1. Director’s Meandering Preamble
2. NAC XMAS Party
3. The Twelve Trials of Jason Chimera | Dennis Tourbin Members Gallery
4. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) | Film Screening
5. DO NOT PASS GO | New Paintings by NAC Member Melanie MacDonald
6. Suitcase in Point's Annual Xmas Cabaret
7. My Niagara Contest

1. Director’s Meandering Preamble

It’s time to put the X back in Christmas! Get ye to NAC’s annual party and ensure that the X is there. There’s lots to celebrate. Raise a toast to the fortieth anniversary of the Niagara Artists Centre (we’re fast running out of opportunities to do this, so be prepared for it to happen more than once). Bear in mind NAC’s Xmas party takes place on Keith Richards’ birthday; he’ll be turning 66, or about seventeen years older than anyone ever expected—more reasons to celebrate. While we’re at it, we’ll likely also celebrate some of the other things the season heralds such as the popular R.I.D.E. program and the importation of millions of Chinese-made objects to North America. Attic Daddy will lead the reveling. Expect the pleasures of expert rock-a-billy-ing and raconteur-ring. We’re setting up the bar with all the trimmings and featuring select recipes from NAC’s forthcoming bartending guide (that thing I’ve been going on about for at least a year). X it up at NAC!

overnout

S.

Stephen Remus
Director of Operations & Programming

2. NAC XMAS Party
Friday 18 December 2009
Doors open at 8pm

Amplified music by Attic Daddy, resurrected punch recipes, plastic mistletoe, and swatches of swaddle all combine with several other inexplicable Xmas traditions to make for a good time!

3. The Twelve Trials of Jason Chimera
By NAC Members Neil Hennessey (NYC) and Gregory Betts (St. Catharines)
Opening Saturday 12 December, 7-10pm.

It’s Hockey Night in Kandahar! With The Twelve Trials of Jason Chimera, the Niagara Artists Centre presents a series of artworks that cast a critical eye on the mythological role hockey plays in forming our national identity, while celebrating the sheer physical splendour of the most beautiful athletic spectacle on ice. The opening will feature table hockey, air hockey, and hockey card flicking competitions for fun and prizes! In addition, attendees to the party are encouraged to wear hockey regalia for a costume contest.

Gregory Betts’ “Canucksuk” sculptures construct the 2010 Olympic Inukshuk logo out of painted hockey pucks to highlight the appropriation of First Nations symbols common in contemporary sports. In the same way that hockey supplanted lacrosse in Canada, these stolen images naturalize white European settler culture in North America by erasing their native cultural significance.

Neil Hennessy’s “Wayne Gretzky’s Lost Masterpieces” series of paintings captures the art of Canada’s famous 1987 triumph over the Soviet Union while effacing the nationalist Cold War politics it represents. When Wayne watched hockey games on television as a child, his father Walter made him trace the motion of the puck on the ice so that the density of the lines would help mould his legendary anticipation of the play. Hennessy memorializes these lost drawings of Canada’s greatest artist by tracing the scoring plays from the three games of the 1987 Canada Cup Finals, widely regarded as the greatest hockey ever played.

The Twelve Trials of Jason Chimera by both Hennessy and Betts present a mock epic tale in hockey cards to mark the extreme efforts of Canada’s elite athletes as they fight tooth and nail to make it to the big leagues. Our society romanticizes athletes as contemporary warriors, embodied every Saturday on Don Cherry’s Colonel’s Corner in his constant emotionally charged attempts to connect nation, military, and sport. The cards are a sly satire of the imperial violence mass spectator sports supports.

Like the Greek beast the Chimera, which is composed of a lion, goat, and snake, the tale combines disparate elements into one story: Jason and the Argonauts, the Twelve Trials of Hercules, contemporary hockey, and presidential politics (and even the twelve days of Christmas, if you look closely). While the team’s Hello Kitty style crest resembles cute contemporary sports logos, the stories amplify the beastly instincts of the mythical monster.

“Actually,” said Betts, “the original Argonauts that followed Jason around were hedonistic partiers and womanizers. They were constantly in trouble because of their seductions. It made fulfilling their quest almost impossible.” As in military conquests, so in athletic contests: to the victors go the goils. In this tale of the Columbus Blue Jacket’s season, Dainius Zubrus turns out to be the young love child of Jason Chimera and Sarah Palin. Is this mythology, satire, or a world exclusive?

