Finished the fiction project!/ Art Krall fun/ happy mother’s day

For the West End Art Krall, put on by the West End BIA, my station was in ‘Denman Place,’ a retro 70’s mall, which I have now heard from numerous people who have fond teenage mall wandering memories, was Vancouver’s very first one (maybe downtown?  anyone correct me).  There was a surprising amount of foot traffic, for me at least, and lots of people either slowed their pace to gander nonchalantly, or engaged in conversation and asked questions about the book and it’s someday publication.  I also got a little bit of spillover from the tapestry artist who was stationed beside me, Ruth Jones.  Her work was amazing, and I admired her poise in conversing non-stop with impressed passer by’s.

My goal for taking part in the Art Krall was to share the art and story of ‘Lucy’s Tree’ with people outside of my inner circle, which ended up being pretty rewarding.  I’m the kind of person who is really uplifted by positive feedback, so even a little goes a long way.  It was really cool to meet people who loved the artwork, and even cooler when these were kids who wanted to own the book (which is not published yet, but fingers crossed, will be someday soon).

Happily, the act of sitting in a mall and being too socially awkward to engage well with strangers ended up giving me time to finish the fiction project, which consisted of some pretty tedious  drawing that I would have become distracted from at home.  So it all worked out in the end.  I was going to scan in the fiction project, but then was too tired and said bah!  It will be ‘digitized’ by the art house co op anyways.  Also, I am hoping that I wrote the address on the envelope correctly. . . Kind of agonizing about that now.  Did I put the country or the zip code as the last thing?  What was the right thing to do anyways?  Oh dear. . .

Am probably going to take an ‘art break’ at least for a couple of days.  Try to get some energy back.  Amazing how not sleeping in until noon on the weekend has resulted in my being exhausted at work.  I always suspected I needed an unnatural amount of sleep, and now it’s confirmed.

Also, thanks to Julian for helping me lug all the artwork out there, and to my family (and especially my mom, seeing as take down was on mother’s day) for helping me lug everything back home on the day they returned from Ontario.

west end art krall

This weekend (May 6-8) I will be taking part in the West End Art Krall, put on by the West End Business Association.  It’s my first time taking part in this event, and I’m excited to show artwork from Lucy’s Tree.  There will be other artists throughout the West End of Vancouver (Davie and Denman area), who I look forward to checking out.  I’ll be hanging out at the Denman Place mall, so if you’re in the Stanley Park area, come say hi.

Tom’s big day!

Tom is a rad guy whose birthday is coming up, and our mutual and also rad friend, Adrienne is hosting a show at Our Town.  Here is the poster/invitation made up for this very special occasion.  Bands are:

20th Century Celebration: A Choral Review with Adrian Teacher

Tax Men: The Beatles Cover Band

Collapsing  Opposites

Bad Fate

Unfortunately I won’t actually be able to enjoy all this wonderful music, as I’ll be far away at a wedding, but all the same. . . Happy Birthday Tom!

beautiful art site

These are a couple of inspiring pages I’ve stumbled across. Soo amazing to see what everyone’s imaginations are filled with, and I love how artists seem to give in to their style so completely. I especially like Rui Ribeiro’s beautiful drawings.

http://www.pikaland.com
Rui Ribeiro’s art at: http://www.cofseeing.com/

Fiction Project

So, I have undertaken something called the Fiction Project, which is part of the Brooklyn based Art House Co-op.  The idea is that artists and writers from