121 Days

Copyright Lelainia Lloyd/Tattered Edge 2011-2012

So this is what an entire course of Getting Through the Grey looks like for me. This is four months worth of work which yielded a total of sixty-six completed images in 121 days. It's really cool to be able to look at it like this and see just how much I managed to accomplish.

A good number of these images are available in postcard form in my Etsy Shop, so if you saw something you liked, it may just be available for purchase!

So what's next? Well my plan is to take a second round of Swan Dive. Since my beloved Picnik is shutting down in mid-April, it's time to make friends with Photoshop and I think with Vivienne's gentle guidance, it may just be possible. (And I'm always willing to keep an open mind when it comes to what's possible.)

Onward!

Save the Date!

Remember I said there would be more exciting art news coming up? Well here it is!  On May 3rd, 2012 Seth Apter will be in Vancouver as part of his book tour for The Pulse Of Mixed Media!

Seth's book signing and launch party will take place at the fabulous  Le Marche St. George, 4393 St. George (at the corner of 28th), Vancouver at 7 p.m. Also attending will be a number of contributing artists from the book, including Patricia Larsen and...ME! Yes, I'm going to be there too! This event will be held in conjunction with Con Leche, an art exhibition including works by both Seth and the Larsen family, Patricia, Janaki, Klee.

YOU are invited and I hope you'll come! Feel free to RSVP here in the comments-I'd love to know who'll be joining us!

I've been sitting on this news for awhile and I'm so excited to be able to share it with you now. As you can see, I've circled it on my calendar. I wouldn't miss it for anything! Only 70 days till Seth arrives! 

If you're not local, Seth has a number of other stops on his book tour. You can learn more here. (And check back often because he said he'll be adding to the list!)

In the meantime, you will also want to mark March 21st on your calendar as well. Seth will be hosting a Twitter Launch Party. Log into Twitter between 9-10pm EST (that's 6-7 pm PST for those of us on the west coast) to have a real time talk with Seth and many of the contributors in the book, including me. More details about this event will be posted on Seth's blog as the date approaches.

Counting Crows

I promise this isn't going to be a melancholy post, though the image I'm sharing might lead you to believe so. I was out at Granville Island on Sunday and captured this photo of a crow, silhouetted against the sky, which as it turns out, make for an interesting image. The quote is from an old nursery rhyme, which I've used once before when creating crow themed art. It goes like this:

"One crow for sorrow,

Two crows for joy,

Three for a girl,

Four for a boy,

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret, never to be told,

Eight for a wish,

Nine for a kiss,

Ten for a time of joyous bliss."

I also came across the Mystery Machine while going down a random side street and yes, it's for reals! A few years ago, they filmed the Scooby Doo movies here and there were actually two Mystery Machines. Someone local obviously bought one of them. I was amusing happening upon it like I did. I certainly didn't expect to see that parked on the street.

I grew up watching Scooby Doo in the 70's. I loved trying to figure out the mystery before the big reveal at the end of the show. When my son was little, it became popular again. (Which also happened with Star Wars when they re-released it.) It was pretty cool that even with the generation gap, our childhoods had some of the same pop culture elements. He dressed up as Shaggy one year for Hallowe'en and for his 18th birthday/ graduation cake, we actually got him a Scooby themed cake as a joke. It had plastic figurines of Shaggy and Scooby and a Mystery Machine van on top. I wish he'd been with me when I saw it in real life. I'll have to see if it's still there next time we're in that neck of the woods.

There's one more week of Getting Through the Grey left. It certainly has helped me continue to shoot, despite the sometimes inclement weather. I'll have to post a mosaic of all the photos I took for the duration of the class when February's over. Boy the time has whipped by!

I'll have some more exciting art related news to share soon, so keep your eyes peeled!

New In My Etsy Shop!

Urban Landscape

Just a super quick update to let you know that I've got some brand new handmade postcards available in my Etsy shop this morning! If you liked Legacy, which appeared in my last post, it's now available to purchase, along with a whole host of new images, including Tapping In , Urban Landscape (pictured above) and more!

Hope you're having a good weekend in your neck of the woods.

Thanks for stopping by!

Some Things I Want to Share

Legacy

Only 2 more weeks of Getting Through the Grey! The weeks weeks have whipped by so quickly. I feel like my time in this class has been really productive. I leaned that I love taking still lifes and in playing around photographing some of my mixed media artwork I've discovered another signature element of my work. Little by little I am finding my voice.

Speaking of finding my voice, I wanted to share a couple of tracks that are getting alot of play in my studio right now. One is this cover of Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to the End of Love. Madeleine Peyroux did a beautiful job of it and now the Civil Wars have also cut a pretty track.

