Past meeting Present

This afternoon, after I feeding the squirrels at the park which was just steps from my studio. As I was walking toward to my building, someone walk by me and say how’s going? I turned around at look at this man but had no idea who he was. He looks like on the homeless old men usually hangs around at the park as I study at his face hoping I could remember who he was. He must sense this and introduced himself as JC!
J.C. was a teaching assistant at the printmaking department at OCA when I was a student there but it was 30 years ago. Eventually, he gained a full time teaching job there but I had no contact with him since I graduated.
As we making some small talk, I couldn’t help to think how time hasn’t been kind to him and how much he has aged. I wondered how he still recognized and remember me after all these years.

Afternoon at the Ballet

I have a friend; a senior often offers her theater tickets to me whenever she was not able to attend. Last Saturday, it was the ballet Sleeping Beauty. It was glorious! The costumes and the set had a French influence with lots of gold and warm jewel tones and sometimes highlighted with pastel colors. All the costumes are full of beautiful details and most importantly the dancing was magnificent!
Princess Aurora was danced by Bridgett Zehr and prince florimund by zdenek konvalina both were outstanding and received loud applauds from the audiences. One surprise was Rex Harrington, the former heart throb principal dancer returns in a non-dancing role as King Florestan with few extra pounds from his old dancing days. It must be surreal for him to sit on the throne at stage most of the time and watching someone else dancing the role he was acclaim for.
Another highlight was the elegance and airlessness dancing by Keiichi Hirano of the blue bird. At the end of the performance they received a long standing ovation.

My seat was on the third row centre and so close to the stage, I was able to see the farcical expression and the sweat of the dancers. I was almost close enough to touch the conductor’s blond hair!
I noticed there were numbers of first –timers at this performance: parents brought their little girls with them. Many were dress up in their fancy dresses and one little girl even wearing pearls. However I don’t think young child has long attention for this three acts ballet. Unlike the nutcracker, the sleeping beauty doesn’t offer much amusing things for young child. In nutcracker, there were the dancing bears; the mechanical muse and snow flakes to keep the children entertains. By contrast, the sleeping beauty has a mean witch and her scary helpers. No doubt the little girls were rather fearful as the princess Aurora was picked by the needle and fallen to sleep. The Kingdom got dark by the second act and the little girls had became rather restless and after the second intermission all the little girls and their parents were gone which left me with lots of space to stretch my legs. I guess they will not become the future ballerinas then.
There were some interesting incidents within my seating area at the theater:
A mother tried to snap a photo of her two little girls and her husband before the performance was told there were no photo allowed in the theater and was told to delete her photo! There goes the family memory of the first outing to the ballet.
A woman near me brought back two glasses of beer for herself and her friend during intermission was told there was no glass allowed in the theater. Sadly I think she must dispose them in the washroom as it was not enough time for her to drink it at the lobby.
I was rather outrage all these unreasonable rules and decided to snap a few photos when all the dancers took their curtain call and I was the only one either.

How Toronto Garbage strike brought me 2 minutes of fame

I always compose, reuse, reduce and recycle: I only produce a little bag of garbage every two months. Since the Toronto city workers strike started a month ago, many faced the great inconvenience to deal with their garbage, however it has no effect to me. After seeing the garbage piling up in downtown near my studio and most of them should be recycle but when the strike is over most of this would just end up in the landfill. I decide to do something about it and started to use some of the garbage I found on the street and use to create art.
Shortly, after I posted some of these samples on the internet it caught the attention of a Global National reporter. Within days, she and the crew came to my studio and filmed a feature on me and my recycled art.
On the same weekend, I was one of the 500 artists showing my art at the Toronto outdoor art exhibition at Nathan Phillips square. Thinking it could be a great opportunity to educate the public how to reuse some of these garbage so I brought along some of my recycle art to show along with my paintings. To my surprise many collectors brought my art made from garbage.

And even better, my feature was showed on prime time at Global national news on July 14 and the night before during prime time they used me as their promote for the next day’s news. I was called “Rembrandt of Garbage”!
So the Toronto garbage strike brought me my two minutes of fame!

Artist fought back internet theft with humor

Few days ago, I discovered a internet site called “Toronto Property Organization”torontoproperty.org/ lifted two of my photos from my flickr account and used on their home page without my consent.
Since I joined Flickr, often I received requests to use my photos. One year I even granted Toronto City Hall to use my photo as their Holiday card for free .In most cases if they were using my photos for non-commercial use. I would let them use them free of charge only if they asked first. However, I dislike how this one just took my photos without even ask or credit me for the photos. After I emailed this company and asked them either to remove it or paid me. I never received any reply.
One of my flickr friend suggested since this site was using my photos by directly linking at my flickr photos: I could just replaced those photos with something else, something not what they expected!
Yesterday, after searching my many photos I have stored in my computer, I replace them with one of a hospital bed titled “short term rental” photo and another of a shot of the cemetery with a no dogs allowed sign titled “no dogs allowed long term residence only”. Just to see how they like them!

After I wrote about this incident at the flickr group, “Toronto”, other photographers started to replaced theirs with more amusing ones and by 8pm this site has removed all the photos both from their home and contact page with Youtube videos.

