Ottawa Tonite.com : Section Title

PETS WITH PERSONALITIES: Exclusive!

The “Pets With Personlities 2012-2013 Calendar” presents: 

A SPECIAL PREVIEW HERE ON OTTAWA TONITE!

 The word is out.  A very special launch party is happening  for a great community project to raise funds for the Ottawa Humane Society.

Sunday, November 13th, 2011

D’Arcy McGees Pub

44 Sparks St, Ottawa

1 – 5pm

An afternoon of laughter, music, fundraising and prizes is planned with some of Ottawa’s well-known ‘personalities’ on hand performing and celebrating!

Join us, to help celebrate a great community project called “Pets With Personalities” and pick up your very own copy of this 2012-13 calendar before it SELLS OUT!

Calendars will be available at the door. ($25) A silent auction with some incredible items to bid on, will be setup. (all proceeds to benefit the OHS)

Here is a sneak-peek at some of the beautiful images captured by photographer Sean Sisk  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

continue...

L’ARCHE OTTAWA Annual Christmas Artisan Fair: November 5th, 2011

L’Arche Ottawa is hosting its 4th Annual Local Artisan Christmas Show and Sale.

This is a juried art show and artists are selected to uphold and ensure the remarkable and unique quality that was achieved over the last three years. Come shop and enjoy live music & entertainment, a real bake sale, gift cards, art, photography, silk screening, pottery and much, much more…

This is a fundraiser with proceeds from the fair going to L’Arche community in Haiti; allowing them to continue with their work and programs as they build their presence in their local communities. Information about L’Arche Ottawa will be available at the fair and there will be a special door prize created by the members of L’Arche Ottawa.

If you have questions or would be interested in volunteer opportunities please email us at rebeccahappy@larcheottawa.org or 613-228-7136 ext: 28.

The Artisan Show and Sale will take place November 5th from 9:30 to 3 pm in collaboration with and at St. Richard’s Anglican Church, 8 Withrow Avenue, Nepean (@Merivale)

Contributing artists for the 2011 Christmas Craft Show:

continue...

Jeff Fuchs—The Ancient Tea Horse Road

The Ancient Tea Horse Road—Exhibition Poster

As an artist it is all too easy to fall into the romance of being a stranger in a strange land. Our occidental eyes delight in the colourful curios and anthropological question marks of a far-off and very foreign country. Wanderlust for epic distance and exotic locales bear the hallmarks of the Victorian grand-adventure and all the colonial mores that attend: taking delight in the mysterious and unknown because we don’t understand them with our Western eyes. Market bazaars full of blazing spices, silks, and carpets all pander to the photographer’s lens and our preconceived notions of Central Asia: a buffet of empty visual calories and cliches to gorge on while the history and presence of its people and culture remain little more than shadowy figures in the blurry background.

Fortunately, Jeff Fuchs’ The Ancient Tea Horse Road is none these things. There are no panoramas. Not a single mountain landscape. No prayer wheels.

Instead Fuchs gives us the people of the Tea Horse Road in roughly a dozen pieces of predominately sepia-tone and black and white photographs. As Fuchs, now a resident of Tibet’s Yunnan province, explains, “I walked off the plane and it was all ready,” so much of the credit for the look of the show is shared with Dave Andrews’ print work while curator Patrick Gordon has done a great job in mounting a show that is both broad and disciplined.

The Tea Horse Road is treacherous route to bring fermented tea to Tibet: over 5,000km and 6 months to traverse on foot with mule teams through disputed border territories and dizzying elevations. A conduit of commerce and migration for 800 years. Through this narrow ribbon of rock passed all the races of Asia: Persian, Mongolian, Pashtun and on. Traders, nomads, people united—perhaps uneasily—by a harsh traverse across rooftop of the world. Through this journey, each culture contributing to the soupçon of the region’s genetics: a 6’3″ Abhor woman, smooth-featured Tungusic elders, threads of Persian DNA reveal themselves through unexpected blue and green irises. These portraits are not people that Fuchs met along the road, they are the road itself manifest.

