hammer time.

so we cheekily planned the end of our tour to stop off in hamilton. why is this cheeky? in good traffic, it is only half an hour from toronto, especially with our west end home. it's like coming home from a night out and falling asleep on your front lawn. that said, our pals mike and jen bought a house there and moved in while we were away, so we wanted to visit. and it felt good to keep a one-day buffer between crazy driving days and crazy home time.

while the boys sorted tomatoes and smoked pipes, jen and i got to have a little outing to eat on a patio, sip wine and then visit some of the sights on james street north. below is the vestige of the massive knit facade that the beehive collective made to cover the brain for the recent supercrawl. we also visited some awesome retail shops like mixed media and white elephant (way below). i hope jen and mike don't get sick of us because i totally want to come back to the hammer when my mind has cleared a bit to take in the lovely indie scene in a less dishevelled manner.

it's alive!

photo by cortney heimerl

after all the hard work (and no small amount of picky photography by cortney), edition #001 of the awards for nothing project is now up and for sale in the printshop forever shop. i owe cortney a big debt of gratitude for figuring out how to release this huge edition. also, for being so articulate and complimentary in her release post about the project. thank you also to faythe and aaron for hosting our real-world awards launch, for documenting and for posting about it. also, big thanks to lish for posting on the craft: blog.

now, go and browse it up, buds!

at last.

100 awards, all done, packed in a box and ready to jet off to milwaukee for full packaging in the morning. of course, i had to test out the packaging right away. that accounts for the two on top. it all works!

below are the last additions to the run. it is too bad that i only came up with the notion of ligatures at the end of the process. next time there will be more!

awards for nothing, edition #001 will be available in person tomorrow night at sky high gallery in milwaukee. as of september 15, the rest will be released for purchase via printshop forever.

home stretch.

last night i stayed up into the wee hours working on a few very picky awards made from vintage fabric. i can't even think about what my hourly is going to end up being on this project. it's probably right of the decimal, though. regardless of that, the experiments and risks turned out some pretty lovely results (says me). also used for this batch: tapestry yarn, ledger paper, labelling tape, price tags, baggage tickets, elastic, dental floss, aitor's misprints, coupons and dental floss.

and, in very exciting news i manged to chase a ups truck down the block and collect my backing card delivery sent from nicholas in toronto. they look great! i foresee a long night and morning of fevered packaging and taping and stamping and sorting. i can't wait to see them all done and carded. but before that, this delivery means it is time to battle the chi-town traffic and get to milwaukee. see you there!

awards in person.

hey internet, you want to see the first edition of awards for nothing in person? if you are in milwaukee this friday night, then you are in luck! i will be setting up shop for the evening in conjunction with sky high gallery, printshop forever and the misanthrope specialty co.

my little pop-up shop will be piggy-backing on the opening of catherine ryan's new show, these things they do, at sky high. i am really looking forward to seeing her work in person. plus, with all of these projects and artists in one place, it's sure to be a raucous fun night.

friday, september 9
6pm-10pm
sky high gallery
2501 south howell ave.
milwaukee, wi

here's the link round-up for more details:
facebook event
sky high gallery posting
printshop forever posting

and those awards up there (pardon the glare) include materials like rick rack, cicada wings, my hair, wrapping paper, yarn, handmade paper, thread, seam binding, bio-rythm charts, topographical maps, price tags, moss & ttc tranfers.

aitor and the chipmunks.

today aitor caught the chipmunk that has been running loose in phil and noelle's house for the last couple of days. this was extra good as it entered the house on our watch. i can't say that it is aitor's fault that one of the cats likes to bring him gifts. at least this time it was not a cockroach or a snake.

in tandem.

some images from our bike ride picnic to the bell tower where jaime and jerry got married the day before.