Summer means a break for everyone but us. Which we don't mind, because we love to have a lot going on. We spent June collecting photos of spaces that looked more like canvases than infrastructure to us. But that's the part that might confuse people: after (RE)SURFACE, Pt. 1, we really do see art everywhere.

So many things in our daily life go on in the background, without being noticed. An underpass: how it gets painted, over and over, with various-grey splotches of not-matching paint. The forever battle between the concrete and the clay and the streets. The inherent need for connection some can only find in dark tunnels, in abandoned buildings.

How many things in your life are you simply not noticing? Let's see.

I have been waiting to do this project for ages, and it percolated in various forms in my mind in the meantime. That's why we call it the STRUDELBRAND experiment; all our artistic projects begin without knowing where they will end. And then, they are discovered along the way.

The last time we did a project like this, really did it, it was July 2023 and it was TALKING LETHBRIDGE: Stories of Downtown. The last day of June that year I was messaging small businesses on instagram and asking them if they wanted to join a film project. That project spiraled from 5 - 6 businesses to 38. But I've learned, by now, not to get in the universe's way.

2025

JUNE: WE START COLLECTING PHOTOS. All sides of the city, as one must. In the end, 53 photos are selected. 51 DIFFERENT LOCATIONS. The calm before the storm.

JUNE 18: We launch our official Call For Artists. It's a video with audio pulled from (RE)SURFACE, Pt. 1. It's literally littered with Easter eggs, because one thing I've learned for sure, is that everything is always connected. Our official call is open to everyone. It's open to anyone. I ask a couple people, but not many. We want people to be free to choose.

JUNE 31: End of day; call closes at 11:59pm. By 10:30pm I'm realizing we'll accept late entries. Because I know what it's like to be bad at deadlines for when it's for something I really want to do. I know what it's like to put something off and regret it.

DAY ONE.

JULY 1: [We accept late entries: from those who submitted in early hours and the in-between-hours in which we were compiling the launch page. Game isn't on until my email is written and sensical and all my email addresses are correct and links work! But I'm shuffling around pages so much that none of them do for a minute but that buys some people more time to apply, and two more do.] We get more photos, because I want enough options for everyone to have choices! And I want weird things too, like pictures of the backs of Stop Signs.

The only Stop Sign back we get has a sticker from the City saying Defacing This Is Illegal and I wonder, does digital art count, too?  But I don't ask that question out loud. In my imaginary Lethbridge, the Lethbridge we are imagining! things don't always have to make sense. And after all, this is just an art experiment. We have no real power or influence in the City.

JULY 1, 9pm: We launch. Again. This time, it's emails: into the void. 36 artists are contacted in a bulk blast after confirming (yet again) All My Links Work. My hands are shaking as I click send. All STRUDELBRAND projects begin like this; me re-learning how excitement and anxiety feel the same in the body. We have this idea and I just know it's going to be magical. It's stressful to email a bunch of friends/strangers and say "Hey, we are doing this strange art project, do you want in?" And being open to absolutely anyone who is willing to engage with the project. You take a risk and we will meet you in the middle. It's an experiment in what we could create, really create! in this world, if we allow ourselves to dream. And one thing I know for sure, now, especially: the world needs more dreamers.

JULY 1, 9:09pm: Our first response comes in.

DAY TWO.

I remember feeling this nervous apprehension before showing our photographs to the Original Three. It felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff. But instead of falling, I just knew Things Would Never Be The Same Again. It was March 2023, 6 days before we would be premiering (RE)SURFACE, Pt. 1 to a live audience. Have you ever invited the world to a film screening for a film that doesn't technically exist yet? I wouldn't recommend it. But if you do it once, you'll be hooked forever.

I didn't know any of our artists when I asked them, really. I had met one through seeing a piece of his art in the wild and needing it. I met another at a pop-up art gallery at a residential house. And the last one I met online, when I commissioned them to paint a picture of my cat. And now, to these new friends, I came holding a hard ask. It was a big risk. Hey, do you want to be involved in this art project that I am turning into a film? I have no budget to commission you. But I will give you a photograph and you can paint on it. I just have this vision, ok? And I promise, this film will be a banger? Like, a BANGER. We've only made one film before this one, and it was shit, but this one won't be, I just know it. Oh and the film we are making about the art that you haven't made yet, is screening in 6 days at an event we've already been promoting and people are registering free tickets for. And someone with a Lethbridge City email address registered for a ticket! So if you can get your art back to me in like 4 days to give us time to film it that would be amazing! But no pressure. ..promise.

