The Story behind the Story

Alison Keenan, Avian Fables 3 (2015)

Alison Keenan’s paintings explore stories in the surreal bodies of land and water, aided by avian guides, harbingers of seasonal and environmental change. These avian guides alert the viewer to a territorial power struggle. The constructed story shows a change in scale and perspective: angry birds eye their occupied territory from this perspective. From a bird’s eye view, there is a claim to land currently occupied rather than shared for mutual coexistence, and an aggressive stance invites speculation about each bird’s next move.

In her own words, Alison Keenan tells the story behind the story of her series on show in Telling Stories: a visual art exhibition. 

When I create a new body of work I often think of the possibilities of a series of paintings or drawings. Images/ideas start to percolate at the research level- although the process often starts with note taking, loose papers/jottings, conversations.

A gift of binoculars was the entry point for sweeping the skyline and focusing on wildlife. At some point I began to recognise bird migrations in spring and fall and realized that the life patterns and survival of birds was completely reliant and to some extent controlled by environmental climate changes. During many conversations/discussions, my observations on the changing weather patterns and human behaviour now shifted to the plight and narrative of birdlife.

Alison Keenan's work is currently featured in the current Emily Carr Alumni Calendar.  

Happy to Meet You

Colette Lisoway, Happy to Meet You (detail)

Creative and inspirational printmaker, Colette Lisoway's six-pannel print  installation says it all on opening day: Happy to Meet You. Her screenprints interweave her connections in the community and that of shared stories, camera-captured observances and chance encounters. The pannels buzz with activity and urban commerce, all connected together in a heartfelt welcome to all.

In her own words, Colette Lisoway says: The people and places I have yet to discover have always been my greatest fascination. Throughout life and wherever I am in the world, I have always been compelled to create connections with people in the communities in which I find myself. I am constantly awed and inspired by the generosity of strangers and their willingness to share their lives and their stories with me. These relationships continue to fuel and inform my personal narrative; the basis of my current work. Contained within layers of ink and images, Happy to Meet You, is the entwining of shared stories, camera captured observances and chance encounters in Vancouver’s Chinatown.

The Best B4 Collective are happy to meet the public at our opening Saturday, 07 November (2-4 pm) in the On-Tak Exhibition Hall at the Chinese Cultural Centre (555 Columbia Street at Keefer). Check out the Best B4 Collective Events Page for more community events throughout November and December. http://bestb4collective.blogspot.ca/p/events.html

Daphne Harwood Continues the Great Storytelling Tradition

Non/Traditional Quilt: Scraps from Urban Source & Me

The Imagination Market Quilt Story by Daphne Harwood is a continuation of her work in the great storytelling tradition. Her quilt series exhibiting in Telling Stories: a visual art exhibition nuances the clash of urban erasure using panelled images as a means of comprehending the transformation caused by an uncontrollable urban development process. It begins with a quilted map of Vancouver pinpointing the location of Imagination Market and in the quilting form transforms to map urban transformation.
Daphne Harwood's Much Depends on This Quilt is a ten quilt series honouring the people and things that make quilt-making possible. This body of work is part of a permanent collection belonging to the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, Mass. It was exhibited in Great Quilts, Great Stories (2012). Follow Sew Daphne for more quilting stories. More about Great Quilts, Great Stories. 

Debra Sloan — Award Winning Sculptor Telling Stories

Debra Sloan: Merry-Go-Round

This year's Hilde Gerson Award goes to Debra Sloan, a Vancouver ceramics sculptor gaining international recognition. The Hilde Gerson award was established by the Craft Council of British Coloumbia and is awarded biannually to a craftsperson who demonstrates excellence, innovation and leadership in the BC craft community. Currently Debra Sloan is completing a c.r.e.t.a. ceramics residency in Rome, and an exhibition of her work opens there on 31 October.
Debra Sloan will join members of the Best B4 Collective on Sunday, 29th November for an artist tour and book launch. She will join Daphne Harwood in conversation at the Best B4 Collective Artist Salon on Sunday, 06 December. Both events are at the Chinese Cultural Centre, starting at 2pm and are free events.

Award Winning Photograph is on show in Telling Stories

Entrance 1

Entrance 1, Berlin was selected this Fall by the North Vancouver Arts Council for the Best Photograph Award. This image is part of the series On the Wall photographed in Germany in 2014. The series explores the infusion of graffiti and art on the walls of buildings in Germany's two largest cities, Hamburg and Berlin. It was also featured in the current edition of Galleries West.
Edward Peck uses his camera and the digital darkroom to explore hidden beauty in what surrounds us, using the very technology that blinds us. His use of technology isolates images and moves them into the print medium producing photographs that hover on the edge of photography and watercolour. In printed form, Peck's images allow the viewer to see something missed in an environment of incessant media bombardment and reveal insights into what surrounds us.

