RubyDog’s Art House is my favorite place to buy supplies and find inspiration for the collage work I create. I’ve been going there for the last couple of years and I always find something unique and inspiring to take home. The shop is owned by Leanne Bishop and it’s always fun to chat with her while I browse through the store.

When I dropped by a yesterday to pick up a new book about collage I decided to take a few photos and show people some of the interesting things you can find in the shop. There is an excellent selection of books on collage, book making, painting, and more. I think I’ve bought most of my art books from RubyDog’s because she seems to be the only one in Vancouver to carry as many books about altering books.

This is Ruby the dog, who can often be found napping peacefully in the corner, and is the namesake of the shop.

There are plenty of interesting little things to look at all through the store.

I’ve used these some of these tiny bottles in one of my altered books (that now belongs to someone else).

I have some of these clarinet pieces in my possession and that have not yet made their way into a collage. Leanne has a HUGE collection of letterpress pieces for collaging or collecting.

There’s really no end to the variety of things you can find at RubyDog’s Art House, from vintage ephemera to billiard balls. Please check out the shop and help support a wonderful local business.

RubyDog’s Art House
623 Kingsway
(Kingsway near Fraser Street)
Vancouver BC V5T 3K5

The space is newly renovated with high ceilings that give the store an airy feel. There are lots of beautiful and colourful things to look at including the front counter which is covered in vintage yardsticks. At this point I should mention I don’t actually sew but I do love threads and textiles.

The store was having a soft launch last weekend with their official opening day this Saturday, June 5th.

Did I mention the gorgeous fabrics Spool of Thread has for sale? These are pretty wow. Some of them would be dreamy as a summer dress or as curtains in my new place.

Thanks to Spool of Thread owners Lili and Henry for being so welcoming to their shop and allowing me to take photos. I’m sure the store is a welcome addition to the Vancouver craft scene.

The tulips used in this self portrait a week and a half ago were on their last legs yesterday. As I tidied up and prepared to toss them away I stopped to take the above shots of their lingering, dried out beauty.

This week from Free Will Astrology:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): An American residing in Berlin had leukemia as well as AIDS. Doctors did a bone marrow transplant to cure the leukemia, obtaining stem cells from a healthy donor. The operation was a success — the leukemia disappeared. As an added and surprising bonus, the HIV also left the patient’s body. He has been free of both diseases for two years. I predict a psychological version of this double cure for you in the coming weeks, Leo. The healing you receive for one type of suffering will unexpectedly heal another kind, too.

From Free Will Astrology

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Here’s an update on the world’s tigers: Fewer than 5,000 are living in their natural habitats, while the U.S. alone has more than that number in zoos. Let’s use that fact as a starting point for your meditations, Leo. How much of your animal essence is in captivity, and how much is running free? Is your inner lion able to wander at will through places where it feels at home, or is it trapped in a confined space it would never stay in if allowed to choose? Keep coming back to these questions during 2009. It will be an excellent time to spring the great cat in you from conditions that make it pace in neurotic circles.

Oh, yes please! Especially to that last part. I love Free Will Astrology.

Before I had a bird of my own I had no interest at all in winged creatures. I may have even thought they were boring. Then my sister brought home a breeding pair of lovebirds, and soon I had a cheeky little bird of my own, one I’d raised from an egg. Many years and one lovebird later, I am fascinated by birds of all kinds and am capable of watching them for hours on end (dorky, but true).

My apartment is a great spot for watching small birds like sparrows, chickadees, and dark-eyed Junco, and I’m amazed how these tiny things can survive just fine in cold weather. I think they look warmer out there than I do in my many layers… I’m a bit worried about them not finding enough food with all this snow so I decided to purchase seed for them and put it along my window sills. They are very entertaining as they help themselves to food and bob up and down to keep an eye on me through the window.

The Field Guide: Birds of British Columbia group on flickr for plenty more bird photos.

This came my way from Ariane.

