Before Music Dies

This is a great documentary film about the current state of the music industry. I ended up watching the whole thing this morning, and was very inspired. So, I’m sharing it with you here, and then I’m off to make my own music!

Before Music Dies documentary Sep 5, 2008 – 1:17:25 Narrated by Academy Award® Winner Forest Whitaker, BEFORE THE MUSIC DIES is an unsettling and inspiring look at today’s popular music industry featuring interviews and performances by Eryka…

Tiana’s Mini Show at the Richmond Art Gallery

Tiana Kaczor has 9 mini artworks, made using watercolours and drawing with ink and gel pens, on display now until July 12 at the Richmond Art Gallery. Known as ATCs if they are traded with other artist cards, or ACEOs it they are sold for money, you may be able to own one of these after the show! Contact Tiana for details.

Tiana Kaczor's Animal ATCs for the Richmond Art Gallery's Lounge

“It’s Our World” Eagle Process

Check out Tiana Kaczor’s Flickr site for photos of her process for creating the eagle sculpture.

Tiana Kaczor's Eagle Mosaic of pictures on Flickr

Eagles in the City Map

In the Thursday, May 14th edition of The Vancouver Sun you can find a 2 page spread from The BC Lions Society for Children with Disabilities advertising the Eagles in the City project. One page is the flight path map, and the other page lists all the eagles with their titles, artists, sponsors, and location. Tiana’s is # 65. Find this map in the Sports section, pages E6 and 7. Save it and then on a sunny day use it to plan your route to find some painted eagle treasures.

Tiana’s Eagle Unveiling at Whiteside

“It’s Our World”, the 7′ eagle sculpture painted by Tiana Kaczor, using designs by 302 students, was unveiled at James Whiteside Elementary on April 30.

The program started off with “Oh Canada” sung in French and English, and I have to say was one of the most beautifully sung national anthems I’ve heard in a long time. The whole school was one big choir. Then there were speeches by Ms. Sakata, Principal, Mr. Stephen Miller, President/CEO BC Lions Society, The Luding-Sekikawa Family, sponsors, and Tiana Kaczor, artist. While a slide presentation by M. Senecal-Harkin and Mr. Osadchy ran, a song by Tiana was played.  More music performances came next with a medly on recorder and xylophone, by grades 4 to 6, then a grade 2 and 3 choir, and guitar players from grade 7 performed Steve Miller’s “Fly Like An Eagle” after the eagle sculpture was unveiled.

Eagle Unveiling at James Whiteside Elementary

As well as thanking all the people mentioned above, Tiana would also like to thank: Kathy Tycolis from the Richmond Art Gallery, Jim Martins from the Richmond School Board, Rick Harker, Connie Silas, and everyone at The BC Lions Society for Children With Disabilities, Whiteside staff Stacey Robinson and Elaine Tsumura for their help around the office, Harvinder Dahk for her help in the gym, Whiteside teachers and support staff for helping organize the drawings, move the sculpture, and feed me on a couple occasions, Mrs. Lozovsky-Burns and Mr. Tang for the wonderful music, and student Kaajal Gill for suggesting the name for our eagle. A big thank you to Mom and Dad, because without your support I could not have taken the time to do this project. Hopefully I didn’t forget anyone. Oh ya… a BIG thank you to all the students, your drawings were fantastic!

Free Download of “It’s Our World”

As a thank you to everyone involved in Eagles in the City, and the students and staff at James Whiteside Elementary, Tiana offers you a free download of the song “It’s Our World” which she composed for the unveiling ceremony. Enjoy!

http://www.reverbnation.com/tianakaczor

Please visit my Reverbnation site to download the song.

Go to my “Art” page to see full pictures of the sculpture, and my “Links” page to see the Richmond Review article and photo taken at the unveiling.

Eagles in the City Official Launch

Thursday April 23 at the new Vancouver Trade and Exhibition Centre, sponsors and artists were treated to a fabulous lunch, and saw the unveiling of 65 of their painted eagle scuptures. It was great to meet some of the other artists and hear their stories about working on their eagle.

