Michael Fuller is a postman who takes photos and is currently making a feature length documentary about some beach town in America.

themichaelfullerwebsite.com

Kate Stinson is originally from the Prairies, and has called Halifax home since 2006. She likes drawing, photography, and printmaking. (Currently, she combines all three).

Claire Seringhaus enjoys drawing, mixing stiff drinks, admiring Queen Anne furniture, and speaking to her plants in dulcet tones. She’ll be showing work at Lost & Found in July; and her first book of drawings, The Blaring House, is being published by Conundrum Press this summer.

claireseringhaus.com

Sarah Burwash graduated from the UBC Okanagan in 2009 with a BFA in drawing and printmaking. Working in a variety of media from drawing and collage to video and ceramics, Sarah’s work most often takes form in narrative watercolour paintings and installation. Sarah currently resides in Lunenburg, NS, working full time as an artist and freelance illustrator.

sarahburwash.com/

Hillary Webb is a textile artist moonlighting as a librarian at NSCAD. Hailing from Toronto, the ocean has convinced her to stay in Halifax, where she lives with her creative partner in art and love, and their cute fluffy bear. Hillary’s current work has been influenced by inspirational things witnessed on road trips.

makereadbuild.tumblr.comhillarywebb.ca

Chris Foster is a Halifax based Artist working in print, illustration and installation. He is the Chair of Programming for the Khyber Center for the Arts and a tenant of the Last Chance studio collective.

chrisfoster.ca

Jesse Mitchell is an interdisciplinary artist interested in the alteration of found materials. Un-spoken cultural knowledge and values reside within all production. Failed constructions are of most interest to me: B-movies, pulp-fiction, fake fireplaces, relaxation audio cassettes, out of date office furniture and the self help industry. By exploiting these materials I hope to widen the gap between the familiar and the alien to create a place for myself to reside within our cultural locale.

Andrew Hood is an award-winning author of short fiction, and a rad dude. His first book, Pardon our Monsters (Véhicule) received wide praise and won The Writers’ Union of Canada’s Danuta Gleed Award. Hood has lived in Montreal, Guelph, and other places, but now calls Halifax home.

Kelly Zwicker is in her third year at NSCAD and is currently working within the mediums of printmaking and video. She creates work inspired by punk rock, feminism, abandoned objects and legends. She just shaved her head and it feels awesome.

Bree Hyland is currently a student at NSCAD entering her second year. She is in the process of learning and creating vibes.

Kate Walchuk lives Halifax’s North End and makes art about the things people keep and the things they throw away. Since graduating from NSCAD in the spring of 2011, she has focused her practice on shaped paintings and papier-mâché.

katewalchuk.com/

Bethany Riordan-Butterworth has been living and working in Halifax since 2003. Her interest in getting to know people and sharing experiences often leads to collaborative work, such as the Fuller Lecture Series and the Secret Tumbler Project.

fullerlectures.combreadandbutterpottery.com

JUNE 2012 Issue 3 - Authenticity Cover by Michael Fuller

Welcome to the third issue of The Periodical Project. We aim to promote encourage and excite Halifax based Artists. We present to a broad audience the Art produced in Halifax to increase its exposure and profile, here and across the country.

PERIodICAl tHREE features 12 Halifax based Artists and their interpretations on the theme of Authenticity.

Special thanks to Invisible Publishing for their continued support!

the theme for our next issue is OBSESSION. Submissions for our fourth issue are due September 15 2012.

Please consider Advertising or placing a Listing in PERIODICAL FOUR to help us fund this project.

Send Questions / Comments / Submissions / Donations! / Advertisements / Listings to theperiodicalproject@gmail.com

Also check out our online presence at theperiodicalproject.tumblr.comfacebook.com/theperiodicalproject - Chris Foster & Natalie Slater

2 Kate Stinson

Claire Seringhaus 3

4 Sarah Burwash

Hillary Webb 5

Chris 6 Foster

Jesse Mitchell 7

I’M SoRRY ANd tHANK YoU

An excerpt from The Cloaca by Andrew Hood, a new collection of contemporary short fiction

now available from Invisible Publishing.

