PERIODICAL SIX

Laura Baker-Roberts Howard Beye Alexis Bulman Viola Chen Emily Davidson Kathleen Day Paul Hammond Jodi Heartz Kyle Martell Maddie McNeely Bethany Riordan-Butterworth Jonathan Rotsztain Morgan Salter Claire Seringhaus Seth Smith Anna Taylor Jack Wong Charley Young

Morgan Salter 1

ISSUE 6 - ILLUSION

SUBMISSIONS FOR PERIODICAL SEVEN

APRIL 2013

The theme for our next issue is THE NATURAL WORLD. The submissions DEADLINE is JUNE 17 2013.

Welcome to the sixth issue of The Periodical Project. We aim to promote, encourage and excite Artists based in Halifax Nova Scotia. We present to a broad audience Art produced in the HRM to increase its exposure and profile, here and across the country.

Periodical SIX features 15 HRM based Artists and their interpretations on the theme of Illusion.

Submissions are open to all Artists living and working in the HRM in all mediums fit for print.

CONTACT US Send Questions / Comments / Submissions / Donations! / Advertisements / Listings to theperiodicalproject@gmail.com

FIND US ONLINE facebook.com/theperiodicalproject This project is funded through Halifax Regional Municipality’s Open Projects program.

Morgan Salter produces large scale works on paper. Her most recent work focuses on imagined interior spaces, including a series of drawings exploring the interior of a fictional bachelor apartment. Morgan is currently completing her final semester of the Bachelor of Fine Art program at NSCAD University.

Kathleen Day is an artist from Edmonton, AB. She recently graduated from NSCAD University with a major in photography. During her degree she studied in Paris and Lisbon. Now that she is finished school, she intends to move to Mexico to pursue her art there.

-Chris Foster & Natalie Slater

Anna Taylor is a Halifax born artist, crafter and secret worshipper of Pripus. She spends a good deal of her time living in her head with a small population of mystics in their world of decorative affluence and simple pleasures.

Laura Baker-Roberts is an interdisciplinary artist attending her 4th year at NSCAD University. Using drawing, printmaking, and video Laura explores personal narratives that question how cultural identity and spirituality evolve in contemporary north american culture. Most recently she has focused on themes of kitsch, spirituality and Canadian identity.

catarinacatarina.tumblr.com Jodi Heartz is from Stewiacke N.S. most memorable interests of study include manipulation, videos, and open themes. jodiheartz.tumblr.com Alexis Bulman is a Halifax artist originally from P.E.I. Her artwork explores the complexity of “vintage” resources in the digital age. Through the mixed media processes of breaking and repairing her paintings contest the division between the realm of memory and the realm of experience.

Kyle Martell is a printmaker and experimenter currently attending NSCAD. kylejmartell.blogspot.ca interiormindscape.tumblr.com

Viola Chen is still trying to figure things out. idoplayit.wordpress.com

alexisbulman.tumblr.com A U of T janitor once told Claire Saringhaus that a degree in Fine Art was “just knowledge for the sake of knowledge.” She continues to work on defying that janitor and now makes literally hundreds of dollars a year as a multidisciplinary artist. The Blaring House, a book of her drawings, was published last fall.

Charley Young is an installation based printmaker interested in the architectural and human marks that become embedded within places. Most of the time she resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

www.claireseringhaus.com

Bethany Riordan-Butterworth is a Halifax-based artist. She likes talking to people about ideas almost as much as she likes drawing cats.

Howard Beye: My dad likes to tell me that I was born on a dark and stormy night.

In my early teens I went to an art based summer camp in Québec where we made sixteen millimeter films, batiks, mosaics and pottery. Every morning two of us would bake the bread for the rest. In the afternoons we swam in nearby Lac Massawippi. We took our baths beside a hand water pump. I have lived a life following my curiosity ever since.

Maddie Mcneely is a student in Halifax interested in repetition, pattern and labour. Originally from Toronto, she prefers it here much more. madeleinemcneely.tumblr.com/

Jack Wong claims to create one-liner illusions that are illusions of one-liners

charleyyoung.com

fullerlectures.com breadandbutterpottery.com ALL CAPS Design is a collaboration between graphic designers Jonathan Rotsztain and Emily Davidson. Working as individual freelancers Emily and Jonathan joined forces in the Fall of 2011. Stronger together, they combine their complementary design, communications and artistic creativity to each and every labour of love. allcapsdesign.com YORODEO is the name of Halifax-based screenprinting art team Seth Smith and Paul Hammond.

