TYPE BLOCK

TYPE BLOCK: an UPPERCASE project

International artists are invited to explore letterforms in their surroundings by documenting what they see within one city block of where they live or work.

Participants can post their images in a Flickr pool for the online exhibition. UPPERCASE gallery owner, Janine Vangool, and photographer Kirstie Tweed (Orange Girl Photographs) will curate from these images to create a physical exhibition and companion book. The exhibition will be part of Exposure, the Banff-Calgary Month of Photography (February 2008).

Everyone's Supercute @ UPPERCASE

More photos on flickr.com/uppercaseyyc 

Supercute is now open!

Thank you to Aaron Leighton for illustrating the postcard above. 

shop.uppercasegallery.ca

I'm pleased to announce the launch of
shop.uppercasegallery.ca!

The online store presents a selection of my favourite stationery items, interesting objects, recommended books and works for sale in the gallery. Please have a look around. More items and inventory will be added on a weekly basis.

Calgary customers have the option of having their purchases couriered city-wide; Canadian and US customers can select from Canada Post and FedEx shipping. If you run into any glitches with the site, please let me know: it's brand new to the world, so there's bound to be some growing pains. Thank you!

The shot above is my initial rough of the site design. The product shots (below) are original photographs taken specifically for shop.uppercasegallery.ca with my  newly indispensable Nikon D40. They were shot in the store and throughout the Art Central building. You're welcome to use images from the webstore as long as you credit UPPERCASE and link back to us, thanks.

 

Topical Ointment

Thank you to everyone who attended last night's First Thursday or phoned/emailed their bids. Lisa Brawn's Topical Ointment silent auction was a great success, with nearly $600 raised for the Elephant Artist Relief fund.

The gallery looks particularly colour-coordinated with popping oranges and contrasting blues. Lisa's show will be up for the next two weeks. 

Two boxes of books have just arrived from Die Gestalen/Prestel. Looks like a rainy weekend ahead, so I'll be curling up with these new books. Remember that UPPERCASE is now open Sundays as well, so come by and spend some time with us.

The Captain's Blog

We've started "The Captain's Blog" in honour of The Shatner Show. We will be posting frequently in the weeks leading up to the opening of the show and the launch of the book.

You may wonder why we have so much enthusiasm for William Shatner... The project began last summer when my husband and I were driving across Canada and we listened to Shatner's Has Been album quite a lot. We were really quite moved with the emotional range of the album, plus the quality of music is really great. We were brainstorming ideas for upcoming shows in the gallery and The Shatner Show idea was hatched. Later, when I did some research about Shatner and found out he was about to be 76, I set the goal to have 76 Shatner images... In the spirit of all things Shatner, I took the idea to the next level and decided to publish a book as well.

I started the project as an average appreciator of Shatner (and proud of his Canadian heritage) but my admiration has grown as I find out more about him and his loyal fans. His sense of humour about himself is quite an inspiration to me and to our participating artists.

Some Shatner Teasers

I've posted a few teaser images from our upcoming book and exhibition, The Shatner Show. Please click here to find out more!  If you'd like to include these images in your blog to help spread the word, you're most welcome to.

Wheels

Please join us Thursday evening as we celebrate the launch of Wheels, a book about Lloyd Cooper and his roller rink. This sort of book is my ideal project: loads of visual inspiration from the rink, its people and historical documents. I would like to thank Paul Grescoe from Tribute Books for wandering into UPPERCASE one afternoon – I am grateful for that impromptu portfolio showing and the opportunities it has brought my way.

Kirstie Tweed is the wonderful photographer who took the cover shot and portraits of the Lloyd's Recreation family. I am happy to once again have her photographs in UPPERCASE. (We hosted her Orange Girl exhibition last year.)  Please visit her photo blog where you'll see some beautiful images and read her thoughts on the project.

On Being 2

My friend Erin sent me this list of a child’s development at 18-36 months. Much of this is true of UPPERCASE at 24 months:

I may know up to 200 words in my home language and sometimes in a second language, too.

I can put words together into sentences.

I can tell you about things that happened yesterday and about what will happen tomorrow.

I may get frustrated trying to express myself. I need you to listen patiently. It can help if you put into words what you think I am trying to say because it makes me feel understood and helps me learn new words.

I also communicate by using my body. I make up dances, songs, and stories, and I draw pictures that tell you what is on my mind.

I love hearing and reading stories, especially about things I know—like animals, families, and places I have visited.

Sometimes I like to “read” or tell you a story.

I like songs, fingerplays (like “Itsy-Bitsy Spider”) and games with nonsense words.

UPPERCASE's Second Anniversary

The concept of UPPERCASE gallery, books & papergoods is to present the world of graphic design and illustration through products and exhibitions. Visitors can peruse a curated selection of high-quality books on visual and pop culture, purchase paper products unique within the city, and view artworks by internationally reknowned artists alongside emerging and local talent.

As the saying goes, time flies when you’re having fun! It has been very satisfying to develop UPPERCASE, both as a destination as well as a brand. It has become a fantastic outlet for all my creative enterprises, many of which extend past the gallery walls. UPPERCASE greeting cards are now being distributed across North America by Paper E. Clips (look for our typographic greetings at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts).

