The Poet Who Is Either Silenced Or Speaking Fire

It is the kinda day to pick up your cross and bear it.

I'm not saying I'm wishing you a Good Friday, exactly. Actually this drawing was drawn a month ago and I just finished it tonight and took a photograph under daylight bulbs.

'The Poet Who Is Either Silenced Or Speaking Fire,' 2013, Brenda Clews, 8.5" x 11", mixed media on 130lb archival paper.

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Poets Series: Joani Paige at HOWL

Joani Paige at Nik Beat's HOWL at Q Space on March 24, 2013. A little sketch that I haven't touched, only photographed. There was a mic in front of her the whole time, and, since I didn't want to draw it, I had to imagine where it hid her beautiful face. Lol. Joani was wonderful, and it was wonderful to re-connect with her!

I once did a video of her, a few years back. She told me last Sunday that she had only recently watched the whole video, that she finds it really hard to watch videos of herself performing, and that she really liked what I did! Wild how it works, huh.


Joani Paige, singing "So Fine," with Willie Anicic on harmonica near the end, and Pat Kelly on percussion (not in camera range) at Free Times Cafe on September 16, 2011.

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Nik Beat @Videofag

direct link: Nik Beat @Videofag

A clip of Nik Beat performing a poem at Videofag in Kensington Market in Toronto on March 16, 2013. A live performance. Videoed and edited by Brenda Clews.

This one is a complete enough poem that I added it to my videopoetry playlist at YouTube, and am tagging it as a videopoem.

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Jacqueline Valencia @Videofag

direct link: Jacqueline Valencia @Videofag

...another of my clips from the poetry reading I went to on Saturday night. Jacqueline Valencia performs at Videofag in Kensington Market in Toronto on March 19, 2013. Half a Mohawk, and a green ponytail, and a mask, irresistible. Enjoy the clip!

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Brandon Pitts @ Videofag in Toronto

direct link: Brandon Pitts @ Videofag March 2013

I did some of the sort of filming that interests me last night at a poetry reading at Videofag in Toronto. This snippet isn't fully 'worked out' but it's getting there, and I'm okay with posting it.

I'm also learning new video editing software, so creating this video took awhile. Be gentle, folks. Also, I follow my rhythms, my aesthetic, in videoing and editing rather than trying to produce a facsimile for the performers (there were other video cameras running anyhow). So, with the authors' permission, I took ...liberties. Enjoy!

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A New Art Website!

Yesterday, in a matter of hours, I put up a new art website where you can most of my paintings and drawings. It was incredible how fast, easy and streamlined the process was.

I've called it Poem Paintings and Drawings:

http://brendaclews-poempaintings.blogspot.ca/

Because I have a show coming up, I knew I had to create a more easily accessible site. After a short research, I decided to use Blogger. It seems an art website becomes obsolete in 4-5 years, mostly because whatever site I set up could not handle my burgeoning work, and also because art website styles change. My first art website was in 2004 with Sitebuilder, and it was a fine beginning. Then in 2008 I created over 3 weeks of 18 hour days an art site nearly from scratch with Google Sites, which you can access through the footer below, or the sidebar of my blog. I learnt a lot of html making that site.

The latest site was very easy in comparison to the previous two. I created a new blog, gave it a name, picked a black template, posted an 'events' post about my forthcoming chap book, the luminist poems, to be published by LyricalMyrical Press in May and a solo art show I will have at Q Space for the month of May, and then created a series of pages which I filled with my paintings and drawings.

Other than some fussy html with the post to make its page sand colour and text black, which Blogger kept closing off half way after the image, but I figured a way around the glitch, the whole thing was super easy with posting images from Picasa, and even a videopoem page with YouTube and Vimeo videos.

I also have an idea for how to create a banner for the site, which the new Blogger, or at least this template, doesn't support. I'll let you know if it works or not.

I suppose it gets easier the more sites you create.

My only frustration has been that I have not, so far, been able to redirect my domain name, brendaclews.com, to the new site. Though the domain name re-direct has been cancelled at Google Sites, and that site should revert back to the original Google Sites url, and cancelled the Sites re-direct at my Google Administration site, thus far the re-direct has not taken.

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Poets Series: Cabaret Noir in March 2013

Jean-Paul Mullet at Lizzie Violet's 'Cabaret Noir' on 10 MAR 2013, 11" x 8.5", Pentalic archival 25% cotton 130lb paper.

A charcoal and conte sketch, untouched. He's not as scary as he looks here - Jean-Paul, after all, is a vegan zombie clown! A great costume and make-up, and the sort of strange and funny performance you'd be inclined to expect from a hobbit-like zombie clown with moss growing on his cheeks and forehead. Also he was born and died maybe 2 centuries ago.

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