As an example of what has become of our culture, the juxtaposition of the two items below needs no comment. Dorothea Lange’s famous photograph dates from 1936. The quotation on the right is from the Style section of the May 11, 2013 Globe & Mail.
If you’re still searching for that perfect Mother’s Day gift, consider a new scarf patterned with polka dots, a classic motif that looks as fresh today as it did when Mom was an ingénue. She can wear it around her neck to perk up a white shirt or flirty blouse or tie it onto the handle of her favourite tote. What better way to make her feel, well, doted on?
I’ve been reading The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross’ history of music in the 20th Century. At one point he refers to a lecture John Cage gave in 1950 in which he quoted a woman from Texas who had told him “We have no music in Texas.” Cage’s comment was: “The reason they’ve no music in Texas is because they have recordings in Texas. Remove the records from Texas and someone will learn to sing.”
Of course Cage’s observation is now spectacularly dated. We long ago got used to records (which turned into CDs, which turned into iTunes and live streaming and podcasts and who knows what next year). But the assumed antithesis between technology and the human remains as vexed now as sixty years ago. More so, actually.
I love the provocative beau geste of Cage‘s comment. One person in all of Texas doing something as aboriginally human as singing being enough to counterbalance the sheer weight of industrialized art. Wow. Cheeky. But I guess provocation was what Cage was about.
It would be interesting (in the spirit of fun, or of seriousness, whichever you wish) to update Cage’s comment for 2013. I invite you to fill in the blanks:
The reason we don’t ________________ is because we have ______________. Remove _______________ and someone might __________________.
Not counting labels, there are seven objects on this section of ArtSpring wall. Which ones are art?
Why?
(Thanks to Rachel Jacobson for taking the picture.)
The Island Arts Centre Society Board honoured the many volunteers who make important contributions to ArtSpring at a reception on Tuesday, April 23.
Each year special recognition is given to one volunteer who has helped ArtSpring through long service. This year IACS was pleased to thank Sara Foster who has been a Ticket Centre volunteer through thick and through thin, through computer crashed and the occasional cranky customer since 2000. Here she is in the photo on the left being introduced and thanked by IACS President Kate Merry.
Superb catering for the event was provided by Rosemary Harbrecht. 
Margaretha Nordine, a long-time usher at ArtSpring, samples some of the fine food in the photo on the right.
Taryn Hancock, Co-ordinator of Volunteers, poured the drinks, thanked every volunteer she could see, and reminded everyone that new volunteers are always welcome. All it takes is an e-mail to taryn@artspring.ca
Thanks again to the many, many Salt Springers who help ArtSpring enrich the cultural life of our community by volunteering in so many ways.
Diana Hayes has a long history with the arts on Salt Spring Island, having been on the board of the Salt Spring Festival of the Arts many years ago; its mandate was to raise the money to create an arts centre. She is furthermore a founding director of the Theatre Alive Society, and immerses herself in writing and publishing her beautiful poetry.
Diana arrived on Salt Spring Island thirty-two years ago, as a graduate student, and never left. Her passion for horses and seals continues to express itself: she is the first swimmer of the Salt Spring Seals, “the mother of us all,” as they say! Much of her poetry speaks to her love of the ocean.
Diana works for the Lady Minto Hospital Foundation, and brings her fundraising skills and knowledge to ArtSpring as its treasurer and chair of the Finance Committee. Her warmth, creativity, and long acquaintance with the island make her a deeply valued member of the ArtSpring Board.
a review by Jaime Murdoch
On Friday, April 5th Quebec’s Le Vent du Nord, four men who make beautiful music together without taking themselves too seriously, graced the stage at ArtSpring. It was plain to see that these men are musicians, performers, people who know themselves and know how to step into that knowing with confidence, whether in song, in story-telling, in banter, in laughter, or what have you. After eleven years spent together on the road they were able to conjure a very special night of entertainment. Salt Springers fell in love that night, getting a taste of Canadian culture, not like bacon or maple syrup or hockey, but of Quebec and of history and of joy in the moment.
