Author: Matthew Black

Jack (the Bear) Latek seated himself at his spot along the boardwalk beneath the glowing red Granville Island sign. His left hand clutched a stack of white pamphlets that detailed his efforts as a social worker to turn discarded pins, watches and jewellery into construction projects for the city’s disadvantaged.

“I collect things that people throw out to help the poor people in society,” Latek said.

It’s a long way from the life he had 22 years ago: a GI security guard who stopped photographers from taking pictures of a suicide victim, saved turtles straying across from the nearby pond from becoming roadkill and chased away potential boat thieves. He also competed at Simon Fraser University as a varsity javelin thrower and wrestler.

“Tourist! Here-tell everyone that you met a champion Canadian wrestler,” he said as he forced a pamphlet into the hand of an elderly tourist.

His faded New York Giants cap hid an explosion of greying hair from view. A wheeled suitcase, McDonald’s coffee cup, and scattering of re-sealable plastic bags bracketed him on either side.

He fished a blue coil of wire wrapped into a circle out of the pile of plastic freezer bags bundled to his left.

“This will relax you. It’s not a needle you stick yourself with, it’s not smoke that poisons your lungs, this is one hundred per cent natural,” he said as he stroked the circular wire back and forth along the length of a tourist’s outstretched index finger.

“I teach people life skills through making things,” he said after winding a yellow and black sprig of plastic wire around the zipper of a passerby’s backpack.

“That’ll help you find your bag at the airport,” Latek said as he slouched into his black folding chair and crossed his ankles.

Most passersby ignored his outstretched arm. Those who stopped and talked quickly began shuffling their feet and sneaking glances towards the public market ahead in the midst of his lengthy spiel.

He spoke with a rumble in his voice that overcame the noise from the trucks downshifting along Anderson Street.

“Come back any time and if they ask what you’re doing here, tell them you’re just keeping Jack’s office warm – they know me around here.”

Student made lunches are typically more synonymous with grilled cheese sandwiches and ramen noodles than the orange and yellow pepper soup, steak with vegetables, and pistachio cake offered by the students working Bistro 101 at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts. Although PICA instructors supervised the kitchen, students prepared, cooked, and served the meals.

While the restaurant exposed students to the practical realities of the restaurant business,  Granville Island visitors sampled their efforts for at a discount price.

Gonzalo, a dark bearded Spaniard dressed in black and white checkered pants, a neatly tucked white cooking smock and pressed blue PICA apron, carefully wrote down the orders.

“It’s a lot of money, but it’s real world, very practical and we get to do everything,” Gonzalo said about his school.

He stooped to place the soup bowl on the table and recounted how he moved from Barcelona at the behest of a girl and took up cooking as a career path in Vancouver.

“It didn’t work out, but I’m happy here,” he said while nodding towards the view of False Creek and the Burrard Street Bridge ahead of him.

“This is my first day,” he said before returning with the tablespoon he had forgotten.

When pushed into the liquid, at Gonzalo’s suggestion, the flecks of chorizo sausage ringing the bowl enlivened the viscous creaminess of the orange and yellow mixture.

He grinned at the idea of opening his own restaurant on the famous Las Ramblas strip in his hometown as he served the main course. Apart from the grill marked steak, a fist-high stack of grilled vegetables and flowered row of purple mashed potatoes lined the plate’s surface. The béarnaise sauce softened the steak and dulled the bite from the fresh ground pepper covering the plate.

Desert was a miniature green pistachio cake topped by strawberry sorbet and candied pistachio that dissolved as the sorbet dripped through the cake’s crumbled surface. The combination soon collapsed into a soupy pile best scooped up with a spoon.

Coffee and the bill followed in short order.

“Thank you and come back soon,” said the white-haired maitre d’/instructor as he returned coats and hats.

Rubén Ortiz Torres tucked the collar of his black collared shirt into his rumpled black sport coat before crossing and uncrossing his arms. His sculpture, Museum Bench, was the top-billed attraction at Friday night’s Hot to Cold |Cold to Hot opening at the Charles H. Scott Gallery.

The exhibition, held in coordination with the Consulado General de México, provided Mexican-based artists like Torres the opportunity to display their work in celebration of two centuries of his country’s independence.

A dozen-strong collection of twenty-ish students, fringe-goers brandishing programs, and sneaker-clad seniors murmured amongst each other beneath squinted eyebrows as they surveyed Torres’s knee-high, perfectly rectangular prism. A white index card listed the work’s title and described how its temperature sensitive paint was designed to change colour in reaction to heat.

A student shrugged her backpack over her shoulder and pressed her palms down for several seconds on the dark purple surface to no consequence.

Torres’s calm steps carried him over to the crowd of onlookers before they had long to scan the other exhibits.

“It’s designed to work in California – too cold here,” Torres said.

He turned his way into the crown and returned within seconds gripping a white coffee mug by its handle.

“Try this.”

He waved back some of the crowd who had gathered closer and poured steaming water out of a white coffee mug onto the purple bench.

