Our first stop was lunch at the Flying Black Dog, a small food caravan serving freshly made delicious food which we sat in the sunshine to devour. Christian suggested a hike up Mount Galiano as our next activity, since the weather was good and we had time to kill before checking into the B&B. So off we went through mossy cedar forest along overgrown trails that wound up and up to the very top with a magnificent view of the surrounding Gulf Islands. We saw many birds up there, small ones in the trees and large ravens and an eagle riding the wind above. Not far from the bottom of the trail is the original cemetery with gravestones dating back to the mid-eighteen hundreds. The cemetery has a lovely view out over the water and not far off was a small island covered in a colony of seals basking in the late afternoon sun.

The Bed and Breakfast we stayed in, Sands of Morning Beach, was a lovely spot to wake up to. The front of the house looks out onto Morning Beach and the morning light shining on the water was just stunning. The owners of the B & B have multiple feeders set up in the trees to feed a multitude of birds so the view is also filled with non-stop bird watching. I saw at least five or six hummingbirds zooming around at high speed, plus goldfinches, crows, sparrows, juncos, chickadees, and many more I’m not sure what to identify as. On the inside of the house there is a pet Senegal Parrot named Mango, and two energetic small dogs named Howie and Pogo.

Saturday we spent our day driving around the island exploring whatever we came across. Galiano Island Books is one stop in town I highly recommend. They have an excellent selection of books, and one very demanding cat that commands customers for attention with a loud yowl. My favorite part of the day was having a picnic in sunny Spotlight Cove, with me exploring the tide pools looking for tiny crab while Boris sat on a log reading a book.

I also enjoyed our stop at Stone World, a fantastic Bodega Ridge landscape of standing stones and ritually decorated rocks created by stone carver Steve Ocsko. His wife Barbara gave us a tour of the indoor studio explaining the evolution of Steve’s carving work, which led to a fascinating and inspiring conversation about geology, art, and using the internet. Along with the stone sculptures the studio had many lovely found natural objects, such as a wasp’s nest, a hummingbird nest, the largest barnacle shell I’ve ever seen, and much more. It was a fascinating visit and Boris and I really hit it off with Barbara. Stone World seems to have an odd reputation with locals, or at least that’s the impression I have from talking to people. Lots of people know of it but have strange ideas because of the standing stones, and so they haven’t visited themselves. Our friends were surprised when we told them about our visit and what we found there (nothing weird, that is).

Our hosts for the weekend, Christian and Martine, invited us for dinner with friends at their place on Saturday evening. It was a cozy time spent laughing, talking, eating and playing games. Martine runs a catering business on Galiano and as you can imagine, she makes delicious food. Part of the meal was a dish of lentils cooked with bacon, which is something I’d be happy to revisit again since I love both lentils and bacon. Boris was hijacked by Lili, Martine’s six year old daughter, shortly after our arrival and she had him bouncing around on the trampoline which was fun to watch.

Our final day on Galiano was a rainy one, but we went out exploring anyway. A walk around Morning Beach with Howie the dog revealed interesting formations in the sandstone and a large water-carved cave to take shelter in when the rain came down hard. There were tiny gardens of succulent plants on the top of large boulders which were very colourful and beautiful. Our last stop before departing the island was a drive on Bodega Beach Road which led to a hike down a slug covered trail and then to a view overlooking the Strait of Georgia with rainy Vancouver across the way.

It was a lovely weekend away, and much needed for Boris and I. We managed to cover a lot of ground on our short trip, but I’d be happy to go again and see more.

It’s Wednesday, the day of the week that rests exactly at the point between the previous weekend and the one to come. I’ve been having a series of awesome weekends and I wanted to write up a “Good Things” list before the next one happened. Here goes:

1. Hanging out with Boris enjoying some excellent quality time and adventures. I couldn’t ask for a more fun person to spend time with.
2. Taking myself on a movie date to see the documentary Earth. The cinematography is stunning and spectacular, and showcases scenery and animals all over the world. I left the theatre feeling uplifted and inspired.
3. Making plans with a friend to get back on track with a long neglected photo project.
4. Taking a day trip to Stevenston where we spent a few hours wandering around enjoying the fantastic weather.
5. A bit of unexpected retail therapy at the Orb & Arson warehouse sale, which was located where we changed buses between Vancouver and Steveston. I picked up some great bargains.
6. Lunch on the Wharf in Steveston at Pajos. Yum. Good.
7. Sitting in the grass relaxing and watching people fly kites.
8. Taking an afternoon nap on Saturday.
9. Making dessert from sad fruits wizened with age and neglect, and turning them into a delicious apple, pear and rhubarb crisp.
10. Talking to my mom and sister at the same time through the magical powers of three-way calling.

