superfly

2008-07-05T18:45:12Z

I'm creating some carnival outfits from water bottles

pose

2008-07-02T02:54:52Z

Photo By Dominic Schaeffer

Life is a work in progress

2008-06-06T05:08:15Z

Dominic Schaefer Photography

Escape from the dust monster

2007-09-26T05:59:24Z

Love in the Dust

2007-09-13T03:26:53Z

Although There were times I wasn't lovin' the dust, there definitely was some love in the dust.

Rainbow Man

2007-09-11T22:28:00Z

There was some crazy alchemy in the air that day. The rainbow man was not just an apparition.

Soaring eagles

2008-04-29T03:31:35Z

Here are a couple of the models I have made for a project. Hopefully they will become quite a bit larger than these 1/2 scale models made of various metals

The Fountain of life

2007-05-25T04:29:06Z

I found this site with Hieronymous Bosch Action Figures http://www.3d-mouseion.com/engels/bosch_eng4.htm

superfreak

2007-09-13T03:49:31Z

It's Springtime!

2007-03-12T03:12:35Z

the time of miracles is upon us

love is in the eye of the beholder

2007-09-13T03:25:26Z

Cherry Blossoms.jpg

2008-02-04T04:43:42Z

Dancing in my head

The News

2006-09-01T06:54:30Z

The art of the bonfire: Canadians have become 'integral' to Burning Man, the yearly desert jamboree The Province Sunday, September 3, 2006 Page: B3 Section: Unwind Byline: Mike Roberts Column: Mike Roberts Source: The Province On a vast, barren expanse of corrosive, sunbaked clay, under brutal winds and broiling temperatures, they gather each summer on the playa of Nevada's Black Rock Desert for an artistic experiment considered unique and the most inspired happening on the planet. Burning Man draws over 35,000 participants, many thousands of them from Canada. For eight days, a makeshift city of free-thinking adventurers blossoms on the stark, unforgiving hardpan. It's a festival of the outrageous, a carnival of the bizarre and a test of human endurance culminating in the torching of the 20-metre-tall wooden stickman that gives the event its name. And when it's all over, the participants -- or Burners as they're called -- literally scrub Black Rock City from the face of the earth, leaving without a trace of ever having been there. Vancouver sculptor Bruce Voyce, "a two-time Burner," says it's a life-altering, life-affirming experience that those who go never forget. "It's a pretty crazy, bizarre environment," says Voyce. "But Burning Man is not for everyone -- it's also about radical self-sufficiency . . . you pack in everything, including all your food and water." Wearing goggles and dust masks, "imagineers" in blue or silver body paint erect incredible art installations of mind-warping scale and complexity. A man in a suit made of light sticks may drift by, or a woman in a gas mask twirling a parasol. "Mutated" bikes and vehicles cruise about, done up like dragons or shark fins. Everyone you encounter is weirder than the next on the otherworldly landscape of the playa. When darkness falls, the desert lights up in a kaleidoscopic display of neon, machine sparks and fire. It's a world of extremes, says Voyce, with daytime temperatures hovering around 45 degrees followed by brutally cold nights. And anything not staked and tethered to the prehistoric lake bed is likely to be whipped away with the 120 km/h dust storms that create "white-outs" as suddenly as they vanish. Money is worthless in Black Rock City, which operates exclusively on an exchange system of "gifting" -- an application of body glitter for a back rub, say, or a can of propane for a handful of rebar stakes. And there are no headlining acts or corporate sponsorship. It's a community built and run by its participants, a wonderland city severed from the rules and restrictions of structured society. "In reality, it is a crucible of creativity and participation that most people would find a little too disorientating," says Voyce. "The unexpected is perpetually around the corner." Voyce, a member of Burning Man Vancouver (burningvancouver.org), a Burning Man "regional" that boasts just over 1,000 registered members, couldn't attend this year's festival, which began Monday and ends tomorrow. He's been busy, instead, installing his latest work at Vancouver's VanDusen Botanical Garden as part of the park's Sculptors in the Garden series. "My friends have all gone," he says. "They're on their way!" The festival, now in its 21st year, is increasingly popular with Canadians, says Voyce. "You meet a lot of Canadians at Burning Man, twice as many as you'd expect given our comparative population," he says. "There's nothing like it in Canada." Burning Man media-team member BoPeep says while she can't provide numbers, she has noticed a significant increase in the number of Canadian attendees. "Canadians are very welcome at the event, and given that there are so many of them these days, they have become integral," she adds. "Every year, more and more Canadians travel to Black Rock City," according to Canadian Burning Man chronicler Blackstrap Jack. "The theories are many -- kinship with dust, higher national creativity average, the promise of warmth," adds Jack, who recommends thinking "about waiting 'til you're in Washington to dye your hair blue" and watching Midnight Express before you pack. Voyce says Vancouver Burners view the 20-hour drive to the Black Rock Desert as a post-modern pilgrimage. "Some people go just for the weekend, others make a holiday of it and camp down the coast," he says. "Groups form long in advance over the Internet from all over and convene in 'theme camps' to collaborate on projects. "People go to extreme effort just to do something different," says Voyce, who reckons Flaming Enema Man, a naked fellow with a contraption on his back featuring a fireball whirling through clear, twisted pipes, was the weirdest thing he's seen on the playa. Black Rock City itself is a semicircular town of tents, RVs, trailers and art works radiating out from the Burning Man on the cracked canvas of the playa. Taking shape last week was the spectacular Shape of the Future wooden topographic structure made of 160 kilometres of two-by-fours held together with nothing but nails. It will go up in a blaze of glory with the Burning Man this weekend. For all of its colourful pageantry and lofty ideals, reality does intrude on the Burning Man utopia. While fostering "radical self-expression," event organizers have also created an exhaustive list of restrictions. And the volunteer "Black Rock Rangers," along with police agencies co-ordinated by the Bureau of Land Management -- which temporarily leases the playa to Burning Man -- patrol the event, enforcing the laws of the state and nation. "Our actions are the same here as they would be in any city. If an officer sees someone doing something illegal, he will take the appropriate steps," says Jamie Thompson of the BLM. Last year, 114 Burners were arrested on drug charges, and more than 1,500 participants received medical treatment for drug overdoses disguised as "heat prostration." Nearly 40 of those cases required evacuation via air to hospitals in Reno. And this year, medics failed to resuscitate a man in his early 40s who died after collapsing at a campsite Tuesday. The Pershing County Sheriff's Office says it appears he died of natural causes. Critics, of course, have described the mind-altering happening as a hedonistic playground of drugs and sex, a Sodom and Gomorrah redux. Voyce chuckles at the naysayers. "People think it's a big orgy, but the elements just aren't conducive to getting that cozy," he says. "There's a lot of people looking out for other people. You see people laying down and other people taking care of them." Asked if he'll make the pilgrimage to the playa next year, the local Burner says without a doubt.

celebrating

2008-04-04T17:21:57Z

We have Lucky feet

2008-05-23T02:46:21Z

you'll find me out on a limb

2006-07-19T16:45:15Z

or in the breeze

2006-07-18T16:57:43Z

Diversity festival

looking for epiphanies

2006-12-16T04:32:19Z

Eat life like it's your last meal

2008-04-21T16:53:55Z

Gratitude

2008-02-08T02:47:20Z

My friends Mark( directed the Corporation-YOU MUST SEE) and Sibhann celebrated their union with Radiance- this was my doodle on the wall for them

burning brightly

2008-06-10T17:19:49Z

Growing every day

2007-05-27T04:36:55Z

fourteen thousand living plants are on the surface

Confucious's Photo Album