Shit and Diamonds

The artists and party goers left with the dawn.  And with their parting, like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight, the gallery reverted back to its original state, no longer a powerful institution, just an ordinary 4 1/2.  The white walls seem to lack authority and purpose now, and the rooms are quiet for the first time in over a week.  Yesterday, we celebrated Andrew and Keltie’s presence here, and the conclusion of the Sherbrooke chapter of the Miscellaneous Incorporated Residency program.  It will continue, or so the plan goes, in the fall or spring, in Portland, Oregon.

This Thursday night, Keltie, Andrew and I went to Le Mare au Diable (the devil’s pond) for drinks and conversation.  The interview, “SHIT AND DIAMONDS”, was an extraordinary one, and I suggest you give it a listen.

PART ONE follows a formal interview format, PART TWO starts along similar lines but quickly goes somewhere else, curtesy of Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey and the local Scotch Ale.

 Each resident has brought something unique and extraordinary here, and I count myself lucky to know these people as contemporaries, colleagues and friends. Some traditions have emerged, Pizza on the first day, poutine, the recorded interview, and the road trip.  Most valuable, have been the conversations.  Hanging out with friends is great, but hanging out with friends for a purpose is better.  Having a shared goal gives another quality to our time together. I’m looking forward to doing it again soon.

 

The Crappy Coffee Tour

Drinking like it’s my job. It’s been really real Sherbrooke, thanks for all your crappy coffee.

Restaurant Petit Paris, Chez Joe Casse-Crôute and Chez Charlie’s have been the settings for some seriously surreal scenes. It’s all digesting now with the watery coffee: saccharine maple pies with creamy edges, saccharine waitresses with rough edges and trash talking teenagers unknowingly saving the soul of the person sitting next to them on the chrome stools.

Going to read some of the stories tonight, at our residency party for which I have made a diamond piñata. Yeeeha.

Near death and the paper moon

At the general store in Glover, Vermont the young girl at the cash took the blue eyeliner pencil away from her lower lashes long enough to see we weren’t anyone of consequence. She carried on tracing her eyeballs in dark lines and leaning on the glass case that held the bullets and slingshots. I went to the back to get tampons but this timber wolf and slain caribou stood between me and the kotex. So we got beer and smokes instead.

We arrived at the Bread & Puppet museum and spent the next couple of hours being dwarfed by decades of papier maché and having conversations with pigs, real pigs. I nearly fell to my death from the pulley loft above the Dirt Floor Theatre, but I would have died smiling because that would have been a performance to remember.  The giant paper moon I was inspecting at the time perhaps would have come with me and softened the landing in some mystical turn of good luck, but probably not.

Out on the sunny Vermont hills the wind was kind to blow just hard enough to get the boys’ cassette-tape-&-emergency-blanket kites off the ground, but I’ll let Andrew blog about that. I skulked around the woods in search of something and found the commune’s outdoor bread oven amongst the scattered broken down buses and stopgap homes. We paid a visit to the stand of tall pines that hides the puppeteer cemetery and all agreed that it was a good place for remembering.

The border crossing back home felt good, ending in hard laughs and a waive for our contraband. And the night ended in the usual sadness and sleep that all roadtrips end in, try as we might to keep it between the ditches.

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/41437811″>I’ll write you a song.</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user6441664″>a.corn</a&gt; on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Been watching water

Adventures are always better when they’re dangerous. Off to Bread & Puppets in Vermont this afternoon, hope to find some danger in”America” too.

  We’re preparing for our closing party…..

Three gin infusing on the windowsill.

What do you think the flavours are????

Addition to the time bank windowsill

  Keys from a cash register found in the trash at OCAD, placed on the windowsill in Sherbooke Quebec.

Wilmaforce the year 97 Acura: a tale from BC to Sherbrooke QC

My good friends Craighannon gave me there car to drive to Quebec. It was on it’s last legs, mufflerless and chugging oil in an attempt to break 500,000 clicks. Today we said farewell to Wilmaforce (97 acura). Here are a couple of photos from our journey.

The Road to Sherbrooke

It was paved in stories to say the least. Full of old faces & old tongues, new faces & new tongues and a hangover. Maybe some of the stories will end up here as blog posts, maybe they will just live and die here in the present. At any rate, it was great to arrive to a very warm welcome and young political unrest.

Everything one needs for the road

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Injonction Injustice at CÉGEP de Sherbrooke

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “Pro des Pieces”

In Like a Lion, *Out with a BANG! *for now…

Early this week, I had the opportunity to meet with the next and last participants of the Miscellaneous Incorporated Gallery Residency program in my capacity as intern.  Keltie MacNeil and Andrew Maize will be co-residing here at the Misc Inc Gallery, roughly April 28th to May 5th.  To summarize their plans would be a disservice, not to mention a challenge, but let me say at least this: LOTS of exciting things will be happening during their stay culminating in a party, a finale for both their residency and Season One, that’s right, Season One of the Misc. Inc. Residency program. After their visit here, I’ll be on holiday as intern, and the gallery will be moving far, far away to the infamous, unbelievable, too-good-to-be-true, Portland Oregon.  There, the residency program will continue, but in some different form.  The gallery is already receiving requests from interested parties, and we’ll be inviting individuals and opening the call to others in the future.  This will still be an informal process, so feel free to contact me if it interests you.  Thanks for following the blog thus far, it has been a great way of relating activity here to people far and wide. (We’ve passed 800 visits already) And keep following as Keltie and Andrew’s co-residency takes shape.

sincerely,

Zach

MISC INC Intern