by Keiko Honda “We’re going to the Opera Zone!” said Helen, an elegant senior with silvery purple long hair and silver bangles on each wrist, sitting by her husband in the Handydart that I shared one rainy Sunday afternoon. “I think a lot of people have been waiting for this day,” said Helen. I instantly replied to her, “Truly!” After closing for 21 months due to the pandemic, the music concert was finally returning to its home, the Kerrisdale Community Centre (KCC). Although I, too, was full of anticipation, as an “ex-organizer”, I was afraid that we wouldn’t have any audience today. We were still in the midst of the pandemic and the weather was gloomy — Vancouver’s typical November of rain and gusty winds. What’s worse, we started advertising the event only two weeks in advance, mostly by word of mouth. Alas, I imagined the empty seats. During pre-COVID times, we had at least 80 guests in the audience each time, and sometimes even had a full house of 100 guests. The Opera Zone was conceived in late 2015 from a casual conversation between myself and Gerard Satamian, an Armenian composer and piano teacher who taught my daughter at the time. Gerard secretly fostered a burning passion to sing opera songs for the public, while I, as a community engagement committee chair of the KCC Society, was looking for new ways to develop an open space for inclusive cultural exchange within the community, one that took place at the centre and was free of charge. The seed idea became reality thanks to support from the board and staff members, as well as many like-minded musicians who came forward to share their gifts like Gerard. Ever since January of 2016, The Opera Zone had...

By Keiko Honda, Ph.D., MPH   What is the value in learning to draw portraits? This question goes, unexpectedly, to the heart of the shared roots of art and science. In this essay, I aim to fertilize the soil for growing a new dialogue on the role emotional engagement plays in the relationship between art and science. I have recently been watching YouTube videos on portraiture. It is fascinating to watch master artists create portraits out of a blank sheet of paper, with only a pencil or stick of charcoal. If done well, the artists can explore their own feelings about the human condition. I always wonder how these artists acquired their skills. “Open your feeling, Open your senses! The first step is the conversation,” says a passionate YouTube artist who teaches portraiture. At the instant he is rhythmically drawing a large, very loose shape on a blank sheet of paper, he exclaims, “This [his arm movement] is emotional engagement.” Right there, I paused the YouTube video I was watching and replayed that part again and again. There was some dissonance between what I heard and what I saw. I did not expect to harvest deep insight when watching a rudimentary shape being drawn on a large black sheet of paper by the artist I chanced upon on the Internet. What is he talking about? The YouTube artist explains, “Enjoy drawing. Rather than rushing into getting drawings done quickly, you need to take your time to know how to see and understand how abstract elements work together to create an art form,” Simultaneously glancing at his live model, he continues, “No need to do the proportions yet…… When you are working on composition, it is very important at the beginning to open your feeling...

  Dear Readers, Interdisciplinarity and co-creation are two philosophies we employ in programming the Kerrisdale Contemporary Arts Lab (K-CAL) series, which began working on art-based community development at the beginning of 2018. Setting the “art for its own sake” versus “art for social value” argument aside, I hope our effort and work will support individual creativity, connect people across cultural boundaries, and build the community centre’s capacities to innovate and express ideas.    What is the goal of the K-CAL initiative? Although my view may not be entirely representative of our board, I believe a community centre should nurture the arts in the communit not only for the sake of fostering creativity, but to spur synergies with its other activities in community development. Focussing only on a centre’s financial bottom-line can be short-sighted and detrimental to our cultural resources. Speaking of synergies, the latest K-CAL workshop, titled, “Synergy“, led by artist Judith M Atkinson, was an interesting experiment. “Loosen up, everyone! Let the free flow of expression keep going!” said Judith, during her provocative drawing workshop that successfully invited the participants tap into their creative potential. With some rhythmic background music and various drawing resources, including Chinese ink and tree twigs, all participants produced rather surprising artwork inspired by an installation (the point of departure), honeysuckle vines harvested from a community garden and dried by Judith.  I was personally amazed by how effective the music was in helping me loosen up. The most amazing surprise of all was the transformation of all participants. One particular participant drew figuratively at the beginning but became an abstract expressionist toward the end. Judith’s masterful and supportive critiquing, as well as the relationship building within the group, helped drive these transformations. The “Synergy” workshop was a successful affirmation of the K-CAL...

