Maple Ridge singer Hilary Grist didn’t walk away with the big prize last week, but impressed judges enough at the competitive Peak Performance Project to place fourth.
Grist, 30, was awarded $10,000 and plans to spend the money recording two more albums, for music videos, and to tour.
The video for Tall Buildings – a song she penned for the competition –has been touted in more than 40 newspapers and the subsequent ‘making of’ video has been featured on a wide variety of websites, ranging from popular craft and recycling sites to the Arabic news portal Actionha.
The cardboard piano-city featured in Tall Buildings was built by Grist in her 600-square-foot Vancouver apartment and will be on display at The Beaumont Gallery in November.
“There’s been a strong demand to see the cardboard piano-city set in person,” says Grist.
“We’re so happy it’s going to be on display at a fabulous gallery like the Beaumont. Now we just have to figure out how to move it.”
Since the 2010 release of her debut full length album, Imaginings, Grist has truly taken the DIY independent artist mentality to heart by hand drawing her popular stop-motion cartoon music videos to creating cardboard buildings, cars and miniature characters.
“It’s really fun to watch how art and music can intersect,” says Grist.
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NitJaGiViwc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>