We had printed 7 oversized photos, 16x20ish, as big as we could afford to go, at the time. We laid them out before our artists: on a residential street on the westside, on a coffee table in a house I'd never been in before. Are these spaces inspiring? Are these good enough? I think a natural proclivity of artists in general, is to be critical of their own work. Do we have enough locations? Can you even paint on photo paper? Will anyone even understand what we are trying to do?

I know in my heart, like all STRUDELBRAND projects, I, too, have to Trust The Process. (RE)SURFACE, Pt. 1 taught us that yes, you can paint on photo paper. Over and over, I learn to let go. 

JULY 2, 2:30pm: Most of our artists are picking the big canvas sizes. 16x20, 20x30. I had added a disclaimer that we may not be able to provide the 20x30's to everyone, after all, we have no budget for this project and I have no boundaries to close the submission window. If you want in, you're in. I never want to exclude anyone, because I know what it feels like. We've had 36 people sign up in PHASE ONE and I calculated we could afford 20 16x20 canvases back when we only had 18 artists. I do math the only way I know how: with a calculator, holding my breath. I click numbers to represent If Every Artist Wants The Biggest Canvas and breathe a sigh of relief when the total is a number I can totally justify. I hold my breath again as I pitch my idea to The More Rational One of STRUDELBRAND. "So, I originally calculated numbers based on if we had 20 artists and everyone wanted the 16x20 size canvases, but--" he interrupts me before I even get there. What's the biggest size we are offering? 20x30. How much is it? I tell him. Let's give everyone the biggest ones they want. Can we go any bigger? I'd be ok to give the skyscrapers even bigger ones. I want these huge. I want these huge, too. And I get that very familiar feeling in my stomach again, the one that feels like excitement.

JULY 2, 9pm: It's officially been 24 hours. We already have had 24 of our PHASE ONE artists pick 24 walls. What I didn't expect, is how everyone picked a different wall, and most everyone was okay with sharing. It feels like we captured a space for everyone, one that would speak very directly to them. I'm getting messages, too. OMG, THIS ONE!!!!!! I NEED THIS ONE!!!! THIS ONE IS PERFECT! One by one, I update the photo selection page, adding (TAKEN: but willing to share) or (EXCLUSIVE) to various photos. This was actually working. The true absurdity of the STRUDELBRAND projects has always been how they unfold. If I took a bunch of photos, bought a bunch of canvases & gave them all away... what would happen?

DAY EIGHT.

JULY 8: I get an email; the first batch of enlarged photographs for the project are ready. There are five of them, for five artists. Our batch of digital images for our digital artists have been emailed off. There are six of those. I'm not a numbers Pastry, so it's a process to keep track of sizes & orders & substrates. To keep everything organized. I double-check, triple-check. It takes forty minutes to order twenty custom printed canvases with twenty different images.

Of the 37 artists that entered PHASE ONE, 32 have entered PHASE TWO.

A couple artists have contacted us to say they can't do it anymore -- something came up. It's bad timing. I contemplate if we will accept late submissions for Walls. I, more than anyone, hate a hard deadline. I figure we will decide when we get there. This project, after all, is an experiment.

JULY 8, 3:47pm: Our first enlargement is picked up, in Calgary, by the same artist who helped us kick off (RE)SURFACE, Pt. 1. I can't see that as anything but a Good Omen.

JULY 8, 6:30pm: I've calculated we'll have 2.5 feet of canvases for this first batch. 2.5 feet, that is, if all of them are stacked. I can barely visualize what 2.5 feet looks like. I've never been good with numbers. We've secured the first batch of enlargements. The cardboard they come in is bigger than I expected. The amount of honour I feel for those who have reached out to participate in this project is immense.  I don't know how to put it into words, so I stop trying. It is in the universe's hands, now.

DAY NINE.

JULY 9, 10:54am: Our first enlargement is picked up, in Lethbridge. Our artist tells us "my biggest problem will be having to decide which idea to go with. I have so many ideas...".  We laugh. We know what that's like.

DAY TWENTY.

JULY 20: After a bunch of delays with our print process, we finally receive word that the canvases will be in our hands tomorrow. It's a mere 11 days before our ideal deadline for receiving completed art back to us. So much for not making this project on a time crunch, hey? We send out the next blast of emails: hey! Your canvas is ready... finally. Again, I'm holding my breath as I click send. I expected to give you all three weeks to complete your project, now it's looking like it'll be less than two weeks. But, uh, no pressure! We mutually agree that it doesn't matter when these are completed -- we're including everyone, anyway. We will make it work. We always do.