A few days ago my mom called to tell me the news of my old friend David Somers passing away. She’d been reading the local paper and came across an article in the Brampton Guardian reflecting on his many contributions to the arts and culture in Brampton, Ontario. It mentioned his recent passing at the end of April. I hadn’t been in touch with David in a few years but I had been made aware through a mutual friend that he’d been diagnosed with cancer more than a year ago.

My mom has been diagnosed with cancer twice in the last twelve years. She went through surgery and extensive treatments and has been in remission for a few years now. Boris’ father was diagnosed with cancer last year and has also gone on to a complete recovery with relatively little effect on his overall health. Sometimes people aren’t so lucky, or maybe we (their loved ones) are the lucky ones not to have lost them. My heart goes out to those David has left behind.

I first met David almost fifteen years ago on my first visit to the Peel Heritage Complex, a public art gallery, museum and archive in Brampton. I was interested in becoming a volunteer and David is the one who interviewed me about my interests. My volunteering eventually led to paid work at the complex in various ways, much of it working closely with David and assistant curator, Judy Daley. I can’t really imagine one without the other because they are both so much a part of my memories there, and they made a great team. They were a pleasure to work with and provided me with great opportunities despite my complete lack of experience working in that type of environment. It was an invaluable experience because I learned what goes on behind the scenes of a museum/art gallery, gave me hands-on experience of putting a show together, and was the first push I needed to start showing my own work in a gallery.

David was more than just my boss at the Complex, he was also a friend. I think that’s how everyone who ever worked under him felt because he was such an engaging person. He was known for his infectious sense of humour and charismatic personality, and always had something hilarious to say. I worked with David and Judy for four years before moving away to Toronto and eventually to Vancouver. I’d been good about keeping in touch with them and would regularly go back and visit, but over the last few years I’d lost touch. It saddens me knowing it is too late to remedy the situation, and I will never get the chance to laugh with David again. He will be greatly missed.

The Art Gallery of Peel and Peel Heritage Complex will hold a celebration of David Somers’ life for friends and colleagues on Thursday, May 28 at 7pm.

Peel Heritage Complex
Historic Peel County Courthouse
3 Wellington St. E. in Brampton

“Pain and conflict are, to a large extent, the result of a discrepancy between the way we think others should treat us, react to us, and appreciate us, and the way they actually do. Many of our miseries are thus rooted in self-pity, the most worthless of all human emotions.”

–Ann Davies, Qabalist teacher

Too true.

Apparently the opening was a big success for the 2nd Annual Plastic Camera Show I’m in at RayKo Photo Gallery in San Francisco. I wish I could make a trip to San Francisco to see it… Thankfully the gallery has provided thorough photographic documentation of how things look, and I even spotted my own work in amongst everything else. The shot included in this blog entry is the one that was accepted into the show.

Here’s the slideshow of shots taken by RayKo’s PR photographer Tim Rollins.

Travis recently blogged about setting goals, and it was a post I’d really intended on writing a response to…ages ago. It didn’t get done, obviously because I didn’t make a point to do it and now those thoughts inspired by his post are gone.

(Sigh)

What I can say is this: over the last few months I have been asked by quite a few people about whether I am working on a new show or will be having a new show soon, and the answer is no. It’s not for lack of wanting one, or even a lack of opportunity, and it definitely is goal of great importance to me. Its just that for most of this year my energy has been focused on other things, like starting a new job, getting used to a very different schedule as a result of said job, and also making time for a new relationship. And at this point of the year these things are no longer so new and I am feeling like I can refocus my energy back into my art and set some larger goals.

All this time though I’ve had small goals that I work on every week with the purpose of keeping me producing new work and experimenting. I create a collage in my moleskin sketchbook every week, and as the weeks have flown by my sketchbook is almost full and I am more than ready to move onto something new and larger. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about collage in the process and am happy to have a bulging sketchbook to show for my efforts. I’m hoping to take what I’ve learned from the process and put it towards the goal of producing a new experimental (for me) body of work. And then…there will be a show!

On Sunday afternoon I checked out the Comicon and Zinefair at the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was an event taking place in conjunction with Krazy, the comic/manga/anime focused show that’s been at the VAG for the last few months (go see it if you haven’t yet.) It was a good little comicon, spread over three floors but in very small and cramped rooms. There were plenty of local artists selling their comics or zines and showing off their stuff, as well as vendors with more mainstream publications.

I bought two items I’d been wanting for quite some time: Volume Two of comic anthology series Flight, and Milk Teeth, a book of illustrations by Julie Morstad. I really love her work. Her illustrations are all delicate pen and ink drawn lines with subtle colour palettes, and intricately detailed subject matter of childhood with a dark twist. She has an upcoming solo show at Atelier Gallery in September, and I recommend you check it out.

