Sneak Peak, Take 3!

(thanks for your inspiration on this one Armita!)

(Quilting, in a different way...)

Sneak Peak Take 2!

Sneak Peak! - The New Art Festival

Upcoming Exhibit @ The New Art Festival!

Ottawa’s longstanding outdoor art tradition, The New Art Festival, is repeating once again this spring on June 4th and 5th. This year, I am excited to be a participating artist and will show my fibre art on the “Clemow Pathway,” space 37.

The New Art Festival (formerly Art in the Park) remains Ottawa’s largest outdoor art exhibit with over 250 artists and entertainers from a full spectrum of disciplines. As always, the festival takes place in the Glebe’s Central Park – east of Bank Street up until O’Connor, between Patterson and Celmow – and is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, rain or shine. [Due to construction, the Festival can be accessed by car on O’Connor or Patterson, or by foot on Bank and Clemow.]

According to the organizers, The New Art Festival is a non-commercial event and therefore does not include any mass-produced goods, nor does it have any representation from large chains or corporations. It also continues to be a low carbon footprint event. When attending the festival, you can expect to find:

- free admission
- a family-friendly and community-oriented environment
- a beautiful park setting
- food from local vendors
- a selection of art that is juried by artists and arts professionals
- artists on site to answer your questions and explain their craft

For full details about the exhibition, including driving and public transit directions visit http://www.artinfoboy.org/. In the coming days, you will find samples of my work in addition to a site map on this blog.

Culture in the upcoming Canadian Federal Election - get your vote out on May 2nd!!!

CCA Bulletin 15/11 - Federal Election 2011 - The Party Platforms: What About Culture?

"The Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) has taken the platforms available from the five major federal political parties and broken them down for you. Below, you will find all pertinent elements of the party platforms divided into different priorities identified by the CCA. These priorities are areas of focus for the arts, culture and heritage sector in terms of public investments in culture, cultural policies, regulation and taxation. We have not edited any elements of the platforms: we have simply divided them into relevant categories. We also have not omitted information in any of the sections below. Empty columns indicate that we did not find any relevant information on that particular topic in the respective party’s platform. As a final note, with regards to the Bloc Québécois’ platform, we ourselves completed the French to English translation.

"Next week, we will complete our analysis of the political parties’ platforms from the cultural perspective by publishing their responses to the questionnaires we sent them on April 5."

See the full CCA analysis at: http://www.ccarts.ca/en/advocacy/bulletins/2011/1511.htm

Tips & Tricks for Buying Art

Check out this great Etsy blog by Kate that has excellent tips and tricks for buying art you love: http://www.etsy.com/storque/spotlight/eight-etsy-artists-you-should-know-12547/?ref=fp_blog_title

Conference on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the interdepartmental Government Conference on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It was designed to facilitate reflection upon strategies to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities throughout all government programmes and policies - a treaty that Canada ratified (with one reservation for Art. 12(4)) on March 11, 2010.

According to UN Enable - a web portal to information on the rights of persons with disabilities - the Convention:

"marks a 'paradigm shift' in attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. It [shifts] from viewing persons with disabilities as 'objects' of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing persons with disabilities as 'subjects' with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as being active members of society... It clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to persons with disabilities and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for persons with disabilities to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced" (emphasis mine, http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?navid=13&pid=150).

The full text of the Convention can be found at http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?navid=13&pid=150.

Throughout the course of the day, conference participants examined the Convention itself, community responses to the Convention, the application of the Convention to our work as public servants and best practices in accessibility in the Government of Canada.
From my perspective, highlights of the conference include:

• The resounding "Nothing about us, without us!" was heard frequently throughout the day. This refers to the call from the people whose lives will be most affected by policies and programmes that target clients with disabilities - they ask that we do not take action without client consultations (as provided for in Art. 4 of the Convention). This is because "able-bodied" people do not understand the complexity of a life lived with disability so therefore their programmes or policies may not account for all the diverse needs of people with disabilities. Moreover, acting without the input of people with disabilities reinforces traditional conceptions of disability where disability is understood in terms of dependence and infirmity.
• Disability does not discriminate - it is (and can be) experienced by people of all ages, races, genders, and socio-economic classes. In addition, able-bodiedness is not fixed or stable - any one of us can acquire disability in our lifetimes. Therefore, disability issues are not only relevant to those with impairments.
• Disability is not necessarily the result of physical impairments, but rather disabling social barriers. For example, someone who is visually impaired can navigate society and the workplace if information can be translated into text. Here, text-to-voice software like "Kurzweil 3000" which reads text found in pdf. format offer different, though no less effective, methods of engaging with language. "Jaws," another similar programme allows people with visual impairments to navigate Microsoft Office and web browsers by reading out loud the dialogue boxes and function keys on the screen.

These are just a few of the highlights and questions that I am considering after my attendance at the conference. If anyone wishes to discuss these, or any other issues, or would like to look at my materials from presenters, then I would be happy to do so.