The two partnered in 2003 primarily to design and create screen-printed show posters for local events. Over the years they have focused their collaborative energy on fine art prints and posters, among other projects. They draw inspiration from comic books, science fiction, fantasy and unintentional mistakes. Their work fuses collage, doodles, carefully rendered illustration, pattern and texture.

yorodeo.tumblr.com

Kathleen Day 2

3 Jodi Heartz

Alexis Bulman 4

5 Claire Seringhaus

The Card Trick

Johnny shuffled the deck of cards once, twice ... thrice. He had a nervous habit, nervous habits I should say and if he didn’t shuffle cards, flip coins in his fingers or whittle some bit of wood, maybe a chunk of old pallet or something, any little bit of a busy thing, he would start scratching. The last time he took to scratching, he had ended up in the hospital, most of the skin on his right arm a bloody pulp. His mother screamed at him to get a job and clean up his life. He had to have her ejected from his room. She had great lungs, even whilst in the grip of big Boris the orderly, who grabbed her around the middle, lifted her up in the air and physically hauled her away. No mean feat as Momma carried a few extra. Even then she wouldn’t shut up. He had to hand it to her, when she had her mind on something, she just couldn’t be stopped. His father sat watching and didn’t make a move. He simply sat in the little uncomfortable chair that they give you for visitors and held his hat in his hands. Too old school to wear a hat inside, he always doffed his cap, in this case his very best black velvet fedora, which he only brought out on special occasions. After the ‘Sturm und Drang’ of his mother’s exit, Johnny’s pops smiled and said.

Show me one of your card tricks Johnny. Johnny smiled back at his dad, Aw pops you’ve already seen them all.

No, show me a trick, and then explain how you do it. He took a fresh deck of cards out of his pocket and handed them over to his son. Johnny proceeded to rip off the cellophane and crack the deck, shuffle the cards and then did a trick for his dad. His dad smiled the biggest smile Johnny had ever seen; he was getting the biggest kick out of this.

Ok now show me how. So he did, Johnny went through the trick step by step, shuffling the deck, giving it to his dad to cut, getting his dad to pick the card and then walking his dad through the trick, showing the path of the card as it went through a shuffle and a cut and ended up on top to be turned over and revealed as the originally chosen card.

Johnny was expecting his dad to be disappointed, just as Dorothy and her companions were when, after that crazy journey and all the expectation, little Toto sniffs behind the curtain and the great and powerful Oz is revealed to be just a regular guy. But that didn’t happen. His smile only got bigger. They both turned their heads at the sound of kafuffle down the hall and then looked back at each other. Johnny’s father shrugged his shoulders and got up and straightened his clothes and put on his hat. He pinched his son’s toe through the blanket and gave him a wink.

Well son I had better tend to your mother. That was the last time Johnny saw him. He got hit by a truck at a crosswalk and died instantly the next day.

Johnny coughed a deep rattling cough and peered inside the dumpster looking for food, his hands going a mile a minute, shuffling a deck of cards. He got up onto a stack of pallets and was just about ready to jump over the edge when a high-pitched voice softly called out to him.

Hey mister do you know any tricks; I see that you have a deck of cards in your hands. Johnny stopped in mid-step; he had his leg halfway over the edge and getting it down meant hopping on one foot until he could get his leg back over. As he was in the middle of the necessary gyrations, he was confronted by what at first appeared to be an apparition. Tight bright red curls of hair on a little girl with a face so white it appeared translucent. Immaculately dressed in a gorgeous green dress complete with appliqué dancers in pink tutus and white ballet shoes topped by a purple faux fur collar she was holding a leash connected to a dog twice her size. Diminutive as she seemed this still meant that the dog was enormous, a giant beast of a thing with thick long pure black hair. This creature looked more like a black lion than a dog, he was certain that this was the largest dog that he had ever seen. They were backlit by the afternoon sun and so had this quality of gossamer, of shimmer, the girl’s hair shining like a head full of fire. She spoke.