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago:
- working on a series of graveyard photos printed with liquid light on roof tiles
- on a month long trip in Spain and Italy with my cousin
- working at the Peel Heritage Complex
- learning Photoshop/Illustrator/QuarkXpress/html/
- wishing for better things in my life probably

5 Things on my to-do list today:
- write a letter to my mom and mail two other letters
- research various costs for travel in Japan
- research images from The Birds and Vertigo
- go for a walk to enjoy the sunshine
- laundry

5 snacks I like:
- chips
- grapefruit cut by Zak
- candied ginger
- almonds
- crunchy apples

5 Things I would do it I was a millionaire:
- buy a live/work space, and fill it with equipment to enable a variety of creative projects
- give my sister a tonne of money towards her new house
- go on a year long trip around the world
- help friends in need of some extra cash
- buy a fancy new bike

5 Places I’ve Lived in (for various lengths of time):
- Brampton, Ontario
- The Annex, Toronto
- Christchurch, New Zealand
- Aliston, Ontario
- Vancouver, BC

5 Jobs I have had:
- Digital Artist at a photography studio
- Photographer, Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto
- Gallery Assistant and Installer
- Picture framer
- Administrative Assistant/Office Manager

5 People I tag:
- I’ll name no names. Please do this meme if you wanna.

I am looking for recommendations on interesting, funny, entertaining, or inspiring blogs to read. I feel like I am in a blog rut and would like some help getting out of it. Make some suggestions please, and base it on the ones YOU like rather than what you think I’d like.

A blog I recently started reading is Cake Wrecks on the recommendation of Susie. It isn’t normally something I would read but it’s hilarious! Who knew there was a trend in realistic cake portraiture. (Creepy.)

This is the third diptych in the collaborative series with my good friend Kaishin Chu. We started at the beginning of the summer as a way to keep in touch while she is living in China. We take turns selecting the themes and also putting together the diptychs.

Kai is on the left. Rachael is on the right.

Last night I was wandering around downtown with a friend when we came across a woman selling blueberries beside the Vancouver Art Gallery. Her prices were good but I didn’t have money to buy any right at that moment, so I came back later after a stop at a cash machine. They were really good blueberries, big and sweet, and I ate about a million of them while riding home on the bus. In case you’re interested, apparently she is at the corner of Robson and Hornby selling blueberries quite often.

Good things from yesterday:
1. Quality time with a happy little Yuuki.
2. Preparing for a weekend trip out of town.
3. Having a really productive Art Day.

Last night I finished reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s a wonderful book about travel and self exploration, and it has inspired me to get moving on some of the neglected dreams I’ve been sitting on for far too long.

A paragraph in the second last chapter really struck a chord with me, given the thoughts burdening my head lately and a continued string of sleepless nights. The context of the words below is that the writer of the book traveled to a small island to be alone with her thoughts and work through the unhappy things that were going on in her life at the time.

The yogic sages say that all the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy. We create words to define our experience and those words bring attendant emotions that jerk us around like dogs on a leash. We get seduced by our own mantras (I’m a failure…I’m lonely…I’m a failure…I’m lonely…) and we become monuments to them. To stop talking for a while, then, is to attempt to strip away the power of words, to stop choking ourselves with words, to liberate ourselves from our suffocating mantras.

From Free Will Astrology:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free,” said the sculptor Michelangelo about a statue he made. Let that approach be your guide in the coming weeks, Leo. Proceed according to the hypothesis that the beautiful thing you want to create is embedded in stuff that’s hiding its true nature, and your job is simply to liberate it from what’s extraneous.

Taken in the pond at Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden.

Looking for things to do this weekend? How about either of these:
Dusk Dances in Stanley Park
Aeriosa Dance Company at the Main Branch Library. (Scroll down for details)

Thanks to Siobhan for the heads up about Dusk Dances. I used to look forward to their performances in Toronto every summer and had no idea they were in town.

Sometimes it is a struggle to take a self portrait every week. Most of the time I don’t really feel like taking my own photo, and then there is the lack of inspiration… I really want to use this project as a means for producing a body of my best work and not just do a quick one off to fulfill the weekly obligation.

