Vancouver East-Side Culture Crawl 2008 – Mimi Li & No Naked Girls

Sticky tack. The traveling artist’s new partner in crime; Stick your paper on the wall – voila! a space-saving easel in a busy hallway at the Vancouver East-Side Culture Crawl this weekend.

You followed the signs: No Naked Girls. Besides the obvious, paintings of non-naked girls on the wall, You might have caught me pen in hand, drawing a monster of colour on the wall at 1000 Parker Studios. Children seemed to be the most captive audience that I have encountered. A sweet girl even requested me to cut out a home-made business card just for her! Their parents stop for their children, who watch the monster grow for several minutes, before they head to the other studios upstairs.

Some of my personal favourites were the woodworks studios, including Greg, who teaches the wood-lathe to make wooden bowls and other beautiful items you’d usually see as pottery. It’s incredible to see diseased wood shown off in such beautiful patterns. A pine-cone like wood-piece, and cherry wood – mmmm! One day I’ll be lucky enough to have time to check out the other studios open to public. Maybe next year!

Some nice students from the UBC newspaper interviewed me and featured my photo and my artwork in this week’s article! The Ubyssey mentions artist Mimi Li at the Vancouver East-Culture Crawl 2008.

By the way, I’ve designed a new website just in time for the Vancouver East-Culture Crawl this year. Ink illustrations, paintings and animations in Vancouver at www.mimi-li.com

east-side culture crawl – guerilla strategy

The hacker stereotype seem to be web-savvy teenage boys, skipping the business suits, sitting behind a screen, discovering top-secret NASA information. Taking inspiration from their strategy, this weekend I was an unofficial fourth-floor artist at this year’s east-side culture crawl. Susan Setz of Wild Rose Tattoo Shirts and her neighbours were kind enough to allow me to take over their hallway walls at Parker Street Studios. Having limited time and money (actually, about fifteen minutes before the festival), I ran home and gathered a year’s worth of passable paintings. Unfortunately they were all on paper– unframed. So, I armed myself with duct tape. I also had no business cards, so I photocopied a strips of paper with my email address on it and plastered it on an illustration. Coming through the door, a surprise gaggle of family flew in, including my super crafty aunty Jean and her young daughter Emily. I employed them as they were drinking soup, to help me cut out all the business cards.

Parker Street Studios was packed to the rafters! I got to my own show about an hour after the festival started, and as people milled about, I duct-taped my paper watercolour paintings to the walls. The contact cards went quickly! I also ran into a lot of friends; mostly musicians and artists from the east-side. I had a few men tell me they blushed when they saw my paintings, and a drunken one got a little riled. Most viewers described them as erotic and incredibly smooth. I believe they meant the blending that watercolour tends to do.

I toured the other studios and I was very impressed with a designer-engineer’s kinetic and magnificently engineered chairs. I can’t even describe it. I brought all my friends to see his chairs and plastic-bottled chandeliers. I forget his name, but his website is www.min3d.com

A big thank you to my family and friends for all their support.