The weather was perfect for this year’s Eastside Culture Crawl, with no rain or snow. Alan and I chose to drive in to Vancouver on Friday evening to begin crawling. The annual Visual Arts, Design and Crafts Festival is now enormous so we made a list of studios to visit on our first planned crawl for this year. I had hoped to post my blog before the event finished but failed. Perhaps my photos can encourage you to plan on joining the enthusiastic arts supporters who tour Vancouver’s East Side studios, next year.
Predictably, for anyone who knows me, we opted to start by visiting studios in the Mergatroid Building where many of my clay artist friends work. Why have I never popped in to Georgina Lohan’s studio before? She has a fine space right next to the Potters Guild of BC gas kiln, where I’ve joined other potters for cone 10R firings a couple of times. I was happy to see Georgina’s colourful porcelain functional ware and most impressed by her tall multi-part sculptures. For this weekend she was sharing the gallery area with her husband Rob Middleton-Hope. She tells me that he has built her excellent display shelves.
On the second floor of the Mergatroid Building I enjoyed chatting with Diane Espiritu, Jackie Frioud and Emily Sheppard. I found myself unable to risist taking home a sweet porcelain ‘chip goblet’ made by Midori Mckenzie. She works in her studio next door.
Just nearby we found painter and potter Susan Marczak. She makes fine paintings of our beautiful province. Her pots are fired in the Shadbolt Centre’s TopHat kiln, as she is a member of Burnaby Potters Guild.
Russel, who spoke to NorthWest Ceramic Foundation earlier this year, can be found in his studio on the first floor. He has been working on these special vessels for a while. I think it’s worth including his description of ‘The Last Confirmed Sighting’ here:
TLCS was inspired by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature ‘Red List’. Also known as ‘The Barometer of Life’.
Established in 1964 the Red List of threatened species has evolved to become the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global extinction risk status of animal, fungus and plant species.
All the animals depicted are ‘endangered’ or ‘critically endangered’ according to the list.
The last comfirmed sighting of the Dodo bird was 1662.
Other potters who had their studios open for the Crawl on that floor were Heather Dahl and Cheryl Stapleton. Both were very busy.
https://mergatroid.ca/listing/cheryl-stapleton-clay-addiction-pottery
While I was spending far too much time chatting with potters and admiring glass-blowing Al headed over to the Parker street studios to find the food trucks. In the cool evening I joined him for yummy chicken korma at picnic tables along with many other crawlers.
Our next step was to walk down the ramp to the huge gallery and workshop of famed local sculptor David Robinson. His wonderful, sometimes anxiety-provoking pieces can be spotted around Vancouver and, clearly, around the world.
There are lots of woodworking studios on the first floor. I was pleased to find the MCM sculptures in wood made by unstoppable BC Pottery collector Tyler Fritz. Here are some of his pieces, and a photo of him with fellow collector and gallery owner John Lawrence, taken at the recent NorthWest Ceramics Foundation’s 30th birthday party and auction. It was held in the nearby Mayer studio. On this day we saw paintings by Carol Mayer and her studio mates. Somehow I missed finding Fredi Rahn’s studio.
We joined the Friday evening crowds of people who were exploring the next two floors of the rabbit warren of a building, saw paintings, prints, fabric creations and much more. Each studio was having a party! It really is an exciting weekend for all these artists. After a while it became clear that we’d run out of steam so we did not reach the top, fourth floor. So sorry Susie Birstein! But we still had a fair walk to our car, and the drive home.
Circumstances intervened and this turned out to be our only chance to enjoy the Culture Crawl. There are so many more areas of that part of Vancouver that we’d hoped to check out, so many interesting studios to see and artists to meet. Maybe next year…
Dear Gillian,
Thank you for sharing the Culture Crawl on your blog. An enjoyable and interesting tour!
Best wishes,
Deborrah Krutzmann (Eric’s sister)
Victoria
Thank you Deborrah.
Thank you, Gillian, for your wonderful snapshot into the invigorating world of the Eastside Crawl 2023. Much enthusiasm, planning and beautifully organized spaces graced the studios involved and what a gift that you managed to photograph portions of it. Much appreciated !
Susan (Art in the Country)
Aldergrove, BC