Featuring this month is free lance artist and designer Brianna Harvey. She was born and raised in Kitchener Waterloo, and later studied Graphic Design at Conestoga College and Fine Arts at O.C.A.D in Toronto. Currently teaches the beautiful benefits of visual art to learning disabled youth.

In her work you will she various styles due to her diverse educational background, her interest in expression and her appreciation for the Elements and Principles of art. Brianna’s subjects engage the viewer through their eyes; there is an emotion that is evoked and experienced with each bird and portrait. Brianna is playful with colour, shape and subject matters.

Brianna’s work has been exhibited at the Button Factory, Jane Bond, the Gris Mill and the Children Museum. She has had work in local zines and currently is an artist featured on the tables at the Kava Bean Commons and Princess Café.

Fun Fact about Brianna is that she has traveling paintings that have been dropped off in Amsterdam, Switzerland and Paris; their whereabouts today is unknown but hopefully are an enjoyable mystery to many people.

Please contact if you are interested in any of the pieces or have questions.
briannaharvey@hotmail.com

STRAAT P’U—A Static Documentary by Katy Ironside

Straat: a). [In Cam] A Small Thai Child who does not see the use nor value of bottom attire otherwise known as pants; (*Cam is the spoken language of Thai people in the remote south eastern region of Thailand near the border to Cambodia).

Straat: b). A Geological term meaning a path between two dunes

Straat: c). [In Belgium] it is the word for street.

P’U: a) P’u; lit. “uncut wood”) is translated as “uncarved block”, “unhewn log”, or “simplicity”. It represents a passive state of receptiveness. P’u is a symbol for a state of pure potential and perception without prejudice. In this state, Taoists believe everything is seen as it is, without preconceptions or illusion.

Quit your job, give up your apartment, dump your no good partner, sell everything you own, put the rest in a bag and GO!!

This is not a saccharin view of the world. It is Straat P’U. What you see is what you get and nothing more.

**Disclaimer
(Katy does not discount personal perspective as one simply cannot.)

The display which Katy Ironside has created is a raw and unvarnished one with minimal mechanical baggage. They are snap shot photographs taken with a point and shoot digital camera. She had no intention, when taking them, of showing them at a later time. They were simply taken for her to document and later remember.

“We don’t need pants,” became one of Katy’s favourite phrases while she was away and she has worked hard to carry it with her ever since. It also became a frequent philosophic reminder for her with the people and the places she was fortunate enough to encounter. Whether it be the remote rice farming Thai family that lived off of the land and washed themselves with rain water or the wooden pillow and cement block that was lent to her as a sleeping surface during her stay at the Silent Buddhist Meditation community, it was this concept of honest, untainted innocence that unlocked a fresh aspect of life for her which was wholly irreplaceable and rejuvenational.

Katy does not claim this is as an original concept or message but does believe that this is a record of her unique experience and feels that it could be of significance to the people of the place she comes from.

Keeping up with the Jones’s can be quite exhausting, and in Katy’s personal opinion, is a distraction from what is significantly important which is the truth and splendour of life.

**NOTE
This is a non-profit charity event. Katy’s experience was a message given to her by the people of Southeast Asia and Indonesia. It was a gift. To turn a fiscal profit on what was given so freely would not only undermine but destroy the whole point for her. In an effort to give back, all proceeds will be donated to Thai Children’s Trust, a non-profit charity organization whose mission is to support the most needy children in Thailand: orphans, children with HIV and AIDS, street kids, refugee children and children with disabilities.

Katy Ironside can be reached at: katyironside@hotmail.co.uk