My name is Glenda and this is my dog Beppo, I named him after one of the unknown Marx brothers don’t you know. I was still twirling and hopping unsteadily on my platform of pallets. Finally I landed and blinked my eyes twice then I rubbed them for good measure, but Glenda and Beppo did not disappear, as was sometimes the case these days during what I will someday hopefully, laughingly call my ‘Alley Period’. Certainly somewhat cubist, based on my impressions fragmented through the kaleidoscopic filter of my current mixture of selfmedications. Nope, Glenda didn’t budge and neither did Beppo and the two certainly looked like they meant business. I looked at them and they looked at me and there we stood for a while like three statues, One, seemingly on fire.

I started a card trick. I shuffled the deck then offered the deck to Glenda who took a card and showed it to Beppo. I would swear he nodded but ... well! I took their card back into the deck and did my shenanigans with the requisite patter. I shuffled, cut, fanned and even slapped the deck for good measure. I told stories of a glorious past complete with navigators in goggles and equatorial crossings.

I was really putting on a show this time. I was on fire. I glanced at Glenda who had a delighted smile on her face and Beppo who appeared completely unmoved. At the end I removed their card from the deck and then keeping the card in my hand and handing the deck over to Glenda, I turned my back to them in order to present the card with a flourish. I made some trumpet noises and turned around with the card facing out and they were gone. I looked all around me you know in that way where you almost get tripped up spinning around. I hadn’t heard a sound. Quiet as a couple of cats they were. The deck of cards was in a splatter on the ground.

The shot starts with a close up of Johnny holding out the two of hearts. We catch the look of surprise on his face and then it slowly rises and takes in the area around the dumpster and the alley and then the neighbourhood and nothing, no trace of the red haired girl and her large lion-like black dog. Back to Johnny whose eyes catch a little glint.

He puts out his hand and captures two shiny red curls floating in the sunlight.

Cut.

Howard Beye 6

7 Maddie McNeely

Jack Wong 8

Anna Taylor 9

10 Laura Baker-Roberts

Kyle Martell 11 Natasha Krzyzewski

12 Viola Chen

Bethany Riordan-Butterworth visited Charley Young in her studio to talk about large-scale prints, architecture and fine lines.

BRB I wonder if you’d like to start by talking about your large-scale projects.

CY For the past few years I’ve been doing large-scale printmaking-based installations in and around Halifax, I’ve done a couple of projects with Nocturne and then a few out on my own. The first one I did was the site of the former Kelly building on Granville Street in Halifax. With a team I printed the building and installed it in the void lot where it used to exist, which was a pretty big challenge. I learned a lot about weather- a big storm moved in as the project was being hung, so that ended up being very problematic.

But you live and you learn! I also did a project with the Morris Building which was recently moved, and that was really great because I ended up working with a whole bunch of different community organizations.

It was installed on scaffolding, again for Nocturne, and again Mother Nature had something in store for me (laughs). But luckily I know the right people to help me save it from imminent disaster! This past spring I did a project with the Macara Building in Halifax, which has since been partially demolished; they’re saving the stone façade. I worked with Coastal Restoration to do the actual printing, which was great. These projects are mostly print-based, I think of them as monoprints or monotypes, They’re made with the help of a lot of people, both artists and nonartists, and once they’ve been installed they usually only last for a few days, maybe 2 or 3 days. I like to think of the work as a memory that I’m creating for people, something they look back at fondly and have a great experience with while they’re visiting the piece.

BRB You also work small-scale, can you talk about that?

CY Working on a smaller scale is becoming very important to me, mostly because the large-scale projects end up being pretty time-consuming and I think there are certain things that I have yet to master with working on that scale that I can master working small-scale. In my studio right now I’m doing a lot of drawings on vellum, 24x 36 or smaller, these provide me with a really good place to sort out my ideas prior to executing them on a larger scale and they keep my practice flowing. Mostly they’re important thoughts for me to collect on paper.

BRB A common theme with your work is buildings, how did you start working with that idea?

