Win an Eastside Culture Crawl Gift Basket

Comments 89 by Rebecca Bollwitt

The 19th annual Eastside Culture Crawl will showcase 457 artists over 4 days in 83 buildings and hopefully you will be one of the 25,000 visitors who check out the work of local painters, sculptors, potters, photographers, glassblowers, and furniture designers.

EastsideCultureCrawl

Eastside Culture Crawl

There is no admission fee. The Crawl opens a door to the studios, homes, garages, and creative hideaways in the area bounded by Columbia Street to Victoria Drive, and north of 1st Avenue to the waterfront. Added to this year’s exciting line-up is a series of new, intimate workshops and demonstrations in glass blowing, wood carving, and Jacquard Loom weaving.

Thursday, November 19, 2015 from 5:00pm to 10:00pm
Friday, November 20, 2015 from 5:00pm to 10:00pm
Saturday, November 21, 2015 from 11:00am to 6:00pm
Sunday, November 22, 2015 from 11:00am to 6:00pm

Win an Eastside Culture Crawl Gift Basket

Thanks to Eastside Culture Crawl Gold Sponsor, DeSerres, I have a gift basket (valued at $300) filled with art supplies to give away. This prize is ideal for the amateur or professional art enthusiast and features a selection of art supplies such as paints, brushes, canvases, and more!

Here’s how you can enter to win:

  • Leave a comment naming an Eastside Culture Crawl artist (1 entry)
  • Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
RT to enter to win a $300 @CultureCrawl @deserres art gift basket from @Miss604 http://ow.ly/UuOwa

I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 12:00pm on Sunday, November 15, 2015. Follow the Eastside Culture Crawl on Twitter and Facebook for more information.

Update The winner is @zoeboe24!

Fill a Stocking for Beauty Night

Add a Comment by Rebecca Bollwitt

Vancouver’s Beauty Night Society is a non-profit organization in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside that is committed to bettering the self-esteem, image, and lives of women living in poverty. In their 15 years in service, they have given over 50,000 life-makeovers and that work continues this season.

Fill a Stocking for Beauty Night

beauty_nightIn addition to Beauty Night’s regular programs, which run 4 nights a week, they hand out holiday stockings — and they’re hoping to fill and distribute 1500 this year. These stockings are to be sewn, decorated, filled, and delivered to impoverished women and youth in Metro Vancouver.

Volunteers can pick up fabric to sew and decorate the stockings, one of which is local fashion designer Nancy Perreault, then the Carrie Wheeler Entertainment Group’s team fills the stockings. Deliveries are made by volunteers dressed as elves who hand out the stockings at shelters, transition homes, housing locations, drop in centres, health care facilities.

Items Needed That You Can Donate

Journals (most requested)
Jewelry
Gloves
Socks
Chocolate
Coffee Cards
Granola Bars
Stationary
Body Care Products
Nail Care Products
Dental Care Items
Skin Care Products
Hair Care Products
Makeup Samples

Where to Donate These Items

Donations can be dropped off before November 25, 2015 at:

Vital Health 1855 West 4th Avenue, Vancouver, BC
Breizh Salon Services (3rd and Main), Vancouver, BC
Eastside Fitness 5854 Fraser Street, Vancouver, BC
Forever Yours Lingerie, 20460 Fraser Hwy, Langley, BC

You can start a product drive at work, throw a stocking-filling event, ask for donations from suppliers (like an extra toothbrush from your dentist, or products from your local salon). Follow Beauty Night on Twitter and Facebook for much more information and to see how you can help this season.

Surrey Art Gallery’s 40th Anniversary

Comments 1 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Since 1975, the Surrey Art Gallery has featured art from local, national, and international artists. Now in its 40th year, the gallery has been focusing on the city itself and the talented creative people, born-and-raised and from around the world, who call it home.

Surrey Art Gallery’s 40th Anniversary

Throughout the past 40 years, there are been over 750 exhibitions at the Surrey Art Gallery and 10,000 artists have been featured. I took a trip to my hometown last week to visit with Jordan Strom, Curator of Exhibitions and Collections, who led me through “Views from the Southbank III“, which has brought together over 20 artists South of the Fraser River who respond to our digital age in varying ways.

