An Invitation by artist Judith M. Atkinson   Interview by Katja De Bock Photographs courtesy of Judith M. Atkinson     In the 2006 memoir “Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia,” writer Elizabeth Gilbert chronicled her trip around the world after a nasty divorce. The 2010 film version with Julia Roberts emphasized the healing effect a prolonged stay in Italy can have can have on one’s soul. Remember how Julia Roberts gradually looked better after eating innumerable meals of great Italian food? Though she never refers to the book or the film, Port Moody artist Judith M. Atkinson has a similar happy look on her face when she speaks about her recent stay in Italy. Leading a Tuscany tour with a group of local arts students for Langara College last September has left Atkinson itching to do more work. “Art washes away the dust of everyday life,” Atkinson quotes one of her icons, Pablo Picasso. Getting re-inspired by visiting cities like Florence and Cortona, seeing great works by Etruscan, Roman, Renaissance and Baroque artists, as well as reflecting on golden-coloured landscapes and eating fantastic food, was achieved by the trip. Marilyn Bowman, a retired psychology professor at SFU, was one of the enrolled students. After three years of practicing arts at the Kerrisdale Community Centre with instructorGeorgia Youngs, she was eager to try a new painting experience. “It was a wonderful opportunity to try a few new techniques I’d never done before, like water colours and sketches,” she says. “Judith is a warm person. She really wants people to be happy,” Bowman adds. “As a teacher, she has a good eye of what is going to happen in a painting and where are the parts that need improvement.” Bowman returned...

    An Interview with Diane Switzer (VHF Executive Director) An Interview with Michael Kluckner (VHF Historian)      ...

“On Kindness” An Interview with Brock Tully By Katja De Bock Photos: Noriko Nasu-Tidball After cycling 50,000 kilometres through North America and organizing 12 major concerts, Brock Tully’s journey to his spiritual self is ongoing. The Vancouver peace activist and public speaker with the landmark moustache sat down with Kerrisdale Playbook editor-in-chief Keiko Honda and reporter Katja De Bock to speak about the world’s need for affection and his new book The Great Gift, a collection of reflections from the heart. The book launch was celebrated on October 28 with a Kindness Sings concert at Unity Theatre. The concert featured remarkable Canadian artists like Métis singer Andrea Menard and 14-year old Cole Armour, who both evoked standing ovations. “It’s unselfish to be selfish” Though he is keen on getting the word out about his books, Tully seems to be free from striving for material success. “My only goal, really, is to be connected to my heart,” Tully says. “That’s a full time job, because I lose connection all the time . . . What it means is to be selfish about doing what makes me happy.” His upbringing in a well-off, but emotionally cold West Vancouver family almost brought him down, before it enlightened him. As a young man, Tully struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts. However, he managed to fight his demons by cycling through North America three times, the first time in 1970, spreading the message of kindness. “Depression is really positive to me, because it is a signal to me that something is going on in my life that I need to look at,” Tully says, adding this applies to anger, too. “We avoid it, and become time bombs. Whereas I think anger is the connection to my deeper spiritual self.” “I don’t...

  By Melissa Maan   “Mellie’s Munchies” is a small entrepreneurial company, based in Burnaby that offers artfully baked delights and delectable munchies for individuals, parties and events.Growing up in a household where creativity was strongly encouraged, I was always thrilled by the freedom and limitlessness of art as I molded and manipulated different materials, watching my ideas blossom before my eyes. Not completely satisfied with just arts & crafts, I wanted to learn more, and I quickly became fascinated watching my mother and grandmother cooking and baking. Seeing my interest, they taught me their recipes. I spent many hours learning, and testing those recipes, wanting to achieve perfection. To me, this was another form of creativity with endless possibilities, and I was ready to keep discovering more! This love for food continued into my adult life, with cooking and baking like old friends I could count on to get me through tough times. When I was invited to parties, I would get a rush of excitement trying to decide what I could make to impress everyone with my culinary delights. In recent years, I began attending dinner parties with a wonderful circle of friends (and true foodies), and for each party a theme ingredient was chosen. Our challenge was to invent a dish using that ingredient and present it to the group. I decided to take the challenge one step further, and with each successive party, combine the ingredients together into a new dish (my own personal version of “Chopped”) This was how my famous “Bacon Brownies” were born! At these parties, no idea was too far-fetched, in fact we each encouraged each other to play with our food, and be inventive! Last year, after numerous successful dinner parties, including one that was entirely...