He came out onto his porch and there was some hippy mother changing her baby on his lawn. On a Hudson Bay blanket the mother was wiping and dabbing at the muddy rolls and creases of her little girl. A gust of wind whipped up leaves around the two, and it was like last night on TV. Some pear-shaped Spanish grandma had been crammed into this glass booth with money going nuts all around her. The grandma had grabbed at the bills, stuffing her clothes with money, this twisted look of desperation on her leathery face. She had looked so stupid. He couldn’t tell if the point was to degrade the grandma, but he could tell that this grandma didn’t care. When the wind in the booth was turned off all the money dropped and lay in a pile at her feet. All that money just right there, but not for her. She had gotten some, but not enough. Never enough. Not quite like money, brittle and wet leaves stuck to the felt of the hippy mother’s dreadlocks and onto the swamp of the little girl. “I’ll just be a sec,” the hippy mother said when she saw him there on the porch. He took a sip from his mug and nodded, slid a hand into the pocket of his housecoat as a sign of being a-okay with things. The hippy mother stood up with a bundle in her hand and walked to him. The baby writhed on the blanket like it was trying to crawl along the air. “Hi,” the hippy mother said. She had one of those cute, tired, hippy-dippy faces that would have been ugly if she had tried to pretty it up with make-up, he thought. “Morning,” he said. The mother winced at the sun high above them and looked back at him, squinting still. “Listen,” she said, “I’m sorry to do this, but I’ve got nowhere to toss this.” She held up the bundle. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind taking it for me.” “That’s shit in there?” he asked, gesturing at the bundle with his mug. “Pretty much.” “I don’t know why,” he said, “but I always think that babies have those things that birds have. Now, what are those things called?” The hippy mother didn’t know. “You know. It’s that thing that birds have where they do a combination of shitting and peeing so you can’t tell what the hell it is that’s coming out. Just a bunch of disgusting stuff that doesn’t make any sense. It’s called something, what they have. It’s like ‘The Cloister,’ only it’s not. It’s got ache in it somewhere I think.” He shut his eyes tight and gritted his teeth, trying to force the word to the surface. “And it’s right there, too.” “Fuck,” he said, popping open his eyes.“It’s frustrating, huh? When you can’t think of a word you know. It’s like having one of those sneezes where you can’t sneeze. Do you ever get those?” The hippy mother did get those. She was smiling still, but it was a smile that didn’t mean anything, like when a car in front of him would forget to turn a turn signal off.

“Do you mind if I just leave this here?” she asked, and anyway bent down and set the soiled bundle on the bottom step of his porch.

“Just so long as you don’t set it on fire,” he said,

and laughed.

“Right. I promise not to,” she said. “But thank you.

And, again, I’m sorry. She already… And I was just going

to… Anyway, I’m sorry and thank you.”

She turned and walked back across the lawn, picking

leaves out of her hair.

“Don’t forget your baby,” he called from the porch.

He took another sip from his mug and made a surprised,

sour baby face, expecting it to actually be coffee,

forgetting about the Canadian Club. The only club he’d

ever belonged to, his wife used to say. She had thought

she was just a riot, that woman. Now, there was someone

he’d like to cram into a booth. But not a booth with

money. Maybe a booth full of razor blades or something.

How easily could those become airborne?

“Got her, thanks,” the mother said, gathering up

her squirming girl.

He watched her put the kid into one of those hippy

slings that he was starting to see regular people use

now, too, and he watched her go, watched her bum as

she went.

“Cloaca,” he said.

“Cloaca!” he yelled. “It was the cloaca!” he yelled

at her. Down the sidewalk, the hippy mother turned to

look at him, then turned away and moved off a bit more

swiftly.

“Cloaca,” he said, feeling good, feeling like he

had sneezed that sneeze out, or like he had suffered

water in his ear all day from a swim and finally it was

trickling out now, all hot and amazing.

“Cloaca,” he said.

He had come out for the paper when he saw the shitty baby

on his lawn. Now he squatted and sorted through the rolls

that had built up by his door and found the one with the

most recent date. All these people had died somewhere

because of something, he read.

He picked out the business section, shook it out

as he stepped down the steps of his porch, fluffed the

paper, and then spread it next to the bundle the hippy

mother had left him. With his bare toe, he nudged the wad

of cloth onto the paper and wrapped it up.

He breathed in. There was the sweet and pungent

smell, the complicated scent of baby shit. Any smell you

miss, even if it’s a bad one, is a good one.

Wadding the newspaper and the cloth full of shit

into a ball the size of a softball, he walked to the end

of the driveway, and then he threw it. The wad landed

with a light heaviness onto his neighbour across the

street’s roof.

Opening his nostrils and opening his lungs, he hoped

for that autumn smell, but still it was baby stench. He

smelt his hands, but it was not his hands. It was all over

the air now, that baby smell.

Another whirl of wind came and tossed the salad of

dead leaves on his lawn. The leaves flirted around him,

and he began to grab at them. He snatched all he could

out of the air, stuffing them into the pockets of his

bathrobe, and then into his robe so they scratched his

bare chest.

