The Staying Power of John Adams INTERVIEW — The composer reflects on "Frenzy", "City Noir", and why contemporary music is beginning to atrophy Words by Stephania Romaniuk | Illustration by Dane Thibeault | Interview by Michael Zarathus-Cook ISSUE 14 | LOS ANGELES | ENSEMBLE The Canadian premiere of John Adams’s latest orchestral piece Frenzy will take place during election week in the US—coincidental, and perhaps fitting for a composer whose works regularly respond to inflection points in American politics. Operas like Nixon in China , the controversial The Death of Klinghoffer , and Doctor Atomic (about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning choral-orchestral work On the Transmigration of Souls (in response to 9/11) explore figures within the events themselves, but also serve as large-scale reactions to some of the most highly charged times in American history. Now one of the world’s most celebrated and regularly performed contemporary composers, Adams will also be conducting the performance. At the podium, not only can he explore the needs of the work more fully, but performing the piece also fulfills for him music’s ultimate aim: communication. For 50 years, Adams has worked to dispel the notion that great art must be aloof and inaccessible. Although few would consider Adams a crossover artist, he writes music that is connected to popular forms, to repeating rhythms, and to the tonality first deconstructed by the Second Viennese School and still often disfavoured in academia. Influenced as much by orchestral giants Beethoven and Sibelius as by the minimalists Terry Riley and Philip Glass, the jazz of Miles Davis, the soul of Aretha Franklin, Broadway, and the dance halls of his youth in rural Massachusetts, Adams has built a sound of his own—pulsating and orchestral—that is heard live internationally nearly every day of the calendar. His sound stands firmly in the American tradition of the Gershwins, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein, and yet continues to develop. With Frenzy , Adams shifts from his minimalist roots to explore melody and development. In compositional terms, he uses techniques new to him but typical of the Classical masters: Fortspinnung and Durchführung, German terms for “spinning out” and “through-leading.” Together, they represent taking a melodic idea and transforming it through progressive development. The first four notes of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 are introduced and then transformed throughout the orchestral work using this approach. Although no recording of Frenzy exists yet, music history survey courses covering the 20th and 21st centuries may likely include the work as an example of traditional practices resurfacing in contemporary works. (Perhaps Adams’s melodic interest may foreshadow a shift also in popular vocal music toward melody, conspicuously underutilized since roughly the late-1990s.) Another notable upcoming performance includes City Noir with the New York Philharmonic, a tribute to Los Angeles and the gritty film noir of the 1940s, 50s and beyond. A symphonic expansion of the moody, raucous incidental music characteristic of these films, as well as a tribute to a great, “imagined,” city, the work was written for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where Adams has held the role of Creative Chair since 2009. Under his tenure, important works by composers including Steve Reich, Gabriella Smith, Louis Andriessen, and Andreia Pinto Correia have been premiered, as well as many of Adams’s own works, including the piano concerto Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes ? This position has served as one of the many platforms, including the Pacific Harmony Foundation, John Adams Young Composers program, and residencies with the Juilliard School and Berliner Philharmoniker Akademie, Ad ams uses to inspire and mentor upcoming composers seeking to understand, write for, and connect with contemporary audiences and performing arts institutions. SUBSCRIBE TO IDAGIO Learn more about the CANNOPY x IDAGIO partnership The staying power of Adams’s own output, particularly the large orchestral and operatic works, shows that humans arguably connect more readily not with a purely cerebral sound, but with one that’s embodied. (Adams’s latest opera, Antony and Cleopatra, returns this season to The Metropolitan Opera, and Nixon in China, Doctor Atomic Symphony , and the opera-oratorio El Niño will all be heard elsewhere.) Large institutions need certainty, and Adams’s works are predictable in their appeal. Regardless of subject matter, Adams’s music, often described as “humanist,” tends to feel sturdy, present, and an integrated whole. Music that, in his words, becomes too “self-referential” disconnects itself from the familiar, inherited ways we understand and find meaning in music—the lullabies, dances, ballads, laments, and archetypal forms that exist in all cultures across all times, which Adams has successfully incorporated into his vocabulary. With Adams, perhaps therapy can be found in listening even to the chaotic, the frenzied —at least when expressed through the not-yet-outdated architecture of melody, tonality, and line. For additional listening, consider Fearful Symmetries (an orchestra outpouring in the vein of Nixon in China ) and The Wound-Dresser (for baritone and chamber orchestra on the poetry of Walt Whitman), as well as one last nudge to listen to the delicious and unique City Noir. Cannopy x John Adams

Stratford Festival 2024: A World Elsewhere Mark Uhre as Nick Bottom (centre-left) and Dan Chameroy as Nostradamus with members of the company in Something Rotten!. Stratford Festival 2024. Photo: Ann Baggley. INTERVIEW — Director Donna Feore serves up Something Rotten! Words by Michael Zarathus-Cook ISSUE 13 | FOURTH WALL The bus ride from Downtown Toronto to Stratford is just a little over two hours long, along the unscenic highway routes through cities like Milton and Kingston. At a point equidistant between the township of New Hamburg and Stratford, sits the village of Shakespeare, a small enclave of about 160 people within the larger Perth County municipality. It’s usually along this point that the monotony of the trip transforms into something theatric, and the allure of Stratford as a getaway destination rolls into view. In his introductory message for the seasonal brochure, titled “A World Elsewhere”, Stratford Festival’s Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino asks, earnestly: “What does being away from home teach us and bring to us? What are the benefits, and what might be the risks, of seeking out worlds elsewhere?” Regardless of what’s happening on its proscenium and thrust stages, the true charm of Stratford is that it’s both a destination and a portal─it’s a city where people go to be elsewhere , but it nevertheless feels completely lived-in and maintains its sense of hereness . The 2024 festival season which Cimolino and his team have concocted aims to meet the post-pandemic travel boom by leaning into the city’s magnetism as a cultural destination while staging works that transcend our time and the city around it. The season, at a glance, features a Shakespearean trio ( Twelfth Night , Romeo and Juliet , Cymbeline ); a bouquet of dramas ( Salesman in China , Hedda Gabler , The Diviners , Who is Sylvia , Get That Hope ); a comedy directed by Cimono ( London Assurance ); two musicals ( La Cage aux Folles and Something Rotten! ), and more. It’s the latter of these musicals that brought me back to Stratford on its opening night in late May. Billed as a musical comedy, Something Rotten! is a hilarious vichyssoise of references to the Shakespearean canon, mixed in with nods to almost every recognizable musical. It reaches, ambitiously, for the soil of the 16th Century Renaissance London that fertilized William Shakespeare’s celebrity; and manages to tumble through a rough history of the musical as an art form of its own: from The Sound of Music to Hair , Rent, and beyond. At a length almost as long as my bus trip, Rotten wins a war of attrition against even the most hardened opposition to the musical as a storytelling medium─by the end, the audience is completely won over, worn out, and clap-happy. But more than that, it poses a fairly convincing answer to some of Cimolino’s questions. Sitting through two hours of wall-to-wall numbers, about 190 costume changes, and relentlessly precise choreography, one realizes that nothing else does what live theatre can do. In fact, the redundancy of “live theatre” becomes more apparent as this production reminds us that in order for it to be theatre, it has to be alive, warts and all. In our current social fabric where it seems intelligence is increasingly artificial, and our points of connection are accelerating toward the virtual—the Stratford Festival is wagering that the analog and ephemeral experience of theatre is precisely what we need most. This wager seems wise inasmuch as ephemerality is becoming an increasingly precious commodity. In a world where rarely anything goes away , and seemingly everything can be recorded, remixed, and regurgitated by AI, there is something noteworthy about the many months of rehearsal that went into creating a two-hour musical that can only linger in your memory afterward. Even more, like any worthwhile comedy, Rotten doesn’t appear to be designed for memory: it seeks to entertain you thoroughly in the moment, get a few good laughs, and be done with it. This mission is worked into the sinews of the plot, wherein two struggling playwrights (the Bottom Brothers), contemporaries of Shakespeare who are exasperated by the bard’s outsized notoriety, opt to outdo him by creating the first musical. The ethos of both their plan and of Rotten is, more or less: if you can’t be great, be entertaining (or, if you can’t beat them, set a beat to them). Indeed, the audience on the opening night of this production didn’t miss a beat; they came in for a good time and the cast delivered with a level of audience-stage chemistry that is seldom achieved without completely shattering the fourth wall. CANNOPY x Donna Feore Directing Something Rotten! Based on a book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell—which Karey then turned into a musical with his brother Wayne—this production is brought to life by director and choreographer Donna Feore, a perennial presence at Stratford for the last four decades. The morning after opening night, I sat down with Feore at the festival’s head office, a busy labyrinth of creative and administrative workrooms at the business end of the sprawling Festival Theatre. Feore’s artistic sensitivities and surgical eye for detail were immediately evident, adjusting the windows behind her till she found the perfect balance of airflow and sound insulation against the outside noise for our conversation. The work-life balance Feore has struck with the festival roughly reflects Stratford’s duality as a destination-portal. First arriving in Stratford in 1990 as an actor, she went on to start a family in the city with her husband─actor Colm Feore─wearing the many hats of choreographer, associate, and director as the years progressed. Her frequent stints away from Stratford afford her a vantage on how the city has changed and how it expands and contracts in step with the festival, “It’s an interesting town because it’s small but it gets really big at certain times of the year,” Feore remarks. This pattern of expansion and contraction also describes her social availability throughout the year as she takes on projects like Rotten , “I go into the zone, my friendships with people are based on that understanding that I go underground for a few months and then come back up for air.” Rotten is the first production Feore is directing after her brief hiatus from Stratford in 2022 to pursue projects in New York. Her hands-on approach throughout the rehearsal process was the perfect match for this detail-heavy musical, and Stratford’s gravitational pull brought her back to stage a work that demands the two separate parts of her brain as a director and choreographer. Members of the company in Something Rotten! . Stratford Festival 2024. Photo: David Hou. In her approach to staging Rotten , Feore objects to my dichotomy between being great or being entertaining, noting that “I think you have to both. Great is subjective, but entertaining is not,” the result of which is a production that manages to do both. The production’s success relies as much on Feore’s vision as on its stellar cast, with standout performances from Mark Uhre’s Nick Bottom, Henry Firmston’s Nigel Bottom, Starr Domingue’s Bea, and Jeff Lillico as a raunchy and sinewy William Shakespeare with a Kardashian sense of stardom. Such standout performances are made possible by an ensemble effort sustained over 8-hour daily rehearsals for at least the first ten days, working at the breakneck pace of learning a song and dance number each day. Throughout the rehearsal process and across the 16 preview performances, Feore’s guiding ethic was to never lose sight of the audience. “In a 25-member cast, the 26th member is always the audience and this show is about the audience,” says Feore, “it was an important show for me because to be in that space after COVID had taken us out for so many years, and now coming back to laugh together, I don’t know if there’s a better feeling than that. Theatre is communal and we were robbed of the ability to sit with people for a while. You can put a film on pause but you can’t do that in theatre. It’s alive, it’s breathing, but the greatest thing is to be able to provoke a conversation amongst the audience.” Perhaps more difficult than provoking conversation after a performance is provoking laughter during, and here too Feore’s eye for detail meets the moment: “This show is witty, it’s sophisticated, and of course very silly at times. The one thing that I was really clear on with this cast is that they have to be honest.” As in, being honest about the laughs they’re going for, and not straining too hard for the punch lines. “Just let it be, don’t exhaust the audience with the little things. Don’t go for minnows, go for the trout, thankfully I had very experienced actors who are disciplined, and comedy is all about discipline.” One of the production’s notable comedic characters is Dan Chameroy’s Nostradamus, a soothsayer who provides very little soothing on account of his inability to correctly relay the details of his forecasts. But there’s an aspect of the soothsayer’s