Have a listen:

Another tune I am loving right now is The Wood Song by the Indigo Girls. Last week I was randomly playing music on my iTunes and this one came up. It's been in my library for a very long time, but for some reason, it was like I'd heard it for the first time. It stopped me in my tracks-it was a very "What was that?!" moment. I played it again and then again..and again...The Indigo Girls have long been a favourite of mine-their harmonies are so achingly beautiful and their lyrics are always so thoughtfully crafted.

The other thing I wanted to share with you is that Seth Apter has posted a whole host of events that will be taking place over the next few months in relation to the release of his new book, The Pulse of Mixed Media: Secrets & Passions of 100 Artists Revealed. As one of the artists who appears in Seth's book, I'll be participating in some of those events and I'll fill you in when I have more details.

The book will be released at the beginning of March, (which is less than 2 weeks away!) so if you haven't pre-ordered a copy yet, now's the time to do it!

This Just In!

The good people at the BC Sports Hall of Fame asked me to let all you Blue Jackets out there know that if you were unable to attend the reunion they hosted for us over the weekend, you can still take advantage of 50% off admission (with your Olympic and/or Paralympic accreditation ID) and sign the Blue Jacket Legacy wall until February 28th. They are open daily from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at Gate A at BC Place Stadium.

Honestly, if you weren't able to attend this past weekend, I strongly encourage you to make the effort to go see the beautiful exhibits they've created with artifacts from our Games, whether you're a Blue Jacket or not. It's inspiring and informative and they do an amazing job preserving and archiving the history of sport in our province.

Current Projects

 I've spent yesterday puttering in the studio. I bought this old dictionary some time ago with the idea of gutting it and rebinding it into a journal. Yesterday seemed like the perfect day to do this.

I love vintage Canadiana, which can be hard to come by here on the west coast. Every now and again, I come across something like this dictionary and I snap it up. The only thing that would have made me happier was if the cover was red, instead of green, but it'll do.

After I carefully removed the original signatures inside, I recovered the entire interior of the cover with a heavy weight scrapbooking paper that matched nicely. This helped reinforce the spine and honestly, it just looks nicer.

 The book measures 6 1/4 inches tall x 4 1/4 inches wide, so I cut a wide variety of papers this size or smaller. Some of the papers I wanted to use were smaller to start with and I didn't want them all the same size anyway-it's more interesting when there's a variety.

Some of the pages were made with pages torn from old art magazines. When you pay $18 CDN per issue, you don't just toss the old ones in the recycler! I use the ones I'm not interested in keeping in this way or make envelopes to send art mail in until the whole issue is all used up. Waste not, want not!

I took an initial pass through the journal, gluing bits and pieces that amused me onto some of the pages. This was done quick and dirty-I'll be writing and gluing things in till it's all filled up, so there's no rush. I added some colour copies of some of my favourite photographs to a few of the pages.

More bits from magazines combined with scrapbooking papers. I am a bit of a paper junkie, truth be told.

I also discovered that travel guides and brochures have interesting images of where I live, so some pages were made with bits and pieces from those. Most travel bureaus have websites where you can order free info by mail from just about anywhere you'd like to visit. Free journal fodder is a good thing!

I added a library pocket in the back as a place to stash paper bits for later, if need be. My plan is to use this journal as a catch all. I'm going to keep it in my bag and the idea is to not have it be too precious to use. I'll jot and glue things into it when the spirits move me and not worry to much that anyone's going to see it. (And what I mean about not worrying about anyone else seeing it is that I don't tend to handwrite much anymore. Having lost all the feeling in my hands because of the damage MS has done to my spinal cord, writing is difficult and it just takes too much energy.)

Anyway, that was yesterday's project. Today I am working on completing some digital artwork for The Week As Art project being hosted by Tonia Davenport of Northlight Books on the Create Mixed Media website. The week I was assigned just happens to be March 18-24, which is my birthday week!

Just before I sign off, I wanted to take a moment to say a very heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who commented, emailed and called to offer congratulations, encouragement and kind words about my name being put forward for the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. I deeply appreciate all the love and support. xox

2 Year Anniversary of the 2010 Games

Today marks 2 year since the 2010 Olympics kicked off. It's hard to believe that much time has passed-in many ways it seems like it was just yesterday. This time last year, my teammate, Sharon and I, along with some of the other members of our athletes' marshalls team were trooping around downtown at the 1 year anniversary celebrations. It was a cold and rainy day a year ago. I am so glad that was not the case today!

This morning, the BC Sports Hall of Fame welcomed the Blue Jackets to their brand new 2010 Gallery. It's beautiful-as bright and colourful as the games themselves were and chock full of fantastic artifacts.