By: Chloe Price Photo courtesy of: Chris Gatchalian *Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society The relationship between politics and art has been a constant subject of debate, and we live in a time when this conversation is more relevant than ever before. With the birth of social media we have seen the advent of callout-culture, and a new method of holding individuals accountable for their words and actions. Additionally, the political polarization of Western society is peaking at the current moment, and the Internet serves as a limitless digital soapbox for people to present and argue about their vastly differing perspectives and outlooks on life. These factors have helped create a culture in which few works of art are exempt from being viewed through a political lens. When we sit down to speak, local writer Chris Gatchalian explains to me his own evolving view on the matter. “When I was younger, I used to think of art and literature as being these universal things that were apolitical, but I don’t subscribe to that belief anymore. I still believe art is transcendent, and I don’t want to get too spiritual, but it is connected to the Divine, I think, but I don’t think that precludes it from being political. To ignore politics is to ignore what’s going on in the world, and I don’t think art should ignore what’s going on in the world.” Gatchalian has just finished his residency at Vancouver’s Historic Joy Kogawa House. The building was once inhabited by renowned Canadian writer Joy Kogawa, who is perhaps best known for her book Obasan, which centered on the government’s persecution and internment of the Japanese in Canada during the Second World War. Kogawa and her family were sent to an internment camp in 1942, and today her childhood...

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By Simran Dhaliwal Photo Courtesy of Danielle Gagnier *Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society     “The world is so big! Why do the same thing over and over?” I walked into this interview nervous, not knowing what the temperament of Danielle Gagnier would be like. To my pleasant surprise, as we began to talk over hot cups of peppermint and nettle tea, Danielle revealed herself to be a kind and patient woman with a soothing passion lying beneath her words. As we continued to converse, my stiffness faded and was replaced with excitement as I learned more and more about this remarkable artist. Speaking to Danielle was enlightening as she is one of the best examples of a truly artistic spirit. Throughout her life, she has maintained an open-minded approach to art, branching out into many fields that appear to be divided by our arbitrary categories. Danielle has ventured into pottery, mask-making, singing, songwriting, improv, dancing, guitar, percussion, photography, and filmmaking. If all of this seems excessive, Danielle would disagree, as she is eager to venture into even more pursuits, open to discover new ways to express her creativity. She has this amazing mindset of a learner, something many artists cease to do once they feel like they’ve settled into their niche. Danielle breaks the conventional rules, and I am excited to tell you about how she does so. But to do that, I believe it’s important to go to where Danielle began. Growing up in Francophone Canada, she was quiet and contemplative as a child.  Danielle appreciates that her parents encouraged her innate draw to the arts, as she tells in a heartwarming story. When she was five years old, in the exuberance of youth she took a...

By Chloe Price Photo courtesy of Cathy Stubington *Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society There are precious few remedies for the bleak mood of Vancouver in January, but I can say with certainty that a visit with artists Paula Jardine, Carmen Rosen and Cathy Stubigton is a sure-fire cure. Our meeting takes place on one of those grey winter afternoons that us locals know all too well, when it appears that someone has punched a hole in the sky and all the color has drained out of our city, only to be replaced with relentless drizzle. I hear Paula, Carmen and Cathy before I see them—their voices and laughter pierce the sleepy air, announcing their approach. The three women enter in a flurry of bright woollen hats, scarves and coats, chattering cheerfully as they shed this winter plumage. Greetings are exchanged, hands are shaken and we soon all settle at a tea and cookie-laden table. I quickly note that any question posed to the trio is met with a chorus of inter-weaving, over-lapping answers—and yet they are all remarkably, genuinely interested and engaged with each others’ comments and opinions. This is perhaps a side effect of the emphasis on being present, and re-connecting with one’s environment and fellow humans, that seems to be a unifying theme for all three artists’ work. We briefly discuss some of their past residencies—in this city as well as out of town—and the art they’ve created. Carmen, for example, cloned spores from local oyster mushrooms and incorporated them into deadwood sculptures to create environmentally sustainable art that would decompose over the years. Cathy and Paula use the term “guerrilla acts of creativity” to describe much of their work—that is to say, spontaneous instance of art...