blunders that is oddly reminiscent of the gaffes committed by AI programs like ChatGPT when they fail to mimic human intelligence and is revealing of the limits of this artificiality. Likewise, the moral pill which Rotten wraps in comedy, infectiously catchy numbers, and a particularly athletic choreography is to be true to oneself─a hard-won lesson for the Bottom brothers’ mad pursuit to steal the bard’s next big hit and regurgitate it as their own. Even without these gaffes, Feore is confident that AI can’t replace what laughing together does for an audience, “AI can’t sweat,” she adds, “AI can’t get the nuance and the wonderfulness that we are as human beings. And there’s nothing like seeing someone put everything into something the way these actors do.” Comedy’s awesome power, and the secret sauce that makes Rotten work so well, is that it can reach for profundity precisely at the moment when you’ve let your guard down. This production reaches and reaches, each time coming away with a handful of substance. ─ MZC Choreographing Something Rotten! The typically unheralded hero of every musical, and especially of Something Rotten! , is the choreography; a musical number can hardly be learned without the muscle memory of the accompanying choreography. Here is where the other half of Donna Feore’s creative cortex—the one that counts steps, refines gestures, and synchronizes breathing to every aspect of the mise en scène—reigns supreme. For Rotten , the real test isn’t just memorizing a number a day, but maintaining the stamina to do so while singing to a live 12-piece orchestra. “This is a show where the leads are in all of the production,” Feore points out, “it’s not a musical where you have an ensemble that just does the numbers and then the leads do the scenes, so it's a demanding thing for all those principles that have to be carrying the show, but also it’s just as challenging for the ensemble.” Her method of meeting this challenge is to custom-fit bodies to the choreography. “Dancers are athletes, so they have to train too. It doesn't matter how fit you are coming in. This choreography is very specific and so their bodies have to get specifically ready for that.” Then there’s her own mental stamina to keep tabs on these moving parts while steering the larger storytelling locomotive from the director’s chair. How does she manage? “Experience. You need to have experience because you have to understand how to pace yourself and your brain. Staging is also all about movement, and you need to know the space well. I know the Festival Theatre space very well.” Members of the company in Something Rotten! . Stratford Festival 2024. Photo: David Hou. Hitting every mark with precision is, however, not the only selling point for Feore’s Rotten choreography. Improvisation and choreography can often seem to be diametric compositional forces in dance, in so far as the latter curtails the individuation and eccentricities of the former. Feore’s choreography gets interesting at that point where it makes space for seemingly unscripted idiomatic gestures that can only really work when the dancer puts their own style and stank on its execution. Feore insists even these signatures are a carefully calculated installation to offset expectations regarding the production’s Renaissance setting. “I wanted that to show that the world’s moving forward and that people are taken out of their boxes of what’s expected of them. And that’s why there’s a modern feel to it.” That modern stamp was delivered via little references to online meme-culture and dances that have spread through our cultural lexicon via vectors like TikTok and YouTube─all this in the full garb of 16th-century couture. This carefully calculated improvisation comes in handy when working with the comically voluminous costumes of this period piece, such that even the set and costuming—both under the auspices of designer Michael Gianfrancesco—are activated as components of the choreography. “But I do leave some freedom for the dancer as an individual,” Feore qualifies, “I always wanted that as a dancer. I didn't want to be put in some kind of straitjacket of ‘you have to do it this way’.” How does a two-hour marathon of this kaleidoscopic choreography maintain cohesion and its center of gravity? That starts with what Feore calls a “foundation of truth,” and then improvising on that foundation. “You can't break the rules if you don't know them, right?” she remarks, “I took a Galliard in that Renaissance number that opens the production and turned it on its ear. There’s a real Lindy Hop in there, but it's based on something real. Then we also had tap, which is a different thing altogether. Tap is about rhythm. Tap is about the heartbeat, and you have to understand this basic ground. You have to go to the source.” Likewise, it’s the viscerality of this production’s choreography that keeps it beyond the realm of the descriptive─to comprehend it, you have to go to its source, live and in person. Something Rotten! runs till October 27 at the Festival Theatre Members of the company in Something Rotten! . Stratford Festival 2024. Photo: David Hou.

by Madeleine Kane Jay Baruchel by Kalya Ramu Jay Baruchel: all-Canadian charmer 15 QUESTIONS with JAY BARUCHEL 5.2 Sifting through any genre-defining comedy of the last decade, you’d almost certainly find the scruffy yet relaxed charismatic magnet personified by the all-Canadian charmer, Jay Baruchel. As a familiar onscreen staple, with a career spanning over two decades, Baruchel’s performances range from box-office hits to raucous blockbuster comedies, to acclaimed and poignant dramas. In recent years, Baruchel has delved fully into his life behind the camera as a writer and director. His author’s debut, Born Into It: A Fan’s Life , a memoir of lifelong devotion to the Montreal Canadiens, was published in 2018. In 2020, amidst the chaotic reshuffling of pandemic cinema, Baruchel released his directorial debut Random Acts of Violence , for which he also co-wrote the screenplay. A savory summer-road slasher inspired by brusque graphic-novel gore, Random Acts pumped fresh blood into the Canadian horror scene, and solidified Baruchel as a no-holds-barred director with even more up his sleeve. Inspired by our Proust Questionnaire , Jay Baruchel joins us for a special Q&A and unveils the secret facets of what motivates his multi-talented creative mind, and the private inspiration behind an enduring career. 1 What is your idea of perfect happiness? Reading books on the porch with nowhere to be. 2 Your greatest fear? Dying young. 3 The trait you most deplore in yourself? Bad temper. 4 Trait you most deplore in others? Feeling sorry for yourself. 5 What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Being true to one’s self. 6 What do you most dislike about your appearance? My smile 7 Love of your life? My wife. 8 Favorite occupation? Directing. 9 Your chief characteristic? Propensity for daydreaming. 10 What do you most value in your friends? Loyalty and respect. 11 Historical figure you most identify with? Flight Lieutenant George Beurling 12 Your real life heroes? My mother, my wife, my sister. 13 What is it that you most dislike? Inequity. 14 Your greatest regret? Not joining the army. 15 A good place to die? In Canada.