DAY TWENTY-TWO.

JULY 22: We spend a rainy Tuesday in a dark hallway, peeking out of unlabeled doors, awaiting our artists. A steady stream of people we do & don't recognize appear at our doorstep, one by one. "Are you here for art?" We hear a couple promises to have the art returned to us by the deadline we set about a month ago now, which is now quickly approaching. No one is upset it took forever & a day for us to get these canvases to them. Everyone is excited to see their canvas. As we let go of each one, I feel lighter.

DAY TWENTY-THREE.

JULY 23: More canvases are released today, almost all of them. We make some deliveries of canvases to all corners of the city: West, North, South. A small handful remain. People are curious, when they pick up their canvases, how many artists are participating? My answer is always the same: I'm not sure. I can't count anything until the pieces are back in my hands. Our last OG artist from (RE)SURFACE, Pt. 1 receives their canvas. PHASE THREE is almost complete.

DAY EIGHTEEN.

JULY 18, 3:23pm: Our first finished piece arrives, via email. It's a digital work of art, and it is so stunning it takes my breath away. It's digitally painted under an underpass, spilling upwards into the sky. I already know it's ruined that underpass for me; I'll never be able to drive by that blank spot without picturing it, now. Or, should I say.. what it could be.

DAY TWENTY-ONE.

JULY 21, 10:21pm: It's poetic, really, that the first batch of 20 canvases are hand-delivered to us from Calgary from the first artist that participated in (RE)SURFACE, PT. 1. And it's even more poetic that the first hardcopy piece we receive back in our hands is his, too. You should know, by now, that I'm a sucker for some good poetry.

The first time we met FK_Arts it was in the same studio space that now houses our chaotic whimsy. We still haven't painted over the walls in the space he used to paint -- and at this point we aren't sure we ever will. We're sentimental like that. I still remember the way my breath left my chest when I made it up those stairs & turned into the hall that is the Trianon Gallery. It isn't hard to forget, considering it still gets me, every time.

We interviewed FK for the first (RE)SURFACE, when we had nothing but a vague concept of where that film was going. The interview segment of his paved way to change the trajectory of the film. 

Two years later, we sit in the empty space of the Trianon Gallery, bathed in sunlight and the echoes of an empty hall and it's surreal in a way I've come to recognize as normal. Of all the things I've learned through the STRUDELBRAND experiment, it truly is this: everything is connected.

DAY TWENTY-TWO.

JULY 22, 6:58pm: Our third piece arrives, via email. It's a digital image, & it looks like it was spraypainted onto the pillar it's drawn onto. If someone didn't know better, they would assume this is what that pillar looks like. But really: why doesn't the pillar look like this? Our artist refuses to accept my excited compliments. "..all I did was push color around with a blur tool. If I can do this, with 0% talent..." Perhaps that's the true mark of an artist: forever feeling like your work isn't good enough.

DAY TWENTY-FIVE.

JULY 25, 10:39am: We're having a slow morning over coffee when I stumble randomly over an Instagram story: it's a sneak peek of an artwork for this project. On the small screen of my phone it's already so powerful I'm hit with a wave of full-body goosebumps. I warn her I might cry when I see it in person. She says it's okay, we can cry together.

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT.

JULY 28: When I conceptualized this project, with the element of "we'll just see what happens," I hadn't anticipated how quickly it would grow, and how much of a process organizing it would be. I spend three days, off and on, creating yet another form in attempt to simplify the Artwork Return process. Whether or not this will help, I'm not sure. I still feel butterflies in my stomach as I mass-email-out our artists with the update. No pressure, I add to every email, everything at your comfort level! Also, I hate deadlines. 

Our only true deadline is for our digital artists, since we need to order them canvases and now I know I need a minimum 2 week turnarounds on canvas printings 😅

We plan to be at the Trianon Gallery most of the day on July 31st and a chunk of the day August 1st, to receive canvases. An approaching deadline finally pushes me to decide furniture for our studio space. I've forever been terrible at doing things that are Good For Me instead of just Good For Everyone Else, so this feels like progress. Maybe?

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT.

JULY 29, 11:40am: I receive a message from an artist. heeeeeey for fun can I have a second location, I have an idea I must do. It doesn't have to make the show but I want to do it. She was coaxed out of art-hiatus to create a piece for (RE)SURFACE, Pt. 2 and I am so excited I could cry. The entire mission of this project was simply to inspire. I want you to see art everywhere.