but what will it take to make my life sound like that?

Sometimes life just keeps moving forward so quickly you don’t even know how you got there.  I have been working like crazy the past few weeks, really pushing to get the house ready to sell.  Looking around, and hearing the echoes (because we have hardly any stuff left in here) is starting to make me feel anxious and like I want to take a break.. but I have to keep going!  This will all be worth it in the end.  Despite the bathroom renovations, insane amounts of painting I have to do, and gardening gardening gardening, I’m still making time for art, and more specifically: doll making!  I am almost done another doll, which I admit, should have been finished two weeks ago.  I can’t post any more photos of her, because she is a surprise.. but soon soon.  Despite how busy I will continue to be for the next few weeks, I have a lot of sketches in my book that are still not posted, so I think I will try to get those up as quicker posts to break the silence.   But anyways, did I mention how I had to be incredibly brave and actually stand on this ladder in my bathroom in order to clean and paint the ceiling?  Those pictures show where the ladder goes up on the wall, which is supposedly 10ft.  I hope I never have to spend a (full) day on a ladder like that again (because I know I still have to go up the ladder to finish up and touch up the wall paint).   On a final note, I finally figured out what the weird things growing in the palm are: yellow flowers!  This also made it a lot easier to identify the type of plant it is, which is a Chamaedorea elegans, aka Parlour Palm.

I haven’t forgotten about Shock Stock!  I still plan on doing a more personal post about the weekend, including some super cool buys.. plus another feature on two doll makers that were vendors.  Very excited to share some of their work!  But, I have posted the Official PVT Shock Stock 2013 photos on the VHS swap blog here.  Oh and that is a photo of myself and Joel M. Reed!

The first day of April.

The first day of April, so much to do!  Today, the weather was either sunny and wonderful, or blizzard, or raining and windy.  We ventured outside despite this, and had an adventure.  We went to a thrift store that had a 50% off sale.  I found a crochet (I think) blanket, a yellow metal teapot, and a book that I’m planning on putting all of ticket stubs and small pictures into.  We went into the forest and found mushrooms, small flowers, lots of bugs and a partial cat skeleton.  Oh, also I dyed my hair yesterday using kool aid.  Fuck yeah!  I”m also working on a lot of art.. I’m confirmed for a table at the rag bag bazaar on June 8th, so I definitely need to keep working.  Besides that, we finally have a real estate agent coming to see our condo later this week.. the first steps to selling!  Woohooo!  Changes are a coming.

I knew this blanket was perfect to brighten up the back of the couch.

These Days we Breathe more Rapidly

From the excitement and no longer the anxiety.

Hello everyone,

I’m Hrafn and over the previous weekend I had the pleasure of participating in the London Indie Media Fair jointly with Rin, organized in part by ArtFusion and The London Public Library. This was a day of many firsts for me-first zine self-published, first public artistic endavour, first public sale, first event in the black-all in all, an amazing day of firsts. I went to this event multiple years as a customer, so it was interesting being on the other side of the table.I found it really quite  awesome seeing so many different ages coming together supporting local culture, and the community giving back to their artists. One of my favourite events of the day was held by the London Ontario Media Arts Association – making your own 16MM film strip. I’m an avid analog film fan so this was the perfect activity for me. The LOMAA table had blank (and film strips) to: colour, scratch, cut, and re-tape together, AND the projector/separate to show your animation!

Amazing finds were: Daisies And Bruises‘ Letter to My Younger Self- A quaint little zine that deals with teenage depression and learning to love life through it, Nicole Markham‘s Radio Riot-a very DIY feeling zine about culture/freedom/music and Chana Prana- a beautiful Indian Vegan recipe book based on her travels through India, a Fallen Love Records co-founder’s zine Wires- about a punker growing up while keeping old ties, Melissa Hall’s custom wooden painting pins, Grit uplifted-A local magazine featuring writings and art by those affected by homelessness, and EVAC‘s create your own pin service.

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The other side of the table, I kept my breathing constant.

So, this adventure all started about two weeks ago.  A friend of ours told us about the upcoming Indie Media Fair.. an event that we had attended multiple times, but always managed to find out about the night before.  But not this year!  I was thrilled to get a half table (which by the end of the day turned into a full table, which I would definitely want us to have next time the entire day).  So, that entire week and a half, we were busy.  Being an Indie Media Fair (emphasis on the media part), I wanted to work on the zines that I had started last year, plus some book binding.  I learned a new binding technique, which is still simple but I think a great step towards the types of books I want to make in the future.  I also used the event to show off Diana for the first time, and I got some wonderful feedback from a lot of different people.  Plus, even though we spent a bunch of money there supporting other artists and media makers, and had to pay for our table, we still made a profit! I also included a photo I took today of all of our plants together.. normally they are spread all over the house but due to some house repairs and decorating, all the plants get to hang out together.  So many!  But now that this event is over, and we had a good time, we are already looking forward to our next event.. it may be the Rag Bag Bazaar on Dundas Street in June.  I’m hoping to have some finished (and for sale) dolls by then.  Also, if we have included any of your stuff from Saturday and didn’t credit you, please let us know and we would be happy to include you!  Thanks for reading!  – Rin.