Fuchs’ portraits are raw and intense, his subjects diverse and complex. Shooting with combination of digital, 35mm, and large format [a venerable Pentax 67, for those so inclined to ask].  His framing is tight-cropped and intimate, most set against the darkness of a tent interior to produce pictures that are subtle, textured, and delicately toned—some photgraphs barely rising out of the inky darkness to reveal the faces within.

His subjects range from a young girl, the great grand-daughter of a great trader, to a 23-year-old muleteer beaming youthful insouciance and confidence, to the furrowed face of a trader’s widow now deceased. Each one is connected to the road not just by geography but by the bindings of history.

In The Ancient Tea Horse Road, Fuchs is not telling the story of his journey (you can find that in his book), but rather the story of thousands of journeys over the centuries. The flow of ancient trade may have shaped the now-faded route but the flow of lives remains bright and indelible. The Tea House Road is a path defined by the people Fuchs shares through his lens: there are no maps, there are no books, there are only faces to tell its story.

Jeff Fuchs’ The Ancient Tea Horse Road is showing at Exposure Gallery, 1225 Wellington Street West (2nd Floor, above Thyme & Again) June 9-August 2, 2011.

Jeff will be attending an Artist Talk and Tea Tasting at the Museum of Nature June 22, 2011. Tickets are $20 and available at Thyme & Again. For more information visit exposuregallery.info

For more information on Jeff Fuchs visit jefffuchs.com

David Hicks—Ottawa dweller. Marketing consultant. Dad. Dog owner. Handyman. Gadget guy. Photographer. Coffee Drinker. Scotch sipper. [Not necessarily in that order] Blogs at davidhicks.ca and spends too much time on Twitter.

continue...

What’s Right With This Picture?” Fundraiser & Photo Exhibit

For the 5th time around, come out and party for a cause!

Join us for “What’s Right with this Picture?” a collection of photographs featuring positive images of our projects and the rural communities CHF has served for the past five decades.. This year, we are celebrating a huge birthday: CHF is turning 50! Our photo exhibit will highlight CHF projects throughout the years.

On Friday, February 4th we host the kickoff party for the exhibit:

There will be live entertainment by local musicians NEW TEETH, SADIE HELL, and FIONA NOAKES & WARRICK POND!

A great silent auction & awesome door prizes – AND IT’S FREE! Donations are encouraged!

Throughout International Development Week (Feb 6-11), the photo’s will remain on display at the Atomic Rooster.

All proceeds from the fundraiser will go to support CHF’s projects, helping the rural poor in developing countries! We can purchase items such as clean water, rickshaws, seeds, fertilizers, goats, chickens, all kinds of goodies!

Silent Auction Items / Door Prizes:
- 10 Person VIP Tour of the Steamwhistle Brewery in Toronto
- Ottawa 67′s Tickets
- Spa gift certificates
- museum passes
- CD’s, DVD’s
-gift certificates to restaurants, pubs, etc
- Executive Golf Memberships

And Much, Much More!

http://www.chf-partners.ca/
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=124120680991957

continue...

Berlin

“I have seen this, but not from the same perspective.”
— His Excellency, Ambassador Dr. Witschel
German Embassy, Ottawa

I have never been to Berlin but I feel like I know it intimately. Despite having never set a foot on Berlin’s soil, I have traveled there many times through art, architecture, history, music, politics, and remembrance. Powerful and dynamic, it has been a key location in the events and culture which shaped the 19th and 20th century. As Ambassador Dr. Witschel continued in his opening words, in Berlin, “History is close to the surface.”

Burned, bombed, built, rebuilt, bifurcated and brought together once again, Berlin is city which has suffered and survived. In spite of—or perhaps because of—its history and continual rejuvenation, it possesses a steadfastness and vibrancy which has made it a core for the arts and provides an unparalleled streetscape: old world jostles shoulder-to-shoulder with bleeding edge. Everything has an undercurrent of context and soupçon of history.

When I was invited to attend the vernissage for Berlin at Exposure Gallery, I was interested but wanted some background. When the preview to the collection by four Ottawa photographers arrived it held some striking urban landscapes: Libeskind’s Jewish Museum Berlin, bunkers defaced with gaffitti, the 1936 Olympic Stadium, and a forked garden path presented four vastly different views of this city. My curiosity as a photographer, architecture buff, and historian was piqued.