1, 2, TEAM WITH JENN WASNER Jenn Wasner - Photo by Graham Tolbert On Flock of Dimes, Bon Iver, and Wye Oak’s Every Day Like the Last smART MAGAZINE | DURHAM | ALT.ITUDE JUL 04, 2023 | ISSUE 12 1: FLOCK OF DIMES IDEATION sM | What was the creative space you were inhabiting around the time you created the Flock of Dimes project? JW ─ Not only do I remember it, but I am in the thick of it once again. It’s so funny, I’ve been doing this for long enough that I’m starting to be humbled by how much having a creative practice is just forgetting and relearning things you thought you already knew. I had never really experienced the freedom of being outside of Wye Oak and understand a little better who I am and what I have to say, so I felt this call to step outside of that. And in the process of making that first Flock of Dimes record, If You See Me Say Yes , I had a total fucking meltdown. That was the first time in my career that I felt like I learned a lesson that I’m learning again now. Being alone, you have all this power, this autonomy, this freedom. But you forget, or I forgot, all of the support, assistance, and inspiration that comes from being in a relationship. There has to be space for you to be this separate autonomous artist, but to try and create in a vacuum forever and to try and hold the reins too tightly is doing your art and yourself a great disservice.

Tony Taylor Tony Taylor Toronto artist with a unique take on portraiture WORDS BY TASH COWLEY | QUÉBEC CITY | STUDIO SESSIONS NOV 18, 2022 | ISSUE 4 En route to my favourite butcher in Toronto’s Kensington market this past summer, I noticed a loose line forming along the sidewalk. Would-be buyers pointing, chuckling, and then eventually buying one of Tony Taylor’s wood-block prints from his pop-up kiosk. The most striking feature of his style is perhaps how swiftly it explains itself to the curious observer: various icons of pop culture are depicted with their heads replaced with that of an animal. It’s in the succinct pairing of various heads, with variously famous bodies, that Taylor’s wit—and artistic flair—comes through in vivid colour. This unusual approach to portraiture is (literally) backed-up with an unconventional wooden canvas that make the artworks very hangable.

The Home Universe: What Makes the Object SCENOGRAPHY created by Charlotte Macaux Perelman RETROSPECTIVE ─ For Milan Design Week 2025, Hermès returned to La Pelota with its new scenography by Charlotte Macaux Perelman and Alexis Fabry CANNOPY MILAN | ISSUE 15 | PARTNERSHIP CHARLOTTE MACAUX PERELMAN & ALEXIS FABRY Artistic Directors of the Home Universe Charlotte Macaux Perelman and Alexis Fabry joined Hermès as Artistic Directors of the Home Universe in 2014. Driven by their shared passion for objects, know-how, and craftsmanship, they jointly oversee the artistic direction of Hermès Home, Hermès Horizons, Saint-Louis and Puiforcat. Their new creations were on display this April in Milan’s La Pelota, in colourless suspended boxes, projecting halos of bright colour onto the floor. It is in the immateriality of their auras that the objects first appear, like emotions. This staging aimed to evoke a quest for the object, and for the luminous vibration that makes it familiar. Maison HERMÈS COLLECTIONS FOR THE HOME MILAN 2025 When removed from the box, the object takes a part of this aura with it. What remains is the memory of its idealised perfection, inseparable from its presence. The object is there, appearing gradually in glimpses and reflections., while space is reduced or expanded by light. These objects, furniture, and fabrics come alive with reassuring vibration, shimmering with a familiar halo. An object can be an emotion. WWW.HERMES.COM

#rhodesmustfall Illustration By Brandon Hicks Can the toppling of statues help erect a more comprehensive collective memory? WORDS BY BEN MCHUTCHION | CANADA | ARTS & LETTERS FEB 28, 2023 | ISSUE 11 Since the start of the #rhodesmustfall movement in 2015, statues commemorating historical figures complicit in slavery and colonialism have been taken down in various countries. Recent statue removals in Canada follow this trend, suggesting an underlying shift in how Canadians think about their country’s history. Narratives that celebrated colonialism have lost their once dominant position in the national consciousness, leading to historical debates in which statues play a central role. The sociological theory of collective memory is one tool for exploring the significance of statue removals. Collective memory posits that memory is not only held by individuals, but is also developed and held within social groups. Using this framework, the tradition of public memorial statues can be understood as a highly visible manifestation of collective memory. People with social or political power have often used statues in an attempt to permanently fix a preferred collective memory in the public square.

INK: Art or Artifice? Illustration by Audrey App Six tattoo artists across six cities reflect on their work as an artistic practice Words by Dani Williams ISSUE 8 | MATERIALS Like many traditional artists, tattoo artists begin their process with a pen and paper, or some modern version of that. Despite the artistic abilities and talent of these artists, they still struggle to be recognized in the same stature as more conventional visual artists. In this series, I present a selection of female tattoo artists to learn and listen to their truth about where the industry exists in the art world, and their experiences being women in the industry. Speaking from my experience, being a female-identifying person with many tattoos, I have been the target of discrimination because of my body art. I have been turned down for jobs, frowned at, cat-called, told I would be much prettier without them, and that I would never be successful because of them. Some people prefer their art on walls, and some prefer it on their bodies; either way, it is still art, and it does not make you any less. But first, let’s ask: what makes something art? Modern artists would argue it’s all about intention. If you create something with the intent for it to be art, then it’s art. Whether it’s a tattoo or an oil painting, if the objective was art, then that’s what it is. Another point to consider is that paintings are collected, and so are tattoos. Tattoo collectors have even gone as far as acquiring human skin, preserved, framed, and then mounted for all to celebrate. In 2016, the Royal Ontario Museum did an entire exhibit focused on tattoos and tattoo culture, called Tattoos: Ritual. Identity. Obsession. Art , which showcased the history and traditions of the art form. The discussion circling the idea of whether or not tattoos should be considered a fine art should, hopefully, be discarded within this decade. These women (and many others) possess an aptitude that is unmistakably that of a professional visual artist. They are experts in their craft and deserve to be celebrated as such. CAN | In what ways do female artists still struggle for recognition of