the forgotten things

the calendar is ready!

2011-10-13T17:26:00.006-03:00

the cover....

and a few of the new designs.

fall news

2011-09-19T20:32:00.003-03:00

fall is definitely here- and in nova scotia it seems to come with a dampness. i keep thinking of people who i have known over the years who have lived on boats or houseboats, because sometimes it feels like living here is like living on a gigantic houseboat. different, of course, because we're not actually on a boat. just really really damp.

but i'm writing with the news that i will indeed have a 2012 calendar! all the designs are done, now i just need to format it and print it. i'll list it soon for pre-order on etsy. hooray!

yay for street flyers and the people who make them

2011-08-20T22:34:00.001-03:00

i absolutely love these. thank you to alesha for posting them, to the people who made them, and whoever compiled them.

back from the big city

2011-07-02T18:22:00.009-03:00

back from our big trip to amma and pop pop's. such a great visit with family, and jonah now entering serious smithsonian age...
when my parents moved to washington dc i don't think any of us were really expecting it to be so beautiful in terms of the landscape. i don't have many good pictures but it's a lot greener than what i had imagined. certainly has many of the problems you would expect, but there are many great things about it...
and now back to the wonderful culture shock of returning home.

i finally am getting my studio organized and having so much fun with monoprints. so simple and surprising. some also end up being blind- i love that. and i love the moodiness of black and white, playing with the different tones...

absolute rhythm and absolute trust

2011-06-28T20:28:00.006-03:00

as i watched the seagulls, i thought: "that's the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust."

- nikos kazantzakis, as quoted in seven times the sun

a typical spring day at our pond

2011-05-04T18:47:00.003-03:00

mary oliver

2011-05-01T20:02:00.002-03:00

Invitation
by Mary Oliver

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude—
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

— from Red Bird: Poems

found on cloth.paper.string ... thanks for the reminder.

happy easter

2011-04-23T19:02:00.002-03:00

a long overdue update

2011-04-16T09:07:00.011-03:00

i have now joined the ranks of Moms Whose Kids No Longer Nap. for those of you with little ones who aren't here yet, i have to say it's not as scary as i thought it was going to be. but it does change the rhythm of the day, and i'm finding that blog posting doesn't seem to happen.

so here are a few pictures that fill in some gaps from the last couple of months:

jonah continues to document his life...
we had a great winter.

we had lots of good snowy fun...

and in march, we tapped our maple trees, which is pure magic. even though we knew what would happen, it was unbelievable. it was incredibly easy- i encourage anyone to try it if they have access to maple trees. we just tapped three, which meant we weren't overwhelmed with buckets of sap. we probably got just over a litre of syrup. we weren't really going for quantity, just the experience. it was such a lovely backdrop to our days.

jolene has gone to be with other cows and hopefully get pregnant again. we wanted to still be five, so there is a new member of our household:
jonah named her posalie- a name he uses often when pretending to be a dog (or cat or rabbit or koala). posalie tree, actually, is her full name. it is so wonderful to have her. and great for cedar to have a friend.

new spring designs

2011-02-17T16:34:00.004-04:00

there are three new designs on my etsy site. this one i've been meaning to do up for a long time:

this one is something i've felt for a long time but only recently consciously thought of:

and this is something ken said to me about a week ago. he often just offers a few words that are exactly what i need to hear. this has become a bit of a mantra for me when i face a challenge:

soon i will blog again, soon i will! jonah has stopped napping and i'm reconfiguring. he is much more tolerant of me doing activities like dish washing than he is of me being on the computer, which makes a lot of sense to me.

my kitchen as i love to see it

2011-01-10T10:53:00.004-04:00

i love this picture from november: fire in the stove (looks like it needs another log!), lemon balm dried and ready to be put into jars (got a mug right beside me), balloons from ken's birthday, laundry hanging... i love days like this, and many of them are very much like this.

moving to nova scotia has changed so many things in my daily life. more and more i'm becoming aware that the concept of "career" is culture specific and not something that fits with me, even though i am committed to the art i do. i love making things, i love doing art and writing. but i also love just living, and that's as much who i am as anything else. it's easy to use our "work" as an identifier for ourselves, but how can that give a full picture of any of us?

a premature unveiling

2011-01-04T13:39:00.007-04:00

happy new year!

already so long since the last post. busy with holidays, of course, like we all have been. i hope yours were wonderful!
once again my impatience is winning out over my sense of good timing and i would like to announce that i've opened a shop on etsy for my necklaces: www.amyrubinflett.etsy.com
they're the embroidered ones i've been playing with for a while:

i've also come up with the rather obvious realization that if i put clear glass on the back and fabric behind that, they can be reversible:
they're so much fun to do. i have some others on the way that i will post soon. in the meantime, if you go to etsy and type in "welcome" as the coupon code (no quotation marks) you can get a 15% discount!

jellyfish

2010-12-21T21:10:00.004-04:00

i've been embroidering a jellyfish and when i looked for a photo for one, i came upon this:

the work of coe & waito, found on an old post on micromacro.

goodbye, chair

2010-12-18T20:48:00.004-04:00

we're having a bit of a home improvement bonanza going on here these days, with lots for jonah to photograph....
ken has been adding insulation and fake walls- turns out a number of our walls weren't insulated at all! that explains a lot. already we're noticing a huge difference.

i've also decided it's time for me to really properly set up my studio (especially if it's going to be warm enough to work in!). i have some pretty ridiculous things in it. one is this chair that we got for $5 when we moved here:
i loved it and love it. but... it's so far gone i can't actually sit on it. it's been tucked into my sewing table, which has been covered in all sorts of who-knows-what, the sewing machine untouched, buried under the rubble.

so now i have an uglier seat i can sit on, and a sewing machine i can almost see. i even found the manual. yee-haw!

a good friend is guest blogging on best canadian poetry... what a treat!

jonah bear, child phtographer

2010-12-15T17:31:00.002-04:00

a rush to the window to capture the beautiful light was met with jonah's requests to take some photos, inside and out...

festival of lights

2010-12-07T21:29:00.003-04:00

already again... and already almost over. happy chanukah!