By Eileen Chen Photo courtesy of Pille Bunnell *Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society What does an intersection between poetry and science mean? Does it relate to poems that talk about science or scientists that speak in verse? These were the questions that plagued me when I was preparing an interview with Dr. Pille Bunnell – an ecologist and cyberneticist – to discuss the topic of integrating poetry and science, as well as her experiences and fields of study. Before diving into discussions of what systems ecology and cybernetics are, I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Bunnell relate a beautifully personal tale. In the year 2002, Dr. Bunnell attended a course at the University of Tartu during a visit to her mother country, Estonia, which she left as a refugee when only eight months old. There, she joined a field trip to an ancient raised bog, where the peat moss had built up several meters above the surrounding area. It was a chilly November day, with a smatter of snow on the ground. After receiving a bog-walking lesson, she had a chance to explore the ancient landscape herself. Pausing to look around, she was suddenly overcome with a striking sense of awe and familiarity: “I am home!” The emotional intensity of this experience was evident, even when retelling her story. After long reflection on that impactful experience, Dr. Bunnell came to the conclusion that language links people with their ancestry through its connection with the land. I was surprised to see language brought into the equation like this, but through Dr. Bunnell’s explanation of how the grammar, intonation, and flow of language arises from how people relate within the landscapes they live in, I eventually became convinced. To apply...

By Eileen Chen Photo Courtesy of Keiko Honda, Eileen Chen *Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society   When I walked into the Kerrisdale Community Centre on a Saturday afternoon, I half-expected to witness children being taught to produce intricate designs in the print-making class I was to observe. Instead, I was met with a few participants from varyingage groups, each too invested in pressing seemingly ordinary leaves dipped in black rice water or diluted coffee to notice an additional visitor. Initially, I was somewhat underwhelmed, but my curiosity towards the workshop soon grew as the participants took turns coming to me to display their artwork before the camera. There were elementary school-aged kids, teenagers, and even a senior, but all enjoyed this simple workshop and looked upon their creations with an unmistakable expression of pride. As I began pressing my own leaves onto paper, I let go of any prejudices and genuinely indulged in the simple pleasure of directionless art. The instruction I received was minimal, with the only guidance being to “do as I like.” That was my first taste of improvisation as devised by Soyoung Park, the instructor of the workshop. By the end of the workshop, I was a little surprised that Soyoung gave me the casual permission to dispose of all the unclaimed artworks when I was helping her with the clean-up. Throughout the clean-up, I felt slightly wary of approaching her for conversation due to her seriousness. The silence was broken when I came across her own creation from the workshop and inquired about it, which elicited a tender smile as she patiently explained the process of her artistic creation. The freshly created work featured the delicate body of a sparrow, outlined using the same...

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By Jamie Zabel Photo Courtesy of Rebecca Salters Engagement with the arts and arts-based programs is a new primary focus of the Kerrisdale Community Centre in the coming year. As such, the Playbook is highlighting a few instructors already running arts-based programs to showcase their efforts and emphasize the wonderful effects of their programs. I had the honour of talking to one of these instructors, Rebecca Salters. Who is Rebecca Salters? Currently, Rebecca runs a program called Drama Bugs at the Kerrisdale Community Centre for children ages 1-15. I sat down with Rebecca to talk about how her early, persistent passion for drama and her belief in the power of the arts manifested itself into her children’s program. Rebecca grew up in Liverpool, England. What better place than the home of the Beatles to become passionate about the arts? She began going to drama schools at the age of three, and as she grew older, she became involved in more proper performances as well. One of her favourite experiences from this time was participating in pantomimes — i.e., theatre performances in the UK generally around large holidays like Halloween or Christmas — that would be on different themes like Cinderella or Peter Pan. The performance she loved the most was performing in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Following university, she went on cruise ships for five years, working as part of the entertainment team for Royal Caribbean. All of these different experiences solidified Rebecca’s love for drama and the arts more broadly. Her university experience added another dimension to this. Her degree from Manchester Metropolitan University was a double major in Drama and Community Arts. She explained that the Community Arts side entailed using different art forms and putting them...