Although the majority-anglophone audience could not make out the lyrical meaning of the songs that were performed in a raw Quebecoise accent, the messages were certainly not lost. It didn’t matter what was being sung or played, these men created an atmosphere of home. They sang like they were singing for family and told stories in between that tickled your soul. 
Beyond their collection instruments – piano, guitar, Irish bouzouki, acoustic bass, jaw harp, accordion, hurdy gurdy, and of course voice – was one special pair of feet for tapping along and keeping the pace. Each instrument created an element in the show, each so very necessary for the band’s full-bodied communication of joy. What a gift it was to witness their beautiful masculinity, one that is strong, balanced, and capable of sharing and allowing and speaking to the audience with a directness like no other.
Lobby Dancers
Vessel, this season’s final dance show, brings a buzz of activity to ArtSpring on Monday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m. Vancouver’s Out Innerspace Dance Company returns with a show that fuses contemporary dance, soundscape, projection and lighting design into an amazing journey into the lives of living cells and the subconscious. Sounds intriguing right? Basically, prepare to be transported to deep inner spaces where you will discover a new world through dance.
Prior to Out Innerspace’s show, Anna Haltrecht’s performance class will treat us to a new dance offering in the ArtSpring lobby at 7:00 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. The Lobby Dancers, aged 7+, have been attending Anna’s performance dance class since September. Their dance explorations have focused on underwater imagery and movement of pre-vertebrate cells, on family and a sense of belonging.
The following evening, Salt Spring community dancers will have an exciting opportunity to attend a dance workshop with Out Innerspace choreographer Tiffany Tregarthen. She is a talented dancer and choreographer and is excited to share her skills with our community. Make sure to register for the Tuesday, April 16th workshop from 7-9pm at the GISS Dane Studio by calling the ArtSpring Box Office 537-2102 or visiting our website. Tickets for Vessel are also available by phone or online.
Shakespeare’s birthday is April 23, and so is ArtSpring’s presentation of an eclectic show called SPIN by Toronto songwriter, poet and social commentator Evalyn Parry.
Both an ode to the bicycle and a narrative of early travels by intrepid women, all combined with musical performance on a bicycle as percussion instrument, the show is so hard to describe that we have given up trying to put it into words. A homage to the bicycle as muse (with suitable Shakespearean gestures) is the best Catherine and I have come up with to encourage everyone to come and enjoy a memorable and unusual performance.
The Toronto Star said it all: “Part theatre, part music gig, part spoken word poetry, part documentary: whatever it is, it is brilliant.”
After their early March performances of The Studio at ArtSpring, the four dancers of Bouge de là had some time off to relax on Salt Spring before continuing their western tour. Here they are in the forest, longing, perhaps, for winter in Montréal (though that seems unlikely somehow)
If you were able to see their excellent dance/theatre performance about 20th century painting, you’ll be interested in the next show they’re working on: Le Lit will interpret four stages of childhood, from infancy to adolescence, through dance centered on, you guessed it, a bed.
All going well, we hope to have the company back with this new work in the spring of 2015.
The Artspring Board of Directors are often engaged in a variety of community endeavours. In order for you to get to know them better, a short paragraph about each of them appears monthly. Today, we introduce Elly Silverman.
Elly is new to this board, but not new to participating in causes that matter to her. She has been a feminist activist and a professor at the University of Calgary, and continues to express her passion for making change and enhancing communities as a hospice volunteer, as a Director on the local board of Options for Sexual Health, which runs The Clinic, as well as on the provincial OPT board. She has a lifelong commitment to women’s reproductive choices. She also volunteers at the farm at Salt Spring Seeds, “thinking globally, acting locally.” Elly swims year round in the ocean with the Salt Spring Seals (and Carole Eyles, whom you met last month). The Artspring Board, and its galleries and performance spaces, enhance her love of the Pacific Northwest aesthetic.