“Becoming Art” An Interview with BRF by Raffi Wineburg Photos: Noriko Nasu-Tidball 1. Pioneer “Part of what makes him so special is that he is doing something that no one has considered art before.” -Melissa Mann With short blond hair, bulging muscle, and Clooney-esque laugh lines etched into an otherwise youthful, clean-shaven baby-face, Brent Ray Fraser looks like an Aryan superhero. In reality, Brent is a multidisciplinary erotic performance artist. But he doesn’t like labels. Few labels, if any, do him justice. “I don’t even like to be called and artist,” he said. “Art is just what I do.” There is no one who “does” art in the same way as Brent. The first such example is Ecdysiart: for these live shows, Brent simultaneously paints and strips naked—a literal and metaphorical take on art as an act of self exposure. At the end of an Ecdysiart performance Brent often creates “[object] D’art.” where he imprints his body part onto a canvas (“like a self-portrait of arousal”). Brent has also pioneered an art form called “[object] paintings” where he uses his body part as a brush to create portraits or landscapes. Brent’s art is truly unique and regarded as such: He has performed (not always naked) in hundreds of venues and garnered international acclaim for his works and performance pieces. His art is both experimental and boundary pushing. It forces us to reexamine what we believe art is. It challenges us to recognize the human body as an object of art. And it dares us to celebrate sexuality in new, provocative ways. “When you take away things that push the envelope, then we will just crumble,” said Brent. “Sexuality is something that is swept under the rug, but if you take that away we will...

By Katja De Bock Photos: Noriko Nasu-Tidball Travelling between international film festivals in Vancouver, Montreal and New York, Oliver Hockenhull’s independently funded documentary From Neurons to Nirvana: The Great Medicines made a pit stop in Kerrisdale and sparked a debate about the pros and cons of psychedelic drugs. From Neurons to Nirvana: The Great Medicines is an eye-popping feature documentary about the resurgence of psychedelics as medicine. The film explores powerful psychedelic substances such as LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and ayahuasca by speaking with scientists, (scientific) users and shamans. The executive producers of the director’s cut are Mark Achbar (The Corporation), Betsy Carson and Jon Schultz. Interestingly, there are two versions of the film. A 68-minute version, Neurons to Nirvana: Understanding Psychedelic Medicines is an advocacy film making the plea for more research into substances that have been used for thousands of years. The film is available online atmangu.tv for a fee of US $15. A DVD for US $25 includes additional interviews. However, festivalgoers and conference delegates are treated to the 108-minute director’s cut The Great Medicines, which has a more experimental format. Hockenhull travelled to conferences to speak with the leading experts in the field. His main motivation to make the film was as a means to educate about the power of these medicines to relieve suffering. “Both films are not so much about drugs but about the possibilities inherent in consciousness itself. Banned worldwide from research labs for nearly 35 years, psychedelics are again becoming the focus of serious scientific study. Researchers in several centers, including John Hopkins and the University of California, are conducting clinical trial to treat a range of afflictions: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), addictions, and the psychological stresses suffered by late-stage terminal cancer patients. The initial results of all these studies...

  Judith M. Atkinson is a Professional Artist with an extensive exhibition record and studio practice. She is an Honours graduate of Emily Carr University of Art & Design, and studied at the Banff School of Fine Arts, Capilano College and with ECUAD in Florence, Italy. She is a Fine Art Instructor with Langara College, The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, Evergreen Cultural Centre and has worked in all Lower Mainland School Districts, and as an Artist in Residence with the Vancouver School Board. Judith will be leading an Art Tour to Tuscany with Continuing Studies for Langara College in September of 2013. Judith works in a variety of media, oil, acrylic, collage and mixed media and has created sculptures with non-traditional materials. She created a suite of large scale paintings for Robson Square Conference Centre on display for 12 years and large multi- media installations suchas Sacred Ground Skin & Bones and Radiant Pressed Memories and solo exhibitions such as, Presence, Continuum and Waterways.  As an Artist in Residence with the Vancouver Parks Board, Judith worked in collaboration with Stanley Park Supervisor, Eric Meagher on the Stanley Park mural design for the Park Compactor. She was commissioned by the City of Port Moody to design and execute a Mobile Art Horticultural Truck working with the City and the Gardeners. Also, she completed a large 4 panel Banner Project for the City of Burnaby to showcase the Horticultural Department Eco-Sculptures.  Again with Vancouver Parks Board as an Artist in Residence worked with the Marpole-Oakridge Committee Association and Vancouver Parks Board and primarily with the children in the community created the Mural at the Centre. Judith was the Artist in Residence with various school districts and with Artstarts and Ecole Sperling School in Burnaby and worked with staff, students and parents on the theme Celebration of Life.And with students at Armstrong Elementary in Burnaby,...

