for Japan.

That’s just a smattering of what’s going on here in Vancouver. I’d love to hear about how your community is waking up to spring.

100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day – Vancouver Parade & Festival

~ Teresa ~ 10 Comments

It felt good to march in the International Women’s Day parade today – great energy and a wide spectrum of participants. The march ran from McSpadden Park down Commercial Drive and up Adanac Street to the WISE Hall. I skipped the community festival, as the little dog had had enough by that point, but the crowd was amazing, filling the hall and spilling out onto the street.

Here are some pre-march photos for you:

Labyrinth of Light

~ Teresa ~ Leave a comment

A labyrinth is not a maze. While a maze is devised to confound you, a labyrinth leads you into its heart and out again.

For seventeen years now, The Secret Lantern Society has marked the longest night of the year with its Winter Solstice Lantern Festival. This year, the festival included processions, dances, drumming circles and more across five Vancouver neighbourhoods. At Britannia Community Centre and The Roundhouse, the Society also hosted Labyrinths of Light, for walking meditation and contemplation.

According to the website:

“The labyrinth has long been used for meditation, prayer and sites of ritual in various cultures around the world. Created with over 700 pure beeswax candles, the winter solstice labyrinth invites you to warm yourself in a self-guided ceremony intended to help release old attachments and envision new possibilities as the darkest night of the year births a new season.”

The labyrinth at Britannia was held in a darkened gymnasium. On one side of the room, a stereo played sacred music, including plainsong and Buddhist chants. On the other, didgeridoos sounded quietly. Low benches were set up a short distance from the labyrinth for contemplation.

Walking the labyrinth meant negotiating the narrow spaces defined by the paper sacks which held the candles providing most of the room’s light. The way into a labyrinth is also the way out, so polite shuffling became a part of the experience. The design led you far inside and then back to the outer edges of the labyrinth again and again before you truly reached the centre. Then, after some contemplation, it was time to wind slowly out again. The heat from the candles, the music and the darkness helped to create a solemn atmosphere, but many people moved through the labyrinth with joy and one young woman danced back and forth through its passages.

It is a beautiful way to honour the year’s end, acknowledging grief and joy while opening oneself to the new year’s offerings.

If you’d like to experience labyrinth walking meditation, the World-Wide Labyrinth Locator can help you find one near you.

Art Anchors the Eastside – Culture Crawl Weekend

~ Teresa ~ 7 Comments

The place where you live can be an anywhere or it can be somewhere very specific, especially in Canada and the United States. It’s very easy, even in cities, to replicate the experiences you can find across the continent; there are the same chain stores and restaurants in every city and town. Or, you can populate your mental map with places that are unique to your location. It’s the second map that makes someone a real resident, I think. Knowing where to find gluten-free ice cream sandwiches, a stationery store with its own letterpress, or a shop where you can learn how to tune up your bike yourself. Such places add up to home.

Every place also has its rites of passage. I know someone who started to identify as a Vancouverite long before she moved here, because she flew across the country each year to attend the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. She has the same stories as I do, of attending in years of torrential rain, heat waves or unseasonably cold weather at the Festival, along with stories of the amazing performances that happen there.

What’s interesting about all of this, for me, is that the same place is really many places. There are certainly several Vancouvers. Your Vancouver depends on who you are. It can include the Folk Festival or Under the Volcano, both, or neither. Whole neighbourhoods may not exist in Vancouver as you experience it. I used to work in a corporate office, where many of my co-workers drove in from places farther up the Fraser Valley. For them, it was as if the east side of the city didn’t exist. Which is a shame, because some of the best things about Vancouver occur east of Kitsilano and downtown.

The Eastside Culture Crawl is definitely part of my Vancouver. Thousands of people tour hundreds of artists’ studios that are thrown open to the public one weekend a year. This past weekend was Crawl weekend and the weather was milder and drier than it has been since I can remember. There’s been snow, sleet and rain in the past and it doesn’t stop people from climbing up makeshift warehouse stairways or into backyards and basements in search of art.



                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
I didn’t get very far off the beaten track this year, concentrating my one free afternoon along Venables, Clark and Parker. I saw some beautiful pottery at posAbilities on Venables, great jewellery at the Onion studios and then I wandered over to the Mergatroid Building and Parker Street studios.

