Amanda Bullick - What I love about living in Vancouver,

What I love about living in Vancouver is the thriving Art community.

It’s been around 5 years since I moved to Vancouver and every day that I am here, I learn about another fantastically talented person. This city is so full of creative people, it’s overwhelming sometimes. New bands, theatre groups, dance troupes, artists or designers, this city is chock full of wildly creative forces that continue to inspire me and my art. Here are only a few of these wonderful people that fill this city with so much life and culture, photographed by me through my studio Brutally Beautiful.


Jess Hill

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Jess Hill is a storyteller whose delicately constructed lyrical worlds captivate, standing firmly with her blues‐draped compositions. Her music will smash your heart, pinch you in your sweetest nerves, give pause to the present and sing you to sleep all in one gently fierce moment.


Luciterra

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Through their dances, the women of Luciterra embody commitments to social justice, holistic health, and art innovation. They dance an intensely feminine and edgy fusion of old world vocabularies with new school stylings, to create an effect that is elusive, powerful, and compelling.


Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret

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Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret is a collective of professional and emerging artists based in East Vancouver. They create, perform and engage their community in home spun tales within elaborate worlds of found‐objects and bygone aesthetic, hosting journeys of rediscovery of old treasures and stories well known to your hearts.

Amanda Bullick is a photographer living in East Vancouver. She is a creative force, coaxing magic out of the everyday. Described as raw and grotesque, she finds the balance between darkness and elegance. Her images express themes of innocence, honesty and beauty as well as misery, decay and fear with eloquence.

website: www.bebrutallybeautiful.ca
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brutallybeautiful

Peter Van de Reep - What I love about Vancouver

While we're in the same place for the next few months we've invited guests to contribute to There & Here by telling us what they love about their favourite place in the world. Our guest this week is Peter from Vancouver, Canada.
One of the many great beaches lining the city.


What I love about Vancouver is ...well, pretty much everything.

I love how close we are to the ocean and mountains. I love the diversity of our people. I love our restaurants and cafes. Now, don't think it's not all a big love-fest out here, we do have our problems but, regardless, I have fallen in love with this city since I moved here seven years ago. I haven't travelled too much as an adult, but I feel like I still have so much to explore in Vancouver that my desire to go abroad is tamed. If I want to go to Japan, I slip into a boisterous izakaya for beer and snacks. If I want to go to China, I can visit a myriade of regions from shops and restaurants all within a 10 minute bike ride from my house. This city offers so much.

So it was two years ago, but the Olympics were pretty rad.

20 minutes on BC Ferries gets you to Bowen Island, a great place for a hike.

Sometimes you forget that Vancouver is in a rainforest.

One of the best seasonal delicacies from our waters, spot prawns!

Guu is an izakaya that transports you to Japan.

Beer drinking food, Sichuan style. Conveniently Nine Dishes is only five blocks from my house.

The iconic East Van cross by Ken Lum.

From the shores of False Creek at dusk.


Peter Van de Reep lives in Vancouver, BC. Following a university degree in geology, he worked at UBC until funding dried up for his research. After that he moved back into the coffee world where he's slung coffee for Elysian Coffee for the past two and a half years. Currently Peter's transitioning into food and drink where he makes delicious Italian food and drinks at Campagnolo Roma. His adventures are usually chronicled on twitter @peter_van.

Alyssa Gamberg - What I love about Vancouver

While we're in the same place for the next few months we've invited guests to contribute to There & Here by telling us what they love about their favourite place in the world. Our guest this week is Alyssa from Calgary, Canada.


What I love about Vancouver is the rain.

I could list many things that I love about Vancouver: my boyfriend lives there, the ocean, the mountains, Gastown... But, what I love most is the rain. Usually when I say this to a local or anyone who has ever lived there, I am greeted with a snarl and some sort of bitter comment along the lines of "Ya, well wait 'till you don't see the sun for three weeks". Lucky for me, I live in Calgary and have never experienced weeks of gray skies. On my next trip to Vancouver I may be the only person smiling when that first raindrop falls on my skin and I am okay with that.

Alyssa Gamberg currently lives in Calgary, Alberta working as a Graphic Designer for Tandem Marketing Design.

On Vacation - Alyssa (Vancouver via Calgary)

This is the last week of our guest blog series to compare other parts of the world while Charlotte is visiting Canada for August & September. Our guests this week are creatives John in Halifax & Alyssa in Calgary.