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This has been a joint, guest post with my lovely partner Hrafn.  This entry is cross posted on his blog, but he is also a writer and zine maker, and so please take the time to check it out!  Click here to go there.

New Bread, Plants Plus a MYSTERY

So, I have been super busy the past few days, so this is another quick update.  Despite working on stuff for the Indie Media Fair, I found some time to make bread, but this time this isn’t a no-knead bread… no, this is a bread that lovingly took about an hour and a half to knead (if added all together of course).  The weather has been erratic, yet our plants seem to be pretty happy (although Dante wants to eat most of them, sigh).  Also, our tropical palm has grown these strange tendril things.   They are kind of soft, with little nubs on them.. there are about three or four of them?  Does anyone know what they are?  But, of course I know most people want an update on my doll.. well check back tomorrow because I promise I will have some new photos of Diana!

Italian loaf!

Does anyone know what is going on with our tropical palm?

So I’ve been playing a lot of Shepherd’s Crossing too.

So this is a quick update.. me squeezing in a bit of time when I don’t really have time to blog. I’ve been gardening, I started germinating two types of seeds today, so hopefully they grow!  We also started a new sweet potato starter, which we plan on growing with the bucket method.  Surprisingly, all of our other plants are doing well, despite it being pretty cold at the window, even the dwarf elephant ears in the bedroom (a room that is barely warmer than outside in the winter) are all around happy.

I have been working on a new doll.. even though I haven’t finished most of the other dolls that I’ve started. I really need to pick one and dedicate myself to finishing it.  But I have been doing some other art stuff, I’m using my new sketch book as an art journal, inspiration book.  I’m considering posting photos of my pages, I just want to have a couple of pages done before I decide.

I took this photo of Dante today, he was using me as leverage to watch the snow falling.

To make my life even more divided in interests, I got this new Monster High doll for Christmas.  She’s a Lagoona Blue, and is some sort of beauty pageant sea-monster lady.  I look forward to stripping her of her face paint, and making new clothing for her!

Till the next time.

Lagoona enjoying some tea.

Our sweet potato.

I picked up a pen but drew a blank {another new year, another chance to make it better}

Tomorrow is my birthday.  Every year, around this time I feel the need to reflect and re-gather my goals and ambitions (including establishing exactly what those are).  I was more than happy to see the end of 2012, which will be forever in my memory a year of struggle, sorrow, anger and disappointment.  Every time I started to get back on my feet, another tidal wave would come and again I would be drowning, with no sense of what direction to go.  This hurts to admit, especially re-reading my new years post from last year (although at the time, I could not have possibly predicted the year we were about to endure).  But I can not dwell on the past, there is nothing I can do to change how 2012 went, but I can make a promise to myself, and to my family, that I will grow and become stronger from experiencing all of it.

Despite all the terrible things of 2012, I do feel that I am closer to my (and my family’s) big goals than I was a year ago.  The house, a year ago, was still crammed, disorganized and in no way close to be ready to put on the market.  But now?  We’ve organized almost the entire house, cleared out the basement, and actually put systems in place to keep it that way.  I know that the progress we’ve made on the house, and our lifestyle habits, has made a huge positive change in both myself and my partner.  It feels so nice to just be in a tidy home on a regular basis.  Plus the bonus fuzzy feelings when friends and family come over and are truly amazed at the transformation (pictures of said transformation are on their way, but you know, one thing at a time).

I’m still working at Michaels as a Certified Art Framer, and honestly, I love my job.  I am proud of myself for taking the risk (even if it did result in some serious financial insecurity throughout the year, which also means that I still work at Swiss Chalet to supplement my income).  I love being able to actually talk about colour theory, plus I get to see a tonne of interesting art.  I’ve seen everything from limited Star Wars lithographs (from 1979, signed and numbered by the artist), original paintings by an apprentice of Tom Thompson, a silk war map with a truly amazing story behind it, to beautiful fabric and yarn art made by a 90-year-old woman.

Last year, I made a resolution to post to this blog twice a week, on a regular schedule.  Although that worked for a while, I admit that I allowed myself to be swallowed by the rest of my life and was too sad to blog most of the time.  I do want to try to pick up regular blogging again.  Last week I re-started my Photo Vault Tuesday posts on the Shock Stock and VHS Swap blog, something that I intend to be, once again, a weekly thing.  I also am continuing my photo blog, and my series that I have dubbed “Another Day”.  Last year, while I was reviewing a lot of my photography, I realized that somehow, somewhere along the line, I had actually developed a style.  I’m not sure where to go from here in that regard, but for the time being I am content with working with that.