For week ten procrastination got the better of me and I left things to the last minute. I was also really uninspired. Then I bought myself a bouquet of peonies and decided to use them as the focus of the shot. The original version was quite a technically weak shot, with bad lighting and me looking very tired. Thanks to photoshop and the final touch of a free texture from NinianLif on flickr, I came up with an image I like a lot.

Five Good Things from the last two days:
1. Lemon meringue tarts from the Swiss bakery at 3rd and Quebec
2. Making dinner for two good friends, and making sure a third friend enjoyed a lemon tart after a stressful day.
3. Being one of the first thirty people to have lunch at the newly reopened Moderne Burger. (I have waited a very long time for it.)
4. Excellent weather on a Friday afternoon.
5. Brightly coloured peonies for my apartment.

A selection of shots taken in Graffiti Alley Toronto at the beginning of May. Please use this guest pass to see the rest of the set. I spent about ten minutes taking pictures with my friend Mike in an alley off of Queen Street while my sister perused a yarn shop nearby. There are over fifty shots in the set.

Both photos were taken in the J.F. Driscoll Family Stair of Wonders at the Royal Ontario Museum.

I was in Toronto to visit my family at the beginning of May. I hadn’t been home in almost two years, so I thought it was time to pay a visit. One of the things I was really looking forward to during my stay was checking out the brand new renovation at the Royal Ontario Museum.

It was wonderful to see some of my old favorites in new displays, especially the dinosaurs. The last time I saw them, the displays looked very dated with 60′s style murals and lots of dust everywhere. The old bones look much more impressive in their new home.

Have you ever felt as if you are standing at a crossroad in your life, and you weren’t sure which way to go? I’ve had this feeling building inside of me for the last few months, and it has become all the more acute and intense after seeing the movie, “Into the Wild” last night. The film is based upon a true story of a young man choosing to leave his life and family behind to wander randomly across the country. He decided to do this for a few reasons related to his family situation, but mainly he just didn’t want to live the kind of life that was expected of him. So he wandered away, and kept on doing so, and never saw his family again.

I sometimes get this urge to just “wander away” from my life and leave everything behind – even Yuuki. But would I ever do it? The character in the movie seemed to realize far too late, that the most important thing he left behind were the people, but until his last moments of extreme aloneness he had no idea of their importance. I am older than he was, and I have already learned this lesson about the value of my relationships with other people. It is what ultimately keeps me from just wandering off into the wild.

The first horoscope of the year from Free Will Astrology…

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “It’s now possible to fake everything,” writes David M. Hopkins in his book *Counterfeiting Exposed.* He’s not just referring to digitally altered photos of celebrities and singers who lip-sync to pre-recorded vocals during their supposed live performances. He means everything in the world, from vintage wines to famous paintings to designer jeans. At least five percent of *all* products on the planet are phony. I bring this to your attention, Leo, because I’m putting you on high alert for frauds and cons and deceptions of every kind. You should be the top whistleblower of the zodiac in 2008, the chief bullshit-detector and constructive critic.

Yesterday morning I wandered into the printer/photocopier room at work, only to be startled by two pigeons flying out the window. Someone had left it open over the weekend, and as these birds have a tendency to do around our building, they took it as an invitation to come on in. It was quite a surprise. What really had me laughing, was turning around after closing the window and finding a pile of twigs and feathers in the corner by the photocopier. I’d mistakenly assumed they’d only just come in, when really they’d been moving in all weekend.

With it being Friday and all, I am really looking forward to the weekend, especially since there seems to be so much going on.

Tomorrow is Earth Day, and there are many events happening in the Vancouver area, such as Evergreen’s 7th Annual Celebration at Jericho Beach.

Saturday also kicks off BC Book and Magazine Week, with a variety of events to chose from for those who love to read and want to support local authors and publishers.

Into my life you came like a storm of monsoon banging down from the eastern sky.
And you scattered me, like the wind disperses dry grass and the petals of flowers.
Out of myself you scattered me into Nothingness,
Beyond the Nowhere, beyond the Beyond.
~ Irina Tweedie