Last Tuesday we joined other creative types to chit chatter about our initiatives at the relaunch of Pecha Kucha #4 in Ottawa. The theme for the night was “creative city-making” and the idea that instead of a top-down approach, a city can be made from the ground-level, in an organic and self-organized way.

We were honoured to be presenting beside an inspiring lineup of 7 other people who have helped to define and increase the creative potential of  “the town that fun forgot”.

Our presentation was titled “DIYing Creative Cities” and we spoke to how Spins & Needles was started in response to looking for something different in Ottawa’s arts and cultural scene, the events we’ve thrown in other cities in Canada and internationally, our challenges as an indie event, and our plans for the future.

We also spoke briefly about what we’ve learned producing this event. We didn’t state this directly in our presentation, but the three takeaways in it were:

• Take risks, be open, look for opportunities, be nimble and flexible – you never know what creative idea might work out for you;
• Collaborate and partner up with like-minded organizations – you can achieve more than individually and as an indie event that travels, it makes touring easier; and
• Tap into your networks – most people are willing to share resources, contacts.

Other presenters talked about the launch of their new national magazine (Guerilla Magazine, Tony Martins); the development of one of Ottawa’s most comprehensive and loved indie blogs on arts and cultural events in the city (Apt613, Francois Levesque); the call out to creative people in Ottawa to consider a $1,000 microgrant to help them with their project (Awesome Ottawa, Greg Jack); a challenge put to the audience and Ottawa-ns to select a font that best describes the city (Ottawa Creative Collective, Steve St-Pierre); the ideas behind the curator for Ottawa’s first Nuit Blanche (Nuit Blanche Ottawa, Stefan St-Laurent); the ideas behind the current curator at the Ottawa Art Gallery (Ottawa Art Gallery, Ola Wlusek), and designing a rail map for the city (Adam Bentley and Evan Thornton).

If you missed the event, head over to Twitter and seach the hashtag #pknott for tweets from Pecha Kucha Ottawa, attendees, and speakers. Also the organizers plan to host PK Ottawa more regularly over the coming year. If you’ve got an idea for a presentation get in touch with them or send them a tweet.

Thanks to the Pecha Kucha Ottawa team (Remco Volmer and Luc Lalande) for organizing the event!

Drop by Arts Court the evening of Tuesday March 27 for the relaunch of Pecha Kucha Ottawa! Spins & Needles will be there chit chattering about our event and DIY-ing creative cities, alongside some of Ottawa’s creative types.

At this edition, we’ll be discussing a manifesto for creative city-making in Ottawa. We need to drag out the old thinking about “city-building” from a land-use urban engineering (top-down, centrally-planned) perspective to one of creative “city-making” distinguished as ground-level, organic, and surprisingly self-organized.

The long-awaited return of PKN Ottawa happens in style with a slate of inspiring presenters. Tickets available at the door only – no online purchase available for this event.

Presenters:

Pecha Kucha Ottawa: Volume 4
March 27, 2012 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm : Ottawa #4 at Arts Court Theatre and Studio
$5 at the door
2 Daly Avenue Ottawa, ON K1N 6E2, Canada
(613) 569-4822

http://www.pecha-kucha.org/night/ottawa/4

About Pecha Kucha: PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat”, it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

It’s a weekend full of holiday goodness! After Spins & Needles Craft-mas installment in Ottawa, head out on Sunday to what is looking to be one of the biggest sales in Ottawa this season: Idle Hands! There’ll be local handmade items, and something for everyone, naughty and nice.

Spins & Needles will be there providing yuletide beats, a holiday-themed ornament workshop, and a table full of new handmade silkscreened scarves, ties, jewellery, knitted goods, craft kits and other awesome wintery gifts for your loved ones or yourself!

Plus Idle Hands will be raising money for Lady Evelyn Alternative School. They will also have amazing loot up for raffle from all their vendors as well as art work from Danny Hussey, Ian Roy, gift certificates from Social Restaurant and Lounge, Eighteen, Hush and Patrick Gordon Framing just to name a few.

For more info and a list of vendors, check out their website.

We’re a wee bit late on this posting but it’s still worth noting that it was such a blast! Spins & Needles, with the help of our beloved volunteers, participated in Canada’s first ever Culture Days last month to host a drop-in Printmaking 101 /Stencilling Workshop at Ottawa’s Arts Court, the city’s largest centre for professional arts producers and presenters.

