Rainy Day People

RAIN isn’t made by robots, it’s made by people! Here is a little bit about a few of us:

Alejandro is a Videographer for various community media groups and a Youth Worker with the Urban Native Youth Association. He is interested in creating media projects for pedagogy and social change, currently involved with the Purple Thistle/RAIN through video documentation of many of its activities.

Aly is an east van kid who’s been pretty conventionally schooled most of her life. as of late though, she’s been dabbling in unskooling glory + confusion. anyway, she’s like this moderately-sized gaping hole of hopefulness, finally getting semi-comfortable calling herself stuff like ‘artist,’ ‘activist,’ and ‘maker’ (and come fall ‘clown’!; these things ain’t so bad.

Arlin has been heavily involved with activist groups like the Anti Poverty Committee and the Olympic Resistance Network. He has also been working with The Purple Thistle Centre and R.A.I.N. Zine. Besides putting time and energy towards making a better life for everyone, Arlin is a Tattooist at Pennyblack Tattoo and an avid cyclist.

Anita is the co- founder of rain and recently dove into a world of endless colour and wants to do nothing but swim.

Carla is also a co-founder and former editor of rain. She now just hangs out with the new collective and sticks her noise in when she feels like it, or when they let her! She lives in eastvan with her family and is the co-director of the purple thistle centre.  A lover of cyborgs and resisting, she is known to do some community organizing and is an activist.

Dana loves to ride her bike, make buttons, and spend time with her friends and her lovely daughter, Sylvia. She buys zines for the pure pleasure of it as well as for the Vancouver Public Library’s new zine collection. Recently she’s had the happy opportunity to do some copy editing for RAIN.

Fiona Fiona rides around on her little blue road bike thinking about art, anarchism, and whatever song is stuck in her head at that moment. Often she is riding to or from the Purple Thistle Centre where she attends collective meetings (for the Thistle, RAIN, and various other projects), hangs around makin’ art, and works in a skills training program called Dream Seeds. Sometimes she’s on her way to the yoga studio where she volunteers and practices. Other times she’s not really sure where she’s going. When she’s not so on-the-go, she spends ridiculous amounts of time making delicious food that she likes to share with the mystical beings she calls her friends.

Joi is a hybrid-néhiyaw-iskwéw. she grew up on a small reserve in the sk and still grows in a place called east van. the vast prairie skies inspired her creative mind and she’s been making things ever since. she mostly makes photo-based, subversive art with a touch of humour and a sprinkle of irony. she also sews, knits, breaks down stereotypes and tries to be as awesome as her grandmothers. she is new to the rain collective and will try her best.

Julie loves animals. Like kitties, or turtles etc. Art and music make her go. She likes to spend time with monsters, witches, ghosts, dragons, flying monkeys, and robots. The occasional human finds their way into her world via portals strategically hidden throughout the universe. Oh yeah, she loves nature. (she also co founded rain).

Kevin grew up near a place traditionally called the Askunessippi river in the area commonly called Southern Ontario, his highschool dreams included having sex in a tent on Hastings, publishing a piece of bad poetry, and not having a career; all things he has since lived up to. Kevin’s diet is accentuated by dumpster-dive scores, and foraged plants and berries. He is learning the arts of urban permaculture and seed-saving, and is currently sloshed on home-brew.

Maura is currently taking a break from studying arts at UBC and enjoys reading, writing, baking, cycling, singing, and playing guitar, violin, ukulele and piano. She is also trying to write songs with questionable success. She loves helping with RAIN! partly because it’s a wonderful magazine with a stellar mandate, but mostly because she gets advance copies of amazing albums.

Maya is half Japanese and half Canadian and grew up in Japan, and is the only person in all the isles of Japan who doesn’t read manga and can’t fold a crane, although she is severely obsessed with Miyazaki Hayao’s animations. She is into almost any kind of art form, including story making, and deconstructing and re constructing clothing, and likes reading about many things that end with ology while listening to Metal.

Mike Jo likes kickin’ it. In his perfect world, everything he would do would have the pleasure of skipping stones. He doesn’t like the word activist but identifies as one anyways. He is a book nerd and a travellin’ kid, on the road to everywhere.

Nicola is usually accompanied by at least one camera, several rolls of film, some knitting, two or three extra balls of yarn, and of course, her tap shoes. She started coming to the Purple Thistle about a year ago and she has just recently joined the RAIN collective.

Paul is Toronto-born and raised and has been living in Vancouver for two years. Previously involved mostly in environmental activism – and to a lesser degree in other social justice issues – he has recently begun engaging primarily in media activism for it’s strategic value. Paul is happy to be a part of the rain collective for it’s community building nature and innovative spirit. Although hesitant about taking on the label of ‘writer,’ Paul enjoys writing poetry, short fictions, creative essays and magazine style-journalism. He survives mostly on found free food and games of backgammon (Shesh Besh in the original Turkish) with his roommate.

Sylvia is a Public Library worker, photographer, writer, mentor and stress ball. Sometimes when she sleeps she dreams of putting books in order. Her boyfriend claims that while she’s dreaming these dreams he can hear her mumbling things like “why are the 391.s in with the 340.s?

Wibke is German, 30 and likes cycling around. After a creative and free study time she worked three years as a busy graphic designer, producing stupid advertising. Luckily she quit to see the world. After enjoying the beauty of New Zealand she came to Vancouver this summer.

Zach is a maker of many things. he loves his banjo a lot.

A big thanks to our contributors:

Adam Jones, Aly de la Cruz, Apryl Leaf, Brian Tokar, Chris Mercogliano, c.r. avery, Dayla Hart,  Deborah Williams, Dr. David Suzuki, Ehren Salazar, Emily Bergman, Emily O, Fiona de Balasi Brown, Helen Hughes, Irwin Oostindie, Jacob Gradowski, Joel Bergman, Julie Flett, Karen New, Kat Braybrooke, Laura Mayne, Lilah B, Lone Tratt, Matt Hern, Marilee Welch, Maria Tratt, Miriam Tratt, Melia Dicker, Noam Chomsky, Peter Prontzos, Patrick Thrift, Rebecca Chaperon, Stefan White, Stephanie Cottell, Shandra Stephenson, Thom Stitt, Zach Bergman, Am Johal,  Harsha Walia, Dave Eby, Richard Smith, Peter Prontzos, Dave Olson, Ben West, Leia Herrera,   Reel Youth, The Purple Thistle’s Youngunz, Emma Wallace, Indigo, Kris Krug, Tara Robertson, Meghan Corsie, Daisy Couture, Karen New, Julie Flett, Eva Dominelli, Adrian Glynn, Julia Kozlov, Nikol Haskova, Siren…