Dave White here! On May 4th, I had an amazing opportunity to pitch in on makebright and cover the tremendous talent of four artists at the BOX 10 Studio Party. The incredible Cathy Farwell organized this event as a thank you to the BOX 10 sponsors and donors, as well as the official opening of BOX 11.
Michelle Salter, Denise Strong, Fatima Garzan, and Cathy Farwell (above) all demonstrated techniques of their chosen media.
May 3-28 there are 19 regional artists from the Art Allies posse showing in The Button Factory. Reception on May 13, 5-7pm. This is a great show. Deets linked from the Art Allies Visual Arts Events page.
Now look who I found…
It was a banner night to see great paintings at The Tannery. Amy Ferrari (her work above: shazam!) and Soheila Esfahani opened a display of their work at The Hub in an Art Allies show sponsored this round by Machteld Faas Xander. Later in the evening I headed up to a reception at Melissa Doherty’s studio on the 4th floor that launches her 2-day open studio show.
As Hilary always says: “you’re going to this, right?”
Last night the preparations were cooking at Melissa Doherty’s studio in The Tannery. As mentioned earlier this month, this fabulous painter is having her first open studio showing of her amazing paintings this Friday and Saturday, April 29-30. You gotta see it to believe it. Her paintings are like a dream that I can fall right into.
Been checking back on the awesome progress The Jazz Room crew has made since I shot some pics of their new stage being built earlier this month. It was my makerly privilege to get a peek at the in-progress rebuild of a 7-foot grand piano that The Grand River Jazz Society is hoping to acquire through grants and donations. This piano would serve as the centrepiece of this dynamite venue we’re all eagerly anticipating.
William Horne, master rebuilder of pianos, generously opened his Waterloo workshop on Tuesday so I could shoot some photos to capture a piece of this transformation.
DW rocks a Project Loud Monkey test run at the Waterloo Public Square (video: James Bastow)
Project Loud Monkey needs your:
Please ping me (dw@makebright.com) if you can pitch in. Support the Monkey!
The ever-rockin’ James Bastow and I tested some of the project gear at the Waterloo Public Square during lunch today. I want to make sure makebright really delivers on this project for the Toronto Mini Maker Faire coming up May 7-8. Come visit us there: we won’t be hard to find.
Best comment from a passer-by today: “I heard that a kilometre away!”
Update 2011-04-29: hey! PLM got picked up by TorontoNews24!
My introduction to both Maxwell’s and chiptunes this week. Double thumbs up!
Chiptunes is a genre I was originally introduced to by the ever-cool Mr. Alex Williams on a trip to Maker Faire last year. This music form leverages the 8-bit classic sound of 80’s and 90’s video games. A favourite, being rocked here by DEADBEATBLAST, is the original GameBoy. Combined with the visuals it made for a kick-ass and out of the ordinary show.
I need your help with a project I’m doing for the upcoming Toronto Mini Maker Faire coming up May 7-8. Looking for small toys that make simple noise (rhyme!) + that old and enormous stereo gear you have collecting dust in your basement (just need the amp and speakers). Ping me if you can help.
My good friends Seth Hardy and Alex Leitch from the truly awesome Site 3 coLaboratory are two of the dedicated organizers of this Mini Maker Faire (which is a gathering of all sorts of makers of all sorts of things). They invited makebright to contribute a project and come out to the event (hope you will too!)
Concept: noise-making [keychains, dollar store toys, talking greeting cards, corporate swag, etc] abound, but we only hear their audio through a tiny 1” speaker at a tiny volume. Lo-fi. I’m pretty sure they are capable of much higher-fidelity sound, so I propose to modify them (see example mod below) to allow playback through a big giant stereo amplifier and speakers. Then we’ll play freakishly loud noises experiment.
Awesome art double-header last week down on King Street with t’art show Wednesday and the “Cabs of Curiosity” on Thursday. After #cinqasept Thursday night, we went back down to Artery Gallery to check out this new show from Marcel O’Gorman’s posse at UW’s Critical Media Lab.
