The Naked Silo

2017 theme: FIRE & ICE. I wrote about the creation of the first Firelight Lantern Festival poster and logo in this post from 2013, just over a month before that year's event (before it was decided to hold the event in November from the following year onward). Here, I've collected the posters from the past five years in reverse chronological order, showcasing this year's event which takes place exactly three weeks from this posting. After having fun with the tail end of the elephant leading the crowd on last year's CIRCUS poster, I wanted to do something similar this year and decided to add a stilt walker (based on several photos of me from my various stilting gigs) leading the procession. He'll be a standard element in all future posters unless something else more appropriate (like the elephant) comes up. Also echoing the new elements from 2016's poster, the negative space above the crowd on the left is taken up by a long dragon lantern (based ...

To find out more about my methodology and why I'm building this particular model in this particular way, please read  PART ONE . To see the early stages of this project where I scrape, file, and sand off most of the kit's beautiful details, please read  PART TWO . Rear end with grill. Now, that grill didn't appear onscreen until the 1997 Special Edition of  Star Wars , whereas, before, the model had a simple rectangular piece of translucent white plastic (below) to represent the massive power of the engines and the ship wasn't seen from behind when the engines weren't active. I'm not sure, but this may have been about the time the model kits started including the grill because the original MPC kit  or the later AMT/ERTL kit only had transparent plastic (to allow for lighting to be installed) for the engine area. Original studio model: internal lighting, but no grill. I'm not going to be including the grill partly because it's ...

by  Celia Sage and Milé Murtanovski 24" x 24", oil on canvas, 2017, private collection [HOME: Phase Two] When I think of “homemakers” I think of my parents, making a safe, comfortable, loving place for each other, and me, and my sister. Studying Celia’s tender painting of her and her daughters, developing ideas about how to respond for my half, I started thinking about generations –the older ones taking care of the younger ones– and I went back a generation, past my parents, to my grandmother, Lenka , digging potatoes in Macedonia, helping my granddad make a home for a very large family, giving them the opportunity to leave and have better lives, which my parents, in turn, passed on to me and my sister. – Milé Murtanovski Homemaker by Celia Sage 24" x 24", oil on canvas, 2017 [HOME: Phase One] Click the image above to see all ten Phase One paintings from our HOME project.

by  Milé Murtanovski  and  Celia Sage 24" x 24", oil on canvas, 2017 [HOME: Phase Two] Milé's shrouded figure* lying on the sidewalk was an almost unanswerable challenge. I hope that with a bit of imagination –and humour– the viewer will find the way I changed it to a bag of ski equipment persuasive.  This and other clues suggest my home town. – Celia Sage  Always on My Mind by Milé Murtanovski 24" x 24", oil on canvas, 2017 [HOME: Phase One] Click the image above to see all ten Phase One paintings from our HOME project. *That shrouded figure was a homeless man (he was tightly wrapped in white, but his feet and head were actually exposed) sleeping on the sidewalk at Richmond and Yonge in Toronto, a chilling image I've kept not too far in the back of my mind since photographing him (that's my car's side-view mirror on the right) on my way to work in the fall of 2003.

by  Celia Sage  and  Milé Murtanovski 24" x 24", oil on canvas, 2017 [HOME: Phase Two] In keeping with Celia’s surrealistic image of a flying trailer whisking her to adventures away from home, my frequent escape from the suburban doldrums of Scarborough was the mighty TTC (the subway used to be called the “Red Rocket”) taking me and my friends into the excitement of the Big City (Toronto). – Milé Murtanovski Home Away From Home by Celia Sage 24" x 24", oil on canvas, 2017 [HOME: Phase One] Click the image above to see all ten Phase One paintings from our HOME project.