Author: dmckee

I’ve got 2 pieces on display for Dec 6th at the Kitchener Downtown Business Association’s member social event. It’s one night only, and being held at the Walper Terrace Hotel.


Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take any pictures of the event, not being invited.

Thought I’d try out a new style to make the ZuckerLoft site a little more sexy. The old style was fun, but I could do with something that doesn’t stand out as much against the bright colours I’m working with in my artistic media.
Here’s the old site style:

And I suppose the website’s a form of art anyway, so let’s try keeping it fresh. The neat thing about using .css files is that you can change the site on a whim.

I’ve been working on getting a proper flash-based gallery online so I can properly showcase my paintings. The one I’ve been testing with was FIG (http://www.flashimagegallery.com/), but it’s not working properly (I blame the OpenBSD box — none of the image processing applications work properly for me).
One thing I’ve just recently tried out is the free SimpleViewer, from Airtight Interactive. It’s highly configurable, and uses easy CSS files to build the library.
I’ve made a sample gallery at the following URL: https://www.zuckerloft.com/gallery/ It has some of my photos from a Canon Digital Rebel XTi camera and 70-300 zoom lens.

Cornelius Krieghoff’s Run off the Road in a Blizzard commanded the spotlight last night at the final major auction of the fall season, the Joyner Waddington’s sale of Canadian art in Toronto.
The painting, a 12-inch-by-18-inch oil on canvas showing an upset sleigh and floundering habitants in the midst of a Lower Canada winter, went into the bidding with a presale estimate of between $100,000 and $150,000, but ended up selling for $307,000 (including a 15-per-cent premium).
Two other paintings by Krieghoff also sold for more than $150,000 last evening.
Another top seller was a small panel painted in oils by J.E.H. MacDonald, titled In Algoma, which commanded $252,000 (including 15-per-cent premium), far above its presale estimate of between $25,000 and $30,000. Its sale prompted applause.
globeandmail.com: Canadian art proves it has a hot market

Call for artists: ASAP’s Winter Exhibition
Available Space Art Project places artworks in downtown Kitchener storefronts, restaurants, cafes and vacant spaces. Our goal is to support regional visual artists of any media – including sculpture, painting, installation, textiles and printmaking. We would like to offer you an opportunity to show your work in one of our Available Spaces. Please pass on this call to any interested artist in Waterloo region.
Please drop off your work for both exhibitions at the Kitchener Downtown Business Association (53 Queen Street South) at one of the following times:
Monday Nov. 27th – 12:00 – 2:00pm
Wednesday Nov. 29th – 11:30-1:30pm
ASAP takes 20% commission on all sales to cover its expenses.
All artworks should be ready to hang. They have an insurance waiver for artists to sign. All works will be stored at ASAP’s office at Kitchener Downtown Business Association.
Please RSVP if you are interested in participating.
Contact: ASAP Installation Coordinator
519-584-1709
availablespaceartproject[at]yahoo.ca

Velvet paintings have a bad name, and most of them deserve it. Crude, mass-produced pictures of Elvis, JFK, and dogs playing pool are the norm. But velvet is a difficult medium to work with, and Edgar William Leeteg had a facility with it that approached genius. Inexpertly applied, paint will cake and clog the velvet nap. The black velvet dye can bleed even the brightest colors to muddy browns and dull, dirty grays. Leeteg knew black velvet like an astronomer knows the night sky. With an artist’s instinct, he painted each individual strand, adding thin layers of color one at a time. He used a limited palette—only seven colors and white—but created results so rich that one observer said that he “painted with light.”
Known to many as the American Gauguin, Leeteg (1904-1953) led a Jack Kerouac life, ghost-written by William Burroughs. An adventurer by nature, he fled civilization to lead a wild life in Tahiti. Even in a culture not known for its puritanism, he stood out, drinking, fighting, and wenching more than any six men. He once described himself as a “fornicating, gin-soaked dopehead.”