winter jolene

2010-11-17T16:39:00.004-04:00

we've now had jolene for almost exactly 6 months. she's so lovely to have as part of our daily landscape, inside and out...

before getting her, i didn't know cows get a winter coat. when it first started coming, i couldn't believe how soft and fluffy it was. she is so nice to pet.

ken has built her a shed, but as her previous owners told us, she's not really that interested in going indoors. today is a good example of a day i would think she would like some shelter, but when i looked out my bedroom i saw this sight:

jolene standing out in the rain, as per usual.

her shed sure is nice, though.

fridge

2010-11-16T10:24:00.000-04:00

getting ready to go out

2010-11-15T18:13:00.005-04:00

before i became a parent, i remember a mom telling me that if she knew she had to be somewhere with her two kids, aged 5 and 8, she started getting ready an hour in advance.

i have been accused of dawdling my whole life, and for a long time i didn't really know what people meant when they said that. when i'm getting ready to go out, i feel like i'm focused, like i'm trying my hardest.

i think i still dawdle, but i have an underlying rushingness to it that doesn't actually make anything go any faster. that's what great about toddlers- they're the opposite: even when jonah's running, he's not rushing. i could learn a thing or two from him.

ana serrano

2010-11-07T18:03:00.002-04:00

her blog is here.

the luxury of cooking at home

2010-11-05T13:56:00.005-03:00

i came upon this quote from the midrash a few days ago:

"when the world was created, God made everything a little bit incomplete. rather than making bread grow right out of the earth, God made wheat grow so that we might bake it into bread. in this way, we could become partners in completing the work of creation."

when i lived in the city, which has really been almost all of my life, i loved restaurants. and cafes. and bakeries. i had no car, no garden, and no confidence in the kitchen. i would often find myself downtown running errands when i would suddenly and simultaneously be ravenous and standing steps away from a delicious something-or-other. i interpreted all this to mean that i wasn't much into cooking.

living here has flipped my situation: i'm often at home, and now have a garden and even a cow right here. fresh eggs from friends and neighbours are always just around the corner. whether it be rhubarb, apples, zucchini- there always seems to be something that can be turned into the perfect treat. and for the first time in my life i'm seeing what i was missing when i was choosing based on convenience: the joy that comes from looking up recipes, anticipating the preparation, gathering wonderful ingredients, putting it all together and then enjoying the results- the enjoyment can last for hours, rather than just the few minutes of eating the single purchased serving.
ken cooks almost all of our dinners, but even so, i'm doing more in the kitchen than i ever have. even if you had told me this before, as i'm sure some of my friends tried to, i don't think i would have fully understood it, or i would have been doubtful that i would ever be that kind of person. i know one of the reasons that it took me so long to live rurally was the fear of how i might feel living away from urban culinary convenience.

we've been here for just over a year now. when we moved, people wanted to know how it felt to make such a big change. what surprised me was how easy it was: it was such an instant feeling of rightness that rather than feeling like an adjustment, it was the first time i felt what it's like to live a life that really fits with who i am. it made choices that used to seem like work feel easy and supported. even after a few days of being here, it became hard for me to picture that i had ever lived any other way.

home again

2010-11-03T20:12:00.003-03:00

hope you had a great hallowe'en! we made it home, jonah is a bit under the weather. we had a great visit and are so happy to be back.

excuse the yellowness, but here is sheriff woody, who graciously amazingly wore his winter jacket trick-or-treating without fuss. i guess when you know in your heart that you're woody, it doesn't matter if nobody else can see your costume.

confessions of a baby sign language mom

2010-10-27T20:43:00.017-03:00

one of the great things about having a blog is the people you meet. i was thrilled when misty weaver of baby sign language asked if she could write an article for the forgotten things. her baby sign language site is a great resource. i hope you enjoy the article!

Confessions Of A Baby Sign Language Mom

When my oldest daughter, Alice, was a baby we used to sign all the time. She picked it up quickly and I could tell she loved signing for her milk and for a story at bedtime. We had fun with signing when shopping and at mealtimes – we had fun all the time! Right up until the appearance of daughter number two…

When May arrived, baby signing went out the window! It just seemed impossible to sign to two children at the same time. I didn’t have enough hands. Alice was a lively toddler – it was hard to hold her attention for a minute – and May needed all my attention, and both my hands! Baby Signing was forgotten for a while and sleepless nights, tiny diapers and extreme exhaustion took over.

But one day, when May was about six months old, I remembered why I had started signing with Alice to begin with. Alice was a difficult sleeper, and I’d read that learning the signs for Tired and Sleepy could really help with bedtimes and naptimes. Alice picked it up really well, and although she never actually signed when she was tired I found baby sign language helped with our communication generally.

May had the same problem. She just fought sleep until she was exhausted – and so was I. One day, when May was crying and I was trying to rock her to sleep, Alice came to stand by my side and made the sign for Tired. “May is tired,” she said. And then she amazed me by saying: “May doesn’t like dark. May sad.” Alice made the sign for sad, and May suddenly stopped crying and watched her sister intently.

Right there and then I knew I had to get back to signing. Maybe Alice and May had a language of their own – who knows? – but Alice had convinced me that Baby Sign Language is the number one way for small children to communicate with their parents – and each other.

It wasn’t easy to sign with two children – it was certainly harder with two than with one. For example, trying to get May into her car seat while holding the door open, not dropping my shopping all over the ground, keeping Alice from running off and holding my car keys at the same time was hard enough without signing too! But there are ways around it. Leave signing for a time when you are sitting quietly together, such as when reading or playing. I built time into our day when the three of us could sign together, using stories and flash cards to help. Alice loved it – I hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her Mommy signing to her – and she loved teaching May the new signs as well.