Kerrisdale Community Centre board member Bill Harris is the race manager of the Grandragons. Story and photos by Katja De Bock Across the street from Kerrisdale Community Centre, Ron and Betty MacDonald are preparing several times a week for a day on the water. The MacDonalds are cofounders of the False Creek Grandragons seniors’ dragon boat racing team and have been training and racing since 1998. Dragon boating originated in China and requires 20 paddlers, plus a drummer and a steersperson to compete in racing events such as Vancouver’s Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival. The name Grandragons was chosen because all founders of the group were grandparents. “It just kind of started as a joke, but now we’ve come so far,” said Betty MacDonald, who trains several times a week and would like to see more Kerrisdale residents join. She tried to recruit people from Kerrisdale when the team started 17 years ago, but was advised the people are too old. “Well, guess who belongs to there now,” said Betty, 78. If you are over 50, or newly retired and in good health, you can come out for training, said Tom Oliver, captain of the Grandragons, with several members aged 80 and up. “You just have to have the desire and the ability to be able to paddle, and to get in and out of the boat.” An annual fee of $350 covers coaches, boat rentals and entry fees of around seven regattas a year. Most of the athletes are competitive, which is an international trend, said Oliver. “More seniors are becoming involved in competing,” he said. “Internationally, they now have a Senior C-category for people 60 and over. They never had a category for that age group before.” Race manager Bill Harris is a non-paddler, responsible for managing challenges...

Text and photos by Laara Ynea* A First Nations friend from Alert Bay informed me about a canoe gathering in False Creek on Tuesday, Sept. 17. He said that’s what the First Nations people used to do. He said sometimes the dugout canoes can get as large as 8’ across and can hold 100 people. It sounded very interesting. I went to the internet and found that the event was a part of the week long National Reconciliation Week Vancouver recognizing survivors of the residential schools. I decided to combine it with my morning run. While I was getting ready to go, I could hear the children from the neighbouring school screaming and cheering for the paddlers in the canoes. Camera across my chest and only stopped to capture the spirit of the event. I’ve never seen a canoe gathering and was excited to see the various dugout canoes painted in different colors and designs. The paddlers sang and were in colourful attires and regalia. The familiar dragon boats were at the end of the water parade with drummers beating at rhythmic intervals. The east end of False Creek was where the gathering took place with a traditional ceremony. Speakers one by one took the microphone, some came as far as Australia, New Zealand, and Guatemala! There were chiefs from various bands, survivors, and their descendants who provided us with a glimpse of what they sojourned in the residential schools. A lady spoke about 4 generations of her family who were subjected to various abuses in the residential schools. The residential schools were conducted by various churches and funded by our federal government. Speakers choked with emotions that have been suppressed for their life time and finally an opportunity to release and share with...

Text by Raffi Wineburg Photos by Gabriel Pliska A woman lies with her eyes closed in a half-filled bathtub. Copper-veined leaves hide her breasts. A flash bursts from a camera. Then many more. Of these photos, one will be developed, framed and finally hung in the same bathroom where it was taken. This happens in each room of a large house. A model posing,  a photographer taking pictures. There is probably some deep artistic meaning behind this. Or maybe it’s just a rich man’s vanity, redecorating his home with photos of his own home. Either way, it’s compelling, creative — much like the photographer himself: Lewis Evans. Lewis has lived his life this way — not photographing models in rich men’s houses, but by being creative, by stretching the boundaries of what he knows he can do. Along with the photo decorations, Lewis’ commissioner requested shots of his two Great Danes. The dogs wanted no such thing. So Lewis tried his hands at something new. He immortalized the two beasts in an oil painting — his very first. It must have turned it okay; it’s still hanging today. Sitting under the sun on the back porch of his Kitsilano home, Lewis and I are just beginning to sweat. He tugs at his collared shirt to cool off before launching into the details of a life of creativity. Born in England, Lewis made the “sensible” decision to enroll in engineering school. He quickly dropped out (“I should have been an artist from the get-go”). He began work as a graphic designer, and a photographer. From this, he transitioned to marketing communications, working for the U.N. around HIV AIDS. He’s an inventor. An artist. A creative business consultant. He teaches courses on creativity. He just published his...

OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD GARDEN PARTY held at the Kerrisdale Community Garden Angus Drive & West 60th Ave. Reported by Alison Verghese (KCCS Board Member) On Saturday August 24, the Kerrisdale Community Garden hosted their first  Neighbourhood Garden Party, courtesy of a grant from the Vancouver Foundation’s Neighbourhood Small Grants. Let’s recount the splendors of summer and share a moment with Kerrisdale neighbours, residents and local businesses in one of Vancouver’s most successful community gardens. Part 1: Kerrisdale Community Gardeners proudly show off the “fruits of their labour”. Video is missing. Part II: Let’s continue to enjoy the hidden treasures at the Kerrisdale Community Garden in their “fields of gold”… Video is missing. This event was brought to you by the members of the Kerridale Community Garden and supported by the Kerrisdale Community Centre (KCC) and Kerrisdale Community Centre Society...

