mom

wellllll.... finished a couple of weeks ago now. but finally scanned.

and just found mari andrews from the always-worth-checking dear ada.

a new light

our old/new house had a previous owner who was very bold with colour. in some ways, it played a big role in my feeling about bear river- i took it as a sign that the community was artist-friendly.

but... these colours weren't exactly a blank slate for us to start our new lives with, and one of the first things we did was go out and buy a bunch of paint called vanilla milkshake. i've had red rooms before, but you really have to want a red room, and starting with no furniture and very little sense of what we had gotten ourselves into... it was all feeling just a little too intense.

so our bedroom is no longer 4-walls-plus-ceiling red with a multicoloured orange/rust/brown/yellow carpet. it very quicky became a vanilla milkshake room with a camel wood floor.

but then you know what happened? we started getting busy. and you know what? most of the rooms are still coloured. red, dark purple with bright pink window trim, ultramarine blue, turquoise. we are so busy- and, i must say, so happy with our lives here- that what seemed a priority when we first moved in has taken back burner.

and then do you know what happened? just today, actually.

the sun came pouring into the little ultramarine blue room that i use as a studio.


and you know what?

i liked it.

maybe that means i'm officially settled in.

a quote

here is a quote from the artful dodger by nick bantock. he's just finished describing a series of random events that have led to him meeting someone who ultimately introduced him to the person who gave him his first illustration job. but he concludes:

"okay, of course you could look back and see hundreds, maybe thousands of those kinds of fulcrums in any given day, but that's the point: The threads of circumstance that lead to tomorrow are so tenuous that all the fussing and worrying about decisions is futile compared to the pure randomness of existence. and i must admit i like that."

the perks of being an artist...

it's so nice that even on a busy (and, i'll admit it, grumpy) day, there are little work stations scattered around the house that remind me that i love my work.

tomorrow is the craft fair... hope to see you there!

library jewel: exit wounds by rutu modan

i just found the book exit wounds by israeli artist/writer/illustrator rutu modan... here are a couple of images...she has an old new york times blog column here.

little update

sorry for the silence... although i guess it's only been a day, from this end, it feels pretty long... after much deliberation, we got jonah the h1n1 vaccine last week. he did fine with it until monday, and had fevers, and now is just a cranky clingy sad little guy.

but good news: there's been massive calendar mailouts going on! and this weekend is the bear river craft fair at the rebekah hall. i'm so excited. i've never been to a craft fair that has a gingerbread house competition and wagon rides! these bear riverers sure know how to have a good time. and look at how beautiful the poster is...something to look forward to!

yearly remembering

can you hear this picture? can you smell it?

for me, the sound and the smell always brings an oh yeah, how did i forget about this? followed by an i think maybe fall is my favourite season.

at least until the first real snowfall, which of course brings its own oh yeah...

but for now: fall.

yes, the brilliant colours have faded, the trees are bare.

but nonetheless: fall fall fall.

a new toy

we went to a teensy weensy craft fair, and look what we found:


a ferris wheel. the man who made it wasn't there... friends of his brought it, along with a merry-go-round, which of course i really regret not getting. i wish i could have met him, and i wish i could pass on his name. i feel a bit of a manhunt coming on, which hopefully in a community this size won't be too hard...

it's so lovely, so much work went into it, and of course jonah loves it. i wanted to hide it for christmas/chanukah/birthday, but couldn't wait.

who doesn't love a ferris wheel? well, besides maybe this worried looking van gogh puppet we borrowed from cousin julius...


i think he'll like it once he gets used to it. the carnie in charge can be a little rough with the spinning sometimes.

lhasa de sela

do you know lhasa? her music, i mean? it is a favourite favourite favourite of mine.

and she has a new album! well, not so new now... came out in april i guess... i found out about it through this blog. i've just heard a bit of it, and it's like her others: passionate, beautiful, honest, solid. she is such an incredible musician. if you ever have the chance to see her live, run, do not walk...

hear some of her music...

it's here... though i haven't seen it yet....

the book that ken and i have pieces in... 1000 ideas for creative reuse, put together by garth johnson of extreme craft.... i can't even begin to imagine the amount of work it was for him to put something like this together. thanks, garth!

