October Eve

That's a sneak peek of a little project I am working on, mainly for my own amusement. I just love the colours. Autumn is such a pretty time of year! My one regret right now is that while I thought about it, I didn't plan to host an Autumn/Hallowe'en exchange. Hallowe'en is my favourite holiday-it was my beloved Gramps' birthday and it holds really good memories for me. I wish I had decided to do it.*sad face*

Anyway...time to update "the list" so here goes:

Reading: I am 17 chapters into Dan Brown's new novel "The Lost Symbol". Usually it doesn't take me very long to read books, but with the chronic headache condition I have, it's become hard to read for long periods of time. On a good day I can still do it, but on a bad day, it's impossible. It's okay though-it just means I savour each book I read that much more.

Watching: All my fav shows are back on except for two. So far I am watching House, The Amazing Race, Survivor, Grey's Anatomy and SO You Think You Can Dance. Rescue Me is on a different schedule and just had the season finale and Breaking Bad hasn't returned yet.

I've tried to follow Heros, I hung in there last season which was painful, but if I am not engaged by this week's ep which I have on tape, then I am going to stop watching. It's just gotten to convoluted (too many superfluous characters) to follow. It's too bad too because the first couple of seasons were so engaging.

Listening: Yesterday Jesse Cook released a new album, "The Samba Frontier" which I promptly downloaded from iTunes. It's a wonderful album if you like flamenco guitar. His music is deeply textured and delicious. I listen to his music in the studio and often when I can't sleep. It's very soothing.

Canadian singer-songwriter Jann Arden also has a new album out, "Free". My favourite track is "A Million Miles Away". I believe she's at the top of the iTunes charts. Way to go Jann!

Anticipating: Thanksgiving is coming up in 2 weeks, along with the Cranberry Fest. I am hoping that the weather is good for that. It's always a good time and a wonderful celebration of the holidays. Our 19th wedding anniversary is also coming up at the end of October, so there's another reason to celebrate!

Dreaming: I am mulling over the possibility of hosting an art circle-sort of a party/art making day with friends. Not sure when I will have time for this, but it's been rattling around in the back of my head for awhile. Food, friends, art, what's not to love about that?

Doing: Working towards finishing a couple projects I have on the go and doing a bit of purging/reorganizing in the studio. My goal is to have all the art want to frame, framed and hung by the end of the year. It mainly requires measuring and a trip or two to Ikea for the big black chunky frames I like. It's one of those things I've been putting off for ages.

Creating: Working on a fall themed project (see pic above) just for fun.

So what are YOU doing? I really want to know!

Leave a post here and tell me!

A Trio Of Things To Inspire

It took me awhile, but here are the pics from the Richmond Art Gallery's annual ATC show. A couple of them are a tad blurry, due to the fact that I borrowed a friend's camera as I had forgotten mine and wasn't familiar with the settings on hers. Most of them came out okay and that's the main thing.

There were tons of really interesting cards and this is only a small sampling. If you are local and want to see more, the show is on till the end of October, so you have plenty of time to see it. It's worth going-there's plenty of different techniques used and I guarantee you will walk away inspired.

I came across this great book the other day. It's also chock full of inspiration so you might want to check it out. It's includes work by the lovely and talented Jan Bode Smiley, who gave me my start in doing work for publishing and equally lovely and talented Stephanie Rubiano, among others.

One other thing I wanted to tell you about is a documentary I rented over the weekend. It's called Running the Sahara and it's amazing. It's the story of three ultra marathon runners who decide to run from the west coast to the east coast of the Sahara Desert, passing through 6 African countries in the course of their journey.

If you are a runner or someone who likes adventure stories or just someone who would like to see the breathtaking scenery of Africa, I highly recommend seeing this movie. I watched it twice. It's not only compelling in terms of what these three athletes were trying to accomplish, but also because you get to see parts of the world that we seldom see or hear about. It was really beautifully done and so inspiring!

Okay, time for me to get busy here in the studio. I have a few projects I need to finish up!

Weekend Snapshot

My friend Tara sent me some love in the mail last week. She created this wonderful piece of work, using stencil and spray paint techniques. Each page is different and it was an unexpected surprise.

Tara's a sneaky one-she kept saying she was making a book for a friend while she was working on it and it never occurred to me that she meant I was that friend. When my husband brought the mail in and handed me the package, I was so surprised.

