Awkward Stage

New skirt!

Buttons and pleats and it’s just below the knee. It has been super cute on everyone who has put it on so far and I’ve already sold two!

Lady Luck Skirt, vintage bed linen: $64

On Saturday, September 29th, 2012, 2:00 pm - 2:00 am come celebrate Culture Days with Lakeshore Mews, Barrie, Ontario!

In 2011, Lakeshore Mews hosted Barrie’s first Nuit Blanche inspired event to a receptive audience. It’s happening again! This year we are making some changes, the event will take place between 2pm and 2am on Saturday September 29, 2012 and we are adding an art vendor marketplace to the mix.

Lakeshore Mews is currently looking for artists, performers, site specific installations, community based art project, musicians, writers, dancers, art vendors, anyone and everyone to make Art ce Soir 2 bigger and better than ever!

All the stuff you’d ever need to read is available at www.lakeshoremews.com, the application for artists can be downloaded here and the application for art vendors can be downloaded here.


Deadline for artist projects, performances and installs is Saturday June 16, 5pm.
Deadline for art vendors is Saturday June 23, 5pm.

Applications can be dropped off at Awkward Stage, Lakeshore Mews, Barrie, Ontario: Wednesday through Saturday 10am to 5pm
or mailed to Awkward Stage: 11 Doran Road, Midhurst Ontario, L0L 1X0
or emailed to lakeshoremews(at)live(dot)ca

There is an application processing fee of $25 per project, all participating artists will be paid an honorarium of $100.
Art vendors will pay a fee of $50 for their booth upon acceptance to the marketplace.

Opening at Awkward Stage:

Cursive Notion
A collection by Veronica Black

Opening reception: Saturday May 26, 7-9pm

On display May 23 to June 16, 2012
at Awkward Stage, Lakeshore Mews

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About the artist:

Veronica Black’s work is a direct representation of her life’s cycle and existence; a refuge for thoughts, an experience to engulf the senses. It is reminiscent of unconscious thought, translating itself sporadically, yet also, methodically.
Cursive Notion is an adventure that is mapped with the expressiveness of the mark and material. Marks are a tactile narrative…. to see the remnants of a moment… to see records of a specific place and space and time… to create a language that is true to and reflective of through mark making.
Veronica strives to uncover the ephemeral and unknown that is waiting to be realized and tangible.
Read into the marks of her intuitive expressiveness as if they are written; let your senses be engulfed and allow yourself to create narratives and meanings that are your own.

Veronica Black lives and works in Barrie.

Opening at Bohemia:

False Empires
New work by Matthew Haskill

Opening reception: Saturday May 26, 5-7pm

On display May 21 to June 17, 2012
at Bohemia, 125 Dunlop Street East

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About the artist:

False Empires progresses into the Peter Pan complex of growing up in a nuclear society seemingly void of maintaining tradition.
These pieces represent the imagination and wonders that were once deemed as crowning achievements but now seem like they never happened. From the Pony Express, to aging Landmarks and the Moon Landing, this collection looks at how we traded in adversity for convenience.
Matthew Haskill is a Midland raised musician turned artist who moved to Toronto to chase the Canadian dream. His computer based art has developed a cult following after a sold out show at Awkward Stage in spring 2011.

Matthew Haskill lives and works in Toronto.

Scratch + win at Awkward Stage this week!

10%, 25% or 40% off your entire purchase of locally made good stuff in celebration of my 4th birthday on Lakeshore Mews!

Come celebrate my 4th birthday on Lakeshore Mews!

Saturday May 19, 10am to 7pm (that’s right… open late!) stop by Awkward Stage for cupcakes and punch and celebration!

Scratch + win 10%, 25% or 40% off your purchase at Awkward Stage from May 16th to 19th! Yay scratch cards!

Spend $50 or more on May 19th and get a free gift!

Maybe there will be some form of entertainment as well. Anything could happen!

Happy birthday Awkward Stage! Four epic years of locally made good stuff!

R.S.V.P on facebook!

BETWIXT
paintings by Amanda Craig

Saturday April 28: 7-9pm

On display April 25 to May 19
at Awkward Stage, Lakeshore Mews

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About the artist:

Amanda Craig’s work creates a relationship between intimacy and anonymity. Using found images she is investigating the themes of memory, history, adolescence, death, and deterioration. For Amanda, the unknown or mysterious quality of the found photograph’s history is thought provoking. This sense of the unknown is exaggerated in her paintings, often giving the images a darker or more foreboding quality. Your focus is directed towards the materiality of of the paint rather than the context of the source imagery. These figures and bodily elements become floating symbols, distorted and rich in colour and oil they are recognizable but not realistic. They appear vibrant and beautiful, yet there is something unsettling about them. A strange yet familiar visual narrative begins to develop between the figures and objects presented.

Amanda Craig lives and works in Montreal. She is currently completing her BFA at Concordia University.

www.art-anc.blogspot.com

R.S.V.P on Facebook!

The Doll Dance
An installation by Jenn Guerin

Saturday April 28: 5-7pm

On display April 23 to May 20, 2012
at Bohemia, 125 Dunlop Street East

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About the artist:

“lets not do this the way you want….. i want nonsense and sense…. i want to tare you apart to see what you are made of…. i want to see your history… your innards…. your accumulation of fear, doubt, nonsense, to make you opaque and visceral…. im going to define you then redefine you…. stitch you up and mock you…. now i can see you in the round…. you are my memory, my history, my humour, my cynical self, my art………”

Jenn Guerin investigates and tears apart what she has been told. When creating art, her four year old little bitch with a sour face comes out, stomping her feet. She is thumbing her nose at the construct of patriarchy, seriousness, religion, impulse control, proper roles, and maturity. The normal aspects of people become not too normal or real; smiles that are forced and are therefore a farce.
Jenn’s work is filtered through this child, becoming the catalyst for her adult self to reconstruct what she has been told and how she has been defined. Through photography, multiples or image fragments and printmaking Jenn questions how we have been made into the social creatures we have become.

Jenn Guerin lives and works in Barrie.

R.S.V.P on Facebook!

*Please note: the opening is Friday night rather than Saturday.*

In Our Nature by Heather Long + Mary Doust
Opening reception Friday March 30, 7-9pm
On display March 28 to April 21, 2012

About the artists:

Mary Doust is a recent graduate of the University of Guelph with a major in studio arts and minor in psychology. These two areas of study have fluenced her recent works, she has been keenly interested in art as a tool to map out, explore, explain, and understand, not only her own behaviour but also that of other’s around her, and especially in combination.

Using a variety of drawing and printing techniques, Mary draws from the nature of social interactions and our basic emotional instincts. There is also an exploration of want within social relationships; the logical competing with what is in our nature.

Heather Long is a recentgraduate with a BFA Honours in Visual Arts from York University. She is influenced by aspects of nature, observing her surroundings as well as found images to capture these visions and the emotions attached to them.

Through experimentation with various media and use of bold colour, Heather explores both the human relationship with nature/ landscape. The fascinating, irregular and curious aspects of nature intrigue her: mold, fungus, and rock formations in caves. Heather finds interest in nature’s ability to work its way around man-made structure such as frost on glass, trees growing through wire fences, and bodies of water indulging objects.

R.S.V.P on Facebook!

New (but not new at all) sheets drying on the line. I found some beauties today, soon to be repurposed into dresses and skirts.

Happy first day of spring!