Little Demoed | Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes, Catalina Valenzuela Varas, Nick Short and Diana Sims | February 2021

In 2017 The Washington Post declared the death of the electric guitar based on the gradual crash in sales seen throughout North America. At that time, it would have been difficult to account for the recent plethora of “spare” time folks would have to take up long lusted-after hobbies. While this year has seen a renaissance in the sales of musical instruments, many already practiced musicians have been left wondering if they will ever play for a live crowd again—if this is the death of touring and the music scenes as they knew and loved. While a great many bands reluctantly dissolve into the pandemic ether, others have taken the opportunity to make more vulnerable work. Live audiences have been replaced with the intimate listenership that occurs in people’s bedrooms and headphones—settings that encourage the kind of candor that technology tends to buffer. 

For this month’s edition of Special Presentation Art Mail, Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes plays music with Nick Short and Catalina Valenzuela to make four songs under the title Little Demoed. This 15 minute EP includes two original songs written by Catalina and Marisa as well as two covers: one by Saint Vincent and the other by Kate NV. Marisa plays drums, bass and lead guitar while Catalina plays rhythm guitar and sings her own lyrics. On the Kate NV cover, Catalina has translated the Russian lyrics into Spanish. Nick has engineered and produced the four songs in CHOMS, a shared jam space and recording studio. Nick also plays ambient keyboard and drums on the “Marafon 15” track. Classically trained pianist, Diana Sims, was invited to write and play her own compositions over the song “Looper.” 

This collaborative endeavour was conceived and produced on the stolen traditional and ancestral Indigenous lands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations.

Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes is an artist working fondly with photos, sculpture and music. Her most recent exhibition, Everything Leaks, was at the Polygon Gallery with Maya Beaudry. 

Catalina Valenzuela Varas was born and raised in Santiago, Chile. She is now based out of Vancouver, BC. Aside from her design practice and her guitar-playing, she also enjoys having a good time. 

Nick Short is a musician and a self-taught audio engineer. He runs CHOMS, a recording studio and jam space, with his friends. 

Diana Sims is a multidisciplinary artist born in Pittsburgh and new to "Vancouver." She is primarily interested in beauty and the eternal. 

CHOMS, founded in 2016, is located at 102-1055 East Cordova and currently serves as a communal practice space for musicians and bands, as well as a recording and audio post-production studio. CHOMS has worked extensively with Vancouver's local DIY music scene, with out-of-town artists from Seattle to Toronto, and with community-oriented music projects.

SPAM (Special Presentation Art Mail) is an email-based art series where artists work collaboratively to create a digital artwork. Through the link below, viewers can sign up to partake in the project by volunteering to receive upcoming interactive Number 3 Gallery emails.

For the most part, the only art we encounter these days arrives via digital means. You may receive emails announcing exhibitions—both online and in person (often by appointment)—and documentation of process work on your feed in lieu of studio visits or art crawls. When we consider how this changes our perception and relationship to artworks we might also reflect on how many folks have been exclusively viewing artwork this way long before our current infectious disease concerns. This said, online art can just as easily connect us as it can be ignored entirely. If we start to question whether the work we see is losing something to these platforms we might also note how art and technology are almost irreducibly connected—be it the tools we use of the visual influence it can catalyze. 

This is not a new dynamic; mail artists have long used postal technology as a way to share snippets of their progress or work, which often intentionally took the place of formal in-person exhibitions. Not unlike our current email subscriptions, mail art (an inherently collaborative medium) would enclose participatory or interactive project and publication opportunities. Given that technology is presently the lifeline to connectivity for many of us, what better time to reconnect with the spirit of the early mail and e-mail artists who used their choice method of distribution as a transfer of aesthetic information to surmount geographical and cultural boundaries. 

To view the project please contact number3gallery@gmail.com