The 5 to watch. Singer songwriters.

This is a weekly list I’ve decided to do for fun. It is a list of 5 things, persons, events, or places that I think are worth watching… or in this case listening to, and yes watching.To make things easier and less contentious the list is alphabetical.

This week’s list is about 5 smooth sounding singer songwriters that hail from Prince Edward Island. Each has a web presence, and I hope you check out their sites. The descriptions below are from their own descriptions on their websites.

1. Tim  Chaisson  (born September 6, 1986) is a Canadian singer/songwriter and is the front man of Tim Chaisson & Morning Fold based in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Previously, Chaisson was a member of the Canadian Celtic/contemporary group, Kindle. Chaisson was born in Bear River, Prince Edward Island.

2. Rose Cousins is a Canadian folk-pop singer-songwriter. Born and raised in Prince Edward Island, she is currently based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She released two EPs prior to her full-length debut, If You Were for Me, in 2006. The album garnered her a nomination for best solo artist at the Canadian Folk Music Awards.She was also a winner in the 2007 Mountain Stage NewsongContest, as well as winning best folk recording from both the Nova Scotia Music Awards and the PEI Music Awards, and Female Recording of the Year at the East Coast Music Awards in 2008. She followed up with The Send Off in 2009. The Send Off was produced by Luke Doucet, and features guest musicians including Kathleen Edwards, Melissa McClelland, David Myles, Jenn Grant and Tom Wilson. Cousins has also appeared as a guest musician on albums by Grant, Joel Plaskett, In-Flight Safety, Two Hours Traffic, Matt Mays, Catherine MacLellan, Jill Barber, Matt Epp, Old Man Luedecke, Ruth Minnikin, The Olympic Symphonium and Craig Cardiff, and has performed live with Royal Wood, Daniel Ledwell, Rose Polenzani, Anne Heaton and Laura Cortese.

3. Tanya Davis is a poet. She is a storyteller. She is a musician and a singer-songwriter and she fuses these elements together in a refreshing matrimony of language and sound, side-stepping genre and captivating audiences in the process. With the release of her third album, Clocks and Hearts Keep Going, in November 2010, she affirms her well-earned place in the ranks of thoughtful and hard-working Canadian Artists.

4. Lennie Gallant Recognized by his peers as one of Canada’s best performing songwriters, Lennie Gallant is a native of Prince Edward Island now living in Nova Scotia. This prolific songwriter has recorded nine albums (seven in English and two in French), which have won him a host of awards and nominations from both the JUNOs and East Coast Music Awards. His album, “When We Get There” was nominated for a JUNO Award and went into space aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in July 2009. Canadian astronaut Julie Payette chose the album for the astronaut crew to enjoy.

5. Jenn Grant   The honeymoon continues for East Coast nightingale Jenn Grant, who released her third album on Six Shooter Records on September 25, 2012. With The Beautiful Wild, Jenn follows love’s twisted, tangled path deep into the heart’s jungle. The new record is about finding the courage to lose oneself in the wilderness, in all of its savage and sublime experiences.

The dense, exotic sounds of The Beautiful Wild depart from the giddy blush of Honeymoon Punch, Jenn Grant’s Juno Nominated and Polaris Long Listed previous album. There is a mature solemnity to be found that creates a new intimacy and immediacy with the listener. Jenn Grant’s intuitive ability to express emotion has helped to define her as one of Canada’s premiere vocalists; even in the darkest corners of the wilderness, her prismatic, iridescent voice continues to sparkle, dancing over adventurous new layers that include harp, flute and sitar.

Jenn Grant is a lively member of a thriving East Coast artist community. The Beautiful Wild features many notable locals, including Old Man Luedecke, Rose Cousins, Erin Costello, Kinley Dowling, David Christiansen and the Halifax Boys’ Honour Choir.

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The 5 to watch. Funny guys.

