Okay seriously, the cut in the arts and culture sector really didn't affect me personally -- especially since I work for a non-profit arts organization with little funding, but now it has. A friend of mine has been laid off -- about 6 months early! From a relatively big festival coming up, and you'd think they wouldn't be affected - but nope! Big and small organizations are taking a hit.

All because the Liberals want to cut over 80% of what has consisted of only 1/20th of 1% of the provincial budget. There will be a big rally tomorrow at the only place rallies take place in this town - Vancouver Art Gallery! Tomorrow! Wednesday at 12:00 noon!

Nearly done! from UPPERCASE gallery on Vimeo.

Hopefully I can squeeze it into my Saturday afternoon schedule of hanging out by the pool and uhh.. hanging out by the pool with drinks but tomorrow the Regional Assembly of Text is hosting an event with Janine Vangool the designer of owner of Uppercase Gallery in Calgary and also runs Uppercase Magazine. The magazine is a cute and some would say the cutest magazine for the "creative and curious". It's all happening in the lowercase reading room (which by the way is not an room located in the basement of the Regional Assembly like I originally thought but a small closet converted into a reading room in the store)

Like you need another reason to attend the Handmade Nation screening at the Rio Theatre tomorrow, but now you have one.Faythe Levine, the director will be in attendance and will be answering questions for all you crafty folks. InHandmade Nation, Levine travelled across the USA to 15 cities documenting the rise of DIY arts and craft scene.

If her name does ring a bell its because the New York Times has tagged her as the 'Ambassador of Handmade', and she has founded Art vs. Craft, Milwaukee's independent craft fair. She is co-owner and curator of Paper Boat Boutique & Gallery and has co-written the book Handmade Nation:The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design

On the first Monday of every month Melanie Friesen invites a distinguished guest to present his/her favourite film at Vancity Theatre and afterwards there is a quick talk with the guest proceeded by snacks, beverages and and all around good time. It's something that I've just been aware of in the past few months. Really...one of the most underrated arts events in the city, I'd say. Tomorrow on May 5th, Cinema Salon has Vancouver artist/filmmaker/photographerStan Douglas presenting his favourite flick "Cockfighter".

In the past Cinema Salon has hosted events with Brent Butt (Corner Gas actor, comedian), Chris Haddock (TV producer), Bill Richardson (CBC broadcaster), David Suzki, James Wright (Vancouver Opera) and more.

After working in broadcasting for 10 years, Elianna Lev took a bit of a leap from hard news journalism to start her own personal storytelling podcast. With a push from her colleague CBC Radio 3's Steve Pratt, she decided to produce the People's Program Podcast. It features stories from various individuals including her friends, "Well I know my friends pretty well and I know they're all talented and do really cool stuff and I thought...well you know some of them do things on a national scale," explains Lev, "And I know they have good stories to tell". The podcast also features local musician/filmmaker Aaron Beckum scoring the music. (Beckum is personally one of my favorite local filmmakers, you should check out his award winning film Who Wants to Be an Amerikan). P3 is a mix of This American Life and a little bit of eavesdropping...well in a good way. It's not a fully polished podcast like This American Life or CBC Radio 3 but with that, it does feel a bit more genuine. Kinda like you're listening to strangers next to you in a coffee shop having a conversation.

Viision Quest curator Sam Scott picked up the idea from a Montreal video, "Basically a Montreal friend of mine was doing a few casual video nights...and a lot of good videos emerged out of it and he and I decided he had all the videos collected so we decided to do a Vancouver version." Scott explains. Combining videos from Montreal and Vancouver artists, you would expect videos to be as diverse as possible but there seemed to be an underlining theme, "Some of the videos have something psychedelic wilderness them going. I don't know why but its something that people are on these days camping. Nocturnal textures thing - it wasn't any sort of pre planning it just worked out that way. It the style and current feel of what people are into these days" describes Scott.