SurreyArtGallery
Photo credit: Edward Westerhuis

“It’s art from where we are,” Jordan told me as we stepped into the main gallery space that seemed to be teeming with life thanks to its mixed-media pieces on display. Videos, audio, photographs, and sculptures provided movement in this living space that represented living in Surrey. Infographics, GPS-mapping, video games, textiles, wood carving, ceramics, Jordan says “all depict the city as people who live here see it,” and in particular how we see it in a data structured world.

The paintings of power lines and railroad tracks, the views of the Pattullo, farms, forests, and representations of mixing cultures all remind me of my hometown. The gallery reassures me that I don’t need to head out of town to find inspiring and thought-provoking art.

Sylvia Grace Borda’s Google Street View immersive digital media art project was created in collaboration with Google Street View photographer John Lynch. Debbie Tuepah’s poured-and-peeled paint sculpture graphs all of the languages spoken in Surrey. Ben Reeves found the location for his paintings by literally throwing a dart at a map and trekking to that location to paint the view he sees from his car steering wheel.

Another exhibit in an adjacent gallery is “Re:Source – A Living Archive 1975-2015“, the 4th phase in an exhibition that began in September. Here you can discover 40 years of exhibitions with photos, commentary, and critiques. You can visit these exhibitions, and more, until December 13th at the Surrey Art Gallery, located in the Surrey Arts Centre at the entrance to Bear Creek Park (13750 88th Ave).

Special Events

What: Archive Artists Panel: “The Archeology of Art”
Where: Surrey Art Gallery
When: Saturday, November 14, 2015 from 2:30pm to 4:30pm

What: Contemporary Art Bus Tour
Where: Starting from the Surrey Art Gallery
When: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 from 9:00am to 3:00pm

What: Surrey Tree Lighting Festival Art Gallery Booth
Where: Surrey City Hall Plaza (13450 104th Ave)
When: Saturday, November 21, 2015 from 12:00pm to 8:00

What: SAGA Art & Craft Sale, Show & Sale
Where: Surrey Art Gallery
When: Saturday, November 21, 2015 from 12:00pm to 8:00pm

What: Sound Thinking Symposium: Voicing the City in/verse
Where: Olympia Restaurant (10257 King George Blvd)
When: Saturday, November 28, 2015 from 7:00pm to 11:00pm

What: Sound Thinking Symposium: Voicing the City in/verse
Where: Surrey Art Gallery
When: Sunday November 29, 2015 from 12:00pm to 5:00pm

Read more about these events and upcoming December events online, and follow the Surrey Art Gallery on Facebook.

Surrey Tree Lighting Festival: Andrew Allen

Add a Comment by Rebecca Bollwitt

The City of Surrey’s annual Tree Lighting Festival is coming up on Saturday, November 21st featuring free family fun and entertainment all day long at the Central City and City Hall plazas.

SurreyTreeLighting

Watch and enjoy special guests and performers such as Top Line Vocal Collective, the Kwantlen Glee Club, Eli Williams & The Memphis Sound, Queen Elsa & Anna, and more including Andrew Allen who will be playing multiple stages as two different acts.

BC’s Andrew Allen has landed three Top 10 hits in Canada: 2009′s “I Wanna Be Your Christmas”, 2011’s “I Want You” and his biggest single released in 2010 “Loving You Tonight”. The latter was on the charts for more than 22 weeks and broke the US Top 30 while gaining over 4 million views on YouTube. He’ll be playing the City Hall Plaza Main Stage (at 3:00pm) as well as inside City Hall later in the day, as Hudson Station (at 5:00pm) at the Surrey Tree Lighting Festival.

“It’s a really fun duo,” Andrew told me over the phone earlier this week. He and Cole Friesen, with whom he has been touring and performing with for years, formed Hudson Station last year in order to write and play songs with a heavier folk influence than you’d hear simply from Andrew Allen.

“Cole plays the guitar, I play the guitar, we both sing, and I play kick drum with my foot, he plays tambourine with his foot and they’re just really fun folk songs that I think people will really relate to.”

