North Carolina artist Scott Avett was once referred to as an “Artist Hobo” for his methods of collecting subject matter, inspiration, and time to work, expresses his ideas through multiple artistic mediums. These mediums include illustration, printmaking, painting, sculpture, songwriting, recording, and performing.

Author Douglas Coupland is coming out of Vancouver. For sometime he has been writing the good word. Not the least of which is his first breakthrough novel Generation X. He is a trained designer and did his schooling in design at Emily Carr. All that to say he gets busy with his own works of visual art as well. Here are some wasps nests he made of the pages of Generation X with various tree branch types attached.

From 1985 the Fat Boys were hungry bastards up on the downtown Brooklyn Sabarro buffet, but also they were prescient with the whole cityspk thing in the film Krush Groove, featuring a whole slew of up and comers like Russell Simmons, Kurtis Blow, RUN DMC, LL Cool J, UTFO and Sheila E. Actually, a very wicked ass type of flick both if you like Hip Hop or just olden day smutty type NY. And respect goes out to Buffy the human beatbox who died of a heart attack a few years back - originators. He is the one with the sparkly glasses.

And here they are back in the day rapping with Freddy Krueger, testing the waters for a potential film collaboration… Like the man with the severly disfigured wax face says - freddy has got soul now, freddy is urban, he is street… thank god that this is one film that never got beyond the development stage.

an assortment of photos by Mali Kos from our Cityspk.ca site.

LuckyMe, a family of artists, illustrators,
writers, DJs, vocalists and producers in Glasgow, were invited to explore their home city by exposing the spaces where connections were formed, influences absorbed and experiences shared, and so provide an insight into the city’s role in the formation of their distinct creative group. Music by Mike Slott.

This is a little thing where we listen to the two lads i think are the best this country has right now… for those that aren’t up here in downtown Canada - they probably never heard of them. So share it with your friends in all parts, it deserves it… in the meantime lets just call it a tie and hope that they keep with the good stuff.

SHAD

and 

K’naan

shot in and around Toronto’s Rexdale neighbourhood…

– But then for the more commercially minded there is always also DRAKE.

Ratzinger are what the big metal letters left all over Roma say. The title of the project is Anonymous Letter to Ratzinger. Whether they have an axe to grind with the Pope over there in the Vatican City seems unclear as the meaning and makers are unknown. Seems to be just one of those things that just IS. Though presumably this isn’t fan mail, because with the spotty track record of this Pope, that would be even stranger…

Halifax’s own Classified, takes a page from City Spk in his new video, Anybody Listening? which makes use of the song title as urban typography plastered all in different spots on the streets of Toronto.

Anchorage is a place i have never been. yet. i hear it is a hopping little place with a lot of military sorts and a large asian rim type population that comes and goes quite a bit on the intercontinental stop over flights. It seems like the sort of spot to disappear to. Why play around? If you are going to go to the edge of the earth do it right.

photo by kahunna

You go there and you go away for good type of thing. Maybe this is what Michelle Shocked had in mind when she dropped this gem way back in the 80’s. It still holds its weight. And probably has the best liine of the decade. The whole thing is a letter from NYC to up there and goes — Leroy says hello…

Holy shit. How are you going to argue with that. Anchorage, Alaska — anchored down in Anchorage. That is what the song says too. On top of it all…

For those that don’t know, the Farine (flour) Five Roses sign is a towering behemoth of typography that floats over the near city center skyline of Montreal. It is putting it lightly to say that it is a fixture in the identity of the city. It has become more like the very language of the city.

Love it or hate it, the sign’s been part of the Montréal skyline for over sixty years, and sadly probably won’t be around much longer. Local designer and intermedia artist Matt Soar has just launched a participatory art project all about the Farine Five Roses sign at <www.farinefiveroses.ca>.