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CONRAD SWEATMAN \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n
Ed Ackerman was sketching when he had a chance meeting with Canadian indie rocker Mac DeMarco.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then they sent this other (man) over, saying, \u2018Go, go look at this old guy\u2019s stuff.\u2019 And it was Mac DeMarco,\u201d Ackerman says of the Edmonton musician, whose 2014 album Salad Days was shortlisted for the Polaris Prize.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know him at all, and he thought that was great.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeMarco offered Ackerman a free ticket to see him perform the following evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I said, \u2018What can I do for you?\u2019 He said, \u2018Make a sketch (at the concert).\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The next night Ackerman wandered the Burt, drawing caricatures of security guards, audience members and the happenings on stage while DeMarco and his band performed indie rock hits such as Freaking Out the Neighbourhood and Chamber of Reflection.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t get his name right. I thought it was Mark D\u2019Acampo,\u201d Ackerman says.<\/p>\n
After the concert, a DeMarco fan managed to pass Ackerman\u2019s sketches onto the musician. As far as Ackerman was concerned, that was the end of the matter and a pleasant evening.<\/p>\n
Then in mid-January, DeMarco\u2019s team put out a call on social media to track down the Winnipeg artist.<\/p>\n
While it didn\u2019t take long to find Ackerman\u2019s name, there was another hitch: the local artist doesn\u2019t own a phone or use email. Ackerman\u2019s friends knocked on his door and left notes until an intermediary was established in Ackerman\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n
Ackerman says he happily gave permission to DeMarco\u2019s team to use his sketches in their promotional materials and was paid generously for his work.<\/p>\n
Ackerman\u2019s drawings of the show are whimsical, almost slapdash, like doodles on a concert program.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t CONRAD SWEATMAN \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n Ackerman\u2019s sketch of DeMarco.<\/p>\n \u201cArt is always just someone else\u2019s junk,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t have an explanation for why DeMarco, known for his DIY ethos and sensitive hoser persona, not unlike Ackerman himself, was drawn to him or his work.<\/p>\n But Ackerman\u2019s reputation certainly precedes him, and stories about him may have reached DeMarco.<\/p>\n Ackerman \u2014 who attained relative fame for his 1988 short experimental animated film Primiti Too Taa \u2014 is the subject of a 2013 documentary by John Paskievich called Special Ed.<\/p>\n It depicts Ackerman\u2019s Sisyphean efforts to repair several downtown houses \u2014 most memorably the \u201cAlphabet House\u201d at 89 Gertie St., decorated with large, discarded sign letters \u2014 he\u2019d bought for cheap in the mid-2000s with the goal of restoring them for his children.<\/p>\n After the city deemed the buildings unsafe and threatened to demolish them, Ackerman raced against the clock to repair them and get them up to code.<\/p>\n The film shows the middle-aged Ackerman camping outdoors in the Winnipeg winter to protect the houses from arson, and attempting almost single-handedly to renovate them.<\/p>\n In a masterstroke of political performance art, Ackerman also ran for mayor during that time, declaring one house his political headquarters. This made it more awkward from a PR standpoint for the city to destroy the headquarters of a political opponent running against presiding mayor Sam Katz.<\/p>\n In the end, his efforts weren\u2019t enough for the city: the wrecking ball swung on the Alphabet House in 2010. They came for another in 2012, while Ackerman stood on the roof in protest.<\/p>\n \u201cI stood protecting it with my life. I (did) one day in jail. They tore it down at night with everything I owned in the house,\u201d he says. This was his third house destroyed by the city.<\/p>\n Ackerman may seem drawn, almost romantically, to lost causes.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t CONRAD SWEATMAN \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n Ackerman\u2019s sketch has been used to promote DeMarco\u2019s Hollywood Bowl concert.<\/p>\n In 2018, while running again for mayor, he was asked the question, \u201cWhat one thing you would do as mayor to ensure our young kids would stay in this city instead of leaving?\u201d<\/p>\n His response was to hold up a sign that read \u201cDam the Panama Canal,\u201d a reference to the waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans whose opening in 1914 subverted Winnipeg\u2019s promise as a key North American trade hub.<\/p>\n Today, Ackerman lives in a house on the same block as the others, and says it\u2019s nearly paid off.<\/p>\n \u201cThe house is fine. It\u2019s the best house I\u2019ve owned. This is for my three children.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s grateful, if nonchalant, about the DeMarco opportunity; he hadn\u2019t yet seen the now public poster, and expressed bemusement to find out that the Hollywood Bowl\u2019s Instagram post showing it had more than 30,000 likes.<\/p>\n Ackerman would prefer to talk more about other experiments \u2014 an art project that collages years of rejected applications to the arts councils for funding, a new foray into painting and a film he says he\u2019s working on about the theme of failure.<\/p>\n \u201cYou won\u2019t fail, if you don\u2019t try anything,\u201d he says. \u201c(But my work) isn\u2019t necessarily about lost causes. It\u2019s about what seems to be a lost cause may not, in fact, be one.\u201d<\/p>\n winnipegfreepress.com\/conradsweatman<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Conrad Sweatman Conrad Sweatman is an arts reporter and feature writer. Before joining the Free Press full-time in 2024, he worked in the U.K. and Canadian cultural sectors, freelanced for\u00a0outlets including The Walrus, VICE and Prairie Fire. Read more about Conrad.<\/a><\/p>\n
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