The 3-day workshop entitled “Japanese Art of Origami & Game”, organized by a Grade 6 student in Kerrisdale Elementary, Maya Honda-Granirer, together with her friends and family was a big success with over 60 participants of all ages. The event was possible thanks to the Vancouver Foundation’s Neighbourhood Small Grants’ funding and Kerrisdale Community Centre Society for free space.  Thank you to everyone who was involved and made the event so successful! A special thanks to Ms. Hatsuko Yamada who came all the way from Hokkaido, Japan, to share the inventiveness, imagination, playfulness and joy of the Japanese art of paper folding, origami. Throughout her passionate teaching and interaction with the participants, Ms. Yamada underscored the relationship between art and science and inspired our youth with the stories of how origami inspired medical devices and NASA’s new shape-shifting radiator.  Our senior participants were also enthusiastic about the workshop and surprised Ms. Yamada how much they know about Japanese culture. Here are some photos of the workshop.   ...

By Liam McLean Photo Courtesy of Rudiger Krause Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society Earlier this month, I had the great opportunity to sit down and talk to Rudiger Krause, a man greatly interested and invested in the community, art, and human connections. Rudiger, or Rudi as his friends call him, was born in Germany and moved to Vancouver when he was a little boy, where he lived most of his life. As we sat down to talk one early March afternoon at the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS) headquarters, our conversation began with the topic of Rudi’s gardening initiatives before shifting into a deeper introspective about human relationships and connections. The importance of relationships to other people, nature, and art surfaced as the overarching theme of our conversation, emphasizing relationship’s important role in the human experience. As our conversation continued, it became increasingly clear that relationships and the connections they foster are an essential element in Rudi’s and all our lives. If we can recognize and overcome the barriers we face when making genuine connections, then we can live satisfying and rewarding lives in relationship and harmony with each other.         Our conversation started with Rudi’s lifelong passion for gardening. Rudi’s interest in gardening and the communal relationships it encouraged started at a young age and has been a constant passion in his life. “I grew up with parents, especially my father, who loved gardening. When I got married in 1970, my wife and I, wherever we lived, we had at least a small garden,” said Rudi about his early gardening, “When we moved to the Okanagan, we bought an orchard and developed a very large commercial garden. We grew garlic, berries, besides the fruit, and...

“The gift of art is that it allows anyone to express themselves in their own way.” – Richard Marcus By Leonni Antono Richard Marcus, the president of the Sculptor’s Society of BC, is one of the pioneering sculptors who works with mammoth ivory. With great artistic insight and creative vision, he draws on its exoticism to transform it from its discoloured and ancient state into modern masterpieces brimming with unique antiqueness. When working with this unusual type of ivory, Richard combines the use of semi-precious stones, gold alloy and exotic hardwood for embellishment, and the obsolete prehistoric material is reborn as inimitable mosaic artworks – beautiful syntheses of the past and the present.  Every day, Richard works up to sixteen hours in his cozy art studio to create an array of magnificent sculptures and artworks one after another, from porcelain-like plaques of breathtaking scale, to stylish aesthetic bracelets that are individually crafted. Stepping into Richard’s workplace and beholding his artworks, one would be overcome by a sense of awe inspired by the splendor they exude: each of them is unique like no other, an assembly of patterns of different shapes and sizes that bespeaks of its own artistic tale. Even to the untrained eye, it is obvious that they are exquisitely the product of immense effort and dedication.  One of the reasons for their uniqueness is perhaps the unusual type of ivory used – mammoth ivory – instead of the comparatively more common elephant ivory. Compared to elephant ivory, mastodon ivory are shattered and less consistent due to the weathering of time, and stained by the minerals in the soil in which they were buried in. As to why Richard chose the more ancient and unstable ivory, it is because using elephant ivory goes...

