Arts

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Off the straight and Arial Narrow

Where writing has gotten me, and where it can take you

By Angela Espinoza, Arts Editor

hen I graduated high
school two and a half
years ago, I was not

overtaken with emotion. I did not
weep for the past, nor was I looking
bright-eyed into the future; I was
simply relieved. With all my friends
heading to SFU and nothing to
show for my interest in... well, in
anything, Douglas College offered a
fresh start.

During one of the college’s
Late Summer Orientations, I
happened upon a table for the
student newspaper, The Other Press,
manned by then editor in chief (now
humour editor) Liam Britten. With
no concept of what I was doing, I
signed up and started attending
meetings; do I find it weird that I’m
the arts editor of a newspaper now?
Unexpected sure—again, I was
basically a blank slate, I didn’t even
have legitimate work experience—
but it’s not by any means weird. I’ve
made an ass out of myself here and
there, but I’ve also worked said ass
off; writing for The Other Press (OP)
is probably the only thing I’ve ever
really cared about.

Besides actually doing
something with my life though,
one of the perks of getting involved
with a post-secondary newspaper
has been attending the past two
Canadian University Press (CUP)
National Conferences, otherwise

known as NASH. NASH is held
annually in a different Canadian
city (this year’s was in Victoria,

last year’s was in Montreal, etc.)
during the second week of January.
It is there that panels, roundtables,
keynotes, critiques, and the Annual
General Meeting (each featuring
fellow student writers, professional
writers, and journalists from across
Canada) take place.

Last year I attended as arts
reviewer, a now defunct position at
the OP (replaced by staff writer) that
Thad dubbed sidekick to arts editor,
then Cody Klyne (now editor in
chief). Reviewer was a comfortable
spot where I had gotten into the
motion of things without carrying
the same weight as an editor. I got
to see where other writers’ interests
stood, how the more involved
student journalists operated things,
and even got tips on how to make a
career for myself as a writer.

But this year’s conference,
NASH 74, was different; I wasn’t
watching from the sidelines
anymore, I was attending as an
editor, and there was a lot of
pressure in knowing that. Delegates
who attend regularly are somewhat
expected to use what they learned
from the previous year to improve
their section, and for that matter,
their respective newspaper as a
whole. Nobody enjoys being the
editor at, in this case, the Arts
roundtable, with little or nothing

to say, but it happens; it’s how you
learn.

So at this point, assuming you
are interested in writing to some
extent, you have to ask yourself
what it is exactly you want to
improve on. Sometimes you pick
up little things; while attending a
film reviewer’s panel at NASH 73,
we learned about capsule reviews,
which are brief reviews that can
span anywhere from a sentence to
200 words. On its own the concept
doesn’t seem like much, but in
the long run it’s turned out to be
extremely useful.

Of course, that was NASH 73;
what did I pick up from NASH 74
(besides an ugly case of norovirus)?
Well, at the risk of sounding like
a Care Bear, I learned some things
about myself. Writing in general,
whether it’s been for the OP or for a
class, I’ve found to be invigorating
over time, but I won’t be working
for the OP nor will Ibe a student
forever. Everyone around me is
right in saying that I’m young and
don’t need to worry about all that
just yet (I’m only 20), but right now,
when I’ve gotten most comfortable
and even re-inspired with my
position (thanks to NASH), I need
to keep searching for ways to better
myself as an editor.

Not every student newspaper
contributor, or editor for that
matter, will turn to writing or
even journalism as a career. In this

case, working for the OP will be a
part-time gig for some, a stepping-
stone to the future for others, and
possibly that place with all the
rambunctious “hipsters” —although
I don’t particularly condone that
last option—to the rest. In my
time there I’ve had three editor
in chiefs, several co-workers, and
many volunteers; I don’t know
where some of them went, I don’t
know where some of them will
go, and others I’ve become so
close with I still find it odd, even
emotionally stressful at times that
we put together a full-fledged (not
to mention damn fine) newspaper
every single week. But I digress;
taking that first step into the once
drab and dusty, now vibrant and
club house-like OP office opened an
entirely new door of opportunities
I'd have never known existed
otherwise.

Whatever your interests lie
in, be it music, sports, or politics,
writing about these subjects
in turn teaches you something
more about them. You pick up
patterns and styles that apply to
these individual subjects, and you
start to understand them. Really,
what it comes down to is that
you can’t fully grasp something
you're interested in until you get
involved with it, and if I’ve learned
anything in my time at the OP,
it’s that writing is the best way to
accomplish just that.

 

A splash of colour

A one on one with artist Richard Alm

By Angela Espinoza, Arts Editor

very six weeks the Amelia
HE Douglas Gallery, located on

the fourth floor of Douglas’
New West campus, hosts the
works of a Canadian artist. These
works often consist of paintings
and multimedia pieces, but as one
can expect, the styles of each differ
greatly from artist to artist. On the
afternoon of Thursday, January
12, the latest artist to be given the
spotlight was Richard Alm.

I sat down with Alm last week,
and I learned a lot in the hour and
a half I spent with him. To put
things simply, he’s been around the
block a few times. Originally a Fine
Arts student, Alm’s held careers
ranging from Scott Paper salesman
to designer to a legitimate inventor.
He’s the kind of man that’s done
it all, so with that in mind, what
better chance than now to do what
he enjoys most?

“T looked at it as an opportunity
8

to start giving back,” Alm says
about the Artist’s Talk for Dappled,
the name of his exhibition in the
gallery. “When I was faced with
the students on Friday morning
[January 13], they reminded me
of me many years ago... saying, ‘I
don’t want to be a starving artist.’”
It was this initial fear that led Alm
down a different, albeit still fairly
successful path. Many of us even
now, as Alm saw, maintain these
fears; we all have our respective
interests, talents even—but where
does security lie in that?

Much of where you'll go in life
relies on faith in yourself; you can’t
always be looking at the negative,
there needs to be some light. Thus
Alm’s art style; “I’m obviously a
realist,” he says, “a realist with
my own colour palette, because
everything I do is bright and cheery.
I’m certainly not one of those guys
that wants to....”

After a pause, I interject with,
“Show the world for what it is?”

“Yeah, ‘what it is’-—boring.
If | wanted to feel bad about
something, the last thing I’d want to
do is go look at paintings that make
me feel bad.” Alm’s paintings,
regardless of their context, all
consist of vibrant colours. Even
when darker or deeper shades are
necessary, Alm is able to use them
in a way that makes each image
pop.
“I’m quite proud of that
collection,” he says of Dappled.
“We've been working at it for a
while, about a year... I submitted
what I thought [was] just a selection
of works that I liked.” This selection
includes paintings of settings and
people in their most natural states,
but many of these paintings also
reflect the beauty of other places
in the world. “I travel a lot; I like
to look at the details of various
places and present [them] for the
enjoyment of others.

“They’re my interpretation
of a scene that I’m looking at,” he

   

continues, “and [so] I use a lot of
photography in my travels. [That
and] if I take my camera and a
pencil and pad, the Canadian
government allows me, as an artist,
to write off the trip.”

What: Dappled: Paintings by
Richard Alm

Where: The Amelia Douglas
Gallery

When: January 12-February 17
Cost: Free!

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