Art
An Edmonton artist pinged Simu Liu about buying some art. Now there's a mural in the actor's home – CBC.ca
Rahmaan Hameed was scrolling through Instagram when he saw a New Year’s Day post from Canadian actor Simu Liu at a game of the New Taipei Kings professional basketball team.
The Edmonton artist is a huge fan of Liu, the first Asian superhero to lead a Marvel film in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and a self-professed Marvel enthusiast.
He’s also not shy about drumming up business for the vivid, contemporary paintings and murals that he creates. “Gotta get you some art this year bro,” Hameed wrote in a comment on Liu’s post.
Apparently Liu agreed.
“He messaged me in the morning and I’m like, ‘OK, this is not real,'” Hameed told CBC’s Edmonton AM. “There’s no way this is happening.”
Liu, who will be hosting the Juno Awards taking place in Edmonton this month, was looking for a custom mural for his home gym in Los Angeles.
The two messaged back and forth on ideas before settling on the design: an anime-like depiction of Liu’s Shang-Chi persona flanked by Dragon Ball Z‘s Goku on one side and Los Angeles basketball great Kobe Bryant on the other.
“The whole concept was pretty much anime-related, superhero-related — and he’s a big basketball fan,” Hameed said.
On Feb. 20, Hameed flew down to L.A. to install the mural — a task that came with a new set of challenges.
A piece of this scale and details would usually take Hameed up to two weeks but he had it finished in three days.
“I was a little nervous. Like, this is one of my biggest clients to date,” he said.
“And I’m not painting a canvas, I’m painting his house, so [there’s] no margin for error.”
Edmonton AM8:07An Edmonton artist is back from Los Angeles after completing a MARVEL … ous project
Hameed has been painting and sketching his whole life, but launched his professional art career in 2015.
Since then, his clientele has grown to include professional athletes in the NBA, NHL, actors and influencers. Like Liu, many became customers after Hameed drew attention to himself on their social media feeds.
His work can also be seen around Edmonton at places like the Seoul Fried Chicken restaurant in Old Strathcona, Kingsway Mall and — much to Hameed’s delight — J. Percy Page high school, where he’d been a student.
“They commissioned me to pretty much create three large scale murals for their math, social studies and the language arts departments,” he said.
It was a full-circle moment when his high school became his first big commission as an artist, he said.
“When you see these projects that come your way, when you see your work in the public space, it makes the journey and the hard work worth it.”
Art
Couple transforms Interlake community into art hub, live music 'meeting place' – CBC.ca
A trio plays a cover of The Eagles hit Take it Easy as a dozen people settle in for an intimate open mic night inside Derrick McCandless and Dawn Mills’s cozy spot off highways 6 and 68 in Manitoba’s Interlake.
Strings of antique-style light bulbs cast a soft glow over the mandolin, banjo and dobro guitar that hang on a wall behind the band. An array of pottery shaped in-house by Mills dots the shelves behind the audience.
The Eriksdale Music & Custom Frame Shop is full of tchotchkes — like an Elvis Presley Boulevard street sign and vintage Orange Crush ad — that create the rustic country-living vibe the couple dreamt up before buying and transforming the vacant space over the past three years.
“I have met so many people in this community through them that I probably wouldn’t have … because of this hub,” says Mills’s cousin Dana-Jo Burdett.
Mills and McCandless are bringing people together in their rural community in more ways than one — though a return to Mills’s hometown wasn’t always in the cards.
The couple met in Winnipeg in 2011 while McCandless was playing a party at Mills’s cousin’s place. They had plans to settle in the Okanagan in McCandless’s home province of B.C. until he suffered a health scare. After that, they decided to head back to the Prairies.
WATCH | McCandless and Mills channel creative spirit into Eriksdale community:
It was the height of the pandemic in fall 2020 when the pair relocated to Eriksdale, about 130 km northwest of Winnipeg. They bought the old Big Al’s shop, once a local sharpening business that was sitting vacant.
“He was an icon in the community. He was a school teacher. He did a drama program here,” said Mills. “He brought a lot to the town.”
The building has become their own personal playground and live-in studio.
“It keeps evolving and we keep changing it and every room has to serve multi-function,” says Mills. “It’s a meeting place.”
While they love the quiet life of their community, they’re also a busy couple.
McCandless is a multi-instrumentalist with a former career in the Armed Forces that took him all over. Now, he’s a shop teacher in Ashern who sells and fixes instruments out of the music shop.
WATCH | McCandless plays an original song:
Mills helped found Stoneware Gallery in 1978 — the longest running pottery collective in Canada. She offers professional framing services and sells pottery creations that she throws in-studio.
They put on open mic nights and host a summer concert series on a stage next door they built together themselves. They’re trying to start up a musicians memorial park in Eriksdale too.
One of their bigger labours of love is in honour of McCandless’s good friends Roger Leonard Young, David Kim Russell and Tony “Leon” — or Lee — Oreniuk. All died within months of each other in 2020-2021.
“That was a heart-wrenching year,” McCandless says.
They channeled their grief into something good for the community and started the RogerKimLee Music Festival.
Friends from Winnipeg and the Interlake helped them put on a weekend of “lovely music, lovely food, lovely companionship” as a sort of heart-felt send off, said Mills.
That weekend it poured rain. Festival-goers ended up in soggy dog piles on the floor of the music shop to dry out while Mills and McCandless cooked them sausages and eggs to warm up.
“It was just a great weekend,” says McCandless. “At the end of that, that Sunday, we just said that’s it, we got to do this.”
Mills says the homey community spirit on display during that inaugural year is what the couple has been trying to “encourage in people getting together” ever since.
The festival has grown to include a makers’ market, car show, kids activities, workshops, camping, beer gardens, good food and live music.
This summer, Manitoba acts The Solutions, Sweet Alibi and The JD Edwards Band are on the lineup Aug. 16-18.
Burdett has been a part of the growth, helping with branding, social media and marketing. McCandless and Mills’s habit of bringing people together has also rubbed off on Burdett.
“There’s more of my people out here than I thought, and I am very grateful for that,” says Burdett.
Their efforts to breathe new artistic life into Eriksdale caught the attention of their local MLA.
“The response from family and friend and community has been outstanding,” Derek Johnston (Interlake-Gimli) said during question period at the Manitoba Legislature in March.
“The RogerKimLee Music Festival believes music to be a powerful force for positive social change.”
Dolly Lindell, who has lived in Eriksdale for about three decades, said the couple is adding something valuable that wasn’t quite there before.
“There’s a lot of people that we didn’t even know had musical talent and aspirations and this has definitely helped bring it out,” Lindell says from the audience as McCandless, Dave Greene and Mark Chuchie wrap their rendition of Take it Easy.
McCandless, 61, said there was a time in his youth where he dreamed of a becoming a folk music star. Now his musical ambitions have changed. He’s focused on using that part of himself to bring people together.
“I think it’s that gift that I was given that that needs to be shared,” he says. “I don’t think I could live without sharing it.”
WATCH | Trio plays song at Eriksdale music shop:
Art
Meet artist J-Positive and the family behind his art store – CBC.ca
- 1 day ago
- News
- Duration 4:42
Joel Jamensky’s sunny disposition explains why the artist with Down syndrome uses the name ‘J-positive’ for his online art business, started with the help of his parents two years ago. “There’s a lot more going on in [Joel’s] art than may be at first glance – just like him,” said his dad, Mark.
Art
Made Right Here: Woodworking art – CTV News Kitchener
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Made Right Here: Woodworking art CTV News Kitchener
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