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So here we are at the Hamilton Art Crawl. .
I brought my nephew Jay with me.
Hello.
Joe: Here is some art. Jay: I like that one.
Joe: It's like she's hiding behind the balloons. You do not even know who she is.
Joe: This person lying down you don't see all of them. They kind of fade into the earth.
Jay: I like this one.
Joe: The technique to make this entire picture.
Joe: Over here though there is some sun in just this little area.
Joe: Here I got my hand in front of this light. When you take it away (laughing) I thought it was painted in!!
Joe: Would that be art because this mechanic was part of it?? No!! (laughter)
Jay: This is $2800.
Joe: What do you think? Do you think someone would pay $2800 for that?
I would have to have some sort of memory of something that resembles this with a little bit of an island here.
Joe: If someone had a cottage in Muskoka and wanted it in their cottage?
Jay: Well then they could just look out the window.
Joe: (laughter) That is true! Good point!
Jay: See this is something I would buy.
Joe: You would pay $700 yeah? So, you would like to have that, eh?
This reminds me of Nine Inch Nails covers.
The "Fragile" double disk.
This is "Things Falling Apart".
This is "With Teeth".
This is the new album.
Different times of the day. That's exactly what this is.
This is water. This is sky.
So this is a cloudy day. This is sort of a hot summer day.
Joe: What do you think of this one?
To me this is saying something. This is not really speaking to me.
Jay: This looks like depression.
Yeah it is very dark. If this is what the artist intended.
I thought I'm underneath something like the earth.
And that usually symbolizes, from analyzing dreams,
that means you are deep in your subconscious mind.
It means it is so overcoming your attention
because you are bothered. You are deeply in your unconscious mind and it is dark!
That is why the word dark is used because that is just a symbol.
Joe: "The rocky shores and valleys of my...MIND!"
You see that Jay the very first sentence?
Melinda: Like my sonnet?? Joe: (astounded) This is yours??
Joe: Oh nice job! We are having a great time analyzing your art.
Melinda: Oh good thank you!
Joe: Yeah that's right these three... Jay: ...are hers.
Joe: And here is the artist! Who knew that she was even here?!!
Joe: My nephew Jay here really likes this piece because
he saw different times of the day. What was the other reason you like it?
Nine Inch Nails album covers. Joe: Oh yeah the NIN album covers!
Melinda: Oh nice! I am a fan of NIN! Joe: She is a fan of NIN!!
So, hey, on this one I had an image of being dark because you are inside the earth
is usually when you recess into your subconscious
and it's so loud and overpowering, it's all you focus on, and your problem is not resolved.
So your mind is taking over.
Because he goes, "this feels dark to me". And he is going through some darkness.
So, he was kind of feeling that image.
So, I thought, "hey, the artist did a great job of bringing that out".
Thank you! It is darkness definitely.
And the point of this - the point of entry here
is a trigger like a song or a smell
or a person you haven't seen for a long time
and all of a sudden it triggers this memory of a place and time
that you have been before. And it is funny how the mind can work like that
like the roots of a tree or like a river
which is the metaphor that I used.
That you have one little ripple
and it opens up this entire part of your mind that you
didn't even know existed where memory lives in the darkest parts of your mind.
And it is from a Led Zeppelin song.
Joe: Which one? I was a big Zep head.
Melinda: (singing) "The Queen of Light took her bow and then she turned to go".
Melinda: What is that called? Joe: The Battle of Evermore.
See I was just about to say to you... It is funny you mentioned Tolkien writing.
When you said, "you know how sometimes something will happen and trigger your mind".
You know Joseph Campbell's analysis of the hero myth?
It's always the same no matter what civilization or artist writes it.
It is always like usually these 9 to 11 steps.
And in The Hobbit, Gandolf wants him to go on an adventure.
And it's like "wait I did not plan for no adventure to happen!" but see
sometimes things will happen in your life where it just happens on you
you have no choice in the matter
and something like that happens!