The wind died and he stood there with the heap at

his feet, his pockets full and his chest bulky. A leaf

had landed in his mug. He could drink around that.

“Cloaca,” he said, feeling pretty okay about himself. Andrew Hood 8

Kelly Zwicker 9

10 Bree Hyland

Kate Walchuk is a Halifax based Artist. She met with Bethany Riordan-Butterworth to discuss outsider art, monuments in America and primetime television.

BRB I thought it would be helpful if you started by describing what you make.KW Oh gosh, ok, what I have made in the past is a little bit different from what I’m working on right now, but I’ll tell you about what I’ve made for the past two years and a bit. During my time at NSCAD I got really interested in this idea of how painting and sculpture inform each other. I took a class with this amazing woman named Rachel Beach and she was focused on this idea of hybrid paintings, so shaped paintings, or sculptural paintings, or painting on sculpture, and what would be a combination of the two. That class was really great because it made me realize that you can make anything. I know that sounds really simple, but the idea that I could make anything I wanted out of any material was really freeing, so for the last two years I made shaped paintings and painted sculptures (laughs). But now I’ve sort of gotten over this idea of focusing on the pure medium, of making paintings about paintings, and now I’m starting to make shaped paintings that are a bit more autobiographical. So I’m allowing my other interests to really inform what I’m making.

BRB Can you explain what you use to make the paintings?KW In the past I’ve used plywood and masonite that I cut into shapes and glued together into a three dimensional form or a flat form, and then I’d paint on those shapes. And I’m continuing with those mediums. I’ve also used paper maché in the past, which has been really exciting because you can build a form from the ground up, and I like it because it’s this really lowbrow medium. Paper maché is like the under-dog art medium and I don’t understand why people don’t use it more often because really, the possibilities are endless, you can make anything.

BRB I’ve seen some exciting things that you’ve made out of paper maché, like slippers and pizza slices…KW And eyeglasses and eyeballs and other funny things from my world. I guess that’s what I meant when I was saying that I’m allowing more autobiography in my work, I’m allowing things from my life to inform my sculptural objects and paintings.

BRB Do you think you would’ve come to the idea of sculptural painting on your own? KW Let me put it this way: without the influence of people at NSCAD like Rachel Beach, I don’t think I ever would have seen or appreciated artists like Frank Stella in the way that I do, and those shaped paintings, and the history of Minimalist painting. I got such a great education there and a great foundation in the history of painting from people like Sarah Hartland-Rowe, taking her classes and appreciating painting history totally informed my work. I don’t think my work would be the same at all; I’m actually not really sure what I would be doing.

BRB I’m curious about what other experiences, or people or things have influenced your work. KW Since I was a kid I’ve always really appreciated the notion of collecting. I love when people are passionate collectors. I’ve always kind of tried to be a passionate collector, and I think I am in ways, but I can never narrow it down to one thing. I remember when I was a kid, eating at this restaurant called Linda’s, and all over the restaurant were little porcelain and metal elephants because whoever owned the restaurant collected elephants, and that was the neatest place to me. That someone would dedicate so much of their time collecting elephants is beyond belief. Also my Oma, my grandmother, without really knowing it is an avid collector of kitsch objects, there are always little

small bird ornaments around her house or stuffed animals on the couch, so I think that she is a collector in a way. I really admire when people dedicate themselves to collecting one thing, because it is so absurd and foolish in one way, but it seems like it is a manifestation of pure passion in another sense. Collections and the way that people display objects and use objects and abuse objects totally informs my work. Other influences… I love the films of John Waters for their kitsch appeal and I think that the aesthetic of his set decorator, Delores Deluxe, is so seamless throughout his films, it’s completely her world. The way she makes objects and makes spaces really influences me. I also have a passion for minimalist painters, but also I love interior decorating magazines, and seeing how people collect those paintings and use them in spaces. So yeah, I’m interested in high art and kitsch. The highest of the high and the lowest of the low.

BRB Where do you see yourself in relation to outsider art?KW My work is totally influenced by outsider artists. Absolutely. And I have a mad passion for them. In Nova Scotia we’re especially lucky to be so surrounded by people just making stuff. In my time at art school one thing that would be so frustrating was that while it was great to be learning so much history and really getting a good foundation in art theory, at times it prevents artists from realizing projects because of a self-consciousness that comes with it. So there’s a lot of anxiety that comes with higher education. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I try to have the attitude of someone like an outsider artist, I know I can never be one and that is my greatest wish (laughs).