It was fun to see the souvenirs they had as well and to see how many of them I collected as keepsakes for myself. These were the Coke bottles and flags from the Olympic Torch Relay. The relay went right past the end of my street at one point and they were handing out the flags and bottles of Coke to everyone who came out to watch. I have 2 different bottles sitting on my dresser and the flag is here in my studio.

The little figures were from McD's, another sponsor of the Games. I think I have the blue bobsleigh on the top left stashed somewhere. I have the packets of Excel gum saved as well-I sewed them into my 2010 ROD journal. (Which you can see here and here.)

The BC Sports Hall of Fame arranged to have a special wall set up for VANOC CEO John Furlong and the Blue Jackets to sign. I think it will become part of the gallery after this weekend.

 (I signed in red on the lower left.)

Mr. Furlong was kind enough to pose for a photo with me, after he presented his own Blue Jacket to the BC Sports Hall of Fame. Soon it will join all the other uniforms that they have on display.

They did a fabulous job of gathering a wide variety of items-everything from torches, to Games time uniforms, to uniforms from some of the athletes from other countries, to a huge collections of pins, to medals and so on. I took a ton of photos, but I really want to encourage you to visit if and when you can. It's really worth seeing up close and personal.

Here's a little video footage of the celebration:




THANK YOU
BC Sports Hall of Fame for hosting us!

While I was there, I met Nadine who worked for VANOC. She very kindly helped me get some photos of myself at the Sports Hall. I usually shoot self portraits, but it's nice to let someone else take the photos sometimes! I had fun hanging out with her and swapping our 2010 stories.

While we were talking, I was reminded that there is another anniversary this weekend. Two years ago, Gorgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili lost his life in a terrible accident on the track up at Whistler. It seems only right to mention it here and to take a moment to think of his family and to remember their loss. He was gone far too soon.

Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal

Yesterday, I was reading an article about a new medal that's being awarded in Canada to mark the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's accession to the throne.

"A new commemorative medal was created to mark the 2012 celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the Throne as Queen of Canada. The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal is a tangible way for Canada to honour Her Majesty for her service to this country. At the same time, it serves to honour significant contributions and achievements by Canadians.

To be eligible for this honour, a person must:

•Be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada, but need not necessarily reside in Canada;

•Have made a significant contribution to a particular province, territory, region or community within Canada, or an achievement abroad that brings credit to Canada; and

•Be alive on February 6th, 2012, the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty’s accession to the Throne. The medal can be awarded posthumously, as long as the recipient was alive on that date."

 Here is a video message about the medal from the Governor General of Canada:

So you're probably wondering why I am posting about this today. Well, this morning, I sat down to check my email and there was an email from the Vice President of the Rick Hansen 25th Anniversary Relay, which said:

"The Rick Hansen Relay is committed to recognizing Canadians who have made a difference in their communities. Given our shared vision of honouring those who make a difference, we have been asked by the office of the Governor General to put forward a select number of names for consideration to be recipients of the Diamond Jubilee Medal.

We would like to put your name forward for consideration by the Diamond Jubilee committee."

I was (and am) completely stunned.

People like Derrell Fox (Terry Fox's brother) and Paralympian Lauren Woolstencroft and a whole host of exceptional Canadians have received this award. Whether the Diamond Jubilee Committee ultimately sees fit to grant me this award or not, I feel so deeply honoured and humbled to even be considered.

Like I keep saying, the most beautiful compensation of this life is that the more you give away, the more you get to keep for yourself.

This is a moment I will hold in my heart forever.

Transition of Light

On Saturday, the temperature got up to 12C here. We took Indy for a walk at a local lake just to get out and enjoy the sunshine. British Columbians are by and large outdoor people.

The light was so beautiful, it was almost heartbreaking. I love watching the transition of the colour of light from season to season. While winter light is blue, spring light is so clear. It's a very clean light to shoot in. The photo above is straight out of my camera.

Things have begun budding here. No idea what kind of tree this is, but when I looked up at the branches, they framed so beautifully against the sky. I predict that if this warm trend continues, before too long we'll be seeing cherry blossoms around town. Vancouver is famous for it's ornamental cherry trees. When they bloom, that definitively heralds the arrival of spring here.

On Sunday, Indy was lying on our bed, basking in a patch of early morning sunlight. He's so adorable when he lies with his head between his paws. I wanted to capture this moment because when the light hits his coat just right, you can see that his undercoat is chocolate, even though he's a black Lab. (Indy's mum was a black and his dad was a big chocolate.)

Again, this photo is untouched, straight out of my camera. I love the warm yellow quality of the light in this one. It gave a natural sepia tone to the photograph. Magical!