This is a weekly list I’ve decided to do for fun. It is a list of 5 things, persons, events, or places that I think are worth watching…some probably from a safe distance. To make things easier and less contentious the list is alphabetical.

This week’s list is about funny Prince Edward Islanders who have provided laughs, subtlety, outrage, puzzlement, and pleasure in various measure. Each of these creative funny people lives or has lived and worked on Prince Edward Island.  Some are well known, and some should be famous. Each has a web presence (sort of), and I hope you check out their work. The descriptions below are gleamed from various websites.

1. Dave Atkinson is a dad, homeschooler, writer, journalist, cartoonist, broadcaster and knitter. For ten years, he reported for CBC Radio from Ontario, New Brunswick, Nunavut and Nova Scotia. His work has appeared on programs such as The Current, Sounds Like Canada, As it Happens, This Morning, Sounds Like Canada, Maritime Magazine, Maritime Noon, Tapestry, In the Field and various regional radio shows across the country.

2. Patrick Ledwell Raised on PEI, and then returned to it, Patrick Ledwell draws on his experiences growing up in an Island family and the funny trials of staying true to his roots. He successfully delayed entering the workplace with degrees in literature and technology. After six years of teaching college, he had built up enough casual days (and e-mail nights) to supply more than enough material for a comedy career.

3. Rob MacDonald of Sketch 22  fame is a writer. Sketch comedy mostly. He acts. Comedy mostly. He directs. Surprisingly hard to find biographical information about even though he has been an active performer for over 20 years.

4. Ponderings was created by Jeremy Larter and Robbie Moses in the winter of 2010. Jeremy co-created the hit web series Profile PEI with Adam Perry in early 2008. They also worked together on Adam’s web series and feature length film, Jiggers in 2009. The videos are for a mature audience only. Viewer Discretion is Advised (NSFW)

5. Graham Putnam‘s creative endeavours include performing, writing, editing, and directing in mediums including stage, film and video culminating primarily in the comedy group called Sketch 22, and a Parody of  the 9/11 truther series Loose Change. Graham Putnam creates a compelling argument that the destruction of the first Death Star was an inside job—orchestrated by none other than Darth Vader himself.

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The five to watch.

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This is a weekly list I’ve decided to do for fun. It is a list of 5 things, persons, events, or places that I think are worth watching…some probably from a safe distance. To make things easier and less contentious the list is alphabetical.

This week’s list is about 5 cool artists whose work has long interested and inspired me. Each of these artists lives or has lived and worked on Prince Edward Island.  All are dynamic creators and contributors, and  leaders in the Island and Canadian art scene. Each has a web presence, and I hope you check out their sites. The descriptions below are from their own descriptions on their websites.

1. Millefiore Clarkes dedicates herself to the craft and community of media arts on Prince Edward Island. Her production company One Thousand Flowers Productions produces a variety of media work such as “pocket-docs” for online dissemination, music videos, experimental video, and feature documentaries. Her passion is to capture on film the moments when human’s reveal themselves and their essential interconnectivity.

2. Donnalee Downe is a visual artist and the project coordinator for Peake Street Studios in Charlottetown. She recently completed her MFA at Cardiff School of Art and Design, Wales.

3. Sandi Hartling is an emerging visual artist living and working in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Sir Wilfred Grenfell College of Memorial University of Newfoundland in Spring 2007.

4. Sarah Saunders Sarah Saunders has exhibited both nationally and internationally. Her artwork is included in the collections of the Canadiana Fund, the Province of PEI Art Bank, Confederation Centre Art Gallery and the Burlington Art Centre. Articles on her work have appeared in the international journal Ceramics Art and Perception as well as in national publications on contemporary art. She has been awarded grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the PEI Arts Council, and the Province of PEI. She has a Bachelor of Design from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Her formal art education at NSCAD is preceded by an educational background that includes a B.Sc. in biology from Acadia University, studies in dance in Toronto and sculpture and drawing at the American Centre in Paris.