THANK YOU TARA! It's beautiful and so sweet of you to make this for me. I will treasure it!

My best friend Lisa and I went to Seattle on Friday for a medical appointment she had and we stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home. I am a big fan of their artsy reusable shopping bags. My pals Tina and Pip each sent me one about a year ago that's green and turquoise and has a sort of nautical theme to it. It was love at first sight!

This is both side of the current one they have. Love the colours and art on this one too! The best part is they are dirt cheap-$1.99 each! Gotta love that!

We took Indy to the lake for a swim this afternoon. He loves the water and chasing his water Kongs. He's so crazy for retrieving the Kongs that we found that having two works best.We throw one, he brings it in and we throw the second as soon as he drops the first one at our feet. He just goes and goes and goes! I love watching how fast he is. He looks like a seal and you can hear him chuffing as he swims back with his prize in his mouth. Labs are all heart-they will play till you are exhausted.

Umm..anyone want to roast a marshmallow? Not long after dinner, I heard a fire engine coming and honking madly. That's not too out of the ordinary, as we live near a fire hall, but the honking was a bit unusual. There isn't alot of traffic near the fire hall, so I couldn't figure out at first why it seemed so loud. Then I realized the engine was coming down our street and it smalled to a halt right in front of our house.

I flew outside to see what was wrong and there's this car parked about 20 feet from mine with flames shooting out of it, 5 feet high! Wow! There's something you don't see every day!

Turns out our neighbour was driving home and his car started acting funny. As he pulled up near his house, he smelled something and so he pulled up on the gravel and got out right away to see what was wrong. Smoke was pouring out of his car so he ran in the house to call 911.

It ended up he had to call them twice, as at first there was just smoke and then after he hung up, the car burst into flames. It's a good thing he didn't park in his garage or the house would have caught fire! It took the firemen a good long time to get the fire under control and the smoke was heavy-they all had masks on and at one point, I couldn't even see the three guys who were dousing the car-they disappeared in the cloud of smoke that was billowing out from the hood.

Eventually, they got an axe and popped the hood open and you should have seen how burnt the top of the hood was. You could tell it was a very intense fire. They finally got the fire put out and the car is probably a write off. I am just glad my neighbour was able to get out of the car before he got hurt. He seemed to take it all in stride. He had company over for dinner and they just carried on with their evening. I suppose there was nothing he else he could do really.

Other than that *laughs* my wrist is still in the half cast and hopefully healing, though not fast enough for my liking! I am distracting myself by reading Dan Brown's new novel, The Lost Symbol. It's yummy! There's nothing I love more than a good book and this one is as delicious as The Da Vinci Code. (And yes, I bought a hardcover-I couldn't wait!)

I have to post about the special ATC swap that was filmed for a tv show that I was at on Thursday night. I got a sneak peek at the 2009 Richmond Art Gallery ATC show as well and I have photos! It will have to wait though, as it's hard to type in a half cast. Stay tuned though, it's coming up next!

Out Of Comission

I don't know how, but I injured a bone in my hand/wrist yesterday afternoon. I was in pain all night so I went to the ER this morning. I had an x-ray. The doc said he could not see an obvious break but that that didn't mean anything. A more senior doc will look at the films tomorrow & they will call if he says I need a cast. They splint it. It hurts like h*ll. I may be offline for a bit as typing is hard, but I will be reading everyone's blogs.

The Healing Continues

In memory of

Kenneth Charles Ledee

and with much love, in honour of the Ledee family.

I invite you to take a moment today to remember those lost 8 years ago today and for the families and loved ones they left behind. May they know that we hold them in our thoughts and hearts today and every day.

"Love one another and help others to rise to the higher levels, simply by pouring out love. Love is infectious and the greatest healing energy."

~ Sai Baba

Every Woman Has A Story

As I mentioned awhile ago, Jeanette Janson is hosting a breast cancer fundraiser, "Cups For Cancer" and I said I would contribute an altered bra for the project. I actually committed to this project on the day of my last chemotherapy treatment last month. It just seemed fitting, somehow.

The first thing I had to do was find a bra to alter. I picked one up at the local thrift store for all of $6. It was brand new-the tags were still on it!

I painted the entire bra with two coats of gesso, front and back and let it dry for 24 hours, to make sure I was working on a completely dry surface, as it was a padded bra.

