A Few Good Things:
- Watching the little yellow goofball play around on my mug as he tries unsuccessfully to drink from it
- Enjoying a very relaxing and lovely Remembrance Day
- Working on my “Scenes from a Movie” shot for most of the day, and reminding myself I have excellent photoshop skillz
- Getting into the routine of writing two pages in my journal every morning
- Having my work accepted into two Holga/Toy Camera shows at the same time

A few weeks ago I came up with the strange looking portrait of myself for my 52 weeks series. The idea was inspired by double-exposure shots, which can’t be done with digital as far as I know. I decided to take four shots of myself, one sharp, and the others as I shook my head from side to side, and then overlay them in photoshop. I liked the resulting surreal effect so much I’ve decided to shoot other people in a similar manner and create a series of these portraits. Kirsti was my first model, and she looks just as strange as I do. Who shall be next…?

The problem with looking back at what I was up to this time last November is realizing I was a much more productive artist then, and I was actually selling work. It’s easy to focus on the things I’m not happy with when comparing to last year and I think it’s a counterproductive thing to do. I need to reflect, but not compare so much because a year later often means different circumstances that factor into artistic productivity.

And on that note, I do have a few things to be pleased about with my work. I have one photo published in the current issue of Geist Magazine that doesn’t seem to have translated well into print but in print it is nonetheless. I’m also pretty sure I have some work in the Plastic Photographer - Low Tech Photo Show , opening Thursday at 2221A Artist Run Centre. I say “pretty sure” because the person I talked to about whether or not my work had been accepted wasn’t very clear with me. I’m planning on checking out the opening regardless.

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.

Good Things:
1. Having a weekend that was busy, fun, and restful.
2. Hanging out at Blenz writing letters, drinking hot chocolate, and doodling on someone’s arm.
3. Getting inspired to work on a new project and it’s due in two weeks.
4. Spending time wandering the city, hanging out with a friend, looking in art stores and galleries.
5. Finishing the roll of film that I’ve had in my pinhole camera for ages.

(How’s that for some dull blogging? I wrote this while I was a tired zombie.)

I celebrated thanksgiving dinner with friends yesterday evening, and one of the questions asked was, “what are you thankful for?” The conversation was sidetracked well before it came time for me to answer, but it had been the exact question I’d been asking myself in an unfinished blog entry mere hours before. I wasn’t able to come up with a satisfactory answer in either situation, and it’s not because I’m not thankful for what I have or don’t have anything to be thankful for. I regularly write lists of things I am grateful for as a reminder to myself to appreciate the things I have because it’s important to do this on a regular basis. It’s a check-in with myself through good times, and it sees me through the bad.

Thanksgiving is one of those times of year when I can’t help but compare my current circumstances to the previous year and reflect on the changes. Looking back I realize I am grateful that life is changeable, that good and bad things aren’t etched in stone forever, and life brings each of us the things we didn’t even know to ask for.

10 Good Things from the Weekend:
1. Being part of the most personal and special wedding I’ve ever attended. My friends Marc and Jacquie really did things right.
2. Sitting at the Blenz in Horseshoe Bay enjoying a lovely morning while waiting to catch a ferry.
3. Hooking up with an excellent road trip companion.
4. Chatting with people I haven’t seen in ages and happily hearing they are doing well.
5. A glorious sunrise on Sunday morning, followed by a beautiful day.
6. Making it back to the city early on Sunday and doing some of the things I thought I’d be missing out on - like the Ruby Dog garage sale.
7. Buying two plants from the awesome store on Main Street.
8. A long phone conversation with Mandy.
9. A much needed Sunday afternoon nap.
10. Enjoying some quiet time to myself, and feeling recharged after the weekend.

This week from Free Will Astrology…

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): *Gleeking* is a term that refers to a special kind of projectile spitting. To do it, you’ve got to practice. It involves pressing your tongue against your submaxillary salivary gland when a pool of drool has accumulated nearby. I recommend this practice for you in the coming week, Leo. It’ll be a favorable time for you to be undignified, unpredictable, and even outrageous in expressing yourself. Other suggested practices: telling unruly stories concisely, speaking the truth with picturesque but disciplined extravagance, adding some vivid new slang to your body language, and skipping and hopping or even dancing as you walk. (For instructions on how to gleek, go to tinyurl.com/hn7vo.)

If you see me spitting and dancing around you in the next few days, now you know why.

This is the first collage in my new, improved, and larger sketchbook. Starting a fresh sketchbook can be both an exciting and overwhelming undertaking, and I stumbled around a bit before I was able to get going. I feel I am off to a good start with this.

Inspiration this week:
The art of cut-up books (From Kirsti)
Pop-up cards by Crankbunny.
Mixed media bird sculptures by Bird and Moon Studios.

I am always amazed when pictures, like the one above, get far more attention than they deserve because they’ve made it into Explore on flickr. It was a beautiful place, but I’ve hardly done it justice with this shot. I guess it frustrates me because photography is my art of choice and I’ve put effort into developing my own sense of style and taste. A shot like this isn’t an indication of any of those things but it is the one getting all the favs and views. It reinforces to me how nice, but meaningless it all is.

On a completely unrelated note, thank you to everyone who left suggestions on the previous entry about blogs to read. I had to excavate a few comments after Kirsti pointed out hers was eaten by the spam catcher. Too many links in a comment equals bad says Akismet, even when there is no mention of viagra or casinos.

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.)

