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Congratulations on the recently announced recipients of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Awards! Calgary artists are Robin Arseneault (installation artist), Christine Cheung (painter), Anne Koizumi (film director and animator), Simon Mallett (theatre director) and Chad Van Gaalen (musician and multi-media artist). The Lieutnenant Governor and all Albertans should be thrilled with this investment.  

After hopping art galleries for Art Walk and the East Side Studio Crawl (an extension of Art Walk in Inglewood/Ramsay) on Saturday, I was back at the Calgary International Film Festival on Sunday. The Joe Media / NFB Best of Alberta Shorts Awards package screened at the Uptown Stage and Screen at 6:30pm. I got the very last ticket to the sold out show. (Don't tell the guy who was behind me.) Ten short films from across Alberta were screened (...ahem, mostly Calgary). The quality of the work over all was very strong and only the tip of the iceberg in the independant film scene in Alberta.The atmosphere in the theatre was of a congenial nature both on and off the screen. On screen, were numerous actors I have seen in the last year in both the community and professional theatre world of Calgary, such as personal favourite, Grant Reddick, in the film, Promise (2008), by David and Kirsten Bolton.   read more »

We had the privilege of spending time with Shelton Stanfill this morning discussing cultural tourism, thanks to the EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts. Shelton, a well-known arts leader from the U.S., had some great insights on how Calgary can start moving forward in this area based on his experiences building and shaping Atlanta's cultural tourism strategy. We were joined by Johann Zeitsmann who currently runs the Mesa Arts Center in Arizona and was able to offer some very interesting perspective based on his current work as well as his past experience developing the arts in South Africa.  read more »

I don't think I'd be alone in saying that one of the biggest irritants in the lives of Calgary artists and cultural workers is the persistence of false and damaging stereotypes that liken our city to a cultural backwater.  read more »

Somehow the first month of my work term with Calgary Arts Development has flown by without a blog post. Not a single one. As a public relations student at Mount Royal College, I understand the importance of communicating with the public, so I figured it was time for me to jump on the blog train with reckless abandon. And there's no better time to start than now.

The other evening I had the good fortune of attending the dress rehearsal of Alberta Ballet's Dangerous Liaisons. I was pleasantly surprised. Take everything you thought you knew about the ballet and throw it out the window. Dangerous Liaisons pushes the boundaries by having a play and a ballet going on simultaneously. The choreography was visually stunning as dancers held poses that at times were painfully beautiful to watch. This truly is a must see, even if you don't think you like the ballet. Go. I promise you won't be disappointed.  read more »

Memories are powerful. If you look at some current pop cultures trends it's easy to find evidence of the power of nostalgia. The fact that we have an orange Care Bear in the office is a good indicator. 80's revival has been in full swing for some time now and I've got my plaid shirts and doc martins on deck for a 90's grunge revisit. For many of us around the triple decade mark conversations often turn to the music, movies, and television we experienced when we were younger. Those of us who grew up in the 80's were really the first generation to grow up in such a media saturated environment and we can easily relate our media experience with just about anybody the same age in North America.  read more »

I have been thinking a lot lately about the how the concepts of creativity, risk, and success are interrelated. Does a person or an organization have to be a risk-taker in order to be creative and thus successful? Does being risk-adverse result in creative stagnation and mediocrity at best or blatant failure at worst?

I was reminded the other day about a speech given by Sir Ken Robinson at the 2006 TED Conference, where he said, “if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything creative”. He goes on to say that “we have become frightened of being wrong and stigmatize mistakes.” So Sir Robinson might argue that taking risks and not letting fear get in the way of bold action will result in higher levels of creativity and an increased probability of success.  read more »

Earlier this summer, Fast Company Magazine published a list of cities they deemed to be “Fast”.

What makes a city fast? In their words,

“It starts with opportunity -- a culture that nurtures creative action and game-changing enterprise. It's where the number of patents filed is high, or where the high-tech sector is expanding. These cities invest in physical, cultural, and intellectual infrastructure that will sustain growth. Finally, fast cities are full of highly creative people.”  read more »

So what fast and fabulous places around the world made the Fast Company list?

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Calgary saw its first skiff of snow last week and it's here again today. I noticed one group of "people" looking especially cold this morning. Earlier this year artist Suzen Green dressed several pieces from the City of Calgary's Public Art collection in bright, colourful knits as part of the ArtCity festival. The long legs of Mario Armengol’s Family of Man sculptures – located on Macleod Trail and 5th Street SE outside of the Calgary Board of Education - were fitted with beautiful, extremely colourful knee-high knitted socks. The project was originally conceived as "guerilla-style graffiti using knitting," but instead Green was able to make a connection with civic officials to get the go-ahead to alter several public sculptures for 10 days during the festival. The "appropriated with permission” aspect of Green's work continues to be one of the things I appreciate most.Green's work has forever altered my view of that space in our city and really awakened a desire for more playfulness in our urban landscape. And now that it's getting cold, it really makes me feel sorry for those poor chilly sculptures!

Having only been in Calgary for eight and a half months and working at Calgary Arts Development for 2 of those months, I'm still on a steep learning curve about what the city has to offer in the way of arts. This learning curve doesn't only involve discovering the vast amount of performances and events, but also how the arts community in Calgary has developed and is developing. It is in exploring this that I realise just how different my own background and experiences are. Not only do I not come from Calgary originally, I am not even Canadian, hailing as I do, from the UK. Moving away from my familiar cultural references has been more of a shock than I had anticipated and certainly more of a challenge. Suddenly, I can't reference contemporary or historical authors, artists, musicians and organisations. My cultural landscape has disappeared and I'm moving through new and alien territory.  read more »