Although signing with more than one child requires more creativity, it is also lots more fun. With two you have a readymade group, and Alice and May now sign to each other when I’m not around – or when they think I’m not looking! Oh no, what have I done?

mummysam

2010-10-23T16:23:00.008-03:00

i can't quite remember how i came upon mummysam- aka samantha cotterill- i think maybe through poppytalk. i immediately loved her work, which to me has a lovely mix of simplicity and depth.

her eldest son has asperger's syndrome, and she's done some really powerful pieces about some overwhelming experiences he's had in cities...

i loved reading the interview with her on leililaloo as part of the "balancing" series, where she talks about life as an artist and mother. i've read quite a few these days, and always enjoy them, but the suggestions seem to be limited to "get a nanny" (which isn't necessarily feasible or desired for everyone) or "sleep less" (again, not for me). of course these suggestions make sense for some artists, but for me it was so great to hear an artist and mom talk about going with the ebb and flow. she seems comfortable in allowing her art to wait when her kids need her, and knowing that putting her kids first when they are little does not mean her creative self is gone. balance, patience, faith, timing, a sense that there is room for everything... how refreshing to hear.

odds and ends

2010-10-23T16:03:00.004-03:00

here's another link for you: michael hoogeboom's one minute drawings are inspiring and i love the colours.

his paintings can be seen here. painting really amazes me with the patience it takes- it's only been in the past month or so that i've really accepted the whole process of underpainting. i guess that why i do more drawing. if i want to draw a person, i start with the person- in fact i start with the face- in fact i start with the eyes. doesn't usually work.

i also have something exciting that i will post in the next couple of days- and article from a guest blogger! yessir, a guest blogger. i'm so excited about it! the topic is baby sign language, which we did with jonah- it's really fascinating. we got out a signing video from the library and it was a good reminder that this is something worth continuing- and worth learning as an adult. somehow it reminds me of art- a different, nonverbal way of communicating that allows access to parts that words don't quite reach.

and i'll leave you with one quick scan of something i'm currently working on: embroidered necklaces. here are three i started before i left. the copper will have to be soldered with silver- i'm actually thinking of beginning to work with sterling as well as non-sterling. the scan's not great but you get the idea- if you have any suggestions for subject matter, i'd love to hear them!

another link

2010-10-20T22:19:00.002-03:00

still far from home, but today ken sent me this picture:

a new shelter for jolene well under way! hooray! our apple tree looks quite bare- ken, jolene, or the crows? hard to say. a combination, i imagine.

another link i had in store for you is mr. spoqui, a blog of four siblings ranging in age from 11 to 19.

a link from afar...

2010-10-19T21:18:00.003-03:00

hi from washington dc. i'm always a little patchy on the computer while i'm away, but want to try to give you some links to enjoy... first up is diem chau, her blog here and her work here. simple and lovely and original, don't you think?

some fall moments

2010-10-14T14:45:00.003-03:00

ken sees jonah:
i see jonah and cedar:

jonah sees cedar:

japanese american art

2010-10-12T20:39:00.005-03:00

i just found the site the curated object from dear ada... if you can't make it to a museum- or just feel like staying close to home- this site seems to be the next best thing.

i will be going to washington dc again this week to visit my parents and this exhibit- "the art of gaman: arts and crafts from the japanese american internment camps" looks beautiful, important and sad... as is so often the case, so many years later the art is perhaps appreciated but so many of the artists are still anonymous and lost in the shuffle of history.

happy thanksgiving

2010-10-11T14:28:00.006-03:00

how wonderful to have a day that revolves around being thankful.

yesterday evening as the sun went down our table looked like this:

a "turkey" jonah made at his first day of school out of a pine cone and feathers; one candle holder that doubles as the turkey's helmet; another candle holder for our new nightly ritual of lighting a candle and saying thanks for something (usually "thanks for dada making noodles for us") and blowing it out at the end of the meal with a wish (the past few nights "dada have a wonderful life in the world"- !!). a beautiful yellow zucchini from a friend that is now in muffin form, the sheen of buttons from our button blanket, and the ubiquitous thises-and-thats from an emptied bag.

wishing you a wonderful day, hoping your hearts are bursting with gratitude and your bellies bursting with yummy autumn food!

another quote

2010-10-10T13:12:00.006-03:00

"above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. those who don't believe in magic will never find it." - roald dahl

claire loder

2010-10-08T16:36:00.003-03:00

i've just been poking around and somehow ended up at the wonderful work of claire loder...

a plate a day

2010-10-06T16:56:00.002-03:00

oh, how i'm falling for a plate a day! i'm a bit dumbfounded and paralyzed by the array. i highly recommend going there right now.

shifts and changes

2010-10-04T17:30:00.004-03:00

fall is definitely here, both feet standing solid in october. jonah is turning into a big boy, playing complex imaginary games by himself, flirting with giving up his naps.

my days have been a mix of delight and grumpiness. grumpy because, quite simply, it's tiring work being in charge of a two year old; but delighted, of course, because there is really nothing more precious. why is it that the grumpiness can come so easily and the preciousness can take remembering?

today i stumbled upon a favourite definition of yoga from donna farhi: yoga is an awareness of and investment in our most cherished values. yes yes yes. and perhaps this practice takes a lifetime.

art therapy

2010-09-27T13:50:00.002-03:00

i have an article and illustration in the globe and mail today....

a new piece...

2010-09-23T20:58:00.005-03:00

i can't wait to see the rest of the autumn uprising show that ken has put together this weekend in bear river for the studio rally and fall for bear river! up all weekend, opening tomorrow from 3-6 pm...

a few libary jewels

2010-09-18T20:10:00.006-03:00

this last one, joni mitchell's voices, features her paintings and is now out of print. copies are selling on amazon and elsewhere for a cool 300 buckeroos... another reason to be so grateful for libraries.

we're gearing up for events next weekend (sept 25-26) in conjunction with both nova scotia's studio rally and bear river's fall for bear river... should be an exciting weekend. i've been working on some little pieces that should be done soon for posting.

other big news: we officially have a weaned little boy! i was putting it off, fearing all sorts of heartbreak, chaos, and most especially lack of sleep- it was just the sleep time nursings left. i'm so proud of him- it's gone incredibly smoothly and quickly. so nice to know that my worries from outside voices for the past two years (i.e. if you nurse to sleep you will never teach your child how to fall asleep) seem to not stand up to harder-to-pin-down-but-ultimately-stronger intuitive voices (i.e., you know your child and it will be fine). hooray!

