First Artist Interview Podcast now available on iTunes

Click here to download the first "Artist Interview" podcast with Tasha Aulls from the iTunes Music Store

Special thanks to Tasha Aulls for accepting my invitation to be the first artist featured for this podcast series. I would also like to thank Powell and Geoff at p|m Gallery for hosting this podcast from their gallery website. Tasha Aulls is an abstract painter and her work will be featured in p|m Gallery's February 2006 group exhibition titled "Potentially Mighty".

Check out www.pmgallery.ca for images of Tasha Aulls' work described in the podcast.

You can also view Tasha's paintings on her website at www.tashaaulls.com

This first podcast interview was recorded on Thursday January 19 2006 and edited on Sunday January 29, 2006.

John Mark Sherlock's Mercer Union performance of "salvage/wreckage" featuring the Orangette

For Mercer Union's Music in Alternative Spaces fifth performance, John Mark Sherlock's concert featured mesmerizing undulations from customized instruments including Fender Rhodes electric pianos, Clavinet, Hammond organ and an "organette". The orangette was described by John Mark as an "ecumenical" instrument since it was created by piecing together discarded organ parts from ecclesial sources of various denominations. The unique instrument, as even a sculptural work, was perfectly suited for the theme piece titled "salvage/wreckage" as Sherlock reeled in and rescued floating treasures from deep ambient waters of affecting sound.



I am currently completing an interview with John Mark Sherlock. Here is a short excerpt:

OC: The press release for the performance states, "these pieces will involve a mobile approach to form". Does this mean motion will be also be a choreographed element of the performance?

JMS: This mobile approach is a way of writing music I have adopted for some time now. More music is written for each performer than they can physically play. They can choose their own path through the work, often playing from the same part. In this way the overall piece is declaimed, or not - as though it mattered - in what amounts to incidental orchestration. In "salvage/wrecking" two pieces are played simultaneously. Conceptually, for me, this adds to the mobile form - and I'm thinking mobile as in Calder, right?

John Mark Sherlock's website

Josh Thorpe's "As a Wife Has a Cow: A Love Story"

On Saturday, March 18, 2006, I attended the Music In Alternative Spaces concerts at Mercer Union.



Josh Thorpe's solo piece involved the subtle humming sounds of hand-wound music boxes. Astoundingly, he amplified the sound of his own voice reading Gertrude Stein's text using one of the music boxes as an ad hoc harmonica. This process rendered the unintelligible words as oscillating rhythms to hypnotically pensive effects. Definitely not for the faint of hearing; conceptually sophisticated structure with a powerful and elucidating denouement. Thorpe's performance proved post-minimalist experiments are contemporary musical advancements.

Josh Thorpe's website

Adam Stennett, Mouse Swimming Overhead Remix, 2006

A remixed version of video work is currently featured online at TABLE BROS.

ADAM STENNETT MARCH 4 -MARCH 18 |

www.tablebrothers.com

In April 2005, I visited Adam Stennett's Brooklyn studio and he screened this video at the start of our interview. Our conversation about the work is still available online at

www.artpost.info

"I strive to create
a very calm [pause]
feeling in my paintings; yet, mixing that with...
almost... panic.
Very similar to the way
you feel underwater."

- Adam Stennet 2005

Kristan Horton wins 2005 Untitled Art Award

Congratulations Kristan.

On March 1, 2006, Kristan Horton walked away with the Emerging Artist Award from the Untitled Art Awards held at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto. We always knew of Kristan's significant acheivements and potential. My early interview with him is available on his website:

www.kristanhorton.com