self-expression in the industry? KD ─ I, like many female tattooers, was brought up in a man's world. I wasn’t taken seriously early on in my career. I was laughed at, dominated, rejected and exposed to way too much sexual assault. It was not the same for my male counterparts—it became paramount that I needed to create a space for female tattooers to flourish in this industry. A space where we can focus on our craft and feel safe and respected—where our clients can feel safe and respected. I think that as more incredible female tattooers are emerging and staking their claim, they will continue to demand change and respect. There’s no denying the immense talent that women have brought to the industry, but with that being said, it really depends on our environment. Fortunately, mine has changed significantly in the last six years because I have forced that change by creating a space that we can feel confident and thrive in. A space to focus solely on our craft. Tattooing will thicken your skin and because of that it has shaped me into the strong, self-assured person that I am today, which allows me and others to stand out in a once male-dominated industry. My experience as a female tattooer hasn't always been easy, but I'm grateful to have been brought up the way I have so that I can make a positive difference in the lives of other emerging female artists. CAN | How do you conceive of tattoo art as a visual art like all others? MA ─ One of the most special parts of tattooing is that the art can outlive the maker but very rarely is preserved beyond the life of the canvas. Which makes it basically impossible to reproduce, commodify, outsource, auction-off, or display in galleries. All of the commercialized aspects of the fine art industry aren’t applicable in this space. Art that lives on a body is subject to the same repressions that the body is subjected to. Tattooing is an ancient ritual practice of Black and Indigenous peoples from around the world. In a culture that values purity and whiteness so highly, classist and racist structures bar us from looking at tattooing as something dignified. Western cultures signify the body as a form of power, using ability, age, gender presentation, colour, and size as metrics of value. Marginalized and rebellious communities such as sailors and sex workers have used tattooing as an expression of both bodily acceptance and revolt. Madeline Audsley The body is a political site, which makes any form of art that embraces it, like tattooing or piercing, a highly contested and repressed form. The duality of the nature of tattooing as Black and Indigenous expression, and its inability to be commodified, makes it dangerous to a Western capitalist system that relies upon the commodification of nonwhite cultures and labour. CAN | What has been your experience of the negative stigma associated with tattoo art and how has this changed since you started as a tattoo artist? AA ─ I'm a 21-year-old self-taught tattoo artist who began roughly two years ago. I used to be a bit of a skeptic of the tattoo industry since all I saw was dark and grunge styles, which isn't my personal taste. I was also anxious about how the industry viewed female tattoo artists and how I would possibly be put under certain pressures. However, after I dived headfirst into this world, I quickly discovered a wide range of styles and people who genuinely cared about the art they created and the people they gave it to! Even though I still see this negative stigma—unfortunately, even in my own life—I believe the stigma linked with tattoo art has begun to relax in recent years. Tattooing is still sometimes considered as a “dark” and “evil” thing because it is a form of body alteration. I've lost friends and have had to deal with the fact that not everyone will agree with what I do. Audrey App Even though it's been a little less than two years, I've watched tattooing evolve in a beautiful way. As I create what I love, I’m finding a breathable freedom that allows me to really connect with my clients and myself. I truly believe us humans are pieces of art, and because of that, we create beautiful art. CAN | How do you conceive of the current state of tattoo art as a visual art? EA ─ I think tattooing is in the late phases of a rebirth, which started with the democratization of education via social media. Although the future of tattooing is uncertain, I see it blossoming into something it never was. We’re in a golden era of tattooing where tropes and traditions are bent and sometimes broken. I’m inspired by the tattooists that push the boundaries of what tattooing can be while still making tattoos that last for the life of the wearer. Emma Anderson CAN | What has been your experience of the negative stigma associated with tattoo art and how has this changed since you started as a tattoo artist? HA ─ I’ve been tattooing all over the United States for 16 years, and I think that tattoo stigmas have settled down since tattoo shows became popular, which was a good thing for some, and bad for others. I find it amusing to let others think I’m a ''bad boy” just because I have some scribbles on my body. On the other side of that, it can easily affect people's perception of you in relation to substance abuse. When I was 19 years old, I broke my spine. I was lying in the hospital in immense pain, and the medical professionals said to me, “I think we are going to only give you small amounts of painkillers because you look like a drug addict, you know, because you have a lot of tattoos.” Things are different everywhere, but I think it’s narrow-minded to complain about the “discrimination” you get from having tattoos because we knew the deal when we got them. Haley Adams CAN | How do you conceive of tattoo art as a visual art like all others? HA ─ Tattooing is different from a lot of visual art since it’s on a living, breathing body that has the freewill to go where it pleases. We have to make sure our art looks good on all these weird 3D shapes. Is tattooing struggling to be appreciated? I think tattooers and serious collectors live in a counter-culture where we absolutely appreciate art and will fly all over to collect pieces. It doesn’t have to be mainstream to feel appreciated. I feel appreciated; I feel like my work is appreciated. Certain people definitely do fine art on the skin; there’s all kinds of styles and all kinds of appreciation. Art doesn’t have to be in a gallery to be loved and respected.” CAN | How do you conceive of tattoo art as a visual art like all others? RU ─ I have already started to see the shift in the medium of tattooing and the industry moving towards having a whole new sub-category of fine art and being recognized as that. Just like the Sailor Jerry tattoo collectors in the world exist, so do the clients that desire to wear a painting style for their statement piece, and the more artists that enter the industry of tattooing, the less “tattooers” that replicate existing art will remain, and more originality and creativity will elevate the entire community as a whole. This has already given the industry a more reputable track record, and it’s seen almost as a high fashion to wear collections by such and such artists. That can be positive while also toeing the line of creating for everyone and that everyone deserves a chance to have their story worn. Artwork by Ryane Urie

