toronto vs. nagoya.

pictured here is my submission for the toronto vs. nagoya show that my pal saddle kobayashi is putting togeter in conjunction with city of craft.

it's pretty exciting. saddle and i settled on the idea that everyone should submit artwork that was 4" square (and not too deep) to save on wall space and shipping charges.

when i embarked on this whole journey, i thought i was going to do something that combined my newfound love of quilting hexagons with paper and ink. in the end, everything i made looked totally terrible so i just stripped down the idea, and came up with these ink and thread illustrations that satisfied my eyes. it was all kind of manic and strange but in the end my deadline panic seemed to result in something new that made me happy. how could i forget the most repeated lesson from theatre school? keep it simple, stupid.

oh, and this is aitor's submission:



why is he forever better than me?

trampoline hall brings families together.

well, the show is all done and it really blew me away. i owe huge thanks to all the lecturers - carl wilson, emily halfon and michael balazo - and to my family for the collective willingness it took to make this show.

and also to michal grajewski and katherine foster for making the sildeshow possible.

reflections on an evening of lectures about my family? there is a lot i could say but i think my gratitude is the most important.

so one last thank you to all the attendees.

and these guys:

trampoline hall.

artwork by margaux williamson.

for some reason, i have neglected to mention that i am curating monday's installment of trampoline hall. maybe it's because i am so stressed out (really, it's bad). all my technology is failing, the postal service has been letting me down endlessly and people i am supposed to converge with are disappearing left and right.

but that's a digression. i should be stressed about monday's trampoline hall (a non-expert toronto-based lecture series, for those who don't know). usually, people lecture on whatever they like. but for this installment, i have invited specific people (carl wilson, emily halfon & michael balazo) to research and lecture on the members of my immediate family. from the contact i've had with them, i think everyone is doing interesting work and i am really interested to find out what my family is all about.

also, i hinted earlier that i might do a ticket give-away via this blog. well, i kind of will. i am alotted a few "reserves" which i will give away. this means that you still have to pay $5 but your tickets will be waiting at the door (this is quite a miracle considering that getting tickets to trampoline hall is the biggest challenge of the process). i think i only have six reserves to distribute, so no more than two per person (if anyone reads this).

and now, back to my blind panic and chest pains.

merry christmas.

last night saw a late visit to my favorite local letterpress shop, the trip print press. it's always fun to visit nicholas and all the big crazy machines he keeps company with there. on top of being an operating shop, his space is also an absorbing museum of both his past works and of arcane devices/stuff. nicholas is the dude who made the backing cards for the sweetie pie press commissioned artist sets (and helped me engineer the packaging), and he also does a lot of work in toronto's music scene (i spy a poster for leah's band).



but i was visiting with a purpose last night; i had commissioned some business cards and calling cards for both aitor and his collective, the misanthrope specialty company, and was going to pick them up. they were supposed to be aitor's christmas gift but with nicholas and i being the busy folks we are, the cards came into being now. i think our faithful compositor did an incredible job with the design (all his own doing) and even went to the trouble of laminating a bunch of them - this involves putting the cards through a machine that coats them in glue and then applying another sheet of paper to the back (minty green, in this case). they are fantastic, nicholas.

in the photo below, the business cards are also resting in a holder made by mike kennedy of two toques design. it is pretty keen to have such skilled friends.

frozen mitten #3.

frozen mitten

found april 30, 2008
spadina & lowther
toronto

in spite of the lack of snow, frozen mittens are still surfacing. this ones comes to me via daryl who found it on his travels through the city on an unusually cold april evening.

as a side note, i will be away from june through november and won't be able to collect mittens during that time. i am planning to really ramp the project up upon my return and through next spring. if you find them between now and then, however, do feel free to keep track and get in touch. remember, though, that the goal of this project is mitten reunion. for that reason, i would like to discourage secret hoarding (as if you kind citizens would do that).

spring things.

as warned, here's a run down of the great booty i took home from the spring thing trunk show.

there was lots of trading and wheeling and dealing involved in yesterday's activities, so i ended up making out like a filthy bandit in the loot department. i am not supposed to be accumulating at the moment because travels with the reverend are looming closer on the horizon daily. but it's hard to be restrained with such exceptional quality all around.

i ended up going home with a print of poppies by willow dawson. this is not going on the road with us, but now that i have figured out how to cut glass for our collection of picture frames we find in the garbage, it is going up on the wall and waiting patiently for our return. as a side note, willow and i also went to high school together in vancouver, although we barely knew it at the time.

i also got a pouch from needle book. claire always makes such impeccably designed and constructed things and pouches are always useful while travelling.

and who doesn't need a set of "innie and outie" finger puppets while travelling cross country? this is the new set of crochet wonders with which shannon gerard won my rubber ducky auction a few months back. apparently, the rubber duckies are causing quite a stir at shannon's house. her son, willy, explained to me that one of his friends can't go to the bathroom at their place because they freak him out. i'm glad to hear they are doing their jobs. these puppet packs, by the way, are fresh off the hook and will soon have packaging on the box outlining...suggestive things...in shannon's singular illustrative style.

last, but most road-worthy of all is a cutlery roll-up made by marnie of girl number twenty. aitor and i are hoping this smart little item will keep us from killing absolutely all of the planet while we travel across the continent in our fume-spewing machine.

oh, and the flowers are the last of an old bouquet from the aforementioned sweetie. what a mensch.

the spring thing trunk show.

photo by the workroom

...some reflections after the fact.

after the madness and largeness of the clothing show it is really nice to participate in one of the city of craft/workroom trunk shows. the two events are antithetical in many ways - scale being the most obvious. i was so harried for the trunk show that i had forgotten how great it is to see everyone arrive with their little vintage suitcases and open them up. everyone always does such a good job with their displays - from perfectly simple to perfectly detailed set-ups - and somehow it always harmonizes and everything looks good together. i suppose that can be chalked up to either shared aesthetics, trends, kismet or all of the above.

although i have grown to know quite a good number of vendors at the clothings show, the community aspects of the smaller trunk shows are palpable. the kids are running around underfoot and playing with one another, family members show up and we all have lots of catching up to do. kristyn's newest little one, basil, was literally days old at the big december show and now he's an alert little guy. i find it profoundly satisfying to practice all our independent businesses/projects while watching the kids learn our names.

please pardon my mush.

it has been a long weekend with such a lovely ending. i will post more about all the great loot i made off with tomorrow. but now i think i have a date with a pizza and a mustache.

oh, wait! i forgot that sunday also saw the birth of two new custom button orders (and two that i carry fondness for) - the new toronto craft alert buttons, with artwork by natalie do and packaging by jen anisef; and the buttons designed for the toronto outdoor art exhibition by david abrahams. they are both pictured below. the tca buttons should become available soon through the blog and/or etsy shop, while the toae buttons will be available on their merch table at the event. don't even get me started on being out of town while that is going down...