Celebrating World Collage Week – Day One

Reid Dickie

Come join me for a week of collage festivities on readreidread! June 18 to 24, 2012 has been deemed World Collage Week by the International Collagists Enclave (ICE), meeting in Brussels. The designating motion, seconded by the secretive Dry and Darkists, proclaimed that, during this week, the entire planet be recognized as a collage in its own right. The proclamation is lengthy, detailed, merciless tho housebroken and available for consumption on the ICE website at www.thisisajoke.com

Inspired and required by the ICE, I will post two collages daily this week, one colour, one black and white. These are selected from paper collages Linda and I created back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Each will be accompanied by a brief story suggesting possibilities for the image. Do not be limited by the stories. They are merely suggestions. Enjoy!

TRIPLISTS ABOUND

We who divide everything by three, who must divide everything by three, we are the triplists of the world – our vision is pure, our ways quaint and our power unfathomable.

UNFORGOTTEN ECHO

I am smiling down on you from Great Heaven helping you remember something you have forgotten. Have you remembered it yet? Keep trying. Be still. Look inside. It’s there.

DickToolCo YouTube Channel First Anniversary

Reid Dickie

It was one year ago today I began my foray into finding an audience on the internet but it didn’t start with this blog. It started with the DickToolCo YouTube channel which uploaded its first video on November 8, 2010. The reason for the date was to coincide with the Celebration of Light and Linda, an evening of interesting entertainment I created for about 120 of our close friends, which occurred on November 9.

Thanks to the energy and efforts of friend and filmmaker Kevin Uddenberg, three of the videos Linda and I created in the late 1970s were available on YouTube that evening which I announced from the stage of the Park Theatre at the Celebration. The first video on the channel was Be An Artist Now, the long form, 29 seconds.

 Since then my learning curve has been steep and a ton of fun. I now create and upload my own videos to YouTube. The HD video camera I bought this summer has opened up vast new possibilities for YouTube content. A major part of my winter activities plan is to delve into the hours of stuff that I shot this summer.

YouTube led to Flickr because I needed to show the world the terrific still pictures Kevin took of the Celebration and all our beautiful friends who were there. You can see them on the DickToolCo channel on Flickr. I have video of the event which I cherish and will someday edit. So, with original content on YouTube and Flickr, what my friend Terry calls, “Reid’s little empire” had begun.

In the past year the DickToolCo YouTube channel has attracted over 13,000 views, an astonishing and humbling number. I have augmented the videos Linda and I created with video reports from my various travels this year. Currently there are 118 videos on the channel, 41 that Linda and I made together, the rest are my more recent creations. Thank you for watching stuff on the DickToolCo channel! Keep checking back for new uploads. Be happy, Reid

The Top Ten Most Viewed Videos on DickToolCo Channel

1. Giant Manitoba Sinkhole June 16/11

2. Lake Manitoba Flood at The Narrows

3. Souris Peacocks

4. Kangaroo Birth Cycle Coat

5. Post Nuclear PSA #1

6. Video List #2 Things You Should Never Ask a Smoke Detector

7. Go – Pere Ubu

8. Caligari’s Mirror – Pere Ubu

9. I Scare Myself

10. Souris Swinging Bridge Before and After

I Scare Myself

My one concession to Hallowe’en

Go Somewhere Else for Free

Reid Dickie

In the late 1970s, when Linda and I began our life together, we created dozens of collages on paper using cut-out techniques, reproducing them by photo copier and stapling them to lamp posts, billboards, hoardings and so on. I have uploaded several dozen of our collages with newly written captions onto DickToolCo Flickr. The captions are an outlet for my often-dark sense of humour.

To potentially encourage you to visit my Flickr site – a world somewhere else, free and the antidote to your usual clutter – I offer two of the collages with their captions for your possible amusement.

Caffeine Patch 

No time for coffee? Need the caffeine anyway? Try the new Caffeine Patch from Maulco. Slap one on first thing every morning and you are caffeinated for the day. Convenient, non-allergenic, contains no peanuts. Side effects include jitters, shitters and quitters. Extreme but rare side effects include serial killing, machete-wielding, panic attacks and/or death. 

Destiny 

Umber Aja swims next to his dolphin brother, Climie, through the Gulf of Boredom as they try for the world title in tandem flexing at 8:30 every time it comes around which for the boys is just about often enough as they catch their combined breaths gulping the sewage-spoiled water. Climie almost swallowed an eyeball about an hour ago but spit it out at the last second.

Amused? See more DickToolCo collages here.