But his carousing was a calculated pose to promote his art, and the staggering quantity of paintings he left behind (an average of three a month for 20 years) suggests that he was as much a workaholic as an alcoholic. A butcher’s boy and the grandson of a graveyard sculptor in East Saint Louis, Leeteg picked cotton, herded cattle, and did factory work until he landed a job at 22 as a sign painter in Sacramento. When the Depression hit and the work ran out, Leeteg took a small inheritance and set sail for Tahiti with brushes stolen from the sign company and six mayonnaise jars full of paint. His first commissions—posters and lobby ads for theaters—barely put food on the table. He lived hand to mouth, restlessly experimenting with different painting surfaces, including wood and cloth. Finally, he hit on velvet—and struck gold. Leeteg circulated the story that his first velvet “canvas” came from a mortuary, suggesting a discovery born from desperation. But he knew velvet’s potential; in museum visits, he had seen Renaissance and Victorian velvet paintings. Velvet became the perfect medium through which to express Leeteg’s love of Tahiti’s sensual beauties—the natural light, the landscape, and especially the native women.
Paradise painted (Seattle Weekly)

At the age of 76, Michael Snow, Toronto’s most celebrated artist, continues to astonish us with his inventions.
He recently unveiled his newest public art piece, a changing projection located on the exterior of the Pantages Hotel on Victoria St.
Q Your new work is unlike any other public art in Toronto. What are some of the scenes passers-by will see in The Windows Suite?
A One involves the top four “windows” (really flat plasma screens), which are widely separated.
You see a room like one in this hotel, with a bed. Two policemen appear, apparently looking for something. They wave a flashlight around, forward and horizontally, and the light flashes through to the other rooms (seen through the windows). They then appear in the other rooms, moving the flashlight.
We see one segment called “Red Tape” in which a man goes from window to window and sticks red tape across the glass diagonally to make an X. Then the whole thing is played backwards so that the tape comes off.
TheStar.com – Michael Snow still surprises

With a small rebel army, Fidel Castro seizes power in Cuba by the end of 1958. Although he tries to take an independent line, he must deal with significant Russian influence on the new regime. The socialist realist posters from the early years attest to this influence.
Around 1965, in a period of strained relations with the Soviet Union, the Cubans decide to develop styles more suitable to their own circumstances. A period of artistic freedom follows. The arts flourish, and there are lively international contacts. Talented Cuban artists start designing colourful, inventive posters of traditional subjects such as commemorations of the revolution or calls for more production. The Cuban leaders are portayed as cheerful and unconventional. Especially striking are the splendid posters issued by cultural organizations such as the ICAIC, the Cuban film institute. OSPAAAL, the organization for solidarity with the people of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, distributes its posters worldwide. Che Guevara’s portrait is transformed into an international symbol for romantic rebellion.

Heroic, idealized portraits like this one are made only from Che Guevara, and only after his death. Fidel Castro and the other leaders are deliberately portrayed as ordinary human beings.
The Chairman Smiles – Cuban Posters

Call for artists: ASAP’s Fall 2006 Exhibition
Available Space Art Project places artworks in downtown Kitchener storefronts, restaurants, cafes and vacant spaces. Our goal is to support regional visual artists of any media – including sculpture, painting, installation, textiles and printmaking. We would like to offer you an opportunity to show your work in one of our Available Spaces. Please pass on this call to any interested artist in Waterloo region.
Please drop off your work for both exhibitions at:
Kitchener Downtown Business Association
53 Queen Street South at one of the following times:
Wednesday Sept. 6thth – 12:00 – 2:00pm
Thursday Sept. 7th – 2:30 – 4:30pm
ASAP takes 20% commission on all sales to cover its expenses.
All artworks should be ready to hang. We have an insurance waiver for artists to sign. All works will be stored at ASAP’s office at Kitchener Downtown Business Association.
Please RSVP by September 1st, 2006 if you are interested in participating.
Contact: Soheila Esfahani
ASAP Installation Coordinator
519-584-1709
availablespaceartproject[at]yahoo.ca

ASAP: Gallery without walls in downtown Kitchener
Call for artists: Art on Fire
Available Space Art Project is currently inviting regional artists to submit work in any media to participate in ASAP’s art exhibition as part of “Art on Fire” arts fest in association with K-W doors’ Open Ontario on Saturday September 16th and Sunday Sept 17th, 2006 at the Station 2 Studios.
What is Doors Open Ontario?
Throughout Ontario, many significant and historical properties are open to the public on designated dates every year that would not normally be open. Here in K-W, on Saturday, Sept 16, 2006 there will be over 35 open for viewing.
For the first time, the new Station 2 Studios located in the old Fire Station at Duke St. W and Breithaupt Sts. in Kitchener not only joins the event but is also hosting an arts fest called “Art on Fire!” on the same day to make our visitors’ trip more rich and enjoyable.
When: Saturday, Sept 16
Sunday Sept 17, 2006.
Time: 10am to 5pm, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2006
12 noon to 5pm on Sunday, Sept 17, 2006.
Location: Station 2 Studios
318 Duke W.
Kitchener, ON