Artist Impersonator

Sometime life is stranger than fiction but this is a first for me: someone is impersonating yours truly!
Recently, I discovered a Bangladesh born artist currently living in Toronto, has copied a major part of my biography from my site, www.alfred.ca and only changed the year, name and the country. The worst is he also uses my works as his own!
At his site, site www.nandonnikfinarts.com at the page of “about us” he has this link www. nandonikfinearts.com which open to my site!
.I suspect he been doing this for some time because I updated my site about a year ago and from his description of his work( my work) were from the older version.
I checked on his site he runs an art school at his studio for kids and was using my site to promote his class. He does display his own works at his site and they are very different from mine.
I had never meet this person, Mohibul Islam I really don’t know the real reason for him to do this? Was he trying to boost his own art career with someone else CV and portfolio?

Toronto Art Expo 2009

In Toronto there are many art fairs all through the year but some are better than the others the Toronto art expo at the metro Toronto convention center is like the poor sister of the other Art Fairs.
Even the show so boldly billed as the world’s largest art gala, with claims like ” the eyes of the art world will once again be focus on Toronto”
However, every time after I goes, I would amazed how there was little standard for the selection of the art shown. It seems the only standard was if the artist ability to come up with the money to pay for the booth. There so much poorly executed “art” among so few good works, I always felt badly for the better artists in this show.

I know some artists had shown there but after one or twice they all decided to not go back as the expense were so high with so few sale. However, the show seems to have a long supply of bad artists waiting to take the place. Some of these artists I seen their works at others show like the “One of a Kind Show”, either they been painting the same painting over and over or just taking the same works showing at those show until they find their buyer .Most distressing was seeing some of the photo-shopped digital prints passed as original paintings!

One funny thing I noticed while there, some artists put up a no photos sign at their booth as they were usually the not so good ones.
On second thought, they ought to have enough egos to believe their own greatest and think others wanted to copy their masterpiece.

Due to the tough economic time this year, the numbers of the artists are lot smaller but in other to makes it look good, they been offered a larger space. But looking at the body language of the artists: some just sat there lifeless and expressionless. It had been a terrible show in term of sale for them.

AGO gives Boots to 108 employees

AGO's "Massive lay Off" after the "Massive Transformation"

AGO gives boots to 108 employees
After the $300 million “massive Transformation” and facing a huge revenue shortfall, and with too few people passing through its doors, the Art Gallery of Ontario is considering laying off 61 permanent and 47 contract employees next month.
With the attendance and the bookings of event spaces far less than expected and not to mention the increased admission fee to $18 per person. AGO revenues are 20 per cent below projections.
Even I am a AGO member but after my unpleasant experience there, I had not return since. I wonder how many like me staying away for the same reason.

AGO

The new Photography policy at the AGO

The art gallery of Ontario (AGO) is in my neighborhood; in fact I can see the new building from my window. During the last three years while undergo a $300 million make- over by star architect Frank Ghery. Many of us in the neighborhood had to put up with the noise and having one side of the Dundas Street and Beverley Street closed which been great inconvenience for us live and work in the area. When it finally reopened I was excited to have a preview and was impressed with the new added spaces and displays but best of all was at the view of downtown it provided at the new building facing the Grange Park, Since I took many photos of the city I live in I thought it would be a good idea to renewed my membership after a long absent. Right there I took out a family membership because I wanted to invited friends to visit when they come to Toronto.

Sadly, this new made over also comes with a new Hollywood superstar attitude too. As the first time I returned with my new membership. No sooner than I took out my camera, a surely young security rudely asked me to delete my photos and informed me there are no photos allowed in the gallery. If I been caught taking any more photo I will be ask to leave the gallery! As I explained to him I was only taking photos of the outside and not any art in the gallery. No matter, there are no pictures allowed in the building!

I been to many museums all over the world, this is the first time I encounter such strict rule. Many allowed photography to museum own collection as long as no flash used. The only photo restriction usually applies to travel exhibitions.
The painting “Mona Lisa”, no doubt is the most famous and valuable paintings in the world, visitors at the Louver are allowed to take photo of it which only add to its appeal and the popularity.
I been to the AGO countless times, there were not many art I wanted to snap a photo of, most of the art were either under dim light or in glass cases. I did remember the Henry Moore sculpture gallery was popular with tourists to snap some photos.

When I was leaving I ask the woman at the ticket counter about this new photo policy, she gave me a stunning reply “ the architect Frank Ghery consider himself as an artist so all his buildings are copyrighted and therefore no photos allow anywhere in the building”.

However, at the end of December 2008 the AGO announced on their site of the “relaxed photo policy”, now photography of the building is allowed as long as art was in the shot.

I think the real reason for this new “relaxed policy” regarding photography at the AGO are more likely because they finally realized was un-enforceable and also creates ill wills with the paying public.
We are at the age of almost everyone own a digital camera or a camera cell phone. With museum security outnumber by the visitors, it is rather easy to snap a photo or two when the security not around or looking.
Let not forget, it was early 2004, some $1.5 million worth of miniature ivory sculptures on loan by Ken Thomson were stolen right under their nose when it was open to the public with security in full force.

One summer, I was working in New York and during the 4th of July weekend. Since I did not know anyone in the city, I decided to spend my three days holiday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in order to explore the many galleries. After my second visit there, I noticed the Japanese Gallery was close as the day before. On the third day, I inquired about this at the information desk, the nice gentleman told me it was closed due to not enough security on staff that weekend. Amazingly, without asking any questions about me or the reason why I wanted to see this gallery, he just picked up the phone and within minutes, a security been sent down and to open the gallery just for me! Not only I was allowed to take photos and I was told to take as much time as I wish.

Thank You Metropolitan Museum of Art!