The crowd collectively leaned back in deference to the small clouds of steam that rose from the bench as the boiling liquid slid its way over the smooth surface – turning the purple surface electric pink upon contact. The demonstration provoked nods of “ooohs” and “aaahs” from the close-drawing crowd.

Torres smiled before he passed the mug to the middle-aged woman with a backpack standing to his right.

“Praise the artist,” she said while emptying out the remaining water in long strokes over the length of the increasingly pink bench.

Outstretched hands and slaps to the back surrounded Torres.

“Wonderful art,” the backpack lady said after turning back for a final look at the water-covered bench.

The artists schmoozed in circles as the crowd shuffled its way around the other exhibits as a growing crescendo of Spanish and English carried the celebration into the night.

Hot to Cold |Cold to Hot runs September 18 to October 24 at the Charles H. Scott Gallery at the Emily Carr University of Art & Design

Hours are 12-5 weekdays and 10-5 weekends

Admission is free

The hiss of discharged air from beneath the tour bus punctuated the low hum of traffic as vehicles traversed the dull grey Granville Street Bridge high above. Tourists stepped onto the brick and rail-lined street and gazed up at the Ocean Construction Limited concrete factory.  A tall glass case outside the factory, surrounded on three sides by an elbow-high blue fence, drew pointed fingers and aimed cameras in spite of the reds and yellow of the nearby studios, restaurants and market.

A network of wires inside the case shuttled a red ping pong sized ball through a system of grooves, pullies, levers, drops and chutes. Onlookers craned their necks while pointing and pressing their hands against the thick glass as they followed the ball’s spiraling downward path into a miniature mixing truck. A chorus of muddled accents and dialects worked to grasp the exhibit’s metaphor: the mixing of cement, gravel and water to form concrete.

With its six silos blocking out the towers on the south side of False Creek, the concrete factory’s collection of uniformly grey buildings broke with Granville Island’s more colourful buildings. A cris-crossing network of three conveyor belts links the silos with a tall, narrow building to the front, and a shorter structure to the right. The company’s slogan – “concrete solutions for a sustainable world” –  branded an off white tower to the east of the silos. A nearby sign tells that despite appearances, the factory was one of the Island’s oldest tenants.

Rather than immediately walk past what appears to be a functionally industrial corner of the Island, visitors were drawn to the factory and its exhibit. Stroller-bound children pointed towards the factory’s exhibit while being shuttled by parents up Old Bridge Street. Elderly tourists crossed the street and took in the factory’s tall, grey landscape. Twenty-something couples held hands and slowly circulated the exhibit’s glass case. A few feet to the west, the open and unattended security gates encouraged three adventurous tourists to sneak into the parking lot for a quick picture with one of the mixing trucks.

The latest busload of tourists doddled along from the factory towards the electronic guitars and synthesizers of nearby buskers as another tour bus pulled up in front of the factory. Within seconds, the migration towards to factory began again: another group beginning their day at Granville Island with a bit of industry and history.

On a recent drizzly September Saturday, a group of teens clustered in front of the brick-coloured Net Loft on Anderson Street. They loudly talked among each other while milling about excitedly despite a lack of coherent direction. Each of them wore matching white t-shirts with a stylized “Shinerama” graphic on the front and a mosaic of blue corporate logos on the back.

The socialization soon ended and they set about their task: asking passersby for donations to fight cystic fibrosis in exchange for a shoeshine, a Shinerama sticker, and a free hug.

“Like pepper on eggs guys,” a blonde girl in jeans and flip-flops said to the others.

Two girls moved off and planted themselves outside the Public Market for a few second before breaking into an a capella version of Donovan’s “Mellow Yellow.”

A young volunteer and his guitar claimed one of the wooden benches ringing the open area at the corner of Anderson and Johnston. His acoustic song seamlessly fit in against the background of bagpipes, electric guitars, and pan-flutes supplied by the Island’s buskers.

Another group thrust its collection of  homemade signs at passing cars while a young man’s combination of a head-to-toe orange spandex jumpsuit and a frantic mix of jumping and waving attracted attention.

I’m approached by Beth who tells me she heard about the event on Facebook and encouraged a few of her fellow dorm residents to attend as well. The corners of her lips draw in and her eyes gaze down as she recounts how she lost a sister to CF and had another friend currently fighting the disease.

“It’s a way I can give back to them,” she said before renewing her smile with an embrace of a passing Italian tourist.

One of Beth’s friends, Grace, takes over and recited the event’s highlights: Mayor Gregor Robertson officially declared today Shinerama Day, 17 other universities were participating across Canada, and Shinerama had volunteers spread out across the city throughout the day.

Most hesitated when approached by Beth and Grace’s gang: understandable as most were wearing sneakers or canvas shoes. But the combination of enthusiasm, a hug, and a good cause won most over to drop some change in the box.

Shinerama is held annually across Canada in support of the fight against cystic fibrosis.