Canvas to the Imagination

It wasn’t my intention to leave this until the end of the month again, but for the previous few weeks I’d been coming up dry on ideas and enthusiasm for the project of shooting one self portrait a month. I didn’t spend much time shooting this because I felt impatient about getting it done. And yet I love what I came up with, and not just because the drawing is dazzling.

The drawings are groupings of triangles which remind me of maple leaves in some ways and a constellation of stars in others. I love the process of doodling these because it is soothing, simple, and meditative but creates a complicated end result. I’m not sure whether combining my image with the drawing makes this more or less so.

My friend Vivienne has an uncanny ability to find hearts and messages of love around our neighbourhood of Commercial Drive, and she often shares these on Instagram. It got me thinking about leaving more hearts for her to find, which in turn led to an idea for a collaboration we could do together.

I created a couple of heart stencils, three by hand and one using the digital cutter, and bought two cans of spray paint. I was curious to see how well my elaborate heart paper cut work would translate when painted on the sidewalk. We wanted to do this in time for Valentine’s Day, and bring a little more love into the world.

Vivienne and I went out twice last week and added hearts to parts of Strathcona and The Drive. Some of these have already washed away in the rain, because that’s how it goes with street art. It’s not meant to be permanent and the work is at the mercy of the elements. I think a few of the hearts will stick around for awhile, and at some point I hope we’ll go out again and add more.

We decided to title the project #HeartingTheNeighbourhood. If you come across our hearts around town please share them on Instagram and use the tag so we can see.

I hope you had a happy heart day.

Just in the nick of time, with a few days to spare, I managed to shoot the first self portrait in a new series. As mentioned in a previous blog post, I’d been thinking about taking one self portrait a month for the next year. A simpler version of 52 Weeks of self portraits, but with the same level of creativity.

I knew if I could talk myself into doing one within the month of January then the project would be a go. Mission accomplished, and the project is rolling.

When I started this shoot I had a different idea in mind to use the paper scraps, and of course it evolved. These are all cut away from finished paper cut work, and have been collected together in a baggie I keep stashed in my studio. The pile of paper and my face were shot separately and made into one through the magic of Photoshop.

Going forward with the series I’m going to attempt to incorporate my paper work into each self portrait. It’s a good way to bring photography and paper together at last.