Writing down a list of good things is a way to remind myself to appreciate what I have. These are a few items from the past week:
1. A decadent lunch of corn pancakes with blueberry sauce and a side of bacon at the Roundel Cafe with Joan.
2. An unexpected gift from Nicole of a crow pendant we’d seen a few weeks earlier at a craft show.
3. Eating our way around the German Christmas Market, from one meaty item to another. (Yum yum).
4. A spontaneous trip to the Vancouver aquarium. It was almost deserted on our weekday afternoon visit. (I love the jellyfish).
5. Standing next to this tank of Arctic Char at the aquarium. They were wonderfully calm and indifferent to my presence, and we hung out with them in their element of water and me in my element of earth and air.
I haven’t had any time in over a month to devote to creating new work so yesterday I made a point of setting aside the entire day for this. I focused on making simple collage on wooden cradle frames. The idea is to have artwork I can sell at a lower price point than my altered books. I completed two 8″ x 8″ pieces yesterday, and each took less than two hours to make.
I followed a similar theme in both collages, using paper birds, pages from books, scraps from the same yellow paper, and red thread.
It felt so good to make these. I always get a bit antsy when I go too long without making something and I love how easily these two compositions flowed out of me. I definitely want to make more soon.
Materials used: book pages, sheet music, red thread, paper birds, rubber stamp & ink, Japanese paper, Japanese maple leaf, and gel medium.
A few weeks ago Boris and I attended Echo Chamber at the Cultch and saw two terrific bands perform – Wee Boy Pretty and Maria in the Shower. They each put on an amazing live performance, probably the best I’ve seen all year. I bought CDs of both bands and have been playing them almost non-stop since.
One of my favorite moments during the Culture Crawl was turning around and finding the lead singer and guitar player from Wee Boy Pretty standing in my living room. I did a bit of fangirl gushing and told them how much I’d been enjoying their music. They were just as enthusiastic about my work as I am about theirs which thrilled me to no end. Check out the video below to get an idea of how good they are live.