BRB What’s so appealing about outsider art? KW I guess its blissful ignorance. I’m not trying to offend anyone here but it just seems really great to be so passionate about one thing that you just go into your studio every day and make stuff, unabashedly, with no self-consciousness, with pure love and joy. And when I think of outsider work that I like, a lot of it is paper maché. I think too that the aesthetic of outsider art, just using local colour, and garbage (laughs) and any medium, is so unschooled but so exciting. I guess I want to be as excited about my work as outsider artists might be about their work.

BRB You seem excited about your work, you also seem serious about your commitment to your work. KW Yeah, I just quit my job, which is an awfully irresponsible decision, but I’m really investing in my practice. It feels scary and new, but I’m feeling determined right now.

BRB You recently spent some time in the States, and I’m wondering if there’s anything from that experience that you can see manifesting itself in your work.  KW The trip was all the way down the east coast of the states to Georgia and then west through Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. I spent three weeks traveling with the band Cousins, and so many great things happened to us, and we saw so many great people and so much good music and so many great plants and landscapes in the south. I decided that the best way to ‘scrapbook’ these ideas would be in painting.

BRB It is fascinating to think about undoing the boundaries of painting and how unlimited that is. KW I’m not worrying so much about subject matter anymore, I trust that painting things from my own life is enough for now. I used to have all this anxiety about being yet another suburban girl going to art school and felt that I had nothing to say that was any different from anyone else. But I’m realizing that the goofy stuff that I did in the States or the objects that are in my life are quite possibly enough as subject matter.

This issue of the Periodical Project is about authenticity and I think that using things from your own life as subject matter is one of the most authentic things you can do, but it feels so scary and weird and often doesn’t feel like enough. I’m trying to be brave enough to feel like it is.

BRB I’ve been thinking recently about how there’s nothing cooler than real life, and I feel like you probably share that sentiment. KW Yeah, (laughs) or there’s nothing realer than real life. I’m finally ready to admit that things from my life are suitable or valid subjects for art.

BRB I wonder, are you a collector?KW Yeah but like I mentioned before I can never narrow it down, it’s so overwhelming. I wish I could pick one thing. I love 60s glassware, like bar ware, I love so many kinds of books, you know, vintage clothes, old brooches, I think maybe I collect brooches (laughs). The trouble is as soon as you’re that person who’s like “I collect fake fruit”, which is another thing I love, everyone just gives you that for Christmas for the rest of your life. Like when I first got my cats, everyone in my family started to give me plates and stuff that had cats on them, and I was like “Oh no! We are not going to start this, no way” and I put the kibosh on that. I think I would love to collect folk art. I’d love to collect everything. I need a big house.

BRB I remember recently you went somewhere to look at scarecrows. KW Oh yeah! I went to Kentville last fall to visit the pumpkin people. The overlap of kitsch public displays and community pride is something really interesting. That’s one of the things I noticed about America, that every single town has a monument. One town will have a giant cob of corn, and another town will have a giant roadrunner sculpture, one had a hotel that was shaped like a space ship. These things are really interesting to me because people made them. America embraces it more than Canada for some reason. Our town monuments are few and far between.

BRB Is there anything you wanted to bring up that we haven’t talked about?KW Something that I consider part of my practice is public talks. I was thrilled to be part of Fuller Lectures for two seasons, and recently have given talks to a couple of NSCAD classes. All of those talks are about really specific niche interests of mine. One lecture I gave was about Michael Jackson artifacts from the Neverland ranch, another was about Futurist cookery, the talk that I gave at NSCAD was about artists represented on primetime television. All the talks that I gave were about the way that high art and popular culture collide. These talks often inform objects that I make later, I definitely see them as part of my art practice and I’m always thrilled to speak publicly.

BRB Can you elaborate on the representation of artists on primetime?KW Yeah, it ties in with this notion of authenticity. I spoke about how artists were portrayed on primetime television, shows like Desperate Housewives, Law and Order, House, CSI, Family Guy, The Simpsons and Dharma and Greg. In these shows there will often be a secondary character that will appear in one episode as a villain or a love interest or something, whose occupation will be some kind of artist. And I categorized these portrayals into things like ‘the megalomaniacal villain’, ‘the oversexed maniac’, ‘the mentally or physically ill person’, ‘the total flake’…it’s not usually flattering, but it’s also not usually an accurate portrayal of an artist. So the point of the talk was that although it is upsetting that artists are commonly portrayed as these stereotypes, it would be unrealistic to demand an accurate portrayal. Because what do we do? We putter around in our studios and work really hard, and we write grants. I don’t want to watch that on TV. The point was that fictional portrayals of artists make way better television. So sometimes the inauthentic can be quite exciting.

11 & 12 Kate Walchuk interviewed by Bethany Riordan-Butterworth0

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