an apt and important sentiment to be shared…

via Kerry Freek.

pile of work by Leia Fahe Villeneuve, Justine Dupont-Lavigueur, Caroline Grainger, Sophia Burke, Farnaz Waheed, Claudine Lamothe and Natalie Pan

Over the fall I had the opportunity to teach two classes in Concordia’s Department of Design and Computation Arts; DART 441: The Culture of Images and CART 444: Portfolio Studio. These were very challenging classes to teach, despite being the first time I’ve taught without having to go back to work at an agency the next day.

The classes addressed divergent subject matter (looking outside vs. looking inside) that I care deeply about, yet had not taught before, and they both required a lot of self-initiative from individual students. 441 aimed to teach students to critically examine the visual environment around them, and determine how to construct messages within that context, whereas 444 forced students to deeply examine their own work and practice, bringing forth a cohesive presentation of their identity from it.

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Four Minutes to Midnight is proud to co-present the inaugural Howl! concert featuring solo and collaborative performances by cellist Rebecca Foon, Sam Shalabi on oud and our good friend Stefan Christoff on piano. It’ll be a night of beautiful, intimate music celebrating Montreal’s fiercely independent arts community. The perfect way to kick-off the holidays with your friends and family.

The concert takes place next Thursday, December 16th at L’Envers, the beautiful loft space on Van Horne that hosted CKUT’s Art’s Birthday festivities last year (which was a whole lot of fun!).

>> RSVP and more info on Facebook here

’nuff said…

The CEASE Art Collective‘s Holiday Flea Market this past weekend was a great success and a whole lot of fun. I survived on a steady diet of cupcakes, coffee, beer and art, met many great people and was inspired by all the crafty goodness.

Of particular note, I was blown away by the aerosol work of my table mate Regimental Oneton, the photos of Lisa Howarth and the beautiful new drawings from Nicole Aline Legault. I also got a great new scarf from Genevieve Dumas! Oh yeah, and the cupcakes of course!

Big, big thanks to all the organisers and volunteers, fellow artists and everyone that came by. Great to meet you all!

>> More photos of the event on facebook

With the new year rapidly approaching and imminent full-time freelance work on the horizon, I recently designed myself some spiffy new business cards. The cards were beautifully letterpress printed by the Mandate Press in Salt Lake City onto a richly textured 110# Cranes Lettra stock, with fluorescent pink edging. The above photo hasn’t been retouched, these cards really glow!

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Quick and dirty (literally) illustration for Ezra Winton’s article on Walrus magazine’s greenwashing of the tar sands on Artthreat.

First up, long admired political art collective, The Beehive Design Collective, have launched a kickstarter campaign to mark their 10 year anniversary. I remember first seeing their work during the FTAA protests in Quebec City back in 2001, and just recently referenced their work in a class I was teaching as an example of an approach to a visual essay. Check out the video above to learn more about their important and inspirational work, and if you’re in the states, help ’em out so they can keep printing and get yourself some beautiful posters while you’re at it.

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What’s My Motherfuckin’ Name?
 
2009 marks four decades of me being a published poet
in this once greatest country so try and find any of my
books in your local bookstore and you’d be shit out of
luck yet if I had similarly wasted my life doing
almost anything else I could be retired by now with a
modest check and better teeth but all I’ve got to show
are consequential words across an empty white space

– Happy Hour’s epigraph

The eleventh issue of Four Minutes to Midnight is a radical break from the format of the last four issues, consisting of Happy Hour, a book of 60 poems by F.A. Nettelbeck, lavishly illustrated by Sophie Jodoin, and Fugue XI, printed and bound as a slim edition of 28 pages. Production details include a double bump of silver ink on black cardstock covers, bright pink endpapers and a hand stamped bellyband holding the books together. Interior pages are printed on Rolland Enviro100 paper (FSC 100% post-consumer fibre, chlorine free process using biogas energy). The double-issue is printed in an edition of 350 copies.

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