CY That’s a good question. I’m originally from the suburbs of Calgary, and I don’t really feel any attachment to that place. When I moved to Nova Scotia to attend NSCAD, I was really taken by the historic charm of Halifax, and specifically I’d walk by Trinity Church on the corner of Cogswell and Brunswick. One day I walked by while it was being demolished, and seeing that was a game-changer for me, because the church was literally open like a stage and I could see inside. I actually have a picture of it. It was so incredible to see, terribly sad but amazingly beautiful at the same time, something that you don’t see every day. There were still red velvet curtains hanging at the altar, there were still pews! I always thought the church was so beautiful and charming, within this city that’s evolving around it, and I was very surprised to witness it meet such a fate. At the time I’d realized that the people of Halifax are very transient, and I realized that our architecture is also very fleeting, so I saw a connection that I was really interested in playing with and since then it’s been a constant investigation about different types of architecture.

BRB Is there a building that you’ve worked with that you are particularly attached to?

CY One that was really interesting for me to do was completed during my time in Dawson City as Artist in Residence at the Klondike Institute for Art and Culture. I worked on a building in partnership with Parks Canada, they were really helpful in terms of getting the project completed and promoted. It’s West’s Boiler Shop, right in the heart of downtown (laughs). Dawson doesn’t really have a downtown, but it’s right in Dawson City. I was fascinated by the architecture of Dawson because there’s a layer of permafrost that sits just beneath the town so they have these iconic buildings that are in a state of decay, but the state reflects the change of the city and it’s history. Working on that project was a different sort of challenge in terms of being in a place that wasn’t Halifax, and establishing new work connections with people, and seeing if I could do it somewhere else. And I think I was satisfied.

BRB It seems like quite an accomplishment.

CY I think so, yeah. And it was something that I put in my suitcase when I was done my residency and moved a building, essentially. They’re these little monuments that exist on a very small, collapsible scale.

BRB I wonder if you have ever considered the illusionary aspect of your work.

CY Of all the works that I’ve done, I think the one in Dawson City was the most like an illusion because it was printed on cotton and it really blended in with the actual wooden structure. It has the appearance of looking like a big drawing, which is different from my other works. The idea that my work is transportable and nomadic is something that I haven’t really delved into yet, but I think it’ll be surprising as I move forward with my art practice to see what this means in 5, or 10, 15 or 20 years. Right now, the work is pretty new and fresh, and each very much references the original structure. But it will be interesting to see how these works act as documents, and how that changes, moving forward. My prints will probably outlive the actual structures. It could be very possible that I install them sometime in the future and play with the idea of illusion.

BRB You talk about buildings as metaphors for bodiescan you elaborate on that?

CY Architecture very tangibly references the people who live inside, and I’m curious about those lives, without directly talking about those people. There are lots of connections between buildings and bodiesyou talk about a building being gutted, a foundation can also be called a footing- the language overlaps.

One of the reasons why I was attracted to printing architecture is because of the visible, textural signs of age and transformation: multiple layers of paint on a building, where paint starts to crackle, where something has been added to or removed from a structure. They’re all layers, like skin, that I can start to see.

BRB Can you explain the process of printing?

CY Sure, I’ll tell you about the Morris Building. The process of these works involves first of all getting approval for the site, then sourcing materials and friends to help with the actual printing. As far as the printing goes, I pin fabric directly overtop of the architecture and then using a frottage style very similar to when you’re doing a rubbing of a penny- I use ink and a roller to press directly onto the fabric which picks up the relief or the texture underneath. It’s a very fast, immediate process, and it’s something that pretty much everybody can do- I like that participatory aspect of it. Depending on the scale it could take a day to print, or it could take a little bit longer. In regards to the Morris Building,

that took several days and a lot of volunteers to pull off. We first started by printing the exterior, and I wanted to get about three sides of the exterior relatively complete. It’s a very physical process in terms of climbing up and down ladders, and pretty exhausting, but I love it. With the Morris Building we had the opportunity to go inside of the structure, which was really interesting because it was in a state of vulnerability when we were doing this projectthey had just spared it from demolition. Printing the interior elements, like the fireplace and doorways and the stairs was pretty spectacular because it was really dark in there and we were printing by flashlight.

BRB So then you installed the print next to the house?