Some of my favourites this year included:

Melk’s burned bamboo and etched steel pieces;
Arleigh Wood’s new series;
Su Foster’s delicate filigree work in her twistedandhammered line;
Flight Path’s leather accessories;
Russell Hackney’s amazing teapots;
Sonia Iwasiuk’s paintings;
and Silvia Dotto’s crows.

There’s much more, of course. Browse the website and you’ll get a virtual taste of the Crawl. What you’ll miss by doing that, and why you should make sure you attend next year, is the ambience of the Crawl, along with the opportunities to talk to artists and other Crawlers. It was worth going just to see the beautiful branches hanging from Melk’s ceiling and to have a conversation about photography with a jewellery-maker. Also, seeing so many works, in so many mediums, really helps to pin down what you’re looking for when you buy art.

The best part of attending the Crawl, for me, is the knowledge that I carry through the rest of the year – everywhere I walk in my neighbourhood, there is something being created.

Secret Souls, Public Dreams

~ Teresa ~ 8 Comments

The Parade of Lost Souls has been a yearly fixture in my neighbourhood since the mid-90’s. Public Dreams Society created an event that mixed Mexican Day of the Dead traditions with Celtic Samhain rituals, throwing in Hallowe’en costumes and a circus aesthetic for good measure. In the beginning, it was almost a neighbourhood secret, with artists and queers, students and stilt walkers proclaiming our difference from the rest of the city. In those days, the Drive was the also the home of Vancouver’s Fringe Festival and the Illuminares Lantern Festival (another Public Dreams project). Commercial Drive felt like the seat of countercultural expression, even as we realized that we were really just the harbingers of gentrification. Still, it was exciting to wind our way around the neighbourhood, with decked out houses and alleyways, knowing that new ways of making art (and old ways rediscovered) were being worked out in front of us.

The Parade grew each year, becoming so big that it made the major news reports and more and more people from around Greater Vancouver came to participate. Eventually, the costs for permits, clean up and policing grew to over $100,000.00, while government funding was cut by an estimated 90%. This led to the cancellation of last year’s parade. For a good discussion of the issues around funding cuts to the arts in BC, go here. (Funding cuts to social programs were also deep and devastating.)

This year, Public Dreams revived the parade, in a smaller form that reminds me of its roots. Calling the scaled-down celebration the Secret Souls Walk, Public Dreams didn’t release the route until the day the walk happened, though the accompanying Carnival was advertised earlier.

I was lucky enough to win passes to the preparation workshops for the Walk and was able to attend one of the shrine-making workshops. I decided to make a shrine in honour of my grandparents, as my Grandma died only a few months ago and my Grandpa died the year before.

I’m not an artist. Even my stick figures are almost unidentifiable. So, when I thought about what I wanted to do for my shrine, I just printed out lovely photos of each of my grandparents and hoped that I would find some inspiration at Public Dreams’ studio. I needn’t have worried. The Public Dreams space is like a five-year-old’s ideal craft area. There are materials everywhere, in every shade and texture. Even someone as artistically challenged as I am can fake it there. They’ve also got an amazingly talented cadre of staff and volunteers. The workshops this year were sadly under-attended. If you ever get the chance to go to one, for any of their events, jump at it. Really.




                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       

My grandparents met during the Second World War, in England, where my grandfather was stationed and my grandmother was working as a nurse. She was Irish, he was Canadian. He married her and brought her back to Canada. It sounds simple, but it wasn’t. Whose story is? Theirs included a vow to marry a girl spotted through a restaurant window; an injured soldier’s plea to Vincent Massey to allow his Irish Catholic wife to have their child on her home soil, even though the Irish Sea was closed to passage; and a train journey across a continent with a baby born Canadian in Ireland. All stories for another time.

I thought about these things while making my shrine, but what concerned me most was trying to represent them correctly. I played with the idea of making fishing rods and rosaries, cups of tea and cribbage boards, but I knew that no one would know what they were but me. In the end, I tried to make it simple. Two of the strongest themes in their lives were their shared Irish heritage and their devout Catholicism. My grandfather had been raised Anglican, but converted wholeheartedly later in life and church was a constant in their lives.

So, I decided to make a shamrock and a cross, on a background of Kelly green. Not even I could go wrong with that. I cobbled together a structure made of milk cartons and construction paper, pasting their photos at the back with more construction paper for frames. I painted the rest green, made a sort of purple star as a base for the candle holders and hot-glued cord on either side to represent a shamrock and a cross. I made candle holders out of plastic roses and leaves and finished the thing with a strip of crimson netting. I think it turned out all right, mostly because Bridie and Fred were so beautiful in their youth.