Since Indy was putting up with me snapping away, I took a moment to capture his mighty paws. I love shooting small details of an animal-it often gives you a greater sense of them. For me, their beauty lies in the details. 

Precious Little

So this week, I've been playing catch up with my Getting Through the Grey assignments. I have a confession to make: I am not on task. For the last week, we were supposed to be exploring bokeh and here I am working on still life. (Which I think was week one or two...way back in December.) Sometimes you just have to do the things that you are moved to do. There's no predicting when inspiration will strike, nor how it will manifest and I am totally okay with that.

The whole point of taking a class is for the teacher to empower you to find your own creative voice. The idea is for you to gain some new skills and then find a way to integrate them into your own art practice. This is how you know you've taken a really great class, with a really great teacher. (And a really great teacher will support you in following your creative instincts, even if you veer off task once in awhile!)

Yesterday I was shooting little things in my studio. The top image is a frozen Charlotte doll. I thought it would be more interesting to shoot the back, rather than the front.

 

I have this lovely antique sterling silver salt shaker, given to me by one of my partners in the Petite Inspiration Swap at Hallowe'en. It's tiny-only an inch tall and I love the patina on it. Old things have so much soul to them.

Another wee doll, this time a Kewpie, shot from the back. I couldn't resist! There's just something so sweet and innocent about it.

This image is all kinds of nostalgia for me. It's a lumber yard pencil I found in my Gramps' workshop, after he died. His family owned a lumber yard and so he grew up in the business and became a gifted carpenter and cabinet maker. After he was gone, I would go into his workshop to be amongst his thing. It was comforting to smell the wood shavings and see his hand tools hanging neatly on the pegboard above his workbench.

He had three banks of drawers-I believe two were old library file cabinets and one was wide, shallow drawers that could hold architectural plans. All of them were dark wood and well made. I'd spend hours opening every single drawer and looking at the things inside each one. He knew exactly where everything was. (I guess I come by that whole tool and workspace organizational gene honestly.)

I found a couple of these flat lumber yard pencils he brought from Winnipeg when he moved out west. They live in my studio now. It's funny how the most insignificant things become precious.

Olympic & Paralympic Anniversary Celebration

Just when you thought you'd seen the last of my 2010 Olympics posts....

January 11th marks the 2 year anniversary of the 2010 Games and there's going to be a celebration! Yes indeed! The BC Sports Hall of Fame is hosting the celebration at their new digs at BC Place with all kinds of fun activities.

Here's what's happening:

Admission:

If you are a Blue Jacket, you can get in for free with your accreditation ID.

 I think most of us who will be attending will also be wearing our Blue Jackets as well.

If you aren't a Blue Jacket, you can still get in for half price all weekend (this includes guests that come with any Blue Jacket) 

The first 25 kids wearing their 2010 Red Mittens get in for free.

If you follow the BC Sports Hall of Fame on Facebook, you can send them a note detailing why your family is a "Red Mitten Family" for the chance to win a family pass to the Red Mitten Weekend for February 11th or February 12th! Entries are due Wednesday February 8th!

Activities:

Saturday Only:

-Book signing with 2010 VANOC CEO John Furlong from 10 a.m.-12 noon.

-Photo Op with the 2010 Olympic medals.

All Weekend:

-Blue Jacket Reunion

-Tour the brand new 2010 Olympic & Paralympic Gallery

-Red Mitten Colouring Contests

-Go Canada Go! Scavenger Hunt

Sunday Only:

-The museum will be playing the Gold medal hockey game and Opening Ceremonies.

I will be there marking the occasion and it sounds like some of my Athletes' Marshall teammates will be coming too. In the last two weeks, while volunteering for the 2012 Olympic women's soccer qualifier, I've walked by the Sports Hall several times and from the outside, what I could see of the 2010 Games Gallery looked fantastic. I can't wait to see it up close and in person! It should be a very good time and I promise there will be pictures!

Playing Catch Up

Observe

I've been through a busy time of creative output in the last week finishing up my Sketchbook and now I find I'm at the point in the cycle where I need to take a break and refill the creative well.

I've also been busy with the Women's 2012 Olympic soccer qualifier, so I'm a bit behind in my Getting Through the Grey assignments. I'm hoping to do a bit of catch up over the weekend. The weather's supposed to be beautiful. I hope so! *fingers crossed*

In the meantime, here's what's rocking my world:

(Images by my talented classmates.)

1. there is something about nature that takes care of your heart, 2. porch steps, 3. footprints, 4. fossil rock, 5. Queen Anne's Lace, 6. The architecture of plants 01, 7. Black and white with a touch of colour, 8. Row of Trees, 9. Fearless Pup, 10. Viewing the Christmas lights, 11. Morning Light, 12. P1220393.JPG