By Susan Tsang Photography by Kenta Motoike Artists In the Garden hosted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society was not all about organic pies and fresh Italian pizza made straight from the Kits CC Collaborative Garden, rather it was a celebration of “Eye of The Beholder”.  This was the second year that Artists In the Garden a perfect addition to the Kits CC’s Summer Garden Party.  This year’s theme entitled, “Suggestions From Nature,” brought together a group of seven local artists, both amateur and professional, to showcase their arts that had drawn inspirations from everyday’s life. The beautiful day outdoor and the pleasing paintings were enhanced by the vibrant edible plants at the background and energized any visitors dropping by. Artworks were everywhere around us. Artists could be spotted in all walks of life.  “I did painting when I was in highschool, but then I stopped. I went into another field (law),” said Sylvia Andrews while she stood in front of her group of distinctive floral paintings. “I didn’t have time to do it. It’s better painting during the day when you have natural daylight coming into the room. If it’s at night it can be a lot more difficult to really see what you are doing.” Sylvia’s story mirrored with other artists who were present. They truly proved that artists exist everywhere. Renetta Nagel was an interior designer. Marilyn Bowman was a clinical psychiatrist. And Georgia used to be a registered nurse. Some of them could only reunite with their passion again after retirement. There were also the ones who found their passion for arts later in life and were already owning their styles after painting for six or seven years. Their effort and talent were admirable. There was always room for growth and to discover hidden skills regardless of how...

By Susan Tsang “Skillsharing” might sound like a strange, and even confusing term when you first stumbling upon it. To simply put, people skillshare when they exchange their skills with one another, whether they are singing, improvise acting, or cooking. Skillshares is only a part of a bigger picture of connecting the community through meaningful interactions. Vancouver Arts Colloquium presents a series of skillshares workshops that link people in one place to build our skills as well as the community. On June 18, as soon as the Upcycling Fabric workshop led by the creative Colleen Rhodes had been completed, people trickled into the room for the Musical Voice Lab to learn from the skilled Dramatic Soprano Jane Perrett. Our group consisted a wide range of people aged from ten to sixty but we openly shared our experiences (or lack of experiences) with one another. We got to know each other as past choir members, curious people, some who had taken lessons before and ceased singing for years, and I belong to the last group. Like everyone else, I was excited to pioneer the unexplored territory of our voices. Most of us had found out about the workshop through Jane. We were attracted to her uplifting voice and exhilarating opera performances. Along with her friend Leo (also a singer and an instructor) who played the piano and offered tips, we were set to generate music together. First, we touched base with the basic Italian “i” (pronounced “e”). Jane instructed that saying “i” correctly is the foundation of singing; knowing how to imitate properly with our voices is helpful for beginners to polish the basic skills. The process was a novel and interesting one because it was like learning a new language, we tightened our lips...

By Susan Tsang For Artists In Residence (AIR) Series session 104, the guests transform Keiko’s cozy home to a salon that is of fluid conversations and ideas while appreciated the vegetarian lasagna and wine. The guests who have already attended the previous sessions are welcoming to everyone, including the first-timers like myself. Amongst the new guests, there are Misha’s students who come for their teacher’s presentation. Michael (Mikhail) Pertsev is a figurative sculptor from Moscow, Russia. He has a studio at Parker Street and teaches at Emily Carr University. He inspires his students to master their skills in sketching and sculpting. They would practice their drawings because Misha likes to make drafts on paper before sculpting. But the one who has a significant presence in Misha’s life is his father who was an artist from the Soviet Union. Misha’s story begins with his father’s artwork, drawing inspiration from the arduous times of the Communist Soviet Union. Seeking to capture the oppressive lives of the Soviet labourers on canvas, his father’s works were marked by strong strokes of dark green, red, and other saturated colours. The images left an impressionable imprint from the distinct lines that are sharp and angular to the subjects’ eyes that are hollowed out by black shade. Yet Misha’s father was not only an artist but also a part of the browbeaten citizens who needed to have his voice heard. He wished to draw the spine-breaking domestic lives of the Russians instead of the style of multi-figure, male-centric artworks. While his piece of drawing might have been controversial since it reflected the reality of the iron-fist governance, his intrinsic disposition to his cultural background made the occurrence of that drawing to be almost inevitable.             Under the influence of his father,...

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