CY Yes. I was thinking of it as a diptych, and thinking of it as a print, in terms of having my printing surface (the Morris building) on the right hand side, and then on the left, set back a bit, was the print installed on scaffolding. I was thinking about it as skin and bones, again very anatomical.

BRB What’s it like to work so big?

CY Pretty challenging, especially since the works are meant to be installed outside. I don’t have a large working space, so it can be quite difficult to be moving mountains of fabric within my studio. But the scale of these works is very important, that they are the exact scale of the architecture they reference.

They can visually fit in to the urban environment pretty flawlessly and they are the right scale for this city. Large-scale work is challenging, and that’s why I need my smaller works, because I feel that sometimes my ideas get lost when they’re translated so large. Having a more intimate outlet gives me balance.

BRB Is there currently a building that you have your eye on?

CY (Sighs) I don’t know. I’m going to grad school right now, and I’m kind of taking a break from printing- I don’t want to be a one trick pony and I’ve got lots of other ways of expressing similar ideas. So as it stands right now I’m not planning any future printing. But it might be something that gets reinvented in some shape or form, and I think it’s very successful but I have lots of ideas that I’d like to pursue as well.

BRB What are you thinking about these days?

CY I just got back form the Vermont Studio Center, and I developed a new idea while I was there that I have yet to actually execute in real life, but it’s starting to come into existence in my drawings. I’ve been thinking about how I can use architecture in a different way and how I can use certain aspects as stencils to make a print. I’m trying to explore different kinds of printing and I’m interested in working even more ephemerally at some point. So that came out of this Vermont residency, which I’m pretty excited about- a different vein of work.

BRB It seems like you’re pushing the boundaries of printmaking.

CY I think that’s a huge thing for me actually. I would loosely define myself as a printmaker, but I’m certainly not interested in making an edition of prints. I’m fascinated by the techniques and the approaches, but I’m not necessarily interested in the traditional ways of making marks. I see printmaking as something that applies to basically every aspect of my artistic life- it’s something that I’m always thinking about and it gives me something to push back against.

Printmaking is a discipline that has many conventions, and I’m interested in breaking those conventions…but keeping them… (laughs) it’s a fine line!

13 & 14 Charley Young interviewed by Bethany Riordan-Butterworth0

ARTIS T S I N T H E I R S T U D I O S

ALL CAPS DESIGN Emily Davidson & Jonathan Rotsztain

YORODEO POSTER COMPANY Seth Smith & Paul Hammond

15 & 16

ALL CAPS & YORODEO in their studio at the Manual Training Building

THE BUS STOP THEATRE 2203 Gottingen St. www.thebusstoptheatre.org

Space for emerging artists & engaged audiences.

Halifax’ performing arts black box rental venue.

Elsie’s Be Yourself and Have Fun 1530 Queen Street 425-2599 Michael Fuller Photography themichaelfullerwebsite.com rivinus@gmail.com

I Leica You - Pictures of people & places

Chris Foster chrisfoster.ca etsy.ca/chrisfosterart

Halifax based Artist & Printmaker Original prints and books now for sale online.

Invisible Publishing www.invisiblepublishing.com info@invisiblepublishing.com

Independent Canadian books for people who are cool. None of our books are about lighthouses or wheat. Seriously. Promise.

Centre for Art Tapes 902.422.6822 / centreforarttapes.ca cfat.communications@ns.sympatico.ca #220-1657 Barrington St. (Roy Building)

The Centre for Art Tapes supports artists at all levels working with electronic media including video, audio, and new media, through residencies, scholarships, production facilities, the presentation of media art exhibitions and screenings.

Lost & Found Store www.lostandfoundstore.blogspot.com 2383 Agricola St lostandfoundstore@gmail.com 902 446-5986

Art

DIVORCE DISTRO lost & found - 2383 Agricola St. www.divorcerecords.ca

SHISO SHOP shisoshop.tumblr.com

helloshiso@gmail.com

/

Vintage /

Kitsch

experimental | punk | jazz | international | other :::::

a choice selection of new vinyl

:::::

Someday this will be a real shop!

HALIFAX, NS JUNE 6-9 PISSED JEANS, MAC DEMARCO, GROUPER CHRIS CORSANO, PETE SWANSON +++

OBEYCONVENTION.COM