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If you’ve seen my video artistic statement or we’ve chatted in the last 8 months, you may have noticed I’ve been obsessed about gifts / gifting / gift economies. I’m building a (snail) mailing list to give gifts (art) away to people, and I’m working on some ideas about decentralized hybrid gift-barter networks… Since lots of people have been asking me about how to find out more about gift economies, I thought I should post some links here to make it all more accessible.

1. Nipun Mehta’s TEDx talk gives great contemporary examples of radical acts of giving:

The best part is when he talks about the museum study that reveals people give the most when they are first told they have been gifted their admission fee, and then asked to donate any amount they wish for someone else’s ticket. I’m convinced this is the secret ingredient. Gifts beget gifts.

2. The inspiration for my obsession however, actually came from Lewis Hyde’s book, The Gift. (And was fuelled by what’s happening in Greece right now.) I love what Hyde says about gift rituals: an obligation to give, obligation to receive, and obligation to reciprociate.

Many tribal groups circulate a large portion of their material wealth as gifts. Tribesman are typically enjoined from buying and selling food, for example; even though there may be a strong sense of “mine and thine,” food is always given as  gift and the transaction is governed by the ethics of gift exchange, not those of barter or cash purchase. Not surprisingly, people live differently who treat a portion of their wealth as a gift. To begin with, unlike the sale of a commodity, the giving of a gift tends to establish a relationship between the parties involved. Furthermore, when gifts circulate within a group, their commerce leaves a series of interconnected relationships in its wake, and a kind of decentralized cohesiveness emerges.

3. Ourgoods.org is a barter community for creative people / projects that I’ve really been enjoying. Barter communities are not gifting communities but there is a tremendous sense of openness that is both refreshing and resonates with gifting ideals. The key, I think, is that it’s happening at a human level. While you’re encouraged to be smart, pragmatic, even cautious, the vast majority of the postings I’ve seen on the network are friendly, not business-like. It’s not about nickle-and-diming one another: Propose a trade, step in to help, or let people know what you need. There’s more ambiguity about what is “fair” so that “fair” is just about whether you feel you can give “x” in return for “y.” In my own experience, I’ve been giving “x” without asking for “y” because sometimes people don’t have something I need, or not something I need right away. Go have a look. I bet you’ll find out about really interesting projects and want to pitch in that bit of time or help the organizer is looking for — regardless of whether you’ll get anything back in return.

Whoa this is getting to be kinda long. Will post more later.

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P.S. I’ve been planting seeds in the not-for-profit community - I don’t want to jinx anything - so let’s just say, fingers crossed that I may have more interesting news to post on gifting culture in Toronto. Keywords: polycentric, decentralized hybrid gift-barter networks - let me know if you wanna get involved or just chat and tell me why this will not work.

Got my contract and official letter of invitation today from the Gladstone Hotel for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2012. They didn’t send a floorplan, because, they say, “we are really keen to do something with you for the [building’s] exterior.”

I’ve been meaning to try making light sculptures ever since I created Gulliver (see photo above). Not certain how I’ll make it rain-proof, how it’ll hang outside, or what it’ll look like, yet. That’s the fun part!

*If anyone has room in their (dry) basement or garage for a large light sculpture after Nuit Blanche, please let me know.

Finally got all the proposals in. Now I turn to my calendar and see that I’m doing my first reading ever this Saturday.

Message me for details!

“Before you reach for the bottle, consider Art instead.”

I think we need a communications campaign focused on the arts as every person’s secret weapon against depressed spirits, boredom, restlessness, and moodiness.

I love that it’s National Dance Week (Canada’s first!) and I love that my Twitter stream is full of messages about the week…

But to be honest I am not taking the time to read all the news and information. (Except for Yoko Ono’s DIY dance festival…) Who has time??

I keep up on arts news because it’s part of my job. I used to read much more arts news because I was still ambitious about my consulting practice in the arts and cultural sector.

Now I’m mostly focused on being an artist. Which is kind of like being focused on making lunches for people. Most of the time, I only care about news that amuses me or helps me live my life better.

I would care more about National Dance Week if the point wasn’t to promote dance but to promote how dancing more and seeing more dance will make me healthier, more creative, and more successful.

I know, right? Dance really does do those things. Make you healthier, more creative, and ultimately more successful. So why don’t we make a communications campaign around that messaging?

….To my colleagues who are organizing National Dance Week - thank you, I love you, this is not meant to be negative. Just some vaguely controversial thoughts that went through my mind. Floating this out there for discussion. Tell me your thoughts.

This video gives an overview (of sorts) of some of my work to date. I made this video for a special event hosted by the Ontario Arts Council for past recipients of the access and career development grant.

The video also features some images of work made by friends, which represent past and ongoing collaborations - which range from very open, loose mixing to more traditional forms of teamwork.

Over the next week, I’ll be noting below the images that were contributed by these friendly collaborators, and try to do our collaborative relationships justice. If these images intrigued or impressed you, please visit their websites and consider leaving them a note. A nice comment is a wonderful gift to pass along.

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In France, Maria’s studio was directly above mine. Every day we worked in parallel studios, making parallel discoveries, trying to go further with our work before another sleep and another day was lost.

The painting on the far left is Canada / Argentina. I had always felt as if I could read Maria’s paintings like a book. Every painting has its own story. When I saw this piece, it was the day of my departure from the residency. The painting did not have a name yet, but I told Maria I could see Canada and Argentina in it. She said she had made it that morning, “just trying to begin working again,” then gave it to me as a parting gift, and as a symbol of collaborations to come.

