The long and bumpy road of getting my prints done for my October show at the KPL cleared a major hurdle on Thursday. That hurdle, of course, was getting them printed and not being terrible like the last batch.
The folks at Big Footprints did a spectacular job with my prints. Izabella, who I actually went to college with, was a big help getting everything set up and printed. I’m actually giddy about it. Included is a small sample of a few of them. As you can see, the colour is quite punchy compared to my original plan of black and white.
Next up: framing!
My friend Nancy Forde has a fantastic series of photographs on display at Death Valley’s Little Brother in Uptown Waterloo. She had the opening Thursday night to a packed house. The collection of rural images were all printed on canvas and blown up huge, some as big as four by five feet.
I first met Nancy at one of Foto:RE’s Third Thursday events and have been following her work ever since. She has a wonderful style, often depicting rural landscapes, which is what Ruralgia’s theme is. I enjoyed listening to her speak of the images and how they related to her time living in a country setting, despite the fact that it was during a period of sadness in her life. Her statement for the show is beautifully written; you can feel the emotion from both her words and her art.
If you have any free time, I highly recommend you check out Nancy’s work. DVLB is the perfect venue for a show because you can eat, drink, relax, and take in some stunning artwork.
About a month ago, Kitchener’s Mayfair Hotel was deemed unsafe due to a watermain break in the basement. Some wanted it saved, others wanted it levelled. As for myself, I was torn. I was disappointed to see another old downtown building completely neglected to the point where it couldn’t be saved, but at the same time could understand how it had become a bit of an eyesore.
There was a special city council meeting held to have the heritage protection stripped in order to expedite the demolition. A few held out hope that the building could yet be saved by having a heritage building expert assess the situation, but this ultimately didn’t work.
Demolition was to begin on Wednesday of this week, but the site prep finished early so the demolition crew wasted no time in getting started on Tuesday instead. Crowds gathered to see the bricks come down; I went down on my lunch break on Wednesday to see more than half the building gone already.
You can see a live feed of the demo here. Thanks to Caitlin Quarry for the link!