Pictures of an Amazing Year

Reid Dickie

This is a sample of my first batch of 2011 travel pictures. Taken in the Big Muddy in southern Saskatchewan, an enduring symbol of hard pioneer life still stands atop a rise surrounded by crop.

I have uploaded the first 56 pictures from my various travels over the spring and summer onto the DickToolCo page on Flickr. They include shots of Vancouver in the spring, a series of cityscapes of downtown Winnipeg taken from the rooftop of the Fort Garry Hotel in mid-May, flood pictures of Brandon, Melita and the flood protest rally held at the Manitoba Legislature in June. During Doors Open I took a series of pictures of the Ukrainian Labour Temple in north Winnipeg. I always snapped pictures during my many trips to Souris covering the flood. Plus several shots from my July travels in Saskatchewan. Some of the pictures are along the right hand sidebar on my blog. All my pictures are here. Enjoy!

Lifeguard – More DickTool Co Video Now on YouTube

Please Don’t Talk to the Lifeguard  13:38  1981  b/w

click pic to play video 

       In a mythical place at a specific time, beauty is obliterated and ghosts are all that remain. Haunted by memory, pain and utter loss, an inner voice commands and deceives to maintain some warped balance where none is possible. Here a lifeguard strives to find normalcy, simple actions fail under extreme duress, ultimate sorrow ensues. 

            In no way related to the pop song of the same name (Diane Ray, #31 1963)  our video Please Don’t Talk to the Lifeguard or, simply Lifeguard, evolved during its production. At the time, Linda had opened IF… to which she devoted her days, evenings and energy so her involvement with this was limited. The basic idea was mine and grew out of Post Nuclear Primitivism. It was shot in three different environments, all of them under the aegis of Plug-In.

            First we selected a lifeguard by placing a small ad in the classifieds. Of the three men who auditioned, we selected Bruce Mitchell for the role. At the time, Bruce was a student of the Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers, extremely photogenic and had an unusual presence. His charisma is evident but I wasn’t completely successful capturing Bruce’s mystique. Bruce became a professional dancer and choreographer, moved toToronto and died in the early 1990s. The Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers offer a bursary program in Bruce’s name. 

            Artist Terry Hays had an installation at Plug-In at the time in which he built a room inside the gallery and covered its interior completely with fabric. The floor, walls, pillars and ceiling were tufted, wrapped and spread with various coloured fabrics. One reviewer said it felt as if he’d “been deposited inside a huge Charlie Brown sweater.” An elegant wooden path lined with chaser lights ran through his room. It felt like a perfect environment to shoot some of Lifeguard so with Terry’s permission, I went ahead and used his wild “set.” 

            Other scenes were shot outside Terry’s installation in the white gallery space and the final sections were shot at Plug-In’s new location across Main Street on McDermot Avenue. This was before the gallery was set up and just as it appeared when rented with stacks of wood and rubbish all around, a perfect location for the conclusion of Lifeguard. 

             The DickTool Co All-Night Show premiered Lifeguard. Its first gallery showing was at Plug-In Gallery Dec 9 to 13, 1981 then at Metro Media Vancouver June 25, 1982.

Frozen Warnings – DickTool Co Video

            See Linda dressed in a waitress’s uniform play guitar with an car antennae! See my head completely wrapped in tin foil! See an elf play keys! See a transit bus go by! See a trident. Hear an obscure song by Nico! Solve a mystery!

             Linda (that’s her behind the turning styrohead) sings Nico’s plaintive yearn Frozen Warnings while Kenn and I process. Shot at Arthur Street Gallery in Winnipeg 1980 and now in worldwide release on YouTube. Click pic to play.

More DickTool Co Collage Art

      ONE OF TEN MORE DICKTOOL CO COLLAGES NOW POSTED ON FLICKR. LINDA AND I CREATED THESE IN THE LATE 1970s AND EARLY 80s. FIND ALL OF THEM ON THE FAR RIGHT SIDEBAR.

Huh? Eh? New Video on YouTube!

 HUH? EH? filled a late Saturday evening with an idea that’s been rattling around in my head for a while. Pictures come from last summer’s travels, soundtrack by DickToolCo circa 1980, Movie Maker easy but limited, 67 minutes from start to being uploaded and now you can watch it on the DickToolCo channel on YouTube  by clicking on the grumpy guy. It’s 27 seconds long. It’ll be fun! Really!

DickToolCo Art Actions

For historical perspective on the early art my wife, Linda Tooley, and I created, I have added the first installment of DickToolCo Art Actions, specifically 1977, the first year Linda and I spent together.  I will add a new year every two weeks. You can find early DickToolCo videos on my blogroll.