“It sounds freaky,” said Hennessy, “but the cards seemed to be coming true. Hey, like William Burroughs said, all writing and art is magical in origin, the purpose: MAKE IT REAL.” When Betts completed the initial text of the trials in late January, like the ancient oracle at Delphi, he told the future. The subsequent trajectory of the Blue Jackets’ season was entirely predicted by the cabalistic tarot cards: Chimera’s injury, his return to glory, his part in Rick Nash’s historic goal to secure their first-ever playoff spot, and their ultimate defeat at the hands of the Greek Chris Chelios’ Red Wings exactly 12 days after the end of the regular season. There were even suggestions on message board posts that players drinking and carousing the night before the deciding game cost the Blue Jackets the series. All prognostications are verifiable via time-stamped Gmail and Yahoo group archives.

The artists looked to the Renaissance for inspiration, and to Rubens in particular for his ebullient Greek mythological paintings, including Jason Escaping with the Golden Fleece. Rubens’ sensuous colour and surging diagonals explode with dynamic energy; of all the Old Masters, he best portrayed the perfect marriage of force and form, which also best describes the excitement of playoff hockey. The colours of war turn neon, overbright, a glowing illusion of mass spectacle rendered in the fluid style of sports card line drawings. The cards also echo Piero della Francesca’s dazzling battle scenes that feature long stick-like spears receding into new-found perspectives in visual space. In the same way, hockey hypnotizes with its pace and speed, the shock and noise of its intensely beautiful geometry.

The 13 card set is published in an edition of 100 for $10.

Contact: Neil Hennessy and Gregory Betts, 905.401.0958, neil@pbfb.ca or gbetts@brocku.ca

4. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
Presented by Incredibly Strange Movie Night Niagara and NAC

Wednesday 16 December
Doors at 8pm, movies at 8:30pm
At the NAC - 354 St. Paul Street, St Catharines, ON
PWYC and/or bring non-perishable food items.

Hooray for Santa Claus! Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a 60’s kiddie matinee film that has become notorious for it’s “so bad it’s goodness.” It regularly shows up on lists of the worst films ever made and currently holds the #77 position on IMDB’s bottom 100. But don’t let that turn you away. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is still incredibly fun to watch!

Martians, upset that their children have become obsessed with TV shows from Earth which extol the virtues of Santa Claus, start an expedition to Earth to kidnap the one and only Santa. While on Earth, they kidnap two lively children that lead the group of Martians to the North Pole and Santa. The Martians then take Santa and the two children back to Mars with them. Voldar, a particularly grumpy Martian, attempts to do away with the children and Santa before they get to Mars, but their leader Lomas stops him. When they arrive on Mars, Santa, with the help of the two Earth children and a rather simple-minded Martian lackey, overcomes the Martians by bringing fun, happiness and Christmas cheer to the children of Mars.

Bonus Film:
Santa Claus’ Punch and Judy (1948)
And Christmas cartoons from the 40’s and 50’s, for those who arrive early.

Popcorn and other goodies will be for sale.

5. DO NOT PASS GO
New Paintings by NAC Member Melanie MacDonald
Presented by A.K. Collings Fine Art at 1142 Queen Street W, Toronto (next to the Drake)
From 16 – 22 December 2009

Gallery Hours are noon to 6pm, or by appointment 
Opening Reception to be held Thursday 17 December from 7pm to 9pm
Cash Bar
www.akcollings.com
akcollings@sympatico.ca

6. Suitcase in Point presents
Dear Jesus, Sorry I Have to Work on Your Birthday Again. Love Santa.
A Christmas Cabaret
Sunday 13 December 2009, Doors at 7pm, show at 7:30pm

Featuring the Shea D Duo singing holiday favourites
At The Merchant Ale House, 98 St. Paul Street, Downtown St. Catharines
Dance Party with DJ Marinko post show.
P-W-Y-C and bring a non-perishable food item for Community Care

7. My Niagara Contest
170 Submissions and counting!

Entries will be evaluated based on:

• content
• image quality
• creativity
• effectiveness in conveying Niagara’s spirit, energy and/or unique character
• overall visual appeal

Enter today for your chance to show the world what Niagara means to you!

Please circulate this email to your colleagues and respected networks.
Questions may be directed to Mario De Divitiis via email at
mario.dedivitiis@niagararegion.ca or by phone 905-685-4225, ext. 3381