While I was waiting for the bra to dry, I tea dyed some old book pages to cover the bra with. I used Kroma matte medium and painted it on the surface of the bra as well as onto the paper to make sure I had good adhesion. Once it dried, I did another layer over the top to make sure everything was sealed. I papered both side of the bra.

I papered everything but the straps in the first round so I would be able to hang the bra to dry in the correct shape.




As you can see, I also removed the elastic part of the strap, as there really was no way to cover it.

I replaced the elastic part of the straps with black safety pins from Papier Valise and added some letter beads to embellish along with tea dyed vintage ribbon I had.

Then I collaged vintage images onto the bra.

I added some text around the images.

On the straps I collaged text from a medical dictionary.

I embellished the center of the bra with a fabric flower, some beaded fringe and vintage lace.

Finally I embellished this metal text with glitter glue and added it to the center of the bra.

Monday night I carefully boxed it up, along with my artist's statement and sent it off to South Carolina. The show of all the bras created for the project is on September 17th and then the charity auction is on the 22nd. I am hoping Jeanette can send me some photos of my bra at the show.

It's been pretty nerve wracking to create something that someone is going to bid on. It's certainly way outside of my comfort zone, but it's for a good cause. My bra is titled "Every Woman Has a Story" and I've dedicated it to someone whose mother has had breast cancer 3 times and is still fighting. Her courage and resiliance inspired me.

PNE Sand Sculptures

Here, as promised are the sand sculptures from the PNE. This year, for some reason, they hid them way down on the back side of the fair where almost no one goes-it's not a very high traffic area and I think it's kind of a shame because the artists who worked on these did an incredible job and I don't think most people realized where they were.

This first pic is of a detail of one of the sculptures. I just really liked the octopus peeking out from the bottom. It reminded me of Artfest.

Here's a pirate, which my son referred to as "The Johnny Depp one". *laughs* Apparently, pirates=Johnny Depp- there were no pirates before Jack Sparrow in his mind. Too funny!

Mermaid sisters...

A guy in a row boat. The face on this one was just creepy.

Not too sure what this one was...sort of a Tiki/Poseidon theme, I think.

The details on the face of this one is incredible. You'd think they were carving clay the way they got the folds in the skin and the teeth done.

This one is ocean themed and the one that has the octopus on the far side of it. (You can't see it from this angle.)


I think this one is either Mayan or Inca. Either way, it's really something.

THis one reminded me of Alice in Wonderland. I don't think it was, but the girl looks like Alice.

This one was HUGE. Look at the size of the hands!



I love sand sculptures. They are to BC what snow sculptures are to Manitoba, where I grew up. It's really great to see so much art at the fair and I liked that there was a diversity in what was shown-there was something for everyone!

*Did anyone other than me happen to notice that today is 09/09/09?!

Art at the PNE

The Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) was on for the last two weeks here. It's the annual fair everyone goes to. This year they seemed to have alot of great art exhibits.

This is "Container Art" which was an installation inside these giant shipping containers. With Vancouver being a port city, we see alot of these around and it's kind of cool that someone thought to turn them into art galleries.

This is the entryway into the gallery area. There were 8 individual containers that were either open so you could walk right in and look at the art or had the art inside and were like a giant shadow box, so you stood outside looking in.

This is one where you could walk right in. On all sides of the container, were paintings that were similar to this one. Around the edges there was sand and driftwood, creating a beach-like feel to the container.

This is one where you just stood outside and looked in. I loved all the neon, it was really cool.

It had a sort of "Mad Max" feel to it-lots of car parts.


This was one of the walls. The neon light is reflected in the metal of the sun image.


This was on the opposite wall-more car parts. If you look closely, you can see it's the make and model pieces off a variety of cars all assembled together. Amazing!

Another section of the PNE has a competition where people make 3D sculptures from cans of donated food. This is to raise awareness and donations for the local food bank. I liked the earth sculpture. It's made from tuna tins.


Then there was Wall-E...

And a dinosaur hatching from an egg...


And Marvin the Martian....

And then a house which was made by and large from tins of chicken broth and tomato sauce. You just never know what you are going to see at the PNE.

Tomorrow I will post pics of the sand sculptures because there are so many that it needs its own post. The artistry is incredible-I was amazed with what they can do with sand. Wait till you see!