This is the second in the collaborative series I started back in June with my friend Kai. She moved to China a few months ago and as a way to keep in touch I suggested we do a photographic collaboration. We take turns selecting the themes and also putting together the diptychs.

Kai is on the right Rachael is on the left.

This week in Leo-dom, brought to my inbox by Free Will Astrology:

Leo (July 23-August 22) – Are you up for some cutting-edge slashing and smashing and crashing? I’m talking about slashing the price you’ve been paying for following your dreams; smashing beliefs that made sense years ago but are irrelevant now; and crashing parties where your future teachers and allies are gathered. Once you get the hang of all that, Leo, you can move on to other brilliant demolitions, like cracking codes, breaking trances, and shattering spells cast on you by the past.

I like the sound of this.

In seventeen days I will be participating in the Camp Moomba Yogathon & Blissfest at UBC. The yogathon is a yearly event to raise money for children whose lives have been impacted by HIV/AIDS, and where participants do a whopping 108 minutes of yoga.

The much needed funds raised from this event will help send a child to summer camp for an experience of a lifetime. You can help change a life of a child…

This will be my third time participating in the yogathon, and I am really looking forward to the challenge. Last year it rained the whole time, but it only added to the fantastic experience of doing yoga with a few thousand people.

Please help me reach my fundraising goal.

Camp Moomba Yogathon & Blissfest
July 12, 2008
UBC Thunderbird Stadium

Taken with a Contax 35mm SLR, using crossprocessed Sensia film. The full set of my photos taken at Pitt Lake can be seen here. As my friend Neil commented, the weird colours make it seem like I visited a martian landscape.

If you are a toy camera shooter like me, you may want to submit to the latest call for submissions at Light Leaks magazine. The deadline is this Saturday April 26th.

Also coming up this weekend, on Sunday April 27th, the annual Worldwide Pinhole photography day. Just in case you needed an excuse to break out your pinhole camera, or pick one up for the first time.

If you’re staying in town this weekend, there are two events I’d recommend checking out.

My lovely friend Kirsti Wakelin, has been getting all sorts of wonderful reviews for her illustration work in a children’s book called, “Looking for Loons”. This Saturday December 8th is the official launch of the book at Christianne’s Lyceum of Literature and Art, with the author in attendance. If you have any kids in need of a present this Christmas why not pick up a copy of the book, AND have it signed by Kirsti. More details below.

One of the “craftshows” (really an artisan and designer sale) I look forward to at this time of year, is the Shiny Fuzzy Muddy. It’s a group show and sale featuring a nice variety of merchandise by local artists, designers and, crafts people. It starts today at 5pm and is on until Sunday. For a full list of participating artists check out their site.

Book Launch: Looking for Loons
December 8, 4pm
at Christianne’s Lyceum of Literature and Art
3696 West 8th Ave, Vancouver (8th and Alma)
the event is free and it’s requested that you RSVP: lyceum /at/ christiannehayward /dot/ com or 606-733-1356

Shiny Fuzzy Muddy
at video in studios
1965 main street, vancouver, bc
(between 3rd & 4th on the west side of the street)
Friday – 5 to 10 pm, Saturday – 11 to 5 pm, Sunday -12-5 pm

“I like to live in the sound of water, in the feel of mountain air. A sharp reminder hits me: this world is still alive; it stretches out there shivering toward its own creation, and I’m a part of it. Even my breathing enters into an elaborate give-and-take, this bowing to sun and moon, day or night, winter, summer, storm, still –- this tranquil chaos that seems to be going somewhere. This wilderness with a great peacefulness in it. This motionless turmoil, this everything dance.”

- Wiliam Stafford, “Time for Serenity, Anyone?” from the book *Even in Quiet Places*

World Toy Camera Day was a very rainy one here in Vancouver, so Kirsti and Christopher came by to shoot indoors with my lights. As you can see from the photos, we were a bit goofy (or at least I was).

Their photos can be found here:
www.flickr.com/photos/mimsybee/tags/worldtoycameraday/ – Kirsti
www.flickr.com/photos/czarf/tags/wtcd2007/ – Christopher

My first solo show in two years opens tomorrow evening at Radha Yoga and Eatery in Vancouver. It has been the biggest personal project I’ve ever worked on, one that allowed me to further explore a heat transfer printing process I’ve grown to love. I have been working on this show for the last six to eight months, slowly streamlining the imagery I wanted to use based around the idea of tree photos taken with a Holga camera, and figuring out the technical aspects of creating and displaying large scale metal prints. It was definitely a sort-things-out-as-I-go-along process, so in the end I’m glad I was able to reproduce the type of work I was envisioning in my head.