Our Eclecto line of buttons, journals and pouches made from reclaimed and vintage papers continue to be popular. Look for them featured in an upcoming issue of Lou Lou magazine dedicated to eco-chic > living. Folks in Edmonton can also find the Eclecto products at Collectiv (#102, 6421 - 112 Avenue 491-0002. www.collectiv.ca).

The biggest project to date is also a dream come true: to publish UPPERCASE books. Our first publication is entitled “The Shatner Show” and will be released to coincide with an exhibition this summer. The Shatner Show presents over 70 artworks inspired by William Shatner. The outstanding roster of participating artists includes Douglas Fraser, Calef Brown, Mark Todd, Martha Rich, Christian Northeast and so many more. Mr. Shatner has approved the project and a portion of all art and book sales will be donated to his charity.

Over the next months, we will be developing the exhibition’s website, www.theshatnershow.com. Please visit now to see the full list of artists and links to their portfolios. To help with the initial production costs of the hardcover, full-colour book, we are looking for “send me the Bill” patrons. For $250, you will be placed, in the order received, on a VIP list. These patrons will be able to put their investment toward the purchase of the artwork of their choice. (Please note that Mr. Shatner will receive first dibs!) Patrons will also receive a free book and some other special opportunities. Please contact me for more details.

It is definitely an exciting and very busy time at UPPERCASE. I hope that you share my excitement for these many projects. As always, your patronage, suggestions (and help) is greatly appreciated. Thank you to all my loyal customers, enthusiastic friends and supportive family. A special thanks to my husband, Glen Dresser, for not tiring of all these crazy ideas and projects.

Victorian Valentines

These are some of the vintage valentines from the "Hearts Aflutter" display in the gallery ($60 apiece). There are also valentines from the mid 1930s through the early seventies ($1.50 - $10).

Speaking of fashion...

magazine

Old Valentines find new love

Here are some treasures that combine my two obsessions: vintage papers + typewriters. I'll be rearranging the gallery to display a wonderful collection of vintage valentines (1890s through 1960s). The majority of the valentines will be for sale for $3 - $30 (except for a few that I can't bear to part with!)

A Terrific Show

Thank you to Aaron Booth and his Merry Band of Woodpigeons (Mark Hamilton, Annalea Sordi, Foon Yap) for performing at the opening of the Posteriffic show. Their music was great and very much appreciated by the crowd. The poster show is off to a fantastic start – over half of them have sold already!

You can catch Woodpigeon January 21 at Emmedia.

Sister Corita: Juicy Silkscreens by a Nun!

Couldn't resist posting this image from Design Observer! What an amazing article by Lorraine Wild about Sister Corita, a Catholic nun and her artwork.

Corita’s commitment to the cheap and ordinary medium of the silkscreen print reflected values inherent to her vows of humility and poverty; but the intense visuality of her work, particularly its catholic (small c) use of the vernacular, was both a reaction to her immediate environment, the Pop Art paradise of 1960s Los Angeles street scenes (the same streets that inspired Ed Ruscha, who worked in the same neighborhood) and a uniquely creative invention for addressing the Vatican’s turn to the vernacular without succumbing to banality or kitsch. The joy, humor and surprise in Corita’s work is a result of her intense compositional skill and the deftness with which she manipulated the visual junk around her. Like the Eameses (with whom she was close), she used a 35mm camera to create a visual archive for reference, inspiration and use, and while her work is two-dimensional and typographic, it is entirely dependent upon a design process driven by camera cropping, framing, and photomechanical manipulation — a process as creatively responsive to contemporary art and design thinking as any of the many more celebrated Pop artists working during those same years.

Posteriffic

I'm really looking forward to the opening of our next show: Posteriffic. I've been admiring the work of many of these silkscreen poster artists for a long time – and the work is even more impressive in person! (The Books poster above by The Small Stakes)

Thank you to James Jensen of Burnt Toast Studio for helping to organize the musical guests, and for creating a commemorative poster for the show. The poster design will be unveiled on Saturday and will be available online as well. This poster will be the first of a series of collectible posters designed for each of UPPERCASE's exhibitions.

New Show opens

Thank you to everyone who came to Art Central last night – it was a really great crowd! The Motherland: Russian Advertising and Propaganda Posters was off to a great start, with over half of the available posters sold. Since we have only one of each poster available, we recommend that you come by and see the show soon.

Hatch Show Print - this book on sale: save 20%

Hatch Show Print

UPPERCASE will be presenting the letterpress posters of Hatch Show Print this July and August. Contact us to reserve your copy of the book.

By Jim Sherraden and Elek Horvath and Paul Kingsbury

Published in March, 2001

In this age of digital media, the handcrafted ethic and aesthetic of a Hatch Show Print poster is beyond compare. Country musicians and magicians, professional wrestlers and rock stars, all have turned to Nashville's historic Hatch Show Print to create showstopping posters. Established in 1879, Hatch preserves the art of traditional printing that has earned a loyal following to this day (including the likes of Beck, Emmylou Harris, and the Beastie Boys). Hatch Show Print: The History of a Great American Poster Shop is the first fully illustrated tour of this iconic print shop and also chronicles the long life and large cast of employees, entertainers, and American legends whose histories are intertwined with it. Complete with 190 illustrations--as well as a special book jacket that unfolds to reveal an original Hatch poster on the reverse--Hatch Show Print is a dazzling document of this legendary institution.

Hatch Show Print

Hatch Show Print



Click here for more images.
(synopsis from Chronicle Books' website)