some diversions

2010-09-15T18:08:00.005-03:00

are you, like me, trying desperately to hide from monster zucchinis and proliferating tomatoes that you just don't have the strength to face? what a lovely problem to have. if you are searching for activities to fill your days, i have been reminded of two wonderful sites by two wonderful friends. here they are:

first:

and second:

my friend heather recommended swpl to me over a year ago, and i'm so happy to see the list is continuing past the 100 i feared they had stopped at.

have fun!

health and vigor

2010-09-14T18:49:00.002-03:00

a little while ago i found this treasure at bear river's wonderful bargains and books store... i re-found it as i cleaned my studio today. take a look:

it's put out by a company selling some sort of "woman's medicine"... and how correctly (at least in my view) they have assumed that needlework is the perfect activity for "that time of the month".

but perhaps best of all is the back cover:

i think it's so funny... and yet also so true?

before the storm

2010-09-07T09:58:00.003-03:00

we had our first hurricane warning this week. we just got a bit of wind and a bit of rain. but the night before i scanned the sky while cedar sniffed the air...but jonah knew the real action was happening underfoot.

dear ada has moved to a new spot. i don't know how she does it, but i'm sure grateful she does.

videoscope

2010-08-31T10:30:00.003-03:00

yesterday we found a great new item at the thrift store: a videoscope! my own childhood fascination with microscopes led me right to it, but i figured jonah wouldn't be too interested. turns out he loves it... and unlike a traditional microscope, it projects onto a screen, so there isn't even the close-one-eye-and-try-to-look-through-the-hole issue. it's not exactly fit for rigorous scientific research, but i love some of the images that get projected into the darkened room...

joetta maue and momtra

2010-08-27T13:57:00.003-03:00

not on the computer much lately.... but have been enjoying joetta maue's blog. also, through her, momtra, a blog about artists and writers who are also moms... or maybe moms who are also artists and writers? and of course i must add patti smith to the list... just recently was reading an interview with her and she was talking about how she spent the 10 years after releasing horses raising her kids and cooking dinners. and it was with great joy that i came online to see that her new book, just kids, is waiting for me at the digby library.and on cue my babe awakes...

2010-08-20T09:46:00.001-03:00

a sense of wonder, rachel carson

2010-08-03T18:37:00.003-03:00

one stormy autumn night when my nephew roger was about 20 months old, i wrapped him in a blanket and carried him down to the beach in the rainy darkness. out there, just at the edge of where-we-couldn't-see, big waves were thundering in, dimly seen white shapes that boomed and shouted and threw great handfuls of froth at us. together we laughed for pure joy- he a baby meeting for the first time the wild tumult of oceanus, i with the salt of half a lifetime of sea love in me. but i think we felt the same spine-tingling response to the vast, roaring ocean and the wild night around us.

rachel carson, a sense of wonder

library jewel from afar: the inner world of farm animals

2010-06-15T20:51:00.001-03:00

a wonderful, beautiful book. makes me teary.

on the road again...

2010-06-09T14:56:00.003-03:00

... or at least in the air again. off to visit my parents- and even attend my nephew's 6th birthday! exciting. but i have to say that this place is hard to leave...

have a great few weeks!

what to do with rhubarb leaves...

2010-05-31T19:43:00.002-03:00

in jonah's words: "go be leaf boy cuz it's so funny and so cool!" couldn't have said it better myself.

she's heeeere...

2010-05-27T13:10:00.002-03:00

meet jolene...

and spring begins to blend into summer...

2010-05-24T13:38:00.004-03:00

with lots of time roaming outside...

and in...

a may evening

2010-05-17T20:06:00.004-03:00

such a nice night tonight...

until i saw this:

a note on scale... cedar is a very very big dog.

when jonah saw these bugs he said "bugs big like me!"

anyone know what they are? i was partly fascinated, but equally squeamish thinking of them procreating and having thousands in our backyard... that bigger one was over two inches.

ok, better stop thinking about them now. but would love to know if anyone knows what they are...

a moment

2010-05-14T19:15:00.001-03:00

making room

2010-05-14T14:27:00.006-03:00

do you ever vaguely plan for something, vaguely dream of something that you would like to see happen? something big, something that hovers just on the edge of not-really-possible and maybe-actually-possibly-possible? and have you ever had it happen that this dream, seemingly out of nowhere, begins to take form?

well, it seems, out of nowhere, we are getting a cow.

it's not totally out of nowhere- we have been thinking and hoping and dreaming for quite a while. and we don't have it yet. we don't have the fence or the shelter. and yet the wheels are in motion and things seem to be aligning themselves and at this point it feels as if the momentum is just carrying us along.

so rather than it being the long, complicated, drawn-out, maybe-this-just-isn't-going-to-work process i assumed it would be, it looks like we're maybe hopefully probably getting a cow.

and she's beautiful.

this is a photo from last summer, from her current owner. it seems to capture her- gentle, curious, friendly, funny.

milk, anyone?

garage sale find

2010-05-05T08:24:00.004-03:00

i love this pillow- i got it this weekend at a garage sale. the woman i got it from said that a friend of hers made it for her many many years ago. i love the off-kilter scale of it! i wonder if she used a pattern or made it up. i wonder if either of them were spinners....

ohdeedoh

2010-05-04T15:40:00.003-03:00

do you know ohdeedoh, the kids' arm of apartment therapy? it's a great blog with lots of beautiful pictures and amazing ideas of things you can make for kids.

and... today they've posted about my embroidery! you can see the story here. what an honour!

orange and yellow

2010-05-04T12:37:00.012-03:00

when did you first start noticing some of your child's preferences?

when jonah first started colouring, he would always choose the orange and the yellow crayon, one in each hand. even now, one of the giveaways that the work is a genuine jonah piece is that it's orange and yellow. the first time the orange got lost, as it was bound to, and he asked to colour, i brought out the crayons sans orange. he wanted nothing of it. to this day, it is not unusual to see him walking around with orange and yellow crayons, markers, or chalk, one in each hand.

so, slow as i sometimes am to catch on, i only noticed this once he started colouring. but when did it start? the other day i remembered his very first favourite toy- a stuffed monkey from my friend kelly. he started loving it when he was around 3 or 4 months old. it was tragically lost somewhere in our travels, but it was, indeed, orange and yellow.

is this a coincidence? does he love orange and yellow because of how much he loved the monkey? or was the monkey favoured because of its colouring? i wonder...

