RUSTY TALK WITH ELIZABETH BACHINSKY
Sara Jane Strickland: What is your first memory of being creative?
Elizabeth Bachinsky: I pretended I was a small woodland creature, like a squirrel or a bunny in a burrow, late at night under the covers in my princess bed in Prince George B.C., circa 1980.
Vivian Maier
Beth Hoeckel. Evidents. Semi-precious.
On Tumblr: http://undercoversbetweensheets.tumblr.com/
Sophie Calle’s bed (1999) by Josh Greene.
Josh Greene sent this letter to Sophie Calle shortly after his girlfriend broke up with him. Approximately one month later he received a full size bed. mattress, frame, linens, pillows, and comforter sent to him by Sophie Calle. He slept in Sophie’s bed for the next six months and corresponded with her via email regarding his emotions and experiences in her bed.
RUSTY TALK WITH HEATHER BIRRELL
Kathryn Mockler: What is your first memory of writing creatively?
Heather Birrell: I don’t know that I have a first memory of writing creatively although I certainly have some evidence of it. My grade one teacher put together a mimeographed anthology of stories based on Rudyard Kipling’s Just So stories—and I think mine was about why/how the camel got his hump. And I still have the book I was sent as a prize for being a runner-up in an OWL magazine story contest when I was ten. I do remember making up a lot of stories with my sister—I think an inordinate number of them were spin-offs from Annie, The Musical. We were obsessed with that movie and played the soundtrack incessantly. Then I also have diaries full of teen angsty poetry. It’s amazing how many times a person can use the word depressed in one sentence.
Nastya KFKS . Owls.
Special for Littlefield / Performance and Art space, Brooklyn, New York.
Outer Space, Peter Tscherkassky, 1999.
Daisies, Vera Chytilova, 1966
Michael Vass is a filmmaker and writer based in Toronto. His award-winning short films have screened at numerous film festivals and have been broadcast internationally. His critical writings have appeared in the film journal Cineaction and the Philadelphia-based publication MACHETE. Michael received his BFA from Simon Fraser University and his MFA from York University. He is also an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre.
RUSTY TALK WITH MICHAEL VASS
Kathryn Mockler: How did you first get into filmmaking?
Michael Vass: I’m not completely sure. As a child I think I was drawn to performing—for instance, I loved stand up comedy at what now seems a weirdly young age (I couldn’t possibly have understood most of the jokes)—but I don’t think I was ever completely comfortable performing myself, at least not after a certain age. So I started writing stories then making videos, probably initially as a way of performing out of sight. When I was 11 or so, I started making little home movies with my friends and my sister. We’d make parody sequels for movies that were popular at the time. I think we made Home Alone 2 and Die Hard 3 (which we called Die the Hardest) before either sequel really existed. Since then I’ve just kept making things. As a teenager my interest in film intensified, then I went to film school where I was exposed to all kinds of films that fascinated and excited me.
(via giftandvariety)
They Will Appear, 2009. Ink on paper.
In a Dark Place, 2010. Ink and pencil on paper.
Aurel Schmidt
Toshiko Okanoue. The Night of The Dance Party, 1954.
Kathryn Mockler: When did you first decide you wanted to be a writer?
Richard Melo: Part of my inspiration to become a writer comes from a false memory. I have a vivid recollection of my parents taking me to a poetry festival in in Oregon during the early 1970s when I was maybe five, and introducing me to Ken Kesey who was an acquaintance of theirs. When I asked my parents about it long after that encounter helped inspire me to become a writer, they could neither remember the festival nor ever knowing Kesey.
In second grade, I wrote stories about dog astronauts and the Keystone Cops for our grade school lit mag called The Doggy Bag. I was astonished to rediscover them a while back and see that my writing style and sense of humor haven’t changed that much in the years since. Maybe I knew all along this was what I wanted to do.
I made up my mind once and for all to become a writer my sophomore year in college at San Francisco State University. I was a film major who couldn’t get my act together. I made a stark self-realization and decided that my personality didn’t fit the film major mold. So I switched to creative writing. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.