CLOISTRAL: Marija Tiurina Marija Tiurina's Studio Illustrating the fascinating tension between the familiar and the fantastic Words By Rebecca Davison-Mora ISSUE 12 | HAARLEM | STUDIO SESSIONS Marija Tiurina knows better than most what it means to exist in the in-between. Born in Lithuania as the USSR was disintegrating, an innate understanding of liminality permeates her expansive watercolours. Illustrating worlds that straddle both the familiar and the fantastic, her work offers gentle contradictions wherein isolation and togetherness perpetually converge. In her watercolour print Working Remotely , a forest acts as a cabin. Full of mythical creatures, sprouting vegetables, druids, and frogs, a computer plug connects to a tree, and multiple scenes of domesticity present themselves in varying degrees of the fantastical. There is a hum to the work as various creatures go about their day, echoing the neighbours of an apartment complex. A computer screen aptly reads “AWAY” as its protagonist enters this world that is ‘outside’ though radiating interiority. It’s a reminder of how the hum of urban life has us plugged in and yet slightly apart from the happenings right beside us. In other works, like Mind the Gap , the influence of video game design is present in the contrasting scenes of parallel worlds. Underworlds mesh with those above, loosely held together by disembodied hands and naked tree trunks. Commuters hold onto a centipede-like creature, while paper boats delicately float down a canal. The 73 bus to Stoke Newington looks like it may fall down below, and one can feel the force of a city full of interior lives ─ and the loneliness that can ensue. For Tiurina, this exemplifies her desire to explore the ways we co-exist within both natural and urban settings. In her own studio, she requires natural light and collects natural ephemera to bring the outside in. Surrounded by things that do not belong, her own built environment merges the mystical with the mundane. Spurred by the pandemic, she observes how we are not always in the spaces we wish to be in, and describes the longing that comes with wanting to be everywhere all at once. Her fascination with this tension speaks to our desire for multiple realities and the complexities of life, inviting us to reflect on the connections and disconnections that make up the hours in a day. A welcome mediation in an anxious world, Tiurina’s work manages to balance a tightrope of clarity and confusion. CANNOPY x Marija Tiurina Games Logic sM | How has your background in video game design influenced your creative process as a painter? MT ── Working in video games has really opened my mind towards the possibilities of combining still artworks — in traditional or digital media — with interactive and technical products. The ways of fitting illustrations to work with programming code were technically limiting, but it also opened up a world of possibilities as the code helped the artwork come to life, move around, and respond to human actions. Entropic Urbanity sM | Your style can be characterised as a fantastical, entropic urbanity that communicates both isolation and togetherness. What do you find most interesting about this hyper-cloistered composition in your art? MT ─ I’ve always been curious about the ways we co-exist within both natural and urban settings, and the pandemic especially made me think a lot about which environments we choose, and which ones choose us. People realised they were not where they wanted to be. So my artworks often explore spaces and the comfort they offer, whether it’s a common realistic setting or a surreal and whimsical place. Toil & Clutter sM | One of your watercolour prints, Working Remotely , depicts someone toiling in a lush, cluttered cabin. How does your studio space draw inspiration from the busy settings of your paintings? MT ─ I often fill my studio with objects and items that otherwise wouldn’t be there: wood sticks, shells, pine cones, vintage botanical prints, and surreal illustrations. That longing for nature in an urban setting is often depicted in my artwork too and, vice versa, my paintings often get inspired by the places I happen to be in, like a forest cottage or the busy streets of a megapolis. Studio Space sM | What’s an essential item to your studio space? MT ─ Having natural light in my studio is what matters to me most. I believe that no artificial light can accurately reflect the colours created when applying paint to paper; only the daylight can help us see the real deal. Other important things would be space, and nods to nature, whether that’s a set of vintage botanical prints or a plant pot desperately trying to remind me to water it more often!

BUMP Festival 2022 Mural by Wenting Li - Photo by Asim Overstands How a Mural Festival is Transforming Calgary's Concrete Jungle WORDS BY AUGUSTA MONET | NEW YORK CITY | VISUAL ARTS APR 10, 2023 | ISSUE 5 The Beltline Urban Murals Project – better known as the BUMP Festival – is steadily rising as one of Calgary’s premier street art festivals. The month-long festival of urban art murals started in 2017 as a way to show that public artworks “enrich communities, create beautiful and captivating places, challenge our ideas, provoke discussion and add beauty to the everyday.” The festival is funded by heavy hitters such as TD Canada, the City of Calgary, Parks Canada, and more, and is set in the Beltline area of Treaty 7 territory in Moh’kins’tsis, the indigenous name for Calgary.

by Madeleine Kane Artists in Residence: Cindy Shih & Tsungwei Moo on IVG SAN FRANCISCO 6.11 SAN FRANCISCO Cindy Shih by Jeremy Lewis “Working in-studio and doing live art in front of an audience is like having an art opening reception every thirty-five mins, eight hours a day, and five days a week.” -Tsungwei Moo “Artists can make art anywhere, but having a dynamic, diverse community of artists that is constantly learning, challenging the status quo, and trying new things always inspires me to push forward, improve, and take risks in my own art practice.” Tsungwei Moo by Jeremy Lewis Amidst the summer heat of San Francisco, we encounter an artistic oasis in the canvases of two artists who took up residency at Immersive Van Gogh. For the month of June, Cindy Shih and Tsungwei Moo shared their unique collections and performed live painting sessions for visitors to the Bay Area exhibit. Shih, using a delicate hand, embraces monochrome on white canvas to illustrate plant life. Her intricate gallery possesses the symbiotic calm and chaos of nature. Moo’s brushstrokes and use of colour range from delicate, sweeping details, to heavy palette knife acrylic petals. Moo’s still lifes of natural and structural scenes vividly parallel Van Gogh’s style. We sat down with Shih and Moo as they wrapped up their tenure at the exhibit to reflect on their residency and what lies on the horizon for these captivating artists. Five Questions with Cindy Shih & Tsungwei Moo 1 C.S. I’m expecting my first child in September 2021, so I guess I’d like to try being a Mom, because that’s something I haven’t tried yet! T.M. Paint a mural and make a mosaic mural. Something new you want to try in what’s left of 2021? 