I brought the shrine, along with a small Mexican-themed one that I’d made, to the starting point of the Secret Souls walk on Saturday. One of the volunteers at the shrine station told me later that everyone who came by wanted to know about my grandparents and their story. I really want to thank Public Dreams for the opportunity; it’s a very meaningful process and it’s wonderfully healing to honour one’s dead.

My partner and I went on the walk together, which wound through the alleyways above McSpadden Park. There was a carnival atmosphere present, as there has been during past walks, but it was more subdued. We had to go looking for smaller spectacles, rather than being hurtled past larger ones. I really liked this aspect of Secret Souls. Some of the highlights for me: Thriller zombies at Templeton & East 3rd, the court of Queen Victoria, the still, pale ghosts in the alley and the music of various performers wafting across the neighbourhood.

My only complaint is that the steep alleyways aren’t very accessible and I hope that the organizers take this into account for next year. Everyone should have the opportunity to celebrate the death and renewal of the year and the self.

I’ll end with a few pictures. It was impossible to capture everything that was going on, but these will give you a taste. If you like what you see, please consider a donation to Public Dreams, so they can continue producing such beautiful events.





En Souvenir

~ Teresa ~ 3 Comments

My mother and I have done the AIDS Walk together for five years.  We do it in memory of my Uncle Gerry, her younger brother, and we wear t-shirts that my mother had printed with his photo.  I find these shirts both geeky and moving.  We’ve been ridiculously lucky, as the weather has never been horrible, though in some years it’s been very hot.  The Walk runs along the Stanley Park Seawall for ten gorgeous kilometres, at least it did until the windstorm of 2006, when post-storm reconstruction shortened the route somewhat.  We’re among the slowest of the walkers and usually miss quite a bit of the entertainment along the way – the Vancouver Men’s Chorus is always packing up by the time we reach their station.  It doesn’t bother us, though; we spend the time talking about Uncle Gerry, our family, our sorrows and our joys.  I tease her, telling her that it is the one day in the year when she has nothing to do but just walk and be.  She’s an incorrigibly busy person.  Afterward, we go for lunch, and then ice cream at La Casa Gelato.

This year, though, I was on my own.  My parents were on vacation in the Maritimes with friends and this was the only time that worked for everyone.  The route of the Walk changed this year, too, and is much shorter.  The Walk now runs up the sidewalk from Sunset Beach almost to English Bay, then sharply turns onto the seawall running in the opposite direction.  The route was so short that there wasn’t time for everyone to pass me.  I was in the middle of the pack for the entire walk and even got to hear the Vancouver Men’s Chorus perform.  They were set up near the AIDS Memorial, which was filling up with red carnations as each group of Walkers passed.  My uncle’s name is not there, but that doesn’t matter; it’s a good place for remembrance.

Afterward, I walked back up to Davie, got myself some brunch and decided to walk home, which would bring me close to ten kilometres for the day.  The forecasted rain never materialized and the cool, cloudy day was perfect for walking.  My plan was to walk from the West End past Yaletown, through downtown and Chinatown until I reached Strathcona, where I thought I might take a break at the Union Market.  Walking down Davie, I stopped to take some pictures at the community gardens and I found myself thinking that my Uncle Gerry would have fit very well into the current renaissance of DIY culture.  He renovated spaces, cooked inventively and gardened prolifically in the ‘70s and ’80s.  And that reminded me of all the potential we’d lost to AIDS, along with the people.

I kept walking according to plan, but I never made it to the Union Market. Instead, I sat in McLean Park where the Strathcona Harvest Festival was taking place. It was the pie contest that drew me in. The judging had begun and there were young people with clipboards, cheerfully examining each of the entries. I loved the inventiveness of this festival, with its scarecrow-stuffing station, city chickens on display and pretty handmade banners. There was a powerful feeling of neighbourliness there, which isn’t surprising for Strathcona. Whenever I walk or ride down the bike path that cuts through the area, I have the sense that everyone knows each other. And that they do things together.


                       
                                                                                                                                                                       

Incidentally, I think the Vancouver Foundation’s Neighbourhood Grants Program, which funded this festival, is spectacular. Since these grants became available, there have been canning workshops, block parties, small festivals – every year brings something new.

After a while, I felt rested and went over to The Wilder Snail to pick up a tea for the last leg of my walk home. I’m glad I stumbled upon the festival; our yearly ritual has always ended in a celebration.