part of what i love about being a parent, and about children in general, is all the wonderings they bring up for me. i don't even really care what the answers are- it's just nice to wonder, and to remember sometimes that this thing called life is a pretty mysterious, beautiful thing.

nerdy baby by tiffany ard

2010-05-01T13:29:00.005-03:00

it's been a long time since i've come upon a blog or website that made me laugh. like, you know, really laugh, like oh-shoot-i-hope-i-don't-wake-up-jonah laugh. and this was just someone's profile and business concept.

it happened just now on tiffany ard's profile. that's right, just a profile, and i'm gaffawing away. she is the creator of nerdy baby, which also made me laugh. A is for atom, B is for binary code... i love it. finally flash cards that don't pretend they're not completely ridiculous for babies!

self portraits

2010-04-30T16:16:00.007-03:00

jonah has been fascinated with my camera since he was a very very very small baby, which meant most of his early photos were of him lurching forward with his famous furrowed brow. but he now seems ready to finally take some. here are some first attempts at self portraits (with a bit of help from mom):

yup, that's his sleeve in the second picture!

speaking of pictures of kids, there are some lovely child portraits in the green hour pool on flickr... a pool inspired by the national wildlife federation's movement to get kids outside for unstructured play an hour a day. their site is here, and now it's in book form too...

cathy cullis

2010-04-20T22:18:00.004-03:00

the forgotten blog. gone, but not forgotten... i'm just away right now. but in the meantime look what cathy cullis is up to... beautiful "mixed media embroidery jugs"... her blog is here. she is also a poet.

see you soon...

just another day in the life of a two-year-old...

2010-03-30T17:07:00.001-03:00

omnivorous parenting

2010-03-27T15:02:00.005-03:00

i'm a vegetarian. have i ever mentioned that here on my blog? there are many wonderful reasons to be a vegetarian, and i feel good every time i think of them. but, when i think about it honestly, none of them are the reasons why i am a vegetarian. i'm a vegetarian because it works for me.

i'm still nursing jonah. there are many good reasons to breastfeed your child; you don't have to look far to find out about them. on some days i feel like that is why i am nursing him. certainly it's part of it. but there is one big main reason i nurse him: it works for us. my milk came in, so that's how it was possible in the first place. apart from that, well... i feel good about it being good for him; but i was also too lazy to make him bottles as a baby. some moms i talk to weren't able to stick with the pain that sometimes accompanies the first few weeks of nursing. i happen to be a person who would rather take some physical pain than stumble down to the kitchen in the middle of the night and mess around with formula.

i read a really incredible book lately that i'm still processing:

a friend of mine told me about it years ago, and was still being affected by it years later. now i know why. to put it in an extreme nutshell, one of its main themes is about stepping out of the paradigms that we've got set up in this world, stepping out of a continuum that runs from "bad" on one extreme and "less bad" on the other.

and then i read another great book:

jane bartlett, a woman who is so devoted to mindful parenting and fostering spiritual development in children that she has written a book about it, suggests things like tv can be watched for no other reason than that it's fun, and bravely wonders if her desire to get her children natural toys has more to do with her own "fashion sense" than the needs of her kids.

i am growing weary of thinking of my own parenting behaviour as either "good", "less bad", or "more bad". tv has fallen into that category perhaps more than any other. on exhausted days sometimes i see it as "more bad", but not "as bad" as if it was on all day; and certainly "less bad" than me being exhausted and short tempered with jonah and ken. a day without a dvd, of course, is "good".

but why do i look at it like this? is it just one extreme, or the other, or somewhere in between? does everything have to be held up to a golden measure of one certain parenting school or another? it feels to me like for almost every parenting situation, there is a third way, one i can't really articulate yet- and, i'm sure, a fourth way, and a fifth, a sixth, a seventh...

i realize this post is a bit rambly and half baked. do any of you out there have a glimmer of insight into what i'm struggling to nail down here? any thoughts, words of wisdom or clarity?

in the meantime, i come back to the parenting advice i have probably received more than any other, usually by parents with now-grown children:

do what works.

emergence

2010-03-14T15:45:00.009-03:00

i've been down a rabbit hole lately. a kenny-is-in-singapore rabbit hole. a wow-jonah-is-a-different-child-when-i'm-not-multitasking rabbit hole. a now-it's-warm-enough-to-be-outside-indefinitely rabbit hole. a holy-cow-i'm-teaching-three-days-of-workshops-at-ross-creek-in-a-few-days rabbit hole.

but mostly mostly a what-a-wonderful-thing-to-be-jonah's-mom-in-early-spring-in-bear-river rabbit hole.

there is lots of grass showing on our property now, and the snow has compacted down so we can walk on top of it, as if we're wearing snow shoes. things are showing up: everything from antlers to long forgotten golden soccer balls. with the plants still retreated, this is the first time since we've been here that we can easily walk every nook and cranny of the 5 acres...

jonah has taken to lying down on his back, looking up at the sky, and saying "woooooooooowwwwwww!"

we've found some new favourite spots, one in particular that i will eventually try to photograph and post here, but i'm still reeling from its beauty and wildness.

jonah has new rubber boots, and his snowpants are now snowpants/mudpants/tidalpoolpants. he wakes up from naps and sleeps with the same request every time: "walk outside?"

i love that spring here isn't the sudden presence of flowers like it is on the west coast; it's the gradual retreat of snow, the slow growing of hope and trust. it still might snow again, but things are in motion. it's wonderful.

pirate jonah

2010-02-26T19:17:00.003-04:00

yes, construction paper rips easily, but not when it's covered in packing tape....

herbert pfostl

2010-02-25T18:47:00.003-04:00

a re-find- don't you love that? when you find what you think is new art, and it is, but then when you start following all the links you realize it's an artist you've admired before?

the artist this time is herbert pfostl, and this is one of the images that i loved this time:

an experiment

2010-02-24T15:31:00.007-04:00

one of the main reasons i started doing my illustrated words is because there are so many little life lessons i learn... and forget. like, instantly. but when i remember them again, life seems to go a bit smoother. so i've been trying to think of ways that these wisdoms we all carry can bring themselves into our daily lives. what do we do every day, maybe even multiple times a day?

