Thanksgiving 2009

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to my fellow Canadians!

Yesterday we went to Fort Langley to the annual Cranberry Festival. It meant a very early wake up call to make it out there for 8:30 a.m. for the pancake brekki, but it was well worth it.

For $5 we got a large cranberry sausage, two regular sausages, 2 large pancakes, juice and coffee. We also get to dine al fresco, which was bracing, as there was a wind coming in off the river, but the sun was shining and the food was delicious so no one was complaining. We took Indy with us, which was fun-lots of folks stopped to pet him and comment on how beautiful he is. (We think so too!)

We did some shopping. There was this woman who had buckets filled with dahlia stems-every colour and petal configuration you could imagine and the flowers were huge. They were $1 a stem so I bought $5 worth and my son bought some for his girlfriend as well.




Aren't they gorgeous?!




We also bought some delicious apples, fresh from a farm to make apple pie.

When we got home, we made 2 impossible pumpkin pies (one for my son to take to his girlfriend's house to share last night)

and an apple pie.

I also made 2 roasters of cabbage rolls with cabbage from our garden. MMM!

It was really nice being out in the fresh air and seeing the leaves changing colour and blowing on the wind. There was a spot where we walked that cracked me up. In front of the cemetery, there is a block long stretch that has huge trees along the boulevard. When the wind blew, horse chestnuts would come pelting down from above. Some of them were bigger than a golf ball! We managed to avoid them, but I warned people coming up the street to be aware that they might get bonked in the head as they made their way along. It was pretty comical.

On an artistic note, I came across this book "Good Mail Day" and had a quick flip through in the store. It was chock full of eye candy, so I bought it. It's got me excited about making (and sending!) some mail art again.

I also wanted to share with you that I got an email from Jeanette telling me that my bra for the breast cancer fundraiser went for $60! The fundraiser was a rousing success. The final tally of all the money raised has yet to come in, but there were 50 bras and they all sold. YAY! I can't wait to share this with the person who inspired the bra I created. I know it will make her very happy.

You can read more about the auction and see some great photos of the event here.

Tomorrow I will kick off a week of special blog posts. You'll have to check back and see what that's all about!

Okay, I am off to stuff the turkey and get it into the oven!

Have a great day everyone!

Art For the Cure Auctions

Photo by Jeanette Janson

So the Cups for Cancer fundraiser is in full swing and this afternoon I got an email from Jeanette saying that my bra had been on TV in South Carolina! Apparently the curator of the gallery took it with her to share on the local news! I wonder if they mentioned it had come all the way from Canada?

Jeanette also sent me this photo of my bra hanging in the show, which was really nice of her, seeing as it would be a bit of a commute for me to attend. *laughs* I did notice that something was amiss though....

The "hope" embellishment has gone astray. I emailed Jeanette and she said she's going to see if she can find it, as it was on the bra when it arrived at her house. Ah well...these things happen! Hopefully she'll be able to find it and glue it back on. Apparently my super duper strength glue has failed me.

On a positive note however, she also informed me that my bra already has bids on it! YAY! That makes me really happy-the whole point of all this is to raise funds for breast cancer support services, so I was hoping it would do well. It's reassuring to know it's off to a good start!

Remember these charms I made for the Ties that Bind ovarian cancer project?

The doll made the cover of Stanislaus magazine, was featured in Art Doll Quarterly (the current issue, on stands now) and also made guest appearances on a couple of TV shows! How's that for exposure? It was finally raffled off and the project managed to raise a whopping $5442!! Isn't that just amazing?

But wait! There's more news!

Remember these charms I made a couple years ago, along with a button bracelet for A Charming Exchange?

Well those charms became parts of these pieces:

And were published it this book:

and now, at long last, many of these lovely pieces of jewellery from the book will be going up for auction on Ebay with the proceeds to go to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, benefiting breast cancer research.

If you'd like to have the opportunity to bid or to learn more about this fundraiser, please visit the Charming Exchange blog for more information and links to the auction which goes live today!

You know, I've always believed that art saves lives and I think it's really an honour to be able to use our gifts to help someone else, even if we never see the ways in which that help manifests. I think of it as tithing to the universe. It's been my sincere pleasure to have played a small part in these projects and I hope that if you can, you will go and bid.

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.