Melinda: Now, this one, "mitig" is the Algonquin word for tree.
This does not just describe the part of the tree you see
but the entire spirit of the tree.
The age of the tree. The experience of the tree.
The seasons of the tree.
The roots themselves, the structure of the roots is often even bigger than
what you see on the surface of the tree.
And also representing all of the seasons.
I have three sisters. There are four of us.
And we were each born in a different season.
So this is the sisterhood of seasons for my sisters
but also in the sprit of the tree in "mitig".
Jay: You knew that right? (laughter)
Joe: Well, I might see the reflections of her thoughts like shadows
and try and piece together what is going on.
So you have four sisters. They are all from different parts of the cycle of life.
Say for the earth
going from birth to death into rebirth
like we are going through now with the Winter Solstice celebrations going on
You are all women and hence mothers or the potential for it
I see that coming out too is any of that in there?
Yeah absolutely connected to the same foundations.
Siblings have a shared life experience in a way that other people don't.
I mean you can share your life with a person as an adult
but the people who share your life with as a child, your siblings,
have a shared like experience which makes it very unique.
And that is why we are intertwined into the same foundation, into to the same
structure, but separate seasons in once spirit.
Nice job. Melinda: Thank you.
This is a love story. Transformation and love and grief.
Joe: Definitely see the grief right there. And who are those birds?
Well she is a Thunder Bird. She lives in the sky. These are the Mom and Dad.
As she gets older...like the Thunderbirds watch over humans on earth.
They are spirits in the sky that protect humans from wind-egos and terrible monsters.
So she has been watching over these humans in this little village.
And she wants to go down and be with them.
Her parents said, "never go down there it's not safe thunderbirds you stay in the sky".
But she is so enamoured with them.
She takes the form of a woman and goes down into the village and meets a man.
They fall in love. They have this epic love and get married and start a life together as a human.
While she is in the village
the hunting season comes along and her husband has to go and hunt with the other men
in the village to find food. While he's gone
there is a man left behind in the village who wants her because she is so beautiful
he sees an opportunity goes into their home
and attacks her and assaults her.
Now she is a Thunderbird not just a woman so she fights him off
and kills him to defend herself but she's wounded, she's bleeding.
She climbs up the mountain crying for her parents
to come help her because she has gotten herself into this predicament.
So they come to rescue her and bring her back up into Sky World
so they can heal her or she will die.
Meanwhile her husband comes back,
finds this dead man in their house,
thinks the worst, sees her blood everywhere,
follows her trail up the mountain and can not find her. He has lost her.
So he is from the earth and is grieving
the loss of his wife. She's from the sky
but she's afraid to be a Thunderbird because you would have to leave him
but if she remains a woman she will die so this is the moment of their separation
where they have realized that they are not meant to be.
And her parents art so angry
that she disobeyed and in this predicament but they are so
moved by their true love
that they make him a Thunderbird too. Joe: Oh isn't that nice (smile)
Melinda: So they can be together. Oh! It is a love story.
Joe: So that is before that happened because he looks unhappy so it must have been after. Next scene (laughter)
Melinda: Yes this is the moment of grief where they are caught between the two worlds.
Joe: This is the transformational moment that is going on for all four of them.
Melinda: Yes Joe: Because they must have transformed the most.
Melinda: They would have to, yes, to allow a man into their world.
Joe: They would have to become transcendent on the overarching message
not their localized message. That must have happened for them to change their minds.
Joe: It is a big lesson to change your mind. Right?
Definitely it's hard to do.
Now we are going to go into the "you me gallery".
Bryce: They live in neighbourhoods that are affected by the emissions from the plants.
Joe: That is right they are affected by the pollution from industrialization. Larry: Yup.
Bryce: This is the beach community in this cluster and over there is
Mechanolty neighbourhood which is east end.
Joe: That is the overarching message because it is physically at the top.