Tiana's eagle at the official launch

Eagles in the City official launch

Today, April 30, was the solo unveiling of Tiana’s eagle at James Whiteside Elementary. More info on that soon!

The Value of a Painted Eagle Sculpture $

While my painted eagle is away getting a protective coating I took the time to work out my hours and how much this art piece should be sold for when it goes to auction in 2010.  I was curious to find out how much time I took to do this project, but I also wanted to educate people on the value of art.

I worked on this eagle painting project for 278 hours since January 1st. (This does not include my hours of organization in November and December.)

A weekly average of my time is 22 hours/week. So it was a 1/2 time job.

When teaching, my salary was around $29.16/hour. I believe this is an average salary for a professional, a decent amount for someone of my experience. Not an extravagant wage to ask for.

Multiply this wage $29.16 x my 278 hours = $8106.48

The students at James Whiteside Elementary came up with the ideas for the insides of the feathers. If on average they spent 1 hour per drawing and I used 302 drawings and we paid them half of my hourly wage then 302 hours x $14.58 = $4403.16

My wage $8106.48 + student wage $4403.16 = Total eagle is worth at least $12,509.64

In reality I was paid $1000, and bought my own supplies. This works out to me working for approximately $3.oo an hour, and the students working for free. Of course our labour is a donation to the BC Lions Society, but I think it’s important for those bidding on the sculpture in April 2010 to know what would be a good starting bid.

Tiana’s Copies of Student Drawings

The drawings on paper are by students at James Whiteside Elementary. The painted copies are by Tiana

Today I finished painting the feathers onto the eagle, all 302 of them! Now I am outlining in brown with gold highlights, and the whole eagle will be done by the end of the week. The BC Lions Society will then collect it from James Whiteside Elementary, put a protective coating on it, and return it to the school for the official unveiling on April 30.

Some people who have seen the eagle in progress think that the students are painting directly on the eagle. But no, I am the only one who has done the painting. It has been a fabulous exercise in painting techniques, as I have tried to replicate the style of a few hundred children, from age 5 to 12.

It is kind of sad that my time working at the school is coming to an end. It has been a joy having the students and staff come by every day to watch my progress, try to find their feather ideas, and give me words of encouragement.

Tiana’s Eagle Update

I recently had a whole grade 2 class come visit. They had lots of great questions to ask me. Here is some of the information they were interested in hearing about.

The eagle is 7.5 feet high. It is made of fibreglass and weighs approximately 120 lbs. It slips into a metal base that is approximately 50 lbs. I’ve had 1 to 3 other people come help me when it needed to be moved, or flipped, so I could easily work on it. No, I do not work for an art company, I am a solo artist. I can paint so well because I have had lots of practice, and I went to art school. The paint I’ve used the most of is white. I am drawing a map and keeping a list of names for the feather designs that I used so the students, teachers, and family can find them on the eagle.

As of this date of March 9th, I have painted 180 feathers, 6 pencils, 3 scissors, and a ruler on the underside, and 79.5 feathers on the top side of the eagle. Painting always puts me in a good mood because I am using such a variety of colours, and the designs the children drew are happy. Favourite subjects are suns, mountains, eagles, fish (some with big teeth!) rainbows, flowers, stars, and lightning bolts. You can also find on the feathers such things as wolves, electric guitars, a skier, a snowboarder, one panda, a penguin, flames, tornados, 2 erupting volcanos, 2 jet cars, 1 jellyfish, and a meal combo of a hamburger, hot dog, fries, chocolate chip cookie, and a banana.

I’m 3/4 finished painting the feathers.  Now spending around 5 to 6 hours a day at James Whiteside Elementary.  The students are still enthusiastic, coming up onto the stage to check  my progress and try to see if I’ve painted their feather design yet. They are so surprised that I can recreate the styles of the individual students from Kindergarten to Grade 7.

The original unveiling date was April 8, but that is now being changed to sometime at the end of April. This takes a little pressure off me, and allows me to keep a high level of detail on each feather.