Not knowing what to expect, we were blown away by how many people showed up for the inaugural year. Culture Day goers whipped up some awesome tote bags and t-shirts with some funky background beats on the ghetto blaster.

Thanks to each of you who came out – you were one of the thousands of Canadians in over 700 communities that celebrated and shared their creativity in over 4500 free activities that took place from coast to coast.

Here’s some highlights from the day.

There were definitely some happy customers! Until next year!

In case you haven’t heard,either via CBC or your local newspaper, Culture Days is upon us starting today and runs until this Sunday. It’s a packed weekend full of thousands of free cultural things for you to do, make, paint, sculpt, act, sing, dance, write, and learn with community artists across Canada.

Spins & Needles, in collaboration with Arts Court in Ottawa, is presenting a free printmaking workshop tomorrow as part of Culture Days. Get your print on: you’ll learn the basic printmaking technique of stencilling. We supply the printing materials and iconic pop culture images and you get to learn how to customize your own t-shirt, tote bag or poster to take with you.

For more Ottawa events, you can check out this great roundup of activities by Apartment 613 or visit the Culture Days website. See you there!

If you’re still in Ottawa post-Canada Day celebrations you’ve still got time to check out the Capital Craft Market in the Byward Market (celebration central). The CCM features 18 hip, modern & handmade designers from across eastern Canada and admission to the show is free. You’ll find stunning silver cuffs by Annie Lespérance, hip felted decor pieces from C Comme Ça, sweet, vintage-inspired dresses from Montreal label Simone’s Rose, and many more.

Here’s the details:

The Capital Craft Market
July 1-3 + 10am-5pm each day
Byward Market Square’s 2nd Level (George & William Streets)
www.capitalcraftmarket.com

(Thanks to Urbanite Jewellery maker and show producer Krista Leben for passing the info on).

Psst – want to make stuff simultaneously with crafters in other countries such as Mexico, France, Egypt and Hong Kong, while having your cake and eating it too? This month we’re joining forces with crafty groups around the globe to bring you the Ottawa edition of a worldwide craft party!

Etsy‘s put a call out to cities around the world to celebrate with a craft party on June 18th (their actual birthday), and we’ve lined up the event for this month to fall on the same day. But we’re not just celebrating their birthday, we’re celebrating your birthday, your friend’s birthday and everyone else’s!

There’ll be DJs, loot bags and projects galore, from DIY crowns a la Burger King styles to customizing your own wooden photo frame to capture that b-day moment. Each person will blow out the candle on their own personal birthday cupcake.

Funky beats provided by DJs Jason Pelletier + special guest Montreal DJ Dave Allison (a.k.a. Dav) of indie funky/jacking house label Kinjo Records. Kinjo will be celebrating their 30th release soon, having released many must-have tracks played during DJ sets around the globe!

Here’s the details:

When: Friday June 18th @ 8:00p.m. onwards
Where: Legion Hall (330 Kent St. @ Somerset St. W.) (Buses #1, 4, 7, 12)
Cover: $6 – includes access to all materials and instructions.
Facebook invite

We also threw the superfun first edition of Me, You and Everyone Else’s Birthday a few years ago. Check out the photos on our Flickr page.

Other inspirations for the party includes:

What else says party but balloons? We based the poster for the event on the idea of the activity of cluster ballooning which sounds like something you dream of as a kid and would be an awesome birthday gift. But it actually does exist!  The pilot straps him or herself in to a paraglider harness, then is attached to 50 to 150 helium filled-balloons. Sandbags are released (just like a hot air balloon) and the pilot floats up into the air. To descend, the pilot releases or bursts balloons.

Birthday also means decorations – we’re loving this birthday balloon garland idea from the crafters over at Martha Stewart. We’ll be writing lots on these balloons, from the S&N logo to “Happy Birthday” to “Bonne Fete”.

It’s all about you on your birthday and you get to be treated like royalty! These photos made us think about what crowns and hats we pined for as a kid to crowns and hats we pine for now:

We did crowns a few years back and loved how this person’s turned out – posing with Queen Elizabeth no less!

Plus what better way to mark your special day than with crafting up a frame to capture that Kodak moment?

And here’s a fresh jacking song of the month that we are so so into right now. It’s We No Speak Americano by Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP – it’s definitely got some catchy beats that we think all craft parties on June 18th would appreciate (even to our American friends!)