I arrived early at the beckoning of the gallery’s curator to meet the four photographers featured: Abigail Gossage, Barbara Bolton, Leslie Hossack, and Patricia Wallace. I admit I was surprised to discover four retired women who met through a digital print production workshop rather than a collective of edgy, urban infiltrators armed with Leica’s. All Ottawa residents, they explained how they met through class in digital printmaking at the School of Photographic Arts: Ottawa (SPAO) led by Michael Tardioli. They are all extensive travelers and they soon organized a trip to satisfy their love of photography, printmaking, and travel. Berlin was their second destination (after a previous trip to France) and the photos in the collection represent works from that trip.

Initially I expected that the photography represented a mere rationalization of their travels, little more than a glorified travelogue or heavily-produced set of vacation slides. In speaking I discovered the opposite: the trip and their subjects were rigorously planned and researched in advance with each photographer shooting different subjects, locations, and approaching with very different intents.

Hossack’s interest lies in the monumental, self-aggrandizing architecture of the Third Reich and documents some of the buildings that still remain. Her photos mirror the propaganda style of the Nazi party and look as if they could have been pulled straight from Speer’s portfolio. Initially I was almost repulsed by their likeness, as if admiring them somehow condoned or made me complicit to the actions of the government that built them. They are more than buildings, they are testaments: these massive edifices are both beautiful but also tainted with the stain of history. Her studies of Werner March’s Olympiastadio, the track venue for the 1936 Summer Olympics, captures the striking scale and classical symmetry of the structure, but we’re left to consider how such a philosophically pure celebration of sport took place under the facist’s regime (and the redemption and humiliation provided by Jesse Owen’s spectacular performance on its track). Similarly, her photos of Berlin Templehof Airport – once one of the largest, most modern, and busiest in Europe – document its soaring canopy but belie its later role in the Nazi’s Luftwafe war machine and the Berlin Airlift.

Bolton calls herself a “street photographer” in the very literal sense: she trains her lens on the streets, often in the vacant, early hours. Berlin provided an interesting juxtaposition of old and new, with demolition, preservation, and modernization all boiling over against the tapestry of a city that exists as a historical and architectural jigsaw. The elevated S-Bahn rail line loom as oppressive and divisive as the Berlin Wall in one photograph, a small neighbourhood lying in its considerable shadow. This run-up to Berlin Hofbahnhof station, one of Europe’s largest and busiest passenger rail terminals, highlights the conflict between community and commerce, ancient cobblestone contrasted sharply against modern high-speed rail. Bolton’s serene pictures of Schrebergärten, shared urban garden plots in the midst of bustling cityscape for Berliners to exercise their green thumbs, evoke a bucolic serenity and calm against the memorials, modern concrete, and fascist remnants. But even here, nothing is quite as it appears: a gate or sharp divide in the road create tension.

Wallace tackles the Jewish legacy inexorably linked to Germany with a focus on Daniel Libeskind’s Jüdisches Museum Berlin. At once, an architectural expository: she captures the memorial like a massive concrete and steel scar cut through the the surrounding park. On the other hand, her lens presents us its totemic purpose, including the soaring interior Void filled with Shelechet (Fallen Leaves), an installation piece consisting of 10,000 rough-cut iron faces like a coin-box of sorrow. Her shots of The Garden of Exile, massive concrete pillars topped with a low garden offers brutal modern symmetry mixed with the wellspring of life and new growth.

Gossage provides us with some of the only interior shots: a recreation of Stasi offices, at once bourgeois, stylish, and orderly while holding contextual gravitas. Her photo of a massive, pock-marked concrete bunker reveals the layers of history and reinvention that is everywhere in Berlin. Once a Nazi bunker, then a banana warehouse, later abandoned and rediscovered as a literal underground techno club post-unification, and now as the home to the Boros Collection of modern art, it illustrates the constant renewal and recontextualization of spaces in Berlin. Gassange also offers us the sole figure study in a exhibition almost entirely devoid of Berlin’s vibrant citizenry: a single figure running through the shadows of The Garden of Exile gives the somewhat cold and impersonal exhibition a much needed touch sense of human scale and presence.