Last year’s resolutions really focused on me establishing what I want, what was important to me, where I want to go, and how to move forward from failure.

One aspect that I attempted to tackle last summer was the main purpose of this blog.  I did a lot of changes, in hopes of making the blog easier to navigate.. but I don’t feel that I quite hit the nail on the head.  I have frequently changed my mind about what I want this blog to be, and generally have wanted to be so many thing that it is probably confusing.

I think that a root of this problem lies in Identity.  I want this blog to be honest, even when it’s ugly.  I want this blog to represent me, my voice, my art, and my life.  Identity is something that I have struggled with since I was young.  I think this is also why I have always been fascinated with self portraits, and the idea of transforming myself on a regular basis.  But I’ve grown to realize that identity is not something that is static, I do not have any single identity.  Rather I am (like all living beings) always in flux.  This gives me a better sense of control, knowing that my identity is not something that I need to stamp out into a neat little square, but something that can change and develop with me.  I just need to listen to my own heart, and be honest with myself, and move forward from that.  I just need to be the best that I can be, so that I can be proud of myself when I fall asleep each night.

I’m sure that, to a certain extent, the tone of this post is influenced by my current medical problems.  I’ve been more or less bed-ridden for almost two weeks now, and have not been able to talk very well the entire time.

Oh, and if you love my title, it’s a lyric from Touche Amore’s song I’ll Get My Just Deserve.  It’s a beautiful song, I highly recommend it.

 

E-Di {the Quantum Singularity}

E-Di, was, and still is, a lot of things to me.  He was a best friend, a goof ball, a small heavy blanket, a frustration, he was the silliest cat I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.  He would chase after toys like a dog (and yes, would bring them back to us in his mouth and drop it with that look like “you’re going to come pick this up and throw it again right?” no matter where he decided to drop it).  He moved his tail like a feverish squirrel and was always making so much damn noise (so much so that when he first moved in, we couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t stop meowing, but we quickly realized that he just loved talking).

When we lost our little monster on October 13th, we knew that we would have a void in our lives.  E-Di was one of those kitties that insisted on following you everywhere.  No matter where you went in the house, you were tripping over an E-Di.  Late at night, he would love to sleep on your feet and he never had any qualms about you moving him about while he was sleeping.  As long as he was still with you, he was as happy as can be.

He was part of our lives, and the house is just so empty and quiet without him.  Even Dante notices.  It breaks my heart every time Dante jumps out of a room or around a corner, expecting E-Di to be waiting for him, to pounce and run and play.  Dante spends much more time around us now, and is a lot more hyper.  I guess E-Di was really keeping Dante in check all this time, and not the other way around like we always joked.

I just can’t stop thinking about how little E-Di deserved the pain he endured.  He had all the love to give, even if the love was in the form of licks and bites.  We wanted to bring E-Di into a big city, where he could look out at the hustle and bustle of busy streets and strange smells.  He would have loved having a beautiful view, instead of our grungy view of parking lots.

I know there will be people to read this and consider E-Di to be like any other cat, or to mean little more to us than what most people consider to be pets.  But E-Di wasn’t just a cat, or a pet.  He had his own unique personality, his own preferences, his favourite things, and things he hated.  I upsets to acknowledge that every cat is an E-Di or a Dante, they are all unique little creatures, well aware of those around them, and the capacity to have emotion.  Every stray cat that we befriend, we are simply trying to give them a little bit of comfort.  So many people ignore them, see them as problems or nuisances, and so few see them as anything that is alive.  I bothers me that I could never communicate with E-Di, to tell him how much he meant to me, and that we were trying our best to relieve him of the pain. The thought that E-Di was confused and afraid at the end brings me to tears.

It took me a long time to be able to write this post about E-Di.  I have had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that no matter what I do, I will only visit E-Di in my dreams and memories.  No matter how difficult it is, we need to keep moving forward.  We need to take this tragedy in our lives and funnel it into energy to make our lives better, reach our goals, and make new ones.  E-Di would have never wanted us to become sad sacks, he hated when we were on the computer past 9:30am, and never let us sleep in past 8:30am.  There are so many things I want to say about E-Di, or about the things I have thought about since, but I won’t.  For now, my energy will be put towards other things, and my thoughts of E-Di, life and death, will be contained to my private work.

My partner, who also wrote a post about E-Di (if interested click here), I feels ended it the best and I simply can’t say it better than this:

“My only hope is that billions of years from now, when I’ve become cosmic dust, my ions join with his forming a new star, and that we may be together forever.”

I promise I will carry you in me until the end, in unison.

Your Desperate Friend.