2 C.S. “Flight,” by Sandra Yagi, which features a flying skeleton with rainbow butterfly wings. It will be the first piece in the baby’s collection. T.M. “Moments and Decisions,” I exhibited this piece at the de Young Museum in 2020. It's a portrait of my ex-boyfriend who was a victim of gun violence and lost his life. Favourite piece of art that you’ve acquired? 3 C.S. You are an artist, no matter what you choose to do for a living. Just keep doing art. T.M. I am so proud of you and I love you. Keep doing art. If you could say one thing to your childhood self, what would you say? 4 C.S. This isn’t a fair question, since there are so many I admire. I appreciate artists who don’t compromise their values. T.M. Ben James, an African American printmaker and a ceramic artist based in San Francisco. A contemporary San Fran artist that inspires you? 5 C.S. a Mano in Hayes Valley, a no-fuss neighbourhood spot with homemade pasta and Italian wine. T.M. Villa San Francisco. I enjoyed cooking, eating, and watching the sunset during my residency at the Villa San Francisco. Your favourite dining spot in the city? What is your takeaway from the experience of working in-studio at IVG San Francisco? C.S. People crave a good experience. There is still a strong desire to engage with art, as evidenced by the hundreds of people who came through the exhibit everyday. IVG did a fantastic job ensuring everyone had a safe, approachable, and memorable experience. As an artist working on-site, I had the unique opportunity to engage with a broad cross-section of art appreciators, and was able to speak with people from various walks of life who may otherwise not have visited a more typical art establishment. I also enjoyed creating artwork live, talking to folks about the show, explaining why I use the materials I use, and generally discussing my Art with people who were interested. I also loved being able to give away some of my art materials to young artists who were inspired by my work, and even taught a little girl how to use a sumi brush. It was great to have a direct interaction with people who obviously cared about art. I have live-painted at various types of events, and IVG really provided a great experience around the art and for the artists. T.M. Life is art. Being an artist is who I am and it makes my life meaningful. I’ve always believed in myself; fifteen years ago, I quit my Art Director job at an advertising agency in Taiwan and came to San Francisco to pursue my art career. Because I know that if I never followed my dream, it would be the biggest regret in my life. Participating in the Artist-in-Residence program, co-created by Villa San Francisco and Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit, is proof to me that I made the right decision. Working in-studio and doing live art in front of an audience is like having an art opening reception every thirty-five mins, eight hours a day, and five days a week. As an art instructor who taught Plein air pastel drawing at the Yosemite National Park for nine years, I was confident and excited to create live art in front of visitors. In my real life, I can’t afford to have a studio in San Francisco. This opportunity gave me the space to create bigger artworks and exhibit them immediately. I got a chance to show the public how I developed the images and my creation process, and completed seven pieces during my residency. I got so much positive feedback from the visitors and I saw an increase in followers on my social media. People want to learn how to paint from me and want to join my future artwork shop at the Golden Gate Park. Young artists asked me art career developing questions, and parents told me they want their children to be like me one day. I feel honored and grateful that I have been given this opportunity to meet so many people and show them my passion and my creations. What inspiration do you get from artists around you? What advice would you give to future artists in residence? C.S. I get so much inspiration from my community of artists here in San Francisco. In short, they are the reason I still live here. Artists can make art anywhere, but having a dynamic, diverse community of artists that is constantly learning, challenging the status quo, and trying new things always inspires me to push forward, improve, and take risks in my own art practice. My advice to future artists-in-residence is to maintain an open mind. The post-pandemic world is rapidly changing, and the art world is no exception. As artists, we can stay true to our practice while adapting to changes in the way art is consumed or experienced. There is no one way to be an artist, and not just one way to experience art. Giving people a good, lasting impression of you and your practice is just as important as maintaining the quality of your work. T.M. Art is how I connect with the world. Life itself is my biggest inspiration.My favorite subjects are someone or something that I love and care about the most. Usually, my human boyfriend, cat boyfriend and mother nature are my most important inspirations. I also care about social issues such as anti-gun violence, human rights toward marginalized communities, and animal rescues. Sometimes I get inspiration from other artists around me or visiting museums and galleries. I always open my heart to learn new techniques and the stories behind the artwork. My advice to future artists in residence is: don’t put any unboxed food on the site overnight. Some creatures might come to steal your food. Enjoy your residency. next

MIKHAIL LAXTON ON MIKHAIL LAXTON Mikhail Laxton The singer-songwriter returns to his roots after finding a new home in Canadian music smART MAGAZINE | OTTAWA | HOMEGROWN JUN 27, 2023 | ISSUE 12 REINVENTION sM | How do the songs on your self-titled album reflect the influences of your sound? ML ─ The album is very influenced by country music, but it's equally soul, with a bit of R & B and blues in there. I'm a country boy through and through, from the bush in far north Queensland in Australia. As a bit of background, my grandfather is a German man that came to Australia back in the early fifties and learned how to farm from reading books, and he raised his kids and his grandkids that way. I was fortunate that I got to grow up on the farm and learn all about it. He married an Indigenous woman, so I'm an Indigenous Australian as well. I remember somebody once asked me why someone like me was doing country music, I looked at him and said: I'm probably the most country person you’ll ever meet. I grew up with mud, trucks, hunting and fishing. So yeah this album is about me getting back to my roots.

