Transcendence

[BWKate]

eddym,

I have a friend who lives in Vancouver that owns a vintage photo of "Portrait of the Eternal" and it is indeed a beautiful and transcendent image. When my friend received it in the post (he bought it from a gallery in London that was selling Bravo's work) it had a small crease in it. So he washed it in his archival print washer to swell the emulsion and get the crease out. It worked except all the spotting had been washed out so my friend had to spot an original Bravo print! Luckily my friend is an amazing printer and spotter and he said it was an honour to spot that print.

Kate

[eddym]

eddym,

I have a friend who lives in Vancouver that owns a vintage photo of "Portrait of the Eternal" and it is indeed a beautiful and transcendent image.

Oh my god, I would love to have a print of that photo! But I could not display it; I would have to keep it in my dehumidified darkroom (along with all my own negatives and prints) to protect it from the high temperatures and humidity here in Puerto Rico. But of course, I would be happy to have it available for viewing at my leisure. I have never forgotten how that photo captivated me that day!

--Eddy

[MurrayMinchin]

When you first saw The Red Cedar, I assume you were at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Were you living near where you are now, before you came to Vancouver for school? Was it at least partially a reminder of home?

I've always wanted to visit your area - I know that you say that the town isn't much, but the surroundings must be wonderful. The closest I've been is Prince George to the East, and the north end of Vancouver Island to the South.

Hi Matt. Yes, I basically grew up in Kitimat and would play in the bush all the time. My parents started to let me hike overnight by myself (even in the winter) when I was about 11 years old...there's nothing like being by yourself in the bush or in the mountains for days to really actually start seeing your surroundings. The painting brought me back.

You should take a drive from Prince George to Prince Rupert, as the drive along the Skeena River is amazing. It's awfully big (mostly uninhabited and undeveloped where it's too tough to log) country though and I've only scratched the surface of it

Which art school did you go to?

The first one was Emilly Carr College of Art. The problem was, it was the year they started moving to the Granville Island campus and all the first year students were isolated in the second floor of an old Swift Premium meat processing building in Gastown. We had no contact with the other students at all. Walking to school in the morning you had to avoid the city workers hosing the puke and blood off the sidewalks before the tourists showed up.

The second school for fine arts was Langara...I was MUCH happier there.

Murray

[BWKate]

Hi Murray,

You went to the old campus. Okay it all makes sense now. I went to Emily Carr in the newer building on Granville Island and graduated in '91. The darkrooms were amazing when I went there. You could stay every night until 3 a.m. which of course I did. I had a bunch of coworkers from the Broadway Lens & Shutter who went to Langara and really liked it. Jeff Devine and Gord Mott to be exact.
Now Emily Carr College of Art is called Emily Carr Institute and they also have the building across the street from the main campus. It has grown alot since I went there. I saw the art in Florence during a continuing studies "Florence Program" they do every spring. I won a scholarship to attend the florence program in 1990 along with 4 other Emily Carr students. I had never been to Europe so I was quite taken with the culture when I got to experience it first hand.

Kate

[MurrayMinchin]

Hi Kate,

I agree, the Granville Island campus is a thing of beauty. When I visit Vancouver I always stop in there just to absorb the energy...there's no other place like a fine arts school is there?

I was totally unlucky in enrolling when I did. Things worked out in the end though

Murray

[BWKate]

Hi Murray,

I really loved my time there as far as being totally absorbed by whatever project you were working on. I had some great friends and we had tons of fun, staying up all night when I put my grad piece together as an installation. I didn't always agree with the current trends of "conceptual photography" and I did work that I liked and didn't care if I wasn't an art star. So many of my classmates were such tortured souls and I didn't have a big life issue that I could do work about. I figured that why couldn't work be deep and also beautiful. That was the only issue I had about art school. Despite that I did enjoy my time.

Kate

[MattKing]

I really loved my time ... I did enjoy my time.

Kate

Somehow, art school sounds like more fun then the Physics and Math Departments at UBC, and the Law Faculty at UVic

Matt

[MurrayMinchin]

Somehow, art school sounds like more fun then the Physics and Math Departments at UBC, and the Law Faculty at UVic

Hi Matt,

When I went to Langara for the first year fine arts program, we had classes in drawing, painting, ceramics, sculpture, design (composition), art history, and english literature, an academic requirement.

With the fine arts classes we had weekly projects, and if I remember correctly each of the classes had five major projects to be completed by semesters end. None of them were due until the last day of the semester.

Talk about pressure! Everybody found all kinds of excuses to avoid doing their projects, the most common being, "I just don't feel inspired right now". Well, at semesters end the tension was palpable!

The thing is, there was no way of going to the library and researching your ass out of the predicament you had placed yourself in. There was no easy solution. You can't fake inspiration, and artistic expression demands clarity of vision. There may be no worse feeling for an artist to be slapping down lines, clay, or pigment in an attempt to just finish it - original inspiration be damned!

There was an older fella there (LOL...he was about the age I am right now) who had been in the Navy, who said he had never felt that kind of pressure before. People ran away and left the program unannounced. It was carnage.

Oops...bit of a rant there...don't want folks thinking art school is just babbling and finger painting

Murray

P.S. Artists dislike lawyers...until we need one!

[Peter Schrager]

BWKATE-I have the same Bravo print hanging up on my wall in my bedroom. Only difference is that it was printed by his wife. She overprinted it just a tad but I'm still proud to own it!! One of the alltime great photographs!!
Best, Peter

[BWKate]

Peter,

That's great! Hope it didn't cost too much! Well, I guess that doesn't matter when you love an image and get to enjoy it.

Murray,

Your story about the carnage of art on demand so reminds me of school! It's hard to just churn out really inspired work on a deadline isn't it?