aha! drink! at least we're supposed to. that's yet another thing i seem to forget to do often, that seems to support a happy, healthy existence.

soooooooo.... i'm starting little limited lines of various vessels (oh yeah, and magnets, because sometimes drinks go in the fridge) of my designs. the plan for this experiment: one design a month, to be announced on the first of the month. wooo-hoooo!

but i'm not a patient person! maybe you're not either? so let's cheat for march......... let me introduce it now.

march's design will be... dum da dum...

the breathing one!

you can see the full selection here or by clicking on the "this month's vessels" link on the right. hooray!

a feb. 26 note: i'm a bit new to cafepress and still figuring out how they work exactly.... but i just noticed that there is a canadian site... which seems to give a really horrible exchange rate on what i have posted! if you are from canada, i would recommend checking both .com and .ca before placing your order to get the best deal. thanks!

artist money honey

2010-02-23T12:14:00.005-04:00

i've spent some time over the past few days looking into grants and funding. i have been delighted to find a few things out there that are works of art themselves, in my opinion:

first- kickstarter. you go online and pitch your project and backers can support you. you can't offer money in return for their investment- you have to offer something else, usually artistic in nature. another catch: funding is all or nothing. projects have 90 days to reach their target. if they don't, none of the pledges come through. it's a whole lot of fun to browse through, and i can even afford to back some- most start with pledges as low as $1-$5.

the second one that i just love is service-works. meet josh greene, one of the world's many artist/servers. dear creative josh has decided to give one night's worth of tips a month to someone for their art project.
inspiring, huh?

a few more new cards...

2010-02-20T13:17:00.005-04:00

i love black-eyed susans...

and peas...

i guess i've been thinking about the garden, and people from before-i-moved-here, some from much before...

because i feel i may be misleading you...

2010-02-18T11:58:00.007-04:00

... i think you should see how jonah is sleeping as i write this:

i know it's hard to make out, so let me be clear: my son, my firstborn son, my perfect angel, is asleep in the new wonderpets shoes- and their box- that i just bought him at walmart. "hug the box"- that was his naptime request. at least we got to read brown bear, brown bear.

before i became a parent, i decided that i did not want to be dogmatic about anything. i thought that could only lead to no good. for a while there, it was pretty easy; i was still mostly in control.

but now he's two. he's becoming more articulate about what he cares about, less willing to play with things i pick out for him, less willing to do things my way. it's cool; i love watching his little self emerge.

jonah loves peas. he loves animals. he loves the colour orange. he loves icicles and he loves swimming.

he also loves diego. and dora. and elmo. and pablo. and gabba. in short, he loves- perhaps above all else?- mass marketed licensed characters.

before he had ever even seen a children's television program, he was straining towards elmos in stores, he was bending down to get a closer look at some child's diego shoes. once before we went to visit my parents, when he was only 8 months old, i brought him to a lovely little local book store with a great kids section. i wanted to get him something to keep him amused on the plane. i let him cruise around and choose a book. what did this baby, this infant, go back to over and over? dora's easter egg hunt. his little baby heart was set on it. by the time he was 14 months, he was literally chasing children who were wearing characters on their clothes.

jonah's toys can be divided into two categories: toys i like and toys he likes. there is some overlap, of course; but he loves characters. the reason he has new wonderpets shoes is because he was out at a thrift store with ken; he found a pair of spiderman shoes that were smelly and 4 sizes too big; he wore them home and wanted them on all the time, even in bed. i didn't feel ok with this. the compromise? going to walmart and buying a brand new, sweatshop-produced but not smelly and mostly-properly-fitting pair of shoes with some other licensed character on them.

the books, clothes and toys are produced in ways i can't feel good about. sometimes we find them second hand, which is better, but they are still... well, they're not exactly objects of beauty, these toys. but are wonderpets the most evil thing a child could become attached to? of course not. i even enjoy them sometimes. and i find it's a great role for his grandparents and aunts and uncles: suppliers of the best presents.

seagulls

2010-02-16T14:37:00.003-04:00

i've been thinking of seagulls again lately. i haven't seen many here. i keep forgetting and remembering that i've only experienced a fall and winter here... will they come in the summer? i assume so; they are, after all, sea gulls.

they can be so annoying, but i miss them. i took some photos of them around this time of year in victoria and i find myself going back and back to them recently:

funny the things you find yourself missing.

happy other anniversary, sweet man

2010-02-14T16:33:00.002-04:00

whip it

2010-02-12T13:38:00.005-04:00

oh, how i worried my high hopes for this movie would be dashed.

nope.

it's a wonder i was able to get even a wink of sleep last night.

i wonder how my life would have been different if i had seen this movie at 17... i think i missed my calling. at the very least i think i would have been very good at falling down and tripping people...

a coupla new illustrations...

2010-02-11T13:37:00.006-04:00

i've been feeling like my birthday cards needed some freshness so i've done a couple of new illustrations:
you know what just occurred to me recently? that people do sales. so... i'm going to do a sale on these new designs for the rest of february, 20 % off! woo-hoo... i know i've been doing cards for a while now, but i still feel kinda new at this.

and on a little online wander for cupcake art, i came upon mark johns' blog... another artist and parent from victoria whose work has been at studio 16 1/2. his little drawings remind me of cupcakes...

out the window

2010-02-10T14:27:00.003-04:00

i love looking out our bedroom window, seeing the same landscape change moment to moment with the light...
makes me think of the whole never-step-in-the-same-river-twice thing.

creating a series of books feels similar. i liked the familiarity combined with the chance to make something new.

oh, how i love books...

2010-02-06T15:33:00.006-04:00

last week i shipped off a package of artist's books to eyelevel gallery in halifax for a book show. shows are so good for creating a reason to get things done, and getting things done is a good way to remember how fun it is to make things, to bring projects to completion, and then to generate a million ideas for what to do next. here are a few pages from a little book i'm calling familiar songs to sing along to:
it was so fun to combine writing and images, to create these imagined characters. i said it was an edition of 20, and i only finished 3, which means i guess i get to make 17 more...

i recently came across a wonderful quote from bean gilsdorf, an incredible contemporary quilter from portland: I have no idea why i am an artist, but now that i've started, i can't stop.

a link to naoko ito...

