Launch, Opening and Fundraiser Party

Saturday December 17th, 5pm - 1am

Practitioners, clients and community friends, let's share in an evening of celebration to officially launch of our new location. An opportunity for everyone to connect on a more intimate level, imbuing our collective efforts with ever more personality, while continuing to support the visionary work of Six Degrees Community Acupuncture.

It has recently grown from a one-room working class acupuncture clinic, to a multi-faceted centre with community acupuncture (CA), yoga by donation and holistic health care services offered within degrees of the CA sliding scale model.

• To bridge our recent expansion expenses, this launch party will feature an attractive silent auction collection of holistic health and artisan services and wares; and host a plentiful feast!  Guests may also make a cash donation at the door (suggested $10-20).
• Starting early, this is a kid-friendly party, but it also going late with dj's Nik Red, Syrus and Lover Sun... so there will be dancing!
• Please extend this invitation to friends and family, so that this new home is open to growth, and prospers in service.

In gratitude to all clients, a gift certificate is available to give to someone who has yet to receive acupuncture at Six Degrees - spread the qi - attached is a printable pdf certificate for you to give.

Please refrain from wearing scents. Accessibilty: 9 steps at front door.

This evening is also the Opening Party for Brenda Joy Lem's 'homage to the heart' - now showing at Six Degrees.

Brenda Joy Lem has been exhibiting her art for over 20 years in galleries across Canada and the United States. Most recently her work was exhibited at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario. "Homage to the Heart" addresses themes of memory, oral history, spirituality and "the enduring heart" as the artist explores her family history and the threads that connect generations. Working from family and archival images and stories told to her by relatives, she recounts fragments from the history of her family's immigration from China and early history in Canada. Lem's grandparents came through the Victoria/Vancouver port when they arrived in Canada over 100 years ago from China. They eventually settled in Oshawa, Ontario where Lem's grandfather opened the town's first hand laundry in 1921. The stories told to Lem, like those of many new immigrants, chronicle exclusion, colonialism and personal strife - they also speak of survival, joy and the ability of the heart to persevere.

Lem describes her art as a spiritual practice, a developing awareness and understanding of self and nature. It is through the process of making her work, sifting amongst images and personal stories received as memories from her relatives, that recognition and a deeper understanding of self emerge. Photography and memories are often at odds with each other. Photographs capture a scene within the frame of the lens; memory is more fluid allowing us to capture and retain what is relevant and significant to the holder, including emotions, sensations, conversations and the residues of previous experiences. Exploring a familial history from which she was mostly absent and has no memory of, Lem mediates the past and present, the stories and the photographs, and imbues the images with new significance and meaning.

Brenda Joy Lem's work is in the collection of the Walter Phillips Gallery, Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery, Toronto Public Gallery, National Library of Canada, the City of Moose Jaw and the Museum of Modern Art/Franklin Furnace Artist Book Collection, New York City. Brenda is a multi-media artist. She works in printmaking, collage, film, writing and improvisational music-voice and piano, as well she has been taiko-drumming for over 25 years. She lives and works in Toronto.