Life in Asheville, North Carolina For over 15 years, Joanne Chan worked as a professional photographer in New York City. Her clients included The New York Times, Random House Publishings, JCrew and Harry Winston Inc. She has photographed CEO of Louis Vuitton, the mayor of NY Rudy Guiliani, film director John Waters. Her work has also been published in numerous countries. Then after the birth of her child Lulu, she decided to switch her life 180.She moved to the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. Along with her happy go lucky attitude, she is determined to live outside the box and live off the land a little more than she did in NY.Only in the short time of 2 years in North Carolina, Joanne has acquired the skills of butchering a road kill rabbit, dress a chicken, play the violin, learn to identify edible wild plants and even turn chicken feathers into hair accessories. Joanne knows that her change in life direction is not for everyone.  She is grateful that she has the mental support from her family to make the drastic transition. Joanne recently visited Vancouver and loved the Vancouver’s mellow yet enthusiastic vibe about the people she met. Who knows Vancouver might be her regular destination for her family!   ~~~~~~~~~~~ Hair fascinator made from collected feathers and prom dress One of a kind handmade doll Handbags made of repurposed fabric In front of local super market, selling arts and crafts. Paintings of her daughter inspired by nature in Asheville Black ear mushroom and mountain mint, collected in the forest. To see her photography, please visit: Jchanphoto.com To support Joanne through her arts and...

In freshly creased grey dress pants and a baby blue polo, Jason Robinson is dressed for business. If it’s true that, as Jason says, he’s in “terrible shape” then I would have liked to see him in good shape. At 43, he’s being modest. Even so, his business attire does little to hide a slightly older version of a former trained firefighter, coast guard volunteer and all around athlete. His clean-shaven face remains remarkably youthful; his black hair is neatly styled, his smile frequent, genuine. We’re doing a written story, but Jason looks ready for TV.

An Interview with Cameron Cartiere: The Dean of Graduate Studies at Emily Carr University of Art & Design By Brandy Baek   When people talk about their experience of first making their decision to choose a career path, they typically talk of this pivotal moment in which an experience sparked their passion. Cameron is no exception to this story. She narrates her story of being 11 years old and attending the first retrospective exhibition of Dr. Seuss in San Diego. In this exhibition, Cameron recalls walking under a Seuss designed moose head and looking at various drawings, sculptures, and paintings which Dr. Seuss has created. At a certain point, she asked her mother who did this, at which her mother replied, “Dr. Seuss”. Then, Cameron asked once again to make her question clear, “Who made all this happen?” Her mother replied that the curator was responsible for it and that was the moment Cameron thought to herself that she wanted to be a curator in the future. Eventually, this dream she had as a child came true, and she currently works as both a public art curator and the Dean of Graduate Studies at Emily Carr University of Art & Design. Ever since she started her curatorial practice, Cameron recalls instances in which her mother had difficulty explaining to others what her daughter did as a curator. To put it simply, her mother often explained, “My daughter hangs pictures on the wall.” This is now the title of one of Cameron’s lectures. But her mother’s perception of curatorial work changed when she visited an exhibition Cameron was preparing with fellow graduate students. While like many people, her mother knew what a curator was, she wasn’t aware of  how complex the job could be and...

The Okanagan – More than Peaches and Beaches By Katja De Bock Kerrisdale Playbook Contributing Writer When Kerrisdale Playbook editor-in-chief Keiko Honda suggested an article about my summer stay in the Okanagan, I found myself in a dilemma. The Kerrisdale Playbook is a local blog, and its readers are people who live in, and love Kerrisdale. Would they be interested in reading a piece about peaches and beaches, glowing hills covered by orchards and cool, but never cold lakes? Would they be offended by the revelation that my summer in the Okanagan was the best Canadian summer I’ve had, so far –incomparable to overcast, rainy summers in Dunbar-Southlands and Kerrisdale? I was relieved to hear that Vancouver was blessed with a wonderful summer this year, so there is no need for me to be smug and for you to feel rejected. And I bet most of you who have visited the Okanagan are equally enchanted as I was. After graduation from journalism school earlier this year, I decided to find a summer internship at a media outlet in the Okanagan, to try and find out if I would like living there. I grew up in a small town, but I have lived in large cities for most of my life. I was lucky to find a niche publication, which suited me perfectly. Mokeham Publishing Inc. in Penticton serves Dutch expats and their descendants in North America with two remarkable publications: bimonthly, English-language Dutch the magazine and a monthly Dutch-language newspaper De Krant. Finding a place to stay during the peak of summer was more challenging. Pentictonites are not ashamed to ask for $400 a day (!) for an apartment and at least $100 and up for a B&B room. Thanks to Castanet, I found a wonderful and affordable attic apartment right...