2010-02-03T13:51:00.005-04:00

i love this beautiful and complex-yet-simple installation by naoko ito... i would love to see it in real life.

snow snow snow

2010-02-02T16:43:00.003-04:00

winter continues to delight and occasionally daunt. but jonah sees snow and not the little numbers that are currently at the bottom of my computer screen ("-13" and "feels like -24")... so out we sometimes go... and wouldn't you know the feeling is never as bad as the numbers. thanks for getting us out, jonah!

i've been working with a deadline that has now been met so i hope to post more this week.

count cake

2010-01-27T13:08:00.008-04:00

where to begin after an absence? never quite sure. but i guess i'll begin with today...

well, yesterday actually. well, around a week ago, really. jonah turned two and we had a little party for him at my parents' place. it was great.

we didn't know what to do for him back here... party or no party? we knew we wanted to mark the occasion. i wanted to try to make him a cake, a fun one that he would love, but without all the synthetic dyes. it was fun to try to think of something natural but vibrant to colour icing with. my first thought was blueberry, so i tried to think of something purple jonah would like, and came up with the count from sesame street. i told him and he approved; it was a fun thing to talk about and anticipate together.

yesterday was the day. we went and got flour for the count cake, which proved to be very exciting in and of itself. jonah loves to bake and cook but i wasn't sure how much of the process to do with him. in the end we did the icing "dying" together- blueberries for purple, strawberries for pink, chocolate for brown, and left some white. we mashed and stirred and had a great old time.

the count is sort of a supporting character, isn't he? i thought by going through some of jonah's books i'd come across a great picture of him, but had to work from a teeny tiny profile-view sticker i found in one of his activity books. i'm always so surprised when i actually sit down to draw something i've seen a million times before: i almost always have a very different picture in my head. how does that happen?

it's with stoic pride that i tell you i iced the whole cake with a butter knife, but the pride is tempered when i realize it's only because it didn't occur to me to use or make any more appropriate tools. but even with such humble and rudimentary beginnings, the count did appear:

kinda speckly on account of the fork-mashed blueberries, but you can hardly tell in real life. just don't tell jonah i didn't do a monocle. oh, and don't tell ken that after the cake had been baking for 10 minutes i realized i had only put in 1/2 cup of flour instead of 1 1/2 cups- i thought the batter seemed a bit runny- and so i took out the cake and added a cup of flour to it. maybe i should have gotten jonah to help...

a sheepish hello

2010-01-22T16:08:00.002-04:00

... from someone who did not have nearly as much time on her trip as she thought she might.

i'm home now, and today is jonah's second birthday. my blog will resume in the next few days. hope you've had a wonderful 2010 so far!

shapeshifter

2010-01-02T12:21:00.003-04:00

aaah, winter.

i forgot its everchangingness.

a few days ago our outdoor adventures were very much around tracks. so many creatures, so many footprints....ken said, "you know when you don't really clean but you just paint a coat of white paint? that's what a snowfall does." that's what's been happening... lots and lots of snowfall.
jonah's such a good sport about it. the wind bugs him a little but if we say that it tickles he seems to accept it and get over it. and then the fun begins...
... with the occasional snow-in-the-face/sleeve/neck grimace....

we're leaving town for a couple of weeks to visit my parents. my plan is to have some links for you...

happy new year!

our family is now five....

2009-12-23T09:58:00.009-04:00

the eyes are apples from our trees. the mouth is birch bark. i can't remember the last time i built a snowman...

can you see the jonah-height addition of the tree branch?

this morning he's looking a little droopy.

but jonah's keen. our yard may end up looking like this...

(image from the sapporo snow festival by kozyndan on flickr, found through pink tentacle.)

artists who blog

2009-12-22T13:44:00.006-04:00

i have just scratched the surface of this blog by stephanie levy but i am loving it:

what fun, what fun! a perfect way to spend a sit-down with a cup of tea.

and if you're more on the craft side of the ever-blurring art-craft continuum, stephanie also has a more family-oriented, crafty blog here.

puppy love

2009-12-19T07:52:00.001-04:00

i love catching jonah and cedar sharing intimate moments... not only does it warm my heart, of course, but it makes me proud of both of them to see them being so gentle with each other...

thanks for being such a great doggie, cedar! we love you.

handmade chanukah

2009-12-18T15:41:00.008-04:00

tonight is the last night of chanukah... it always makes me so sad! lighting the menorah is such a lovely ritual, and by the eighth night it's really become part of the evening. and every night is one more candle, making it that much more beautiful...

the past 2 or 3 years i had a clay menorah i made in a kids' class i was teaching, and two of the girls painted it pink and orange. ken brought it but it didn't survive our cross-canada trip. but ken made one out of part of an old wheel found on our property.... hooray!

now the only thing missing was candles. you can use birthday candles in a pinch, of course, but they're so... birthdaycandleish. know what i mean? a birthday candle is a birthday candle is a birthday candle no matter how and when you use it.

but... after brainstorming a while, thinking of where we could buy some or the best way to make some, ken came up with the idea of dipping them in beeswax... see how handy a vat of beeswax is? his and mine came out quite differently:

sort of like if you've ever seen his embroidery and my embroidery- his has a serious substance to it. i opted to just dip mine, but he dripped wax on top of his as well. i held my wicks in tweezers, he used a bulldog clip.

his of course burn much more beautifully and much longer, so we've been saving his till the end when the menorah would be the fullest and we'd be wanting it to last longest.

and here we are at the end... happy chanukah everyone!

handmade holidays....

2009-12-15T16:37:00.005-04:00

... although maybe "makeshift holidays" describes it better?

a funny lovely little fog i've been in lately... but trying to get ready for chanukah (which we're in the middle of) and christmas (which is new to me). how, oh how, do you decorate a christmas tree? i've never done it before this year. what did we have in terms of supplies? not nearly as much as we did before our cross canada trek...

but...

i'm slowly working on these portrait stories using covers of a book. what a waste to just use their pelts... what to do with the inside of the book?

christmas decorations, of course!

one example: a star cut from a book page, then dipped in beeswax. if you're not the type of person who has a vat of beeswax lying around, they sure are handy... i recommend:

finding a local bee farmer who has wax to spare for relatively cheap;
getting a second hand crock-pot or deep fryer;
keeping the temperature about 250-300 degrees (if it's smoking or sputtering, turn it down!)
committing a brush to the wax (you can re-melt it and use it over and over);
play play play as the sweet smell of honey envelops you....

i will post a few more pictures of a few other ideas over the next couple of days... wait till you see the menorah ken made us!

another artist...