The only thing that really made Hamilton so big was that industrialization
and what is so interesting now, because I see all the time in the art at the Art Crawl,
everyone really hates the industrialization part
now really wants it gone.
Larry: Well the pictures on this side show the industrialization as beautiful.
Joe: That is right because they are all lit up. I am getting too much reflection here...
Well it's almost like, "they sure looked beautiful in the brochure!"
Joe: What do you think of this? Jay: It is interesting.
Joe: Video game. Do you know this one? Jay: Call of Duty Black Ops.
Joe: Call of Duty Black Ops calls it in one try! Jay: Black Ops 2 Joe: Black Ops 2 even specific. 3killabytes!
Joe: Is that Rihanna? Jay: Yes, it is.
Fans are happy.
What is the significance between the art going on in the middle
versus the ones on the bottom and the top?
So the one in the middle is a lot of distraction, a lot of emotional ***.
They are controversial or deal with pop culture so you see a lot of Miley Cyrus or popular internet video.
So things that sort of tug at your heart strings that distract you from other potentially more important things.
On the top we have birth and on the bottom is death.
There is sort of a temporal relationship between all of them
so essentially you are going to start and then you are going to end and this is all the stuff that happens sort of in between.
Joe: And the next thing you did not do nothing with your life and you are dead!
And you wasted your experience! Aly: Exactly. Yes! Joe: Oh it is a good job!
Jay: So this is pull tags. Joe: It looks like an image.
Joe: Almost looks like a scorpian or something. Jay: I think it is a whale.
Jay: What do you mean feel? Normally we would be dead.
Reminds me of the statue to the injured worker in Hamilton.
Imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery. Joe: Yes. Well said.
Joe: What do you think of that? Jay: Do you ever squint? Joe: To focus?
No, when you squint at something it reveals things you did not see. Lines and stuff.
When you go like this you see more of the variant between point A to B.
I remember being in grade 4 art class and I was drawing something.
I started to look like that and then do lines and the art teacher came up to me and she goes,
"where did you learn how to do that?" I go, "what do you mean?"
She is like, "I see that you are squinting. All real artists squint at their work."
I am like, "when I do that I can see the lines better."
What it is doing is blocking out certain light.
It makes all the colours block into chunks. Do it yourself you will see.
This went darker and connected it up.
If you do it on this then this portion right here gets darker.
Joe: Yeah it really focuses in on this. Jay: It almost looks like a donut sitting there does it not?
When you squint. Joe: With the hole here yeah I see what you are saying.
Jay: Subconsciously we see both of those.
When you draw you can squint and you can put those images in the image.
Maybe great artists, systemically, would get them to squint
and get them to paint differently than other people. And, I do not know if there is something
connected there with a faulty eyesight to helping you be artistic because of that technique that you just showed me.
Joe: What kind of dog is that a pit bull? He is strong, eh?
Joe: Oh my god. Holy, look how strong he is.
Joe: Oh because he is looking at that dog. Oh my god look how strong he is.
(dog barking) Joe: He is like, "don't you be intimidating me!"
Black Hat Man: Ahhhh you are nothing!
Joe: That was awesome. Black Hat Man: (yelling in Portuguese)
Joe: You can see the beak right there.
Jay: That is Hamilton. Joe: Oh yeah because of the smoke and everything.
Joe: Here I see the tin man. Jay: That is a mouth. Joe: Oh yeah with the teeth.
Jay: It is controlling this machine.
Joe: Are you displaying stuff tonight too? Harold: Yup. My stuff is on the orange wall behind you.
Harold: So, if you want a proper picture of that I will email it to you.
Joe: OK yeah. Send it to cipherlou@hotmail.com.
Harold: cipherlou. That is cool. Is that like a hacker name? Oh Lou Cipher! Yeah!
Joe: That is who I am. Harold: That is subversive!
Joe: Hey we are going to keep going on the Crawl. I had a great time talking to you guys. That was fantastic.
Harold: Cheers! Come back!