On the Chill Winston patio in Gastown enjoying yummy food and beer.

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Alyssa is a Graphic Designer currently living in Calgary, Alberta where she works for a marketing and design company. She enjoys borscht, vodka and would do a lot of things for a red velvet cupcake. She's passionate about what she does, music, movies, and the arts in general. She loves pajama and wine parties and can be kind of funny sometimes. 

See her work alyssagamberg.com.

Talk to her at twitter.com/alyssagamberg.

Summer Vacation - Alyssa (Vancouver via Calgary)

This is the last week of our guest blog series to compare other parts of the world while Charlotte is visiting Canada for August & September. Our guests this week are creatives John in Halifax & Alyssa in Calgary.

I flew to Vancouver this summer for a vacation and to visit my boyfriend Dustin. He moved there earlier in the year and it has become like a second home to me.

People who say it's alway gloomy in Vancouver are totally wrong!

One of the things I love about Van is that there is always something to do. This trip we decided to pretend like we were tourists the whole time and I guess in a way we are because there is so much that we have yet to discover. We took a trip to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, Dustin opened for the Midway State, we had drinks at Chill Winston in Gastown, and of course enjoyed the sunny summer weather. I honestly can't even express my love for that city. It is just packed full of the arts, culture and interesting people everywhere you go. It is constantly inspiring me and making me a happier person. I definitely left my heart in Vancouver and can't wait for the next trip out there. I would tell anyone that hasn't been to go because it really is a beautiful place. With views of the mountains, ocean and city, who could say no?

Oh and p.s. it doesn't ALWAYS rain!

Apologies from Vancouverites for the riot that happened June 15 2011 melted my heart a little.

Faced my fear of heights 230 ft above Capilano River without peeing my pants, big day.

Drinking Caesars and $10 Innis & Gunn and at Chill Winston after a long day was totally justifiable.

Vancouver transit's a dream (makes a joke of Calgary). I'd prefer the Skytrain over driving 9 times out of 10.

Van is so beautiful and the views never get old, there's something every kind of person can appreciate.

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Alyssa is a Graphic Designer currently living in Calgary, Alberta where she works for a marketing and design company. She enjoys borscht, vodka and would do a lot of things for a red velvet cupcake. She's passionate about what she does, music, movies, and the arts in general. She loves pajama and wine parties and can be kind of funny sometimes. 

See her work alyssagamberg.com.

Talk to her at twitter.com/alyssagamberg.

Our Weekend - August 12-14, 2011

What I Brought With Me - Sarah (Vancouver)

This is the first week of our guest blog series to compare other parts of the world while Charlotte is visiting Canada for August & September. Our guests this week are Sarah from Vancouver and Murray from Mbombela.

cotton scarf I hand dyed | my trusty wayfarers | tote bag I made at Spool of Thread | Sierra Nevada summer beers | So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell (the best prairie reading) | sadie necklace made of vintage French sequins and sterling silver

Sarah Rankin is a Landscape Architecture Intern by day and a jewelry designer by night, currently residing in Vancouver, Canada. See her work and read her blog at http://www.sadie-designs.com/ and follow her on twitter @sadiedesigns1.

Excursion - Sarah (Vancouver)

This is the first week of our guest blog series to compare other parts of the world while Charlotte is visiting Canada for August & September. Our guests this week are Sarah from Vancouver and Murray from Mbombela.

Growing things is big in Vancouver. Community gardens pop up on any vacant piece of land, figs, apples, pears, hazelnuts and chickens grow in backyards, and lawns are being turned into farms. On a summer day there are fields and markets all over the Lower Mainland that beg to be visited. This year Jeff and I have joined a new CSA (community support agriculture) that grows all of its food in East Vancouver. Each week we eat veggies picked right off the furrowed front yards of Vancouver Specials. On Sunday we walked the hour and a half from our house to Marché St. George, stopping along the way for iced coffee on Main Street and to read in the shade in a park. Summer erases all memory of winter from our minds. Days stretch into light, warm evenings, and making dinner with fresh, East Van produce is both strange and perfect. I love this city.

Sarah Rankin is a Landscape Architecture Intern by day and a jewelry designer by night, currently residing in Vancouver, Canada. See her work and read her blog at http://www.sadie-designs.com/ and follow her on twitter @sadiedesigns1.

Our Weekend - August 5-7, 2011