2009-12-13T11:10:00.005-04:00

things are in a bit of a strange fog here these days... jonah was under the weather and i'm just trying to figure out the what-next question that comes after the holiday art/craft season.

but... i recently came upon the work of jylian gustlin and really love it.

school and books

2009-12-10T19:19:00.003-04:00

how is it already thursday evening? how does that happen?

i guess part of it for me was that i got to do a brief artist visit to a class of fourth graders courtesy of the wonderful ross creek centre for the arts. it was wonderful and so inspiring and very fun to prepare for... the topic was one-of-a-kind artist books.

and speaking of books, check out the wonderful work of su blackwell, found again via my love for you is a stampede of horses...

beginnings after endings

2009-12-07T08:41:00.000-04:00

the holiday rush, in the professional way, is slowing down... and that means i can think about the holidays as a regular civilian. this means two things: gifts and fun. and for me, both of those things mean making things...

i have been kept awake at night with half-baked artistic plans, some for gifts, some just for art. i am slowly beginning to piece some together... and it's sure a lot of fun.

thank you...

2009-12-06T08:40:00.002-04:00

... to a very sweet husband and dada who took a very excited little boy out at 8am, leaving mama inside with some tea, gazing out the snow streaked window, taking a moment to collect herself for the day...

the beauty of the details

2009-12-05T09:04:00.003-04:00

do you ever have trouble sleeping? i do sometimes. i was up a while last night and found my notebook from when jonah was a baby. i feel like i remember it so clearly but it was so different to see what i was writing at the time. one passage from when he was around five weeks struck me especially:

he sounds like: screeching tires; a baby ostrich; a baby pterodactyl (less and less)

he looks like: he should be growing out of the ground; a perfect loaf of bread

he feels like: california poppy petals (stomach especially)

new things: always holding something (edge of sleeper, my shirt); always rubs gums along hand, clothes, blanket; DEFINITELY smiles; leg push off game; smiles at being kissed on lips

oh, these little details! a lot of my writings were late at night. at the time i used to try really hard to appreciate it, and now i do i do i do.... i know i was tired but i loved having that extra time with him in the night.

oh- and now i hear a big boy saying "mama- finished; mama- help"... and i know one day i will relish whatever small task i'm about to go do with him. thank you jonah!

the beauty of in-betweenness

2009-12-03T13:28:00.003-04:00

i'm slowly remembering what it means to have a snowy winter. you know, the details... frozen locks, wearing multiple pairs of socks, frost on the windows.

but today i am remembering the time just before and just after a snowy winter. today i asked a 3-year-old in jonah's play group if she had snow at her house, and she said not yet. i was so struck by the "yet"... the waitingness for something that will certainly happen. it's not what people say on vancouver island.

and the time i spent on the west coast i missed that. snow didn't come often, and when it did, it came with very little warning and was gone within a matter of hours. and spring- well, spring was not preceeded by a longing, a daydreaming, a frustration- one day there would just suddenly be flowers. i was mistrustful, confused and unprepared. i had not spent time relishing what was to come.

so on this rainy thursday i'm enjoying both the rain and the anticipation of snow. every moment of anticipation just seems to build my excitement for it.

outside

2009-12-02T10:48:00.007-04:00

i first heard of the green hour in the spring, when the weather was easy and we were out a lot. i couldn't imagine finding it hard to spend an hour a day just being outside. but with work being busy, jonah working through a reaction to a vaccine, and things getting a bit more chilly before winter wear has been perfected... well, we hadn't been outside much in the past week.

today was supposed to be a playgroup morning, but for the first time ever, jonah cried and cried, saying "home". in the car there he was asking for a walk, so we were going to walk around before the playgroup. but... we had a light dusting of snow on our property, and there was no snow near the playgroup... so it didn't go well. we didn't stay more than 10 minutes.

i was frustrated on the way home, but you know what? he was right. it had been a while since we just wandered around outside, and i think it did us both good. it was a good reminder.

here's a bit from the green hour website:

About Green Hour

As a society, we are raising the first generation of Americans to grow up disconnected from nature.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that the steps that got us here are easily traced, and the way to work toward reversing them is clear.

Most importantly, by giving our children a "Green Hour" a day -- a bit of time for unstructured play and interaction with the natural world -- we can set them on the path toward physical, mental, and emotional well-being. And at GREENHOUR.ORG, you'll find inspiration and ideas to do just that. Each week we publish a fresh issue full of activities and information to help guide the exploration and focus on fun.

library jewel: expressive handmade books

2009-12-01T11:44:00.011-04:00

i got this book out after passing it over several times at the library... the cover didn't really jump out at me. i know, i know, i know what you shouldn't judge a book by... but i do it all the time anyway.

but i finally picked it up, and it's wonderful. alisa golden has really made some wonderful books...

and has some wonderful things to say.

here is a quote:

"find something that interests you today. take a walk. birds, overheard conversations, and the shapes of houses are among the things that may stimulate your interest...

"i was having trouble beginning any kind of project. i kept hearing 'Anything' in my head and decided to let go of my desire to make Something Important and just make Something. 'anything' turns out to be the correct answer. make Anything and it will be Something. when you work, your style and your mood will shine through, no matter what you make."

[an anything from my sketchbook...]

mom

2009-11-30T11:10:00.003-04:00

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

2009-11-29T14:41:00.005-04:00

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

2009-11-28T14:34:00.000-04:00

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...

2009-11-27T17:15:00.000-04:00

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

2009-11-26T20:12:00.000-04:00

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

2009-11-25T16:37:00.001-04:00

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

2009-11-23T13:26:00.000-04:00

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

2009-11-22T13:10:00.000-04:00

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

2009-11-21T19:08:00.001-04:00

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...