The painting hangs in my studio in Toronto, reminding me that although we are very far from each other now, we are each in our respective studios, “just trying to begin working again.”

The green folded painting in the middle contains another painting on the opposite side, which Maria had offered me as a canvas on which she hoped I would place words one day. Our first official collaboration.

The mixed media work on the right is a piece that Maria created based on an experimental story I had written. Our second official collaboration.

Before the official collaborations, there was something else at work. In a blog post that Maria wrote during our residency in France, she alludes to a magic, unseen, unconscious collaboration that was already taking place in those days of parallel studio lives:

While the bike goes through all the weathers. […] While the Sun is less and less powerful. While we know our time is about to end, all the time. While we invent the islands where we are going to see each other again. While the words of one guides the brush of the other. […]

While we think its today and it is yesterday.

Whiles, yes, it is all the time, you don´t know any more if what you have, came with you or you founded it here.

What Maria did not know at the time of her penning this blog post, was that I had started writing a different kind of story which were greatly inspired by my encounter with her paintings. Words guiding the brush, brush guiding the writing. Chicken or egg, would we have done the work we did if we had not found each other in the space of this residency?

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Images by and annotations for Christine Garvey, Dreamwalker Dance, and Sebastian Portillo coming next.

The duet show (“When Aquamarine”) went well. People literally gasped and virtually cried (with glee / delight) when I gave the souvenir of drawings and found texts. That’s my favourite part about working in the performing arts: You get to be there for the audience reaction. Good or bad, you get to see it, feel it, hear it. Writing is an awful bore; most of your life is spent waiting to hear back from people. 

If you have a friend who is a writer and shares their writing with you - do them a favour and be vocal and visceral about your reaction as soon as humanly possible. Don’t wait.

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It was strange, I don’t remember how it started but the post-show Q&A somehow started to revolve around this notion of the duet being intensely “personal” to the dancemakers - and by extension, to the rest of the creative team.

I found this odd, but was too flushed in the moment to put my finger on it: While Andrea (the choreographer) works intuitively, and invites everyone - from the interpreters (dancers) to the creative team members to the audience - to see into the work as they wish, the work itself is not “personal,” if by personal you mean “biographical” or “autobiographical.”

The work is the work. It’s our individual interpretations (including that of the choreographer and the interpreters) that are personal, biographical or autobiographical.

The souvenirs I had created for the show point to this using the language of the Symbolists. The work (the dance) is a symbol. As a symbol, the work’s meaning is both fixed and flexible (or open).

For the twentieth-century Symbolists, the successful symbol stands for something in the poem (in the writer’s mind) while alludes to many more meanings (mystical / open possibilities).

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I want to write about the crazy dreams I had a few nights ago. But maybe I’ll just say all the symbols in the dreams pointed to change, development, transition, knowledge, intuition, and some kind of place in the world.

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I’ve been feeling like I should really break my Miscellany blog into at least two separate sites, maybe three. It would be more organized. But maybe I just need to reorganize this one. Get a custom template made….

I realized today that I take my writing self for granted. I expect the writer in me to perform well, to execute at a high level, to do the job.

Meanwhile I giggle like a school girl when I manage to make sounds that remotely resemble music. I glow when I doodle something pretty. I give myself lots of room to experiment and play when it comes to anything and all else other than writing.

To my writing self: I am so sorry. You’re that friend that shows up and helps me figure shit out. You’re the one I blame when shit can’t be fixed or history rewritten. I always assume that you’ll be back, that you’ll come through. I am so sorry.

I promise to treat you with more respect, with more love, with more generosity.

Now please help me finish.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Eight pages. Gesture drawings of dancers and choreographer working in rehearsal - worked over on the computer - combined with fragments of essays and manifestos on art, symbolism, and poetry.

I still have a half dozen or so left. Thinking of mailing them to random people.

Dasein Dance Theatre
in association with
Young Centre for the Performing Arts and Dreamwalker Dance Company
presents
an Open Studio showing of

When Aquamarine Saturday, March 17th, 2012, 8:30pm-9:30pm
Free admission

The Tank House Theatre
The Young Centre for the Performing Arts
55 Mill Street, Building 49, Toronto, ON
(Distillery District)

Performers Tyler Gledhill & Lacey Smith
Choreographer Andrea Nann
Dramaturge Helen Yung
Composers Tom Kuo & Anne Bourne
Lighting Designer Simon Rossiter
Scenic Designer Ken MacKenzie
Commissioned by Dasein Dance Theatre

It was a signal. For which I am glad.

Today is a work day. Studio is littered with work. Kitchen is almost clean. Going to write a few texts then finish the housework.

Listening to moody Shigeru Umebayashi …which makes it hard to do anything but drift… and periodically bang my head gently against the table.

…but I’ve been listening to cute stuff on Mixcloud. And fun stuff like this:

Still, I haven’t found the pulse or tempo for the work. What I did do tonight, is send some text prompts to Christine Garvey, a Brooklyn artist whom I’m working with on some still-to-be-defined collaboration. Check out her work online. It’s amazing, very inspiring.

In other news   my printer appears to be running out of ink again.

I resolve to finish the next draft of the manuscript before the printer runs out of ink completely. This little HP Laserjet 1012 has been with me for a long time. We’ve been through a lot together. Countless applications, reports, proposals, submissions, drafts, not to mention at least five different computers, I think.

It would cost me less to buy a new printer than to get replacement toner for my friend.

But what’s money between friends?