Individually the pictures are thoughtful, striking, reverential, and at times, powerful. However, together they feel disjointed and jumbled with no real narrative or common thread outside of a vague sense of geographic commonality. The photographers are not united by a common goal, style, or approach, but neither are these differences explored or contrasted. The hanging feels crowded and occasionally haphazard. Hossack’s massive The Wall, Niederkirchner Strasse, a panorama of manually-stitched exposures that documents one of the last remaining sections of the iconic Berlin Wall, hangs in a small stairway landing like an out-of-proportion afterthought. Despite the copious documentation for each of the pieces and individual artist statements available for reading, as I walked through Exposure’s small space I found myself searching for a path to guide me around the collected works and complete the portrait of the city the artists have created.

Perhaps Berlin, the city, is just too immense physically, culturally, and historically to adequately portray in such a small show by such a diverse range of artists. Because of this, Berlin suffers in its ambition: a city writ large, its grand scope impossible to cover by the quiltwork narrative of four photographers. In the photographs I caught facets of Berlin glinting in the light and heard whispers of its history, but never felt like I was getting the entire picture or story. But I do want to know more, and in that regard, Berlin delivers on its promise.

Berlin is showing at Exposure Gallery, 1225 Wellington Street West (2nd Floor, above Thyme & Again) December 9-January 18. For more information contact visit exposuregallery.info

David Hicks—Ottawa dweller. Marketing consultant. Dad. Dog owner. Handyman. Gadget guy. Photographer. Coffee Drinker. Scotch sipper. [Not necessarily in that order] Blogs at www.davidhicks.ca and spends too much time on Twitter

continue...

L’Arche Ottawa : People with Development Disabilities rebuilding lives in Haiti

L’Arche Ottawa is raising money for SOLIDARITY- local people with developmental disabilities helping rebuild lives in Haiti.

Last year The L’Arche Canada Foundation sent $350,000 for rebuilding the L’Arche homes and workplaces lost in Haiti’s earthquake.

Jonathan Boulet Groulx is one of the many Solidarity people in L’Arche Haiti, working hard to help rebuild the disaster struck Haiti.  He ensures special attention is paid to Haiti’s disabled population who are even more marginalized in disasters. To find out more about Jonathan’s life in Haiti – be sure to read Jonathan’s blog: www.mwenpafou.org.

All proceeds raised from SOLIDARITY go towards these types of partnerships, sustainable development and regular community support.

You can help Haiti’s disabled peoples at L’Arche Ottawa 3rd Annual Artisan Christmas Craft Sale, Saturday November 6th.This “Support Local and Buy Local” event is at St.Richard’s Anglican Church Hall (corner of Rossland Ave. and Merivale Road) from 9:30 am to 3pm.
Sales from table fees, art from L’Arche seniors, and baked goods will all go to L’Arche Haiti. Local artists will be selling their works, including: pottery, glass art, painting, photography, jewelry, braided rugs, knitting, and eco friendly textiles.

100% of the proceeds raised for SOLIDARITY are sent to the Global South from L’Arche Ottawa.

We invite you to watch the following video which was produced by Ottawa Tonite last year for L’Arche Ottawa’s 2009 Annual Artisan Christmas Craft Sale:

Watch Video

1. Scott Hagman pottery
2. Barbara Carlson digital print/collage http://www.theartofmusic.ca/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=7
3. John Benn oil landscape http://www.johnbenn.com/
4. Carol Holmes-Kerr ceramic artist
5. Melanie Cameron -ceramic jewellery
6. L’Arche Arnprior- painting/cards http://www.larche.ca/en/communities/arnprior
7. Garnobe Seniors -wooden signs and beads and cards http://www.ottawatonite.com/2009/11/larche-artists-art-and-smiles-in-a-thriving-community/
8. Gerhart Bruane -photography
9. Denise Kehoe- traditional knitwear
10. Debbie Guthrie-mixed media artist
11. Donna Baskin Debbie –painter
12. Tracey Vilbert -eco friendly napkins and clothes http://Eco-TAV.com
13. Sylvie Parisien -porcelain pots http://sunslipceramics.blogspot.com/
14. Laura Way-Interior Christmas decorations
15. Camille Lechasseur stockings/ braided rugs truffles
16. Kanaska –feather jewellery Tarot cards
17. Jane Hampson –painter
18. Hot Heads Tees-satirical tees http://www.hotheadtees.com/
19. Carol-Anne Grenier-fused glass http://idbcagrenier.spaces.live.com/

For more information e-mail: Donna Rietschlin,  L’Arche Ottawa Community Leader:  donnarietschlin@larcheottawa.org

Video courtesy: Susan Murphy and Jester Creative

continue...

