What gets Vancouverites out of their houses and into the dark and cold and rain to look at art? It’s the same thing that gets artists out of bed on their weekends to stand in their studios greeting visitors, talking about their process, connecting with buyers and sellers, and doing demos: the Eastside Culture Crawl.
For 20 years, the ever-growing East Vancouver visual arts extravaganza (Nov. 17-20) has been connecting local artists and makers with the community at large. And large it is – at last count, the Culture Crawl resulted in roughly 25,000 studio visits over the festival’s four days. That’s leagues larger than the mere hundred or so who showed up for the first Strathcona open studios in 1997.
And, in addition to attracting record-breaking crowds, the festival also continues to attract more artists year over year. This year, the 20th anniversary, a record-setting 500 artists will participate, including first-time Crawler Suzy Birstein.
Birstein moved her studio into 1000 Parker Street – the unofficial epicentre of Crawl activity – this summer, in large part so she could take part in the Culture Crawl.
The renowned Canadian sculptor and ceramicist – whose colourful (and inspired) “Motion Pitchers” water jugs were included in the celebrity gift bags for the 2008 Academy Awards – had participated in many open-studio events from her home base in Kits, but there was something about the annual East Van event that lured her over.
“This is the building I always come to during the Crawl, and I have lots of friends here,” the whimsical creative begins, taking a seat behind paint-spattered jars and brushes in her newly furnished fourth-floor studio space. “I always feel really connected when I come. […] And everything I’m doing just seems like I’m ready for a shift and a change, and this would be one of the things that would make the shift happen.”
It has had immediate effect. In her new share space, Birstein has focused exclusively on painting – a medium of expression she only dabbled with in years past. The figurative ceramics and life-sized sculptures that made her name in the aughts (and which bear a striking resemblance to their colourful creator) now sit serenely on display as muses for her new two-dimensional explorations.
Locally, Birstein is a pioneer in painting on clay, and as someone who describes her art as outside the norm, the Crawl represents a chance to expose her work – both clay and canvas – to an entirely new group of peers.
“Doing figurative sculpture, ceramic, playing with colour – everything I do, even the pottery I do, is really different than what is happening here [in Vancouver],” says Birstein, who will also continue to work with clay and teach workshops from home. “I wanted to move into this building to be part of the Crawl. I really want to be part of a larger art community. And because now I’m painting, as well as [doing sculpture and pottery], I want to be around painters, I want to be around sculptors, I want to be around the people who are making molds for things. There’s such a wealth of information here,” she continues, “and from what I see, a really beautiful community of artists that are into working really hard.”
For painter and muralist Richard Tetrault, the Culture Crawl basically built up around him. As one of the event’s founding members and longest-running exhibitors, he can even take credit for coining the name.
From his studio just down the street from Parker on East Georgia, which he shares with photographer and Culture Crawl executive director Esther Rausenberg, Tetrault jokes that he participates in the Crawl each year because people expect him to. As he shares stories from Crawls past over a cup of tea, however, it’s obvious he also enjoys playing host.
“The impression a lot of people have had of East Vancouver is, like, driving through in a car down Hastings Street or down Prior Street,” the 2008 Mayor’s Arts Award-winner explains, surrounded by bold seascapes, street scenes and framing materials in his double-height studio space. “It’s just a place to get through to get to somewhere else. And the Crawl allows people to stop and look at a map and investigate a neighbourhood in quite a creative way.”
Tetrault has lived in the community since the ‘70s, often painting hyper-local scenes from his walks through Chinatown or the nearby inner harbour. From his vantage point, he’s seen trendy breweries and businesses spring up in an area that was once deemed “undesirable”.
“I don’t like to see the Crawl as that much of a precursor or catalyst to gentrification, but maybe, in a way, there’s a residual effect of it bringing people into the neighbourhood who wouldn’t otherwise come here,” he muses. “Some time ago, up until very recently, we knew people who weren’t comfortable coming to the East End. Even Commercial Drive, for God’s sake. You know what I mean? [...] In this neighbourhood it’s a real multicultural mix – always has been – but it keeps shifting.”
Tetrault adds anecdotally that, for area businesses like the Union Market and Wilder Snail, Crawl weekend is their best weekend of the year. The festival has also seen Strange Fellows Brewing on Clark sign on as a sponsor, leading to a packed tasting room each day of the event.
As the conversation returns to the area’s layered history, one wonders if part of the appeal is the chance to experience a side of Vancouver that has all but disappeared.
“It is a bit of a ‘walk on the wild side’ sort of idea,” Tetrault allows, with a smile. “I think [the Crawl] lends a sense of adventure. Adventure and art and the unknown are great catalysts,” he continues. “And I think they’re stimulating – they’re stimulating for the artists that live here, and they’re stimulating for the people that visit here. Because it’s not your manicured boulevards and urban landscape. It has that whole mix of industry and studios and enclaves where people wouldn’t expect to find creativity. But that’s the very place where creativity thrives.”
• The Eastside Culture Crawl runs Nov. 17-20 at various venues. CultureCrawl.ca