Good things from the weekend:
- a delicious meal that came in many small bowls, followed by a very tasty dessert - all made by Zak.
- Saturday brunch at the Sandbar on Granville Island
- the fastest trip through Ikea ever, which yielded excellent results
- a well-timed phone call from Hendrik that led to a fun Sunday afternoon
- the glorious weather on Sunday afternoon
- homemade sky high pizza made by Boris. So-called because it was stacked with toppings.
- having a clearer mind after a few weeks of too much stress and anxiety

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!

Good things from the weekend:
1. Beautiful dahlias from the Kitsilano Farmers Market.
2. Walks and talks to and from Jericho Beach.
3. Fresh made egg pancakes with sugar and lemon.
4. Laughing over my seat adjustment antics in the truck with Hendrik.
5. A long leisurely Sunday afternoon.

Bits of inspiration from this week:
The invisible Age - a show of self portraits by women age 50 to 65.
The illustration work of James Jean.
Pottery work of oneblackbird
Metal collage assemblages by littleblackrabbit

Good things
- sending off my registration form for an artist retreat, Artfest, in 2009
- meeting my weekly artistic goals of collaging and self portrait shooting
- an exhilarating yet terrifying ride on a scooter around Bowen Island
- having a mutually inspiring talk with an artist on Bowen who also works with collage and photography
- working on a shot I hope will get accepted into a group show later this fall in Portland

Not-so-good things
- continuing to procrastinate over a few too many things related to my personal work
- feeling the distance between myself and friends I thought were close ones
- not quite being able to get over the negative interpretations
- feeling really out of shape
- worrying about money (which is like the stupidest thing in the world…)

From the Free Will Astrology newsletter…

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Resilience is a quality that allows you to rise above setbacks and find resources in unexpected places. It’s a willful instinct to seek the higher ground and a bigger vision. It’s intensely practical, because it shushes the nagging voices in your head that make negative interpretations of your experience, thereby allowing you to act courageously in your own best interests. This is Resilience Week for you, Leo. Call on your dormant reserves.

A few shots taken with my holga inside an abandoned house, from a few weeks back. It’s a location I’m hoping to return to sometime soon and do a more thorough job of photographing.

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.

From the inside cover of Boris’ little red pocket notebook:

Red is one of the few colours - along with white and black - found in every language known to humankind. Red is the colour of fire, the colour of blood, the colour of life.

Red can be found in the oldest artworks on Earth, the Stone Age cave paintings of Southern France. Cave-dwellers mined red ochre and crushed it to create a pigment that has not lost its lustre in 30,000 years.

Derived from the ancient Sanskrit word for blood, “rhudira”, red was believed to prevent evil and disease. Warriors painted their axes red. Scottish farmers tied red string around the necks of their oxen. Ancient Egyptians immersed themselves in vats of red.

In Asia, red is the colour of luck and prosperity. Chinese brides wear red. Hindu women put red bindis on their foreheads. Red is the first colour noticed by babies, the favorite colour of children, the most popular colour on national flags.

Red is the colour of passion and love. A zest for life. A craving for excess. It is no myth that red is exciting. Just looking at red will increase the blood pressure, stimulate adrenaline and speed up the pulse. See what happens when you think in red.

Red is my favorite colour.

My good friend Nicole Dextras has been the artist in residence at VanDusen Gardens over the summer. Starting this weekend she will be presenting the installations created on site. Instead of having a traditional exhibition opening Nicole has opted to lead people on tours of her installations throughout the garden at select dates (Listed below).

Nicole creates her work from natural material such as leaves, twigs, thorns, grasses, flowers, etc., often with a focus on text. For the work in the garden she has created a pair of thrones to represent the King and Queen of Versailles, installed a rangoli made of leaves on the lake, grown a large scale version of the word culture from grass seed, and more. The tours begin this Sunday.

Green Words, growing the language
Sunday August 24 at 2 pm
Tuesday August 26 at 2 pm
Thursday August 28 at 7 pm

5251 Oak Street
at the corner of 37th Ave, between Oak & Granville Streets
Hours: August 10am - 9pm
September 10am - 7pm

(Nicole has a set of work in progress photos on flickr.)

I really wish I was better about keeping up with what’s going on at local galleries, because too often I see shows just before they close or miss them completely. In some cases the shows I do catch at the last minute are ones I would definitely recommend to others, but then it’s too late.

Such is the case with the show I went to see on Saturday afternoon at Jacana Gallery. The show featured the work of artist/illustrator Soizick Meister. The series of paintings focuses on easily recognizable landscapes around Vancouver, with plenty of iconic imagery of crows, herons, tanker ships against the north shore, logs on Kits/Jericho beaches, and other things easily recognizable as “Vancouver”. In every painting there is the mysterious figure of Mr. M dressed in hat and trench coat, turned towards the scene to contemplate the landscape. The scenes are peaceful, sometimes with playful details of paper boats or piles of books. This is magic realism at it’s best, and I found the show to be a wealth of inspiration.

Jacana Gallery has the full show online.

This is my favorite shot taken on my Portland trip. I love watching birds take flight.

I keep meaning to write about the good summer I have been having but so far I haven’t been able to find the time. Here are a few good things:
1. Slowly transforming my apartment into a more inspiring space just by changing the art around on the walls and adding more.
2. Fun dinners with various friends on various days.
3. A cycling trip to Agassiz a few weekends ago with the lovely Mann family.
4. Moving to a new work space, and liking it much better than the old one.
5. Feeling inspired again and beginning to plan and prepare to submit work for shows in the fall.
6. Having too many good things to actually mention in the short amount of time I’ve taken to write this.

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.