Little City

featured art

MORE +

Archive for the ‘The Culture of Make’ Category

Artist Profile: sketches by Brian Wong

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Brian was hired to sketch during a friend’s wedding. When he was done he bound them up in a book for the bride and groom. Take a look they’re truly delightful (you can click on each one to see it larger.)

Posted in The Culture of Make | No Comments »

Redefining “making it”

Friday, August 20th, 2010

As a photographer trying to “make it” I often get absorbed in the ridiculous notion that “I’m running out of time to make beautiful things.” With this idea in mind I recently (and almost magically) found myself at a retrospective of photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson’s at the Chicago Art Institute. I stepped into the first room showcasing photographs he took in his “early years” and was awed. It was a poignant reminder that, regardless of our successes and failures, many of us have yet to emerge from this fledgling stage of a lifetime career.

Later I came upon a room that mapped out his life over 70 years. The sheer mass of detail about his travels, the people he met and photographs he took made me feel young. The whole thing made my chest swelled with the possibility that each life holds. A lesson: given the gift of a lifetime, Cartier-Bresson made a lot of influential and beautiful photographs. He put in the time, perfected his craft, coined ideas and inspired generations.

The experience was an up-lifting and eye-opening reminder that “making it well” indeed takes a lifetime. Slow and steady my friends!

Posted in The Culture of Make | 1 Comment »

Artist profile: poster by Lisa Devries

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

Lisa Devries and her sister Kim will be going to the Rogers Cup tonight in style with this hand drawn poster of the Fed himself. Two thumbs up from Little City Devries!

Posted in The Culture of Make | No Comments »

In the hopes that your calling will call out to you

Friday, August 13th, 2010

In the back of Roald Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (a book of short stories I happen to be
reading backwards), is a tale called “Lucky Break”. In which a children’s lit god exposes the accidental
nature of his journey to become just that.

As a young man, Mr. Dahl chose adventure over academia (if you read his tales of British boarding-
school horror, you will understand why), and was unexpectedly rewarded with a fateful encounter: C.S.
Forester asking to pick his brain for tales of war-pilot gallantry.

After a failed attempt to mix lunching with note-taking, 26-year-old Dahl offered to send the author
some anecdotes to be re-written into a piece for the Saturday Evening Post. The letter he gets back
starts off: Dear RD, You were meant to give me notes, not a finished story. I’m bowled over. Your
piece is marvellous. It is the work of a gifted writer.
And it goes on in this fashion.

My reaction? Chills, watery eyes, and a hopeful heart. As much as I have tried to ingrain in my adult
brain the notion that hard work always trumps talent- that the latter is useless without the former-
there is something magical about such an extraordinary gift being effortlessly stumbled upon. Such
kismet! Most of us are likely no Roald Dahl (and Dahl was quick to point out that he was no Charles
Dickens), but let such tales inspire us to keep our eyes peeled for those who may be something else
altogether.

Written by Little City’s Dar Mustafa

Posted in The Culture of Make | 2 Comments »

Jose Gonzalez – Heartbeats

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

I love this song. I know, I know, it’s old. And I know it’s a cover. People always get mad when good songs are covered. I like The Knife version too, but ever since my friend Marina posted the Bravia commercial on facebook, this version has been running through my mind. The commercial itself is amazing but the song stands alone, gentle and reminding me of an old friend or lover. There is purity in the six string guitar and bare vocals.

In an age where asking for help is painful, these lyrics resonate: “To call for hands of above to lean on wouldn’t be good enough for me, no.” As we strive under pressure to create work that is innovative, meaningful and just plain cool, we feel despondent when we come up blank. I would suggest that it is an asset to be able to move forward with what we have to offer in the moment, perfect or otherwise. We need to ask for help, to allow ourselves to be inspired by the ideas of our mentors and peers, to recreate the existing, to revisit the past. Pushing forward through uncertain times is a skill that many freelancers learn over time. Often we’ll find that what we come up with is perfection to our audience whether we can accept it or not.

Posted in The Culture of Make | 2 Comments »

Make me feel (like it was 1987)

Monday, October 12th, 2009

away_we_go_xlg

After I saw “Away We Go”, a couple of weeks ago, I had “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’” stuck in my head for days. It made me think of how awesome the album Loaded is. It made me think of how good a movie (and soundtrack!) High Fidelity is (and seek out both).

But it made me want to give this movie the finger. Go figure.

Speaking of the Velvet Underground (no, that’s not Lou singing, but still, speaking of the Velvet Underground…), Lou Reed is featured prominently in the kinda same but opposite movie, Adventureland.
The soundtrack is rather perfect, and K-Stew somehow pulls off the damaged/cool girl who has awesome taste in music better than any actress in her age group (except Ellen Page…not that anyone else even tries). I believed in those t-shirts that she wore, I really did.
The film also magically contains:
-Bumper cars! (which I had 2 delightful experiences with overseas; love of reignited!)
-A sweet/nerdy boy who still acts like a jerk towards the girl he loves! (and consequences which play out pretty realistically)
-A fireworks scene scored by CROWDED HOUSE. It was so outta left field that I felt my very life revolutionized.

The lesson: younger is always better, and genuine emotion can only exist in the pre-millenium. We were so much more innocent back then.
Everything seems like such a farce now.

*Fun fact: I am chronologically, exactly halfway between both these groups of characters. That’s gotta mean something.

Posted in The Culture of Make | No Comments »