The Eastside Culture Crawl is a Vancouver tradition. It's the hippest of all the studio tours taking place in the funky eastside neighbourhoods like Strathcona (see yesterday's post) and other industrial areas where there are old buildings converted to studios. Over 300 artists take part. Of course we were only able to see a tiny fraction of them. Here's a glimpse of some of what we saw.
This studio featured wood and stone sculptures. My favourite work here was done by Marie Bortolotto. She creates large organic inspired works in wood and stone. Here are a few that I particularly liked. They were very reasonable to purchase too, starting at around $150.
We also loved the work in polymer clay done by Joan Taylor. She creates all sorts of functional things like zipper pulls, whistles, trinket boxes as well as ornaments. One of the trinket boxes featured a polymer ladybug and we were surprised to see that it was also attracting a real ladybug. Can you tell which is which in this photo?
I liked these knitted scarves with colours that gradually shifted from one end to the other and this found sculpture complete with rust.
Other studios took up entire buildings like this one, which had a gallery space and an amazing wood and metalworking shop inside.
This is one of the light sources in the wood and metal shop. The owner has salvaged old operating room lights from the '50s! He's also created a piece of art on the door from wood knots. An amazing creator, his name is Arnt Arntzen.
Our
next stop was at 1000 Parker, an old warehouse converted into studios
and home to an amazing 111 artists. This place vibrates with
creativity. Here' are some hallways and doors that give a hint of the
energy in this one building.
Vancouver's eastside is a wealth of creativity. If you ever get a chance to attend the Culture Crawl you'll not be disappointed. It's held towards the end of November each year.
joanna i wish i was there to see all of these amazing artists and their work. steven
ReplyDeleteCatching up with you on your travels through east Vancouver culture. Lovely stuff. Every year I read about it and something gets in the way. This year I would have been crawling for real!
ReplyDeleteWow...
ReplyDeleteEven now I so want to live somewhere with a large studio workspace and small living area.
Just not possible for me but wouldn't that be grand !
I really enjoy your tours of where you live and this one was great !
I too liked the large wood and stone organic work by Marie Bortolotto
Love the pup and the tail is a hoot. Is she some sort of a water dog ?
Cheers, parsnip
Hi Parsnip,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your note. I'm glad you're enjoying my tours. That dog just happened to be there posing for me so I don't know what breed it is. Cheers.