Bam! Boo!

Blogging the Culture Crawl: sixth of a few more.


Laurie keeps reminding me that I haven't finished with the Vancouver Eastside Culture Crawl photos yet. I have a good excuse; life is just too full. But still, I did promise.

So here's yet another installment.

This was after dark; the Crawl officially ended at 6:00 PM, but in November the sun sets long before then. Along the south side of the park, tall houses cut off what little light there was. In a garden/patio area, "Robrobrob", as his handouts* name him, had set up his display around a goldfish pond, under lights on orange and yellow extension cords.

He works in bamboo.

At the entrance, a split bamboo cane, painted red inside.

A wine table in a planter. "Table du vin!" Very elegant.

A hinged crib board and a candle.

A second crib board. I loved these boards; well worth the $50 he's asking.

The star of the show was the coffee table made of nested bamboo canes.

The poor light does not do this beautiful table justice.


Side view. Quite a few of those canes are "too short to reach the floor".

Close-up of the top. Those black circles are stalks that he has left hollow.

I went home all "inspired", wanting to play around with bamboo. Just a daydream; I don't have the skills needed. I've been told this is an incredibly difficult material to work, prone to splitting, likely to give you nasty splinters.

I am impressed with Rob's transformation of the canes, respecting their uniqueness, even emphasizing it, and yet producing objects sturdy and useful, and beautiful, to boot.

*All the previous artists had a table with business cards. Rob handed us his, instead. And it was a bit different than the rest:

A tongue-depressor.

He didn't make it into the CC website, so I have no studio address nor name for him. I hope he's there next year; I may just buy a crib board.