Making Storytelling Visual

Debra Sloan: Travellers to the Coast

Telling Stories: a visual art exhibition, a new exhibition presented by the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver in collaboration with the BestB4 Collective, opens at the On-Tak Cheung Gallery at the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum on Saturday, 07 November, 2015 from 2 – 4pm. 

Vancouver visual artists Alison Keenan, Edward Peck, Phyllis Schwartz of BestB4 Collective bring their new project Telling Stories: a visual art exhibition to the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum, opening November 7. In collaboration with six other artists and community members, the gallery is transformed into a meeting place where photography, painting, ceramics, fibre and installations tell and evoke stories.

Edward Peck: Looking Outward

A series of community events are planned that include an Artist Tour and Exhibition Catalogue launch (29 November), Tea and Talk Party (21 November), Printmaking Workshop (22 November), Calligraphy Workshop (05 December) and Artist Salon (06 December).

Storytelling is a timeless medium for teaching, entertaining, comforting and connecting. These stories require time to relate, absorb and reflect upon, as do personal tales and critical opinion, and in contemporary visual culture, stories are compressed into instantaneous imagery. Hence, Telling Stories invites dialogue about essential contemporary questions between the artists, the Chinese community and other cultural groups.

Alison Keenan: Avian Fables 3

Phyllis Schwartz: Evidence

Alison Keenan’s Avian Fables, a series of painting, explore stories in the surreal bodies of land and water, aided by avian guides, the harbingers of seasonal and environmental change. Phyllis Schwartz uses photography to tell a story about environmental devastation and community adaptation in her Salton Sea Series, I Cannot Look Away. Edward Peck’s On the Wall series frames the complex on-going story telling found in Berlin graffiti.

Daphne Harwood: My Map of Imagination Market 

Daphne Harwood’s quilt series nuances the clash of urban erasure using panelled images as a means of comprehending the transformation caused by an uncontrollable process. In a similar way, Happy to Meet You, Colette Lisoway’s textured, iconic screen print pannels illustrate cross-cultural connections, which lead to inevitable cultural integration. The forces of cultural adaptation present conflicting values arising as a result. Sophi Liang’s installation, Where Does This Ladder Lead Us, manipulates Chinese symbols to make visual cultural deconstruction and asks challenging questions about the contemporary significance of the arts for the Chinese scholar: music, chess, calligraphy and painting.

Sophi Liang: Where Does the Ladder Lead?

Debra Sloan’s sculptures are filled with tension: edgy characters seen as naughty and mischievous. June Yun’s paintings compel a second look at a seemingly iconic landscape only to reveal a nuclear winter in China’s polluted landscape. The impending storm depicted in Jim Friesen’s photography reads as a metaphor of oncoming disaster or the release of tension, implying the cyclical nature storytelling.

Jim Friesen: Iona Island Confession

June Yun: Mountains and Water

Colette Lisoway: Happy to Meet You

Reading the imagery in Telling Stories: a Visual Arts Exhibition invites dialogue about essential contemporary questions. Taken together, the visual stories told by artists in BestB4 Collective invite viewers to become active spectators and interpreters. In this way, the viewer is a community member in conversation about universals that transcend text and context, geography and culture. The emerging story in this ongoing process of collaboration ultimately consolidates this visual chaos.

Telling Stories is presented by the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver and partially funded by the City of Vancouver and the Province of British Columbia.

Tree Takes a Parting Bow

It is tempting to muse on the metaphor of a parting bough, but likely the reader wants some quick information about Tree Literal and Figurative at the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum (Columbia and Pender) closing on Saturday, 05 April. The last day to see Connie Sabo's installation, Information and Impression, will be Saturday, 29 April; not to be missed.


During the exhibition, The Tree branched out to students from Britania Secondary and Lord Strathcona Elementary Schools who visited the On-Tak Gallery: tour facilitated by Pauline Doyle and art workshops with Phyllis Schwartz and Alison Keenan. Photography students from Britiannia spent two days in the classroom making Lumen prints. Students from Lord Strathcona Elementary spent three days drawing trees using untraditional mark making tools.

In our parting bow, we express our gratitude fir our extended and well received exhibition There are many people to thank: Toni Zhang McAfee, the Gallery Manager at the CCCM, Chu Yin Tak who connected the BestB4 Collective with the CCCM, Bryan Melvin for photodocumentation and many people who visited the exhibition. Copies of the exhibition catalogue are still available at the reception desk for $13, and after the exhibition closes, available from Blurb at a much higher cost.

Drawings made with mark making tools (Students from Lord Strathcona Elementary School)

Lumen Prints made from organic found materials near the CCCM (Students from Britannia Secondary School)