It’s a busy time of year for Andrew Allen (as himself and Hudson Station) as his Christmas single from 2009 has had a lasting impact. He’s preparing for his 4th annual “All Hearts Come Home” concert in Vernon (December 12th) as well as a Christmas showcase in Vancouver (December 4th), and of course you can get a holiday preview performance at the Surrey Tree Lighting Festival on November 21st.

“I like all the stuff around Christmas,” Andrew admits, however he can do without the hustle and bustle. It’s the sleigh rides, theatre productions, markets, that gets him in the holiday spirit. “The getting together, the parties, hanging out with people, that’s my favourite.”

Get together with your family and friends at the Tree Lighting Festival and enjoy the Coast Capital Savings Photo Booth, Winterland, Storyville, Toddler Town, arts & crafts, trolley rides, miniature train rides, a craft market, road hockey, ice carving, a ferris wheel, various other family activities and great FREE performances.

What: Surrey Tree Lighting Festival
Where: The Plaza at New City Hall and Atrium (13450 104th Ave, Surrey)
When: Saturday, November 21, 2015 from 12:00pm to 7:00pm. The tree will be lit at 6:30pm. The stags at Central City will be lit at 4:15pm.

Rain or shine! There will be a lot to do both indoors and outside. View the full stage schedule online and follow Surrey Events on Twitter and Facebook for more information.

Miss604 is a proud media partner of the Surrey Tree Lighting Festival

Win a Vancouver Giants White Spot Legends Night Prize Pack

Comments 85 by Rebecca Bollwitt

The Vancouver Giants are known for their hockey with heart and also for their many community events and promotions throughout their season. Coming up they have Woodward’s $1.49 Day (November 17th), Star Wars Night (December 4th), Ugly Christmas Sweater Night (December 11th), Teddy Bear Toss presented by TELUS (December 18th), and more. This Saturday, November 14th, is White Spot Legends Night presented by The Hockey Shop, featuring two very special guests: Guy Lafleur and Dennis Hull.

LegendsNight

The Vancouver Giants will host the Portland Winterhawks that night at the Pacific Coliseum and 100 lucky fans in attendance at the game will have a chance to meet either Guy or Dennis.

“Our involvement with the Scotiabank Hockey for Alzheimer’s tournament started because of our relationship with Gordie Howe, and the efforts of the Gordie and Colleen Howe Foundation to raise money for dementia research,” said Giants Vice President, Business Development Dale Saip. “We are honoured as an organization to participate with hockey legends like Dennis and Guy in their support of this worthwhile cause.”

Lafleur tallied 1,353 points in 1,127 NHL games over his 17 year career with the Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers and Quebec Nordiques. “The Flower” won five Stanley Cups, three Art Ross Trophies, two Hart Trophies, one Conn Smythe Trophy and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1988. Lafleur is also the Canadiens’ all-time leading scorer with 1,246 points in a Habs uniform.

Hull played 14 seasons in the NHL — 13 with the Chicago Blackhawks and one with the Detroit Red Wings. He was a five time NHL All-Star and tallied 654 points in 959 career games. “The Silver Jet” also spent eight seasons playing alongside his older brother Bobby for the Blackhawks. Internationally, Hull represented Canada at the 1972 Summit Series.

For tickets, purchase online or call 604-4-GIANTS (604-444-2687).

White Spot Legends Night Prize Pack

Thanks to the Vancouver Giants, I have a White Spot Family Pak to give away for Legends Night. This includes 4 tickets to the game (gold section), 2 White Spot Legendary Platters, 2 White Spot Pirate Paks, 1 game night parking voucher, and a $10 gas coupon for Chevron! Here’s how you can enter to win:

  • Comment here naming a favourite (past or present) Giants player (1 entry)
  • Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
RT to enter to win a White Spot Legends Night prize pack from @WHLGiants @Miss604 http://ow.ly/Urxle

I will draw one winner from all entries at 12:00pm on Thursday, November 12, 2015. Follow the Vancouver Giants on Twitter and Facebook for the latest scores, news, event and promotion information.

Update The winner is RobQ!