2024-03-23, Painter’s Notes, Dumpster Art Collection: The Honourable Rachel Notley, Leader of the King’s Loyal Opposition, was the first to contribute to a discarded canvas that my friend had salvaged from a dumpster during the COVID-19 lockdown. This canvas and three others were dropped off at Eastgate for me to repurpose, giving birth to the ‘Garbage Dumpster Art Project.’ For my 2021-2023 project, ‘Unity, For Such a Time As This!,’ I invited five more individuals to add their personal touch to this community painting. Among them was artist and activist Suzanne Daley, a vocal advocate at the Saturday No New Normal Freedom Rallies inside Violet King Henry Plaza, calling for the Government of Alberta to lift restrictive lockdowns. Suzanne added musical notes to the piece, which I later added: “They Sang Songs of Freedom, O’Canada.” Other contributors included Artur Pawlowski, a Polish preacher who turned politician in 2023, who inscribed the words, ‘For such a time as this,’ from the Old Testament’s Esther 4:14. A young man finished this painting by simply writing with a magic marker, ‘Christ is King.’ MLA Rachel Notley, who will be stepping down as leader of the NDP once a new leader is selected this year, has been instrumental in this project. I want to thank her for contributing to this painting and for her passionate and dedicated public service to the Province of Alberta.
2021, Worship Jesus Christ, Hare Krishna, Edmonton Oilers.
Virgil Abloh, Figures of Speech, 2019, Chicago.
In the first season of HBO’s “The Last of Us,” which was shot exclusively in Alberta, there were several stunning locations that stood in for various post-apocalyptic U.S. cities and states. Let’s dive into some of the Alberta backdrops featured in the series:
Calgary Downtown as Boston: The series premiere, titled “When You’re Lost in the Darkness,” uses Calgary’s downtown as a stand-in for Boston. A specially designed set situated in the industrial area behind the Calgary Stampede grounds serves as the show’s Boston Quarantine Zone (QZ). Additionally, viewers catch glimpses of Calgary’s historic Inglewood neighborhood and interior shots of a couple of Calgary high schools1.
Alberta Legislature Building: Perhaps no landmark in the episode is as recognizable as Alberta’s legislature building. It serves as a very acceptable stand-in for the Massachusetts State House and is one of the show’s most iconic locations1.
Other Alberta Locations: The show used an astonishing 180 locations around the province, from Grande Prairie all the way down to Waterton Lakes National Park. Recognizable locations include the Fourth Avenue Flyover in Calgary, a Fort Macleod barbershop, and the interior of a northwest Calgary restaurant. The shot list is under wraps, but Travel Alberta created an interactive map detailing all the Alberta locations featured in the series, updating it each week with locations spotted in the latest episode. So, if you’re curious to explore these post-apocalyptic settings minus the deadly fungus, you can follow the map and discover the beauty of Alberta that played a crucial role in bringing “The Last of Us” to life on screen2.
Alberta’s landscapes truly added to the show’s authenticity, and it’s exciting to see familiar places transformed into a dystopian world! AI.
Painter’s Notes, May 6, 2024: On May 6, 2017, I presented my painting to the poet, Elizabeth Potskin, in the company of her father, Brent, and my wife, Sarah. Elizabeth had the honor of joining TRC, Chair, Judge Murray Sinclair and reciting her poem on the closing day of the Truth & Reconciliation Alberta National Event in 2014 outside the Shaw Conference Center where the 4 day event took place in Edmonton. I completed this oil painting a year later, in March of 2015, and showcased it beginning on Spring Equinox, my first outdoor public art show & tell and LISTEN, in the streets of downtown Edmonton, while Elizabeth’s poem echoed from a loudspeaker I had brought along with me for my shows. In 2017, I used this painting as a symbol of protest during the “Art is Freedom Picket” outside Edmonton City Hall where an events manager threatened me with police action for displaying a single painting on New Year’s Eve in front of Edmonton City Hall. The Great Escape from Fort McMurray acrylic was part of my “2016 Fire and Rain” art project, a collection of 25 paintings painted from January to November that focused my citizen free news camera and paint canvases on the wildfires and floods in Alberta.
No comments:
Post a Comment