1. Director's Meandering Preamble
Saturday night we held our Gavel Gala Hey! dinner and fine art auction at the old Canada Hair Cloth building. Two hundred guests attended this sold out event featuring a five course meal and art work from select artists chosen from thirty-nine years of NAC programming.
Let me tell you, we had ourselves a real good time! On top of it, NAC raised over twenty-five thousand dollars at the event! We smacked the piñata out of the lower level parking lot and the party line has been humming ever since.
"What an incredible feat NAC pulled off! Creative, community-oriented, and festive. Congratulations! It's a night to remember!!!"
- Rebecca Cann, City St. Catharines, Cultural Planning Supervisor
"Magical spectacle…every element of it, shockingly impressive, transforming the space, the intrigue and mystery leading up to the event, and unexpected pairings (outhouses and heels, a factory in neon, breakdancers and art)"
- Karin Perry, Executive Director, Breast Cancer Research and Education Fund
"The service was impeccable"
- anon. guest overheard at Pan Café Sunday morn
"It was the best damn party of the year. Probably the century. Congratulations (and I can hardly wait to see how you will top this)."
- Deb Slade, Director, Brock Centre for the Arts
"That kicked the Niagara Wine Auction's Ass"
- anon. guest
"Thanks to NAC for the incredible job conceiving and executing the party of the year, it was another watershed moment for the organization and its emerging leadership role. I firmly believe that NAC is one of the City’s best hopes for a healthy future."
- Janis Barlow, Janis A. Barlow & Associates
My dime of time goes to thanking everyone who pitched in to realize the night. To put it in perspective, NAC ran the show with three paid employees: Carol, our summer student who started two weeks ago, our beloved Natasha, and the rambling, meandering, preambler typing this jive. Otherwise, the small army of over sixty people scurrying around Saturday were all volunteers! Though some surely feel their involvement would be more aptly described as conscripted after a brief encounter with yours truly, everyone worked like beavers with bellies full of Red Bull to whip the place into shape, serve the meal, and keep the night snapping along. A ton weight of thanks to all of you for your extraordinary effort!
Amidst the amazing crew NAC owes a special thanks to no small number of people. Lisa Matheson and Frank Coy organized, promoted, arranged sponsorships, and often carried us through this thing. Relatively new NAC members, they assumed tremendous responsibility and shared infectious enthusiasm with everyone. Don Dormady, who is on the bridge whenever NAC launches a fundraiser, donated his usual weeks of time, arrays of equipment, and unique expertise. Don’s involvement at NAC continues to distinguish our special events from all others. With him every step of the way was NAC’s wizard of woodwork, board member Jeff Ott, and someone I know affectionately as my better two-thirds, Melanie MacDonald. David Vivian and David Fancy brought their particular aptitudes in the theatre arts to our event and contributed largely to the electric atmosphere that was radiating out of the Canada Hair Cloth building. Chefs Erik Peacock (Wellington Court), Adam Wale (The Office), Greg Pearson (The Office), and Sean Lane (PowWow) created and prepared a feast for the eyes and the palette in circumstances best likened to a bivouac on the front lines of a military campaign—and they handled it with something I’m gonna call “sangfroid du jour.” The accomplishment of this feat is owed in no small part to NAC member Margot Roza who organized our team of servers, some of whom had no previous experience. The Croatian Sensation, DJ Marinko, offered up all his gear and then some to keep the building awash in waves of music. Bev and Doug MacDonald (it’s like this is turning into my wedding reception speech) pitched in landscaping the grounds, promoting, and shuttling all kinds of things from around town to Canada Hair Cloth. And Lorelle Muller, Karrie Porter, Vanessa Marion Merritt, and James Desjardins kept the front of house from bursting while two hundred people checked in and out.
The art auction capped the evening. Thirty-six artists responded quickly when NAC put out the call. The roster of artists with local and national reputations who contributed was solid—a truly all-star line-up. The guests knew it and they bid briskly on some fantastic Canadian contemporary visual art that will now grace homes and round out collections across Niagara and one corner of Iowa. You need a great auctioneer to have the success we had Saturday; thanks to Sean Martin for lending us his formidable skills. Thanks also to Carolyn Wren who co-hosted the auction with me and provided the bidders with background on the artists and a necessary counterpoint to my insipid, colloquial introductions.
Many sponsors had NAC’s back on this one. They provided us with outstanding Niagara wine and great beer--it was a high time! Thanks to Duarte Oliveira at Megalomaniac, Tom Pennachetti at Cave Spring, Daniel Speck at Henry of Pelham, Willow Pivarnyik at Pillitteri Estates and Jordan at Amsterdam Brewery. Kudos to Anna Olson for sending all of the guests home with cookies baked in the shape of the Canada Hair Cloth Building (has anyone framed theirs?) and to Gary Waters for donating the Hugo Boss suit auctioned off to a lucky guest who is likely eagerly awaiting the next “best-dressed” event.
The owner of the Canada Hair Cloth building, Jim Macfarlane, graciously lent us the place for two weeks of set-up and hopefully only a few more days of strike. Jim kept morale high during the many days of preparation and was supportive from the outset.
Thanks to all the guests for getting into the spirit and recognizing--or becoming acquainted with the fact--that NAC throws the best parties in town. We hope to see you at STRUTT, our wearable art show this November. STRUTT is our annual fundraiser and it’s where we’re going to top Gavel Gala Hey! No fooling!
That about does it—it’s either that or I bust a Steve Martin bit where while concluding his stand-up act he says he’d like to thank each and every member of his audience, then rapidly repeats: thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you…
You get the idea.
overnout
S.
Stephen Remus
Director of Operations and Programming
2. Niagara Indie Film Festival
20 & 21 June at the Niagara Artist's Centre
In downtown St. Catharines
Two subjects, long considered scourges in Niagara, will be headlining the 9th annual Niagara Indie Film Fest this weekend in St.Catharines.
Graffiti is featured in "Creative Violation: The Rebel Art of the Street Stencil", which opens the festival Friday night at the Niagara Artist's
Centre. "Gypsy: About a Moth", headlines Saturday night with a documentary on the gypsy moth infestation in Niagara.
The 2008 festival features thirteen independent Canadian short films and videos over two nights in downtown St. Catharines. Films screened this year
include works from The Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, and Ontario. Five films are from local filmmakers.
The Niagara Indie Film Fest is a juried, national short film and video festival. NIFF was created to foster and promote independent Canadian production, present short films and videos to local audiences, and provide a forum in which filmmakers and cinema buffs may meet and interact.
Media Contact:
Deborah Cartmer
(905) 685-8336
dcartmer@becon.org
www.niagaraindiefilmfest.org
The Niagara Indie Filmfest is a national artist-run competition created to showcase emerging Canadian short film and video works.
The festival is designed to encourage independent production and to provide a forum for filmmakers and cinema buffs to meet and interact.
Friday 20 June 2008
6:30 pm Pre-screening Meet and Greet (cash bar)
7:30 pm Festival screenings
Saturday 21 June 2008
6:00pm Pre-screening Meet and Greet (cash bar)
7:00pm Festival screenings
Saturday 21 June 2008 9:30 pm
Niagara Indie Film Fest Awards And Wrap Party.
TICKETS
Screenings: Single tickets $7.50 each night
(At the door)
Ticket sales help fund the cash awards presented to the filmmakers. Donations are always welcome.
Unused tickets can be donated in advance to our "Send A Filmmaker To NIFF" Program.
3. Dialogues With The Forest
Paintings by Diego Chaves
Saturday 21 June – Saturday 12 July 2008
Closing Reception
Saturday 12 July 2008 at 3pm
Long ago, man and tree were able to share words like brothers. But as he often does, man lost the ability to hear. Saddened, the trees silenced themselves to the ears of humanity and withheld their secrets. No longer could man know the secrets of eternal life of the Green. No longer could man hear the music of the forest as he passed by. He was unable to hear the symphony of the four elements and the harmony of the birds. His eyes were blind to the meadows turned into dance floors by the swooping birds and falling leaves performed for an audience of flowers. Only the oral tradition allows for man to hold onto the few secrets of the Green he remembers. Secrets that remind humanity that even the simplicity of sights, sounds, and smells found in the woods contain a powerful knowledge.
- Diego Chaves (Edited and complemented by Brock Smeenk)
4. Film Screening
Woman in the Dunes (1964)
Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Wednesday 25 June 8pm
pay-what-you-can
Guest speaker: Rohit Dalvi, Professor of Philosophy
“So disarmingly simple is the premise of Woman in the Dunes, so sparse are its landscapes, and so economic its characterisation, that the film's desert becomes a mythic space onto which all manner of allegorical interpretations can be projected.”
– Anton Bitel
5. HECHO – doodles and such
Dennis Tourbin Members’ Gallery
19 July - 1 August 2008
Reception Saturday 26 July - 8-9 pm
In Spanish, the word hecho is a past participle, meaning ‘done’, ‘finished’ or ‘made’, and is pronounced like ‘eh - cho’.
In St. Catharines, Hecho is an urban artist who lurks rooftops and alleyways. He also doodles a lot. On July 19th, Hecho invites you to come take a gander at his drawings, all nice and pretty, hanging in frames at the NAC. He hopes all is well, and wishes you a good day. Cheers.
www.flickr.com/hecho hecho.graffo@gmail.com
6. CRAM
Domestic Violence
Scott Waters
20 June - 13 July 2008
Opening Reception: Friday, June 20th, 8:00 pm
For his exhibition at CRAM, Scott Waters’ Domestic Violence installation fills the gallery space with wallpaper and tediously painted military hardware. With warplanes appearing from behind floral patterns, the installation could be seen as inferior camouflage or as play between painted illusion and material ground, but it is also a personal fantasy world made public.
Domestic Violence is not necessarily a critique of military, or domestic culture – of western hegemony creating an unholy union with the juggernaut of interior design – but more Waters’ admission/confession of a long-standing affinity for the machinery of destruction and the aesthetics of violence.
This is physical evidence of how the pre-occupations of his youth colour his adult life. Domestic Violence admits to hours spent as a child, building plastic models without any real concern for what these machines are capable of, designed for. The project is a display of the long, rewarding hours Waters now spends painting militaria onto wallpaper (while watching TV shows on DVD), aware of their singularly destructive purpose but none-the-less happy to wile away the hours.
http://www.scottwaters.ca/