Ottawa acts that played at OCFF 2010

On October 15th, I attended the 24th Annual OCFF which was held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
Here are some of the photos from the Ottawa acts that played at this year’s event.

Megan Jerome

Andrew Vincent

Trevor Alguire

Lindsay Ferguson

Ukrainia

Marc Robert Nelson

For more photos, click here.

continue...

Festival X: Ottawa Photography Festival

35 ART SPACES  +  105 ARTISTS Exhibiting Photography + 28 Photo Events = X

From September 23 to October 3, 2010 photographic exhibitions and educational and social activities are programmed for art spaces all over the Ottawa/Gatineau Region.

Festival X aims to increase the exposure and recognition for artists, while advancing photographic knowledge, creativity and innovation.

This year’s theme:  In/Out: Comtemporary Photography and the Politics of Difference.

This year’s schedule includes:

• Opening reception, September 23rd from 7-10pm, Library and Archives Canada (395 Wellington St)
• Festival X Vernissage Night,  September 24th, 3pm-12am FREE EVENT
• (various gallery locations in Ottawa/Gatineau)
• X Portfolio Review presented by EPSON, September 25th, 930am-1pm (School of the Photographic Arts: Ottawa (168 Dalhousie St)
• Festival X  In/Out Essay Launch, October 1st, 6pm-730pm, ARC Hotel – Lounge  FREE EVENT (140 Slater St)
• Festival X In/Out Panel Discussion, October 2nd, 1pm-230pm, Library and Archives Canada – Auditorium  (395 Wellington St)
• Slideluck Potshow, October 2nd, Dinner starts 6pm, Show slideshow starts 8pm Library and Archives BRING A DISH FOR FREE ADMISSION
• X Film Screening: Teenage Paparazzo Premier, September 25th, 7pm, SCREENINGS Sept 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, Bytowne Cinema (325 Rideau St)
• Artist’s Talks (various locations)
• Photo Booth: Community Self-Portrait, September 24th, 530pm-830pm, Bytown Museum (1 Canal Lane)
• The Karsh Award 2010, Award Ceremony,  September 24th, 530pm-730pm, Karsh-Masson Gallery (136 St Patrick St)  FREE EVENT

• Photography Workshop: On the Street, October 2nd & 3rd, 9am-5pm, School of Photographic Arts: Ottawa  (168 Dalhousie St)
• Discussion: Contemporary Issues Artists Face, October 3rd, 1pm-3pm, Wall Space Gallery  (358 Richmond Rd)

For a complete listing of events visit the Festival X Events Calendar much more information about specific exhibitions can be found on the website.

continue...

The 3rd Ottawa Community Record Show

For all you vinyl junkies, music collectors or first timers in Ottawa.
The 3rd Ottawa Community Record Show is happening on September 26th.
Ever since the first one, it has been really popular.
If I were you I would get there very early in case you might find a gem.
Also a great way to meet people who are passionate about music and LPs.
For more info go to Off The Beaten Track
Or contact Dave Aarvark.

continue...

The Lumière Festival 2010 – The What and The How

The Lumière Festival, is a lead-up period of preparations for the Evening of Light Celebration held this year on September 4th.

There are lantern-making workshops, performance workshops and community outreach initiatives which are designed to encourage people to connect and share their creations and see those of other participants in a celebration of light and community.

Teri Loretto learned more about the Lumière Festival and some of  the intricacies of lamp making on behalf of Ottawa Tonite.

The What:

The How:

To learn more, or to become a participant in the 2010 Lumière Festival join a workshop at the CCCC!
Find out more about the lantern and performance workshops here.

The Lumière Festival runs from August 13th – September 9th

Workshops take place at the Crichton Cultural Community Centre 2nd floor, 200 Crichton Street
To register for our workshops contact the CCCC at (613)745-2742  or  communitycentre@rogers.com

continue...