There are sixteen pieces in the show, three are diptychs, and the rest are single images divided and printed onto four metal panels. I chose to create these works in two and four panels due to limitations in the size of heat transfer paper and the heat press itself. Each panel has been individually hand-printed on aluminum and assembled into the finished product by me, in order to create a one-of-a-kind piece of art. Everything is mounted onto a wooden support frame on the back. These are definitely handmade pieces of art, down to the inconsistencies and imperfections that hopefully add and not subtract from each piece.

This show would not have been possible without the help of many of the lovely people I am lucky enough to call friends. Thank you to the following people: Nicole Dextras for the use of her studio and heatpress, and also for her invaluable support and feedback; Susie Gardner and Travis Smith for their very generous birthday present; Mandy Moore, Kaishin Chu, Ben Damm, Hendrik Kueck, Kathryn Ashe, and Monica Ashe for their friendship, love and support from both near and afar.

Hello.
I’m still here. I’ve been extremely busy for the last month between work, and getting my show together, so blogging has gone by the wayside as a result. The show opens this Thursday, and I will write a bit more about it later this week…

I love this series of photos by Susan Burnstine as featured in a gallery at File Magazine. It inspires in me both a desire to run out and photograph animals, and break out my neglected pinhole camera.

If you are looking for a new coffee shop to try in Vancouver, do check out Re-entry on Main Street near 28th Avenue. I can’t recommend their coffee personally (because I don’t drink it) but I’m told it’s really good. I had an ovaltine, because I was impressed they had such a thing on the menu, and was treated to a “pull-apart” made of the most divine flaky and buttery pastry I’ve ever had the pleasure to eat. Seriously.

This was taken about a month ago. Benoit contacted me about photographing him and his wife Julie shortly before she was to give birth to their first child. We discussed a few ideas beforehand and Benoit requested I use some of my favorite tools during the shoot – red fabric, the holga camera, and cross-process film. It was a pleasure to work with them on this shoot and the results were very pleasing for all three of us.

Yesterday I decided that if I ever have loads of cash I am going to open an artists’s resource centre. It’ll be a place where people who are in the process of working on a show can come and borrow things they need, like a ladder, matte cutters and other framing bits, random tools, and whatever else I can think of. I’d also have a driver service available for those in need of a car or van to assist in picking up materials, or delivering work somewhere. There would also be a driver, for people like me, who don’t drive.

If I really had the money I’d also start a scholarship for people in need of a little extra funding to put together the art show they’ve always dreamed off and can’t afford to do without help. It sure ain’t cheap to make art, especially when you’re into doing things in a stupidly complicated way like I am….sigh.

While I’m remembering, I thought I’d post some links to a few of the galleries and artist’s work I saw in Seattle a week and a half ago. I took the above photo with the Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim as I was wandering around Pioneer Square looking for galleries.

Paintings by Flora S. Bowley - I love the colours, layers, and textures in her work, but none of it comes across very well in the photos online.

Sculpture by Paul A. Metivier and paintings by Glenn Ossiander – I felt like this show was made for me to see because the paintings were all red, and most of the sculpture were of crows. Again with the online photos the viewer doesn’t get the full effect of the paintings’ colour, texture and the layers of paint.

Oil paintings on paper by Joanne Hammer – I was only able to take a quick look through the gallery because I arrived at closing time, but I wish I’d had the chance to look again.

A good article from the Tyee about Alan Sirulnikoff and his photographs of Vancouver graffiti. I like the collection of photos in the online gallery accompanying the article.

It was lovely to have some time off last week and get away to Seattle over the weekend. I was in the mood for art, so I made a point of wandering through a gallery dense area of the city – Pioneer Square – when I arrived on Friday afternoon. It was a very inspiring walk, and I’m hoping to post a few links work I saw when I get the chance later. For further arty inspiration, Hendrik and I visited the Olympic Sculpture Park and the Seattle Art Museum on Saturday afternoon. My favorite works from the park are the very clever Love & Loss, a beautiful stainless steel tree (Split), and the greenhouse containing a nurse log sustaining life as it would in a forest.

Do you want to know the good thing about rainy days? (Because there has to be an upside to everything.) I get so much more done at home when the weather is crappy for any length of time, because it gets me feeling nesty. I’m on an organizational kick right now because I want my studio/workspace in my apartment to be more inspiring and organized. I see furniture rearranging in my future…

Five great moments from the weekend:
1. Yogathon in the rain.
2. Fresh made organic pizza.
3. Sunday morning breakfast at The Omlettry (I think that’s how you spell it.)
4. Finding bargains at a yard sale.
5. Making silly videos while waiting for our food to come.