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Showing posts from June, 2008

reading out loud (into a microphone)

C and I went up to Ottawa on Friday night so we could both read at an event for The Puritan magazine. The two editors had fun with the format, staging it like a wrestling thing, and while I couldn't help but shake my head and smirk when given a high-five at the microphone, everyone had a great time (at one point, somebody got hit with a chair). The other readers were Jeffrey Ross, Amanda Earl, Steven Zytveld, Matthew Firth (who published C's chapbook Nemesis Girls ), Kate Heartfield, Rob Mclennan and Nathaniel G. Moore. The clip above is short and sweet, with truly terrible production values.

holiday drawings

One thing I promised myself to do while on holidays -- because I don't make enough time to do this -- was to create a drawing every morning. Which I did, hunched in the corner of our hotel room, in dim light, the curtains open just an inch, trying not to make too much noise, while C slept away. my head is a storm , pencil crayon on 50 lb Canson sketch paper, 8 x 7.5 inches. Krista might like this one. somewhere back there between the trees , pencil crayon on 50 lb Canson sketch paper, 6 x 7 inches. no, not now , pencil crayon on 50 lb Canson sketch paper, 5 x 5.5 inches. when it rains, there goes my hands , pencil crayon on 50 lb Canson sketch paper, 5.75 x 8.5 inches. you're not doing me any favours , pencil crayon on 50 lb Canson sketch paper, 7 x 10 inches. Kensey with the eyes.

land of the living skies

Just returned from a see-the-family vacation in Saskatchewan and ... wow, this post is going to be a long one. Because if we (the collective 'we', as in you and me ) don't take a ton of pictures to document our existence, we might as well die (or have never lived ... then again, the aborigines believed the opposite). * * * * * My mom and I ... some of us get height, some of us get wisdom. And jack-in-the-box grins. * * * * * After much joyous but bittersweet pillaging of downtown shops ("All these dresses are made for tall skinny girls!"), I took C for a walk along the Meewasin Trail , with stops at the Mendel's conservatory , the Pelican-happy weir, the pedestrian and railway bridge, and the University of Saskatchewan. * * * * * One day we drove down to the mineral springs at Watrous (which C pronounces "Wah-truce") ... a 'resort' with the look and feel of something from the Soviet bloc, right down to the pink stucco and octoge

glamour, by extension

C is friends with the fashion stylist Rebekah Roy (left in both pics above) ... one of those people who personify calm and smiling success. On her blog she presents glamour in this very sincere, straightforward way ... whether she's taking pictures of people on the street , talking about stain removers , her favourite videos , or attending some glittering party . One minute she's ruminating on hair extensions, and in the next she reveals how she's been featured on the Vogue UK site. A real disarmer and charmer (and this without meeting her yet, although I feel like I know her because we both did our time in Winnipeg). * * * * * Coming home from Russia, we did many bad things. ; mixed media on canvas, 10 x 10 inches. In my own life, the glamour is wholly imagined. * * * * * witches, smoke ; mixed media on canvas, 10 x 10 inches. My second go at this one, and for some reason I'm painting a lot of smoke lately (note to self: tell C that I want to be cremated). *

home surprise

The two pieces above are the work of Amanda Fasken , who has reminded me, once again, that Kingston contains some great artists. * * * * * Widdle Max and Butter Brain , pencil and marker on Albanene cotton fiber paper, 8.75 x 5.5 inches. Illo for a story.

things, all red

A drawing for a short story -- writing group tonight, every week it's a new illo, new story -- about a life obscured, outside and in. * * * * * And then we've got this guy, who doesn't have a name either, and came to me by way of C after she took an encaustics workshop this weekend. How couldn't you like something that combines a larger-than-life owl with the Cheshire Cat?

and then I deleted it

smoke storm , mixed media on canvas, 16 x 10 inches. Because I need more nudity in my work. * * * * * I had big, wide-ranging post to go here, sourced from a text file that I'd been nurturing all week, full of sound ideas and rewarding links ... but I threw it in the trash (or "Trash"). In an accident. And now that it's gone this digital note seems like something wonderful, like some bit of on-the-train genius scribbled down and stuffed in a pocket and then lost in the laundry. Only now I don't have to go through the disappointment of finding it and oh-so-carefully unfolding it and seeing just how ordinary it was, because "Trash" takes care of that for you, in that special forever kind of way. * * * * * One thing I can retrieve from the mental trash/memory bin is wanting to say something about Leon Golub, whose work I have just recently rediscoverd. He painted narratives about power. If you know me at all, you'd guess I'd dig that. His