During the last weekend of May, you’ll find most of the residents in my city (and lots of out-of-towners) concentrated in one neighbourhood for one the big events of the year. It’s the Great Glebe Garage Sale, where, if you wake up early enough, you can score some awesome furniture, clothing, books or jewellery, find a whole bunch of 80s and early 90s toys, or happen upon some knick knacks that you knew you needed but never got around to buying.

Unfortunately I woke up too late (after the Spins & Needles pinata party the night before) so I headed out with a friend and her baby boy around 9ish. The baby scored more items than we did (baby clothes, booster seat, books, puzzles and toy parking garage).  His stroller became a personal shopping cart.

Plus we pretty much stopped for every dog that went by so he could pet it (too adorable!).

We did manage to find a couple vintage dresses and jewellery pieces. Best score: eight light brown glass photo frames in great condition for $15 and some awesome roti with curry for lunch served by members of a local gospel choir.

There was also lots of other crazy things going on on some streets. I tried my hand at hula hooping  – I would have posted a photo of it but shamefully I could only hold the hoop up for about 10 seconds. So here’s a photo of the instructor and someone who had way more skills than I did!

Next year I’m thinking of heading out early and hosting a trunk sale like they do in the UK.  Since none of us knows anyone who owns a half-million dollar home in the neighbourhood where we could set up shop. A friend of mine from Montreal did it this year and managed to sell some higher priced items, like a set of golf clubs. So we’re going to fill up a car trunk with items we don’t need, park one of the more busier streets, and open up the trunk for business. If anyone in Ottawa is up for it, let us know!

Back to our regular scheduled programming! We’re excited to be back this month with a new installment and which will definitely be one of the fiercest fiestas in the barrio.

Inspired by Cinco de Mayo (May 5th) and because everyone knows the start of summer means tequila and beats, we’re bringing you a crazy Spins & Needles piñata party!

Fill up a piñata, craft up some tacos (non-edible) and papel picados and sip on some tequila! Work on a DIY project and listen to some funky beats by DJs Jason Pelletier + Meterman.

Here’s the details:

When: Friday May 28th @ 8:00p.m. onwards
Where: Legion Hall (330 Kent St. @ Somerset St. W.) (Buses #1, 4, 7, 12)
Cover: $6 – includes access to all materials and instructions.

DJs Jason Pelletier + Meterman spinning funky house, old school funk and tech-house.

Other inspirations for the party include:

This 20-ft Andy Warhol piñata head was constructed by Jennifer Rubell for the Brooklyn Museum‘s annual Brooklyn Ball last month. After guests bashed Andy’s “face”, they were treated to dessert surprises:  Hostess products including Dingdongs and Twinkies. As Dave Itzkoff from the New York Times Arts Beat blog said, perhaps in the future, everyone will be a piñata for 15 minutes…

We based the poster on the image below: it’s the world’s largest piñata (according to the Guiness Book of World Records), a 6-story structure built in Philadelphia in 2008. A wrecking ball was used to bust open the piñata , and thousands of pounds of candy came rushing out (check out the video link - it’s pretty amazing to think people went that wild for candy…)

This lovely photo from Emiliano Rodriguez made me want to start cutting up some tissue paper to create some banners and visit Mexico:

One of the Spins & Needles installments we held in London took place at Barrio North, a neighbourhood DJ bar in Islington that remixes vibes from London to Miami to Mexico to Barcelona. With lots of papel picados, a hacked up vintage caravan and handpainted ceramic tiles, it was definitely one of our favourite spaces to host the event.

And last but not least, here’s a little something to get you ready for the party: Riva Starr’s I Was Drunk (featuring Noze) (one of my favourite songs of the year!):

This past Saturday I attended the 2010 Promdemonium edition in Ottawa, partly for nostalgic reasons (I fell asleep during the afterparty the night of my high school prom), partly to get dressed up and partly to check out what other peeps were wearing. It also doubles as a fundraiser for local, community initiatives and creative resistance.

Definitely lots of stylish people there dancing the night away and having a drink (or two). (Check out the rest of the photos in my photoset on Flickr).

I was loving the fact it took place at St. Brigid’s Church in the Byward Market, now used as a cultural centre. (And also recently where, fittingly, Christian Slater entered priesthood). The pews, altar and statue of Jesus on the cross are still in tact. I’m not sure what my grandmother would say…

Who said prom was overrated? I definitely had the time of my life.