About May Globus
Vancouver City Editor May Globus is obsessed with the sartorial and all that surrounds it: art, design, culture, music and film. Oh, and she really likes writing about it, too. A left coast girl at heart, her Sweetspot finds just might show why the westside really is the best side.
All things creative have this indescribable hold over me. Art, music, film, design (sartorial and industrial), architecture, literature (don't judge me if I include NYLON magazine in this category), and photography (hello, Guy Bourdin).
You name it, I'm probably fascinated with it.
Lucky for me, my line of work awards me the great privilege of meeting and greeting with all sorts of creative types that open my mind to different mediums of expression.
My good pal, Jeff Hamada of
Boooooom.com, and I met last week for a little lunch session at new
Nuba Cafe location on West Hasting, where we proceeded to agree that Vancouver, in the last few years, is really beginning to develop an artsy, creative identity of its own. It is one that continues to steadily rumble beneath the surface in particular neighbourhoods, like Gastown, SoMa and parts of Yaletown.
So, then, where in town can you go to tap into the left side of your brain?
Anywhere
The Dark, Nokin, Weakhand and Office Supplies Incorporated have left their graffiti imprints. Check your local blank billboards, building walls, and dumpsters near you.
PechaKucha Night. What began in Japan has grown into something quite big in the creative community and in 182 cities worldwide, including
our own fair city. A PK evening consists of a panel of presenters that have 6 minutes and 40 seconds to show slides of their work in front of a sell-out crowd of 500 or more. Presenters range anywhere from artists to graphic designers to bloggers to architects.
Raw Canvas. This cafe-slash-painting studio in Yaletown also doubles as an event venue for musicians, documentary screenings, poetry jams and Bob Ross nights. Be sure to wear your smock and afro wig to come paint "happy little accidents".
The Contemporary Art Gallery. This venue on the Yaletown side of Nelson Street often has the most interesting window installations. My favorite installation, by far, was the one of hideous drapes from the '70s that went went up last year.
Walls of boarded buildings and street poles. A bunch of Expo '86 posters have gone up around the city recently and, as it turns out, are part of a year-long Cultural Olympiad art project by Jeremy Shaw called "
Something's Happening Here", designed to point out how civic events shape a city. There just might be something more than meets the eye to that "Lost Kitty" poster.
So Damien Hirst or Shepard Fairey may not be from around these parts, but I still think we have a whole lot to brag about.