June 8, 2011
The green roof at the Blueberry Building, in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood. These plantings grew in one year, mostly self-planted by the wind. The group (Eclipse Awards) planted the sedum and a few other things, but the garden augmented itself naturally.
May 8, 2011
Folding bar by my friend (and well known Toronto designer) Barr Gilmore. Available from made design. Via moco loco.
The Colour Barr is made of stainless steel, polyurethane enamel, ziricote, glass decanters, tumblers, shot glasses, cocktail shakers and various bar equipment.
May 4, 2011
This is 24 Sussex Drive, the house occupied yet again by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The dark lord of minority Canadian conservatism has somehow won the national election again, and this time, to the dismay of 60% of Canadians, he has won a majority.
April 25, 2011
April 17, 2011
Above: db Bistro, now closed. Overrefined corporate decor, dreary and visually bleak. New York in the 80s?
“The murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums.” ~ Peter de Vries, 1977
Vancouver is overrun with restaurants blighted not just with notably bad art but also with a type of generic commercial decor that makes you want to throw cutlery.
April 6, 2011
This is a belated short note to say I am participating in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s current exhibition WE Vancouver—12 Manifestos for the City, running February 12–May 1, 2011.
March 29, 2011
“Application to the City of Vancouver to develop an abysmal chasm for purposes of facilitating public reverie, contemplation and longing.” Makes me laugh every time I look at it. By my friend & Vancouver artist Aaron Carpenter.
March 13, 2011
[UPDATE: I was just informed by the artist’s son Guy that this mural is now threatened, after gracing the lowest floor of City Hall for over 40 years! It’s odd that the City now says it will demolish or paint over the mural, having recently asked Guy and his sister for a bio of their father, suggesting that City Hall had intended to preserve his work.
February 20, 2011
Above is an artist’s rendering of the new mega-casino planned for Vancouver. Those three towers jammed up against the stadium in that awkward manner are the “entertainment complex” hotel towers, where presumably you can rent by the hour.
February 5, 2011
Storm sewer cover by Coast Salish (Musqueam) artist Susan Point and her daughter Kelly Cannell, depicting four small eggs in the centre, spinning out to tadpoles that become frogs radiating out to the edges. Point is a Vancouver-based Coast Salish artist and master carver whose work has been commissioned for the Vancouver International Airport, the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology and the Smithsonian in Washington.