a trip to the water

sometimes jonah and i have a different definition of what "going to the water" means...

the beauty of not thinking

it's lovely to think, to puzzle, to wonder, to sort out, to muddle through... isn't it?

but there are many days that i prefer not thinking.

there are lots of activities that you can do that sweep you away, getting you lost in the moment, almost an observer rather than an active agent. watercolours, long drives, and cooking are just a few such activities that spring to mind. but with all these activities, there's a fine line... get too caught up in watching the pretty colours and you could have a serious problem on your hands.

but i think i've found the perfect witness-consciousness activity in embroidery. first i do the drawing, which involves some thinking. but then i trace it onto the fabric- with washaway marker, no less- and i get to just stitch, just watch the lines emerge, watch how they behave. and i love it. and the worst that can really happen is the classic i-just-stitched-my-stitching-to-my-pants, but really, nothing too disastrous or dangerous can happen as you sit and stitch and don't think.


i have to admit that i usually run into some parts that need rework, and they are almost always one of three things: a hand, a foot, or a face. but i can leave them until i have the strength to deal with them, and they can even be undone and redone several times.

and oh, the joy of watching a line... it makes it all so worth it.

the 2010 calendar is available this week!

the 2010 calendar is at the printers and will be ready at the end of the week- hooray!

i've posted it on etsy for pre-order.

for those of you in victoria, it will be available at the out of hand gift show, nov 20-22, at alesha davies fowlie/lovemonkey booth (booth #10).

i had a lot of fun this year making up little monthly activities which i hope you'll enjoy reading, and maybe even try!


they will also be available at the good planet company, munro's books, and she said gallery in victoria over the next couple of weeks. there are only 250 copies being printed, so if you know you would like one, please reserve early!

under the big top

we got a new tent! well, actually we got an old tent...


a perfect little hiding spot.


when kenny and i were first falling in love he sent me an email about having a traveling caravan, him and me, going around the country with a canvas tent teaching art workshops at the edge of town, eating kraft dinner.

well, now we have the trailer, and the tent. but i don't think we'll get that wanderlust feeling for quite a while yet...

a few more new ones

phew! i think that's it. they'll be on etsy soon if they're not already.

fall days

i love the mixed bag that late fall brings...


the rich jewel colours...



and the dramatic mutedness....


and every day is different.

a few days ago after his nap, jonah parted the curtains, looked out the back window, and said, "wow". either he really meant it, or he had heard ken and i say it when we open the windows, or a combination of both.

but yes...

wow.

another new design....

the cover of the 2010 calendar...

more to follow... have a great weekend!

first snow

it was gone by afternoon, but at 7 am a sleepy little bear was talking about boots and jackets and walks...

cross canada trailer

this is it. this is the trailer that took all our worldly possessions from one coast to the other. i only saw it after the fact; i have to say it was not quite what i imagined when ken said "trailer".

but this is the cubic volume of stuff we started with here. there are some things we miss but it's felt kind of good to start with a somewhat blank slate. and already we have much much more than what this trailer could carry...

camoflauge

from coast to coast

what does it mean to grow up near the ocean?


i don't know. i grew up in ontario, nowhere near the ocean.

i hadn't thought much about it until the other day. jonah picked up an acorn ken had given me and said, with certainty: "shell!"


i've spent the past 11 years living close to the pacific ocean, completely amazed and baffled. now we're even closer, five minutes away from the bay of fundy, which has the most extreme tides in the world. i like that- it's helping me understand things a bit. like you know when you want to teach something huge and complicated to a child, and so you make it as simple and exaggerated as possible? that's what it feels like.

i love that already jonah is having such a different childhood than i did. don't get me wrong- i loved my childhood- but it's just so neat to watch him build a whole other conception of what daily life can be.

another move coming up

just a quick post to say that things are happening. some cyber movement. much like our move to nova scotia that was much anticipated but then seemed to happen all of a sudden, ken and i are launching a new site that will have a shop and this blog...

but this weekend was halloween, and that took some time. this shot was taken while mama hastily threw together the final touches on her curtain-remnant costume... the boys were much more organized.

hope you had a wonderful weekend!