by Natasha Abramova On Portrayal “He unknowingly exposes himself as a liar. It was equally awkward and uncomfortable for me as an investigative journalist having to take this approach knowing it was ironically necessary in order to ultimately tell the real truth.” 5.11 Billie Mintz Photo courtesy of CAA Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, conference and market, is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing and celebrating the art of documentary and to creating production opportunities for documentary filmmakers. Hot Docs presented a virtual version of its 28th annual festival from April 29-May 9, 2021, during which a full roster of industry conference sessions, market programs and networking events were held for Canadian and international delegates. This included the renowned Hot Docs Forum, Hot Docs Deal Maker, Distribution Rendezvous and The Doc Shop. This year’s festival consisted of 219 long, mid-length, and short films from 66 countries across 12 programs. It was available, for the first time, to audiences across Canada. One picture from the Artscapes program, Portrayal , caught my attention. This is a docudrama about an artist and an artisan, who they were and what they thought they were. Three brave men – a producer, a filmmaker and the film’s protagonist – fearlessly dive into a real-life plot on fraud and hundreds of paintings in the possession of the story’s ‘bad guy’. As a part of the Immersive Van Gogh project, and as a person who connects emotionally with the story of neglected artists, I was compelled to talk to the Director of “Portrayal” – Billie Mintz. A few years of work, across three continents still Billie still can’t stop thinking about what has happened to him and to his crew. This is what he had to say on the matter: Portrayal investigates claims against internationally recognized Israeli painter Oz Almog (“Oz”), who allegedly created a false narrative surrounding his career by claiming authorship of paintings that were not his own. Oz built his reputation on this body of work and has to date evaded any inquiry regarding its authenticity except for one unsuspected intervening event: this documentary. What was initially positioned as a straightforward biography documenting Oz’s success has inevitably turned into an exposé of the deception he committed in the process of “creating” this biography. Leading the charge to uncover the truth is Roman Lapshin, the grandson of Vladimir Dvorkin, whom Roman has learned is the real painter of Oz’s works. Roman is spearheading his own investigation with the full hope and intention of confronting and exposing Oz. At the same time, he is hiding the full truth about these plans from his own family in order to secure their cooperation, leading them to believe that he is only participating in this film for the more altruistic goal of exhibiting his grandfather’s work to the world. Roman initially approached me with the story of his late grandfather, Vladimir Dvorkin, a prolific painter who emigrated from Russia to Israel to escape anti-Semitism and start a new life with more opportunity for his family. Broken and penniless, he had to start his life all over again after serving five years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He went to the streets of Israel to sell portraits, which was very humbling for a painter of such experience living in a country where no one knew his name or of his decorated past. Roman then told me about a man named Oz Almog who discovered Vladimir on the street and hired him to be his "assistant", beginning a relationship that enabled Vladimir to earn a living to support his family but ultimately took advantage of the immigrant painter, leaving him in the shadows while Oz gained fame claiming the paintings to be from his own hand. It was a wild tale that sounded a little unbelievable and worthy of investigation. Roman, now an adult and believing he has to fulfill his dead grandfather’s wishes to tell the world the truth and exhibit his body of work in his own name, is preparing to confront Oz and take possession of the body of work rumoured to be in the thousands. In order to get the full story, I had to approach Oz and find a way for him to participate in the film, which required me to engage in some creative manipulation of the truth myself since Oz would not cooperate if he knew what motivated my investigation. I could not reveal my knowledge of Roman and Dvorkin and their relationship to him. I could only reveal the portion of the truth which Oz wanted to hear – that the purpose of my documentary was to explore his background and what it was that enabled him to become such a prolific and successful artist and also to explore generally what it takes and what it means to have success as an artist, as well as the costs of achieving that success. All of which was still an accurate representation of what we were doing. Although reluctant, Oz agreed to participate and maintained the story that he was the real painter throughout our initial interviews in the development stage of the film. Oz is a fascinating antagonist for this documentary. He starts as the protagonist but once the audience realizes that he is living a lie and that Roman is determined to expose it, they too get immersed in the web of lies through dramatic irony. While the audience becomes fully cognizant of the deception that took place, Oz continues to perform a lie for me and the crew. Contributing to what he believes is solely a film on his extensive catalogue and creative process, he unknowingly exposes himself as a liar. It was equally awkward and uncomfortable for me as an investigative journalist having to take this approach knowing it was ironically necessary in order to ultimately tell the real truth. I had to be extremely diligent and careful in gathering the facts given the sensitivity of the information I was collecting, which could ultimately offend or humiliate the artist. Oz is open and because he is unaware of my knowledge of his past, he is constantly giving me information that would normally be protected. After some coaxing, he hesitantly agreed to meet me at a café before deciding to be a part of the film. I flew to Vienna and staked out the meeting place the day before and found a vantage point for the camera so we could film the initial meeting, while Roman sat upstairs watching the whole thing unfold. From this vantage point, Roman had his very first glimpse of the mysterious man of his family’s fairy tales. Because I also had a camera on Roman, I caught something that I did not foresee: Roman realizing that he might not be entirely right about Oz’s character. I soon realized that although the events of history in Roman’s story are true and need further investigation, the immorality may not be so black and white. What I thought was a story about Oz became a journey of Roman coming to terms with the reality of a world where Oz exists and is needed. There became a new facet of this complicated story: the realization that Oz isn’t as bad as we thought he was. Even though Roman ends up confirming that his allegations about Oz are in fact true, he also comes to understand more about the decisions his grandfather needed to make as an immigrant needing to provide for his family and their future – the future that Roman inhabits. Roman is a young man caught in the story that his very identity had been shaped around, unable to face the truth that everyone around him is trying to get him to accept. Portrayal is a quixotic tale of a sheltered young man who confronts his family’s controversial mythology and ends up learning about himself. This is an outrageous tale of a young boy who was so affected by his grandfather’s mythology that he carried another man’s burden with him until he himself was consumed by it. Now, in his mid twenties, he finally decides to track the man down and confront him while demanding justice for his late grandfather through the restoration of his paintings to their rightful owners – his family. What we have is a self-reflective film that explores truth and exploitation. Oz is withholding the full truth from the people; I am withholding the full truth from Oz; and Roman is withholding the full truth from his family about what he is doing. As the story develops, similarities between the men emerge. Both are so committed to a narrative so personal to them that they refuse to see the facts. Through the intimate documentation of exploitation, the film suggests that history is not always truthful or factual and that relationships made in the name of art are always expendable. Every story that involves history has different versions depending on who is telling it. My interest in filming this documentary was to follow the journey of a young man who came of age while trying to find the truth to the story that was told to him in his childhood by his grandfather. This is a story about family, immigration, art, and exploitation. The film itself wrestles with an unreliable narrator and takes the audience on a wild ride through several countries as we confront the ghosts of the past. Portrayal will be available soon in Canada on the CBC Documentary Channel and CBC Gem. Release date TBC. This article is sponsored by Palette Art Supplies ~ Available for curbside pick-up in Vaughan, Ontario

Dark Music Days Music Festival Opportunities for Embodied, Cross-Disciplinary Performance WORDS BY JEANETTE JOY HARRIS | HARPA, Reykjavík, Iceland JAN 24-29, 2023 | COMMUNITY Dark Days Music Festival (DDMF) is an annual Reykjavik event that shines a light on innovative and progressive music. With an over 40-year history, DDMF transforms the unrelenting January weather - where gray skies, sleet, and snow meets a 6 hour window of sunlight - into a diverse musical respite that both pleases and challenges audiences. Curating a music festival, or any festival that highlights “new” performance is tricky, but DDMF’s program included a diverse set of established, large musical groups like Iceland Symphony Orchestra and lesser known solo performers like Rosie Middleton. In doing so, the festival is not only supporting existing musical ensembles but educating and cultivating audiences by nurturing new talent.