strip mall living.

there is something that has become comforting about settling into a nice off-ramp motel. the one we have found in terre haute, indiana, has about everything we look for - a kinko's, a coffee shop, an office max and a little further off, a kroger.

kroger is the grocery chain which, i have discovered, carries a house brand of unsalted, unsweetened canned beets. these have been keeping me alive on this trip. when we get really fancy, aitor and i mix up some greens, blue cheese, beets, mushrooms and dressing into a monster salad that makes us smile and sets our tummies a little close to right. tonight will be such a night.

je me souviens.

i finally got my act together to deliver my first care package to the souvenir shop, a design-based project that aims to reinvent and revitalize the art and craft of the canadian souvenir. when i met with one of the founders, todd, he filled my brains with good ideas for souvenir buttons that would be in keeping with my personal aesthetic tastes and rules. and, although i am working on some new slow-going projects for them, i started with an old design that i am very fond of.

pictured above are the confusion corner buttons i made to celebrate my love for winnipeg. confusion corner is a real intersection just outside of orborne village, the navigation of which presents a striking iconography. sometimes i like to display these buttons when i travel to see who knows winnipeg. the conversation usually goes something like this:

"hey, are you from winnipeg?"

"no, but i am a fan."

"i know a guy who has this tattooed on his leg."

"yeah, i know ron, too."

for the souvenir shop, i have started packaging these in sets of three. the design was based on a photo provided for me by my friend, michal grajewski. the packaging, as always, was set and letterpressed by nicholas kennedy of the trip print press. and i would also like to thank stacey bode for unwittingly providing me with my profile picture for the site.

the site at large is an impressive time vacuum for me. every time i go there , i seem to find new and amazing projects to read up on. the souvenir shop really lends itself to conceptual projects that are also decortive/populist (ie. just my thing). today's divergences included krystal speck's ghost town tea towels, wendy walgates' 5461 slipcast bird project, and chet domanski's energy bracelet. oh, and for all of those who have commented on the scissor necklace i wear all the time, its maker, allison wells, also has some of her crazy new items up on the site.

leaving st. louis (or thereabouts).

it has been inexpressibly wonderful to have spent the past few days living in the middle of a family here in belleville, illinois. but as with all of our passing homes, it quickly comes time to move on and follow our own travelling circus elsewhere. besides, we are like most house guests and begin to stink if kept around for too long. so today we push on into indiana. but before leaving, we had to make a couple of stops.

stop #1 - circa.
circa boutique is belleville's answer to handmade shopping. the owner, andrea, was a vendor at strange folk and makes an impressive effort to bring handmade stuff from all over the globe into her well tended corner of belleville's main street.



stop #2 - senior citizen warehouse.
in spite of images the name may suggest, this is actually a thrift shop that came highly recommended by our hosts (well, by bruce who seems to enjoy hoarding more than shannah). after picking out a few things, we took them to the counter and were told "four dollars". bruce says you can also wheel and deal there. but why would you need to when the folks there do it for you. also (and this is very important to any local readers this blog may have), the furniture section of the store boasted no less than a half dozen vintage built-in table sewing machines...for three dollars each! pardon my screaming, but if you live in the area and need a sewing machine you really have little excuse not to go get one of these. from my perfunctory inspections, they seemed to be in good shape. oh yes, and they are three dollars.

well, enough yelling. indiana calls.

getting schooled.

this morning, i accompanied shannah to her school to do a guest artist visit with her sixth grade class. shannah is the art specialist at a school in st. louis that focuses on multiple intelligence education. it's pretty interesting stuff. for my part, i came in, talked about myself/my art, and took some questions. the first question was, "do we get to make buttons?"

so we got down to it.

i have a great appreciation for what shannah does. trying to shove a lesson and project into 50 minutes is no small feat. we got into themes of found materials, beauty in the mundane, pattern, thinking small and the reframing of imagery. in the end, the kids ended up making a first wave of mostly garfield buttons (a theme which i a no stranger to), but then automatically got into their own drawings, slogans, and even abstracts of found materials.









in the afternoon, i had the bruce and shannah's whole house to myself. it was great. i made a big mess on the dining room table, making a new rubber stamp, stamping paper bags, folding up target bags, and sorting through the huge score of security envelopes that i got from bruce last night. i had to prepare the envelopes for future button making by cutting out the plastic windows and cutting them down to be more easily packable. this process reminded me of cleaning fish, something i used to be quite proficient at. cutting up these envelopes really does have similar rhythms.







it's hard for me to express the depths of joy that i got from picking through security envelopes. we decided that i had acquired at least 30 new patterns from bruce's collection. my first purple! waves! knots! we even took to naming some of the designs - the drunkard's weave, harlequin, riverbed. i have a larger personal application planned for all of these designs. but more on that when it materializes. until then, i have some project runway to yell at...

happy 30th birthday, reverend aitor.

that's about all i have to say.

and i love you.

eat that cake, already! and read that card.

motor city madness.

today we laid into some hardcore tourism in what i like to think of as toronto's sister city, detroit. this mad day of outings was inspired by suggestions made to us by all of stephanie, shannon and jim.





we started our travels with a visit to hamtramck disneyland, a very special back alley folk art installation in a residential neighbourhood. it was constricted in the 1990's by ukrainian émigré, dmytro szylak. i actually guess there isn't much to say about it except that the place is a marvellous sight to behold.



after this, we drove north to see marvin's magnificent mechanical museum (which stephanie had suggested), an over-crammed stroefront full of automata, old animatronics, peepshow booths, gags and various other coin-operated marvels. we were blown away (and you would be in heaven, melissa).





i got my fortune read by zelda (the sign said she was from coney island so i like to think this was the same machine from the movie big). amid the nouveau photo-sticker machines were all sorts of sixty-plus-year-old machines and newer automata (some of which looks like the work of paul spooner, which it may well be - i just didn't see his name). aitor went all out by consuming a box of neon orange stale popcorn and i threw caution to my bladder with a cherry coke. when in rome, i figured. my only complaint: no penny squishers. don't worry, i will be sharing my collection of squished pennies with the internet at some point later. seriously, don't worry.





what they lack in deformed lincolns, they do make up for in advanced foot revitalizing technology. on the way out of marvin's, we got a call from stephanie to meet her at the bookstore. we had a date with her, some coupons, and faythe levine's brand spanking new book, handmade nation (it is designed to accompany her forthcoming documentary). i haven't gtten too deep yet but am brimming with friendly pride and congratulation to faythe and her book cohort, cortney.



tomorrow we shove off. i am going to miss this place. but there's that little michigan mitten sachet that stephanie gave us waving goodbye and reminding us that we should return. don't worry. we will. you'll hardy even have time to miss us, motor city.

movie night.

reba lives this charmed life where she works really hard but also has weekly movie nights outside her apartment. it is inspiring. we did not stay for this week's installment because we had a date with one of my oldest and dearest friends, noah lepawsky, who has just moved here to find fame and fortune and love and his american heritage.

i guess it is also worth stating that we are headed to detroit this weekend (assuming we finally manage to extricate ourselves from this place) for the first annual diy street fair in ferndale. it looks like it should be a lot of fun. also, detroit rocks.