5. Becka Viau is an Artist from Charlottetown Prince Edward Island. She received her BFA, 2008 at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She has worked as a curator, educator and coordinator of arts collectives, and much of her artistic activity engages with questions relating to the institutions, dissemination and social networks of art and culture. Her art practice is grounded in the research of historic and contemporary photographic techniques, theories of the everyday and social research methods. The histories of documentary, portraiture, cultural presentation and anthropological research influence her creative studio process through various explorations of people, place and identity.

If you like this list check out my next 5 to watch list.

In 1983 I Wrote Something Down.

In 1983 I picked up an office ledger and decided to keep a record of my work. Why did I do this I find myself wondering, and what is it about me, that causes me to keep lists and archives? Anyway all I know for sure is that I’m glad my younger self decided to do this. Over the years it’s actually come in handy to have a record of my work, and I still like to flip through it to see what I was up to way back when. It’s surprising how much of the work I can remember.

What I do is record the date, title, medium, and give each piece a number, and also on the back of each artwork I record the same information. Today there is just one space left in this old ledger, and almost 3000 pieces of artwork have been recorded. Today I will fill it up, and tomorrow I will begin again with a new ledger. I wonder how long it will take to fill the new one?

A Wednesday List Of Ten Things I Like.

This is not a top ten list, but rather a totally random list of things I like in no particular order.

1. Misremembered Memories. I really think that most memories are really just patched together bits of many memories. The other day I had a vivid memory of trees that I used to play around when I was a kid. The trees are long gone, and though the memory was happy, I now think that the trees themselves had a gloomy, sad, and sinister quality to them. Of course this too could just be another misremembered memory. Or not.

2. Side Walk Plows. Sadly we have far too few of these in Charlottetown, but they do a great job cleaning our sidewalks…eventually. It’s been a few days since our last heavy snow and some parts of the sidewalks on our street are passable. For the rest we walk in the street with the cars and trucks.

3. Boots With Good Treads. I find that when I have to walk in the street because the sidewalks are covered in snow that it comes in handy to have heavy treads on my boots. They help keep me out from under the passing cars.

4. The Jack Frost Festival. This weekend we went to our 1st Jack Frost Festival in Charlottetown. Essentially it’s a winter carnival, and it was far better than I was expecting. My daughter loved it, and she burned off a lot of energy going down ice slides, skating, climbing through snow tunnels, and just running around. It was a great wintertime distraction.

5. Meatloaf. During the grinding last few months of winter I find that meatloaf is one of the great comfort foods. It’s sort of like eating a giant hamburger, which reminds me of summer, and it is filling. Which is a comforting fact as I head out into the snow. It also makes a great sandwich.

6. Sketching. I’ve always enjoyed sketching. I guess I enjoy sketches because I rarely show them, and they often end up being other things. Sketching is a form of limbering up, relaxing, and working things out. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that writing a list can be considered a form of sketching.

7. Planning. I’m always planning things. Sometimes the things I’m planning are years in the future and may never occur. Sometimes I’m planning things I meant to do yesterday and may never occur. But more often than not the stuff I plan is arts-related and sometimes occurs. I like plans, and if they don’t work out exactly like I planned that’s okay.

8. Ideas. Good ideas are hard to come by. Sometimes I think I have a new idea, but often I discover that someone thought of my idea first. Actually this really only applies to good ideas. Bad ideas are often very original, sometimes dangerous, and I seem to have an unlimited supply of bad ideas. But just because an idea has been done doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it and run with it.

9. Hope. I spend a lot of time hoping for things, and they are odd things at times. I find myself hoping that paint will dry faster, and sometimes I hope it will dry slower. I often hope paint stains will come out of my clothes, especially when they are new clothes. I often hope things will come in the mail, other than bills of course.

10. The First 10 Seconds Of A Song. I like when the first 10 seconds of a song are great. I find that it means the rest of the song is probably going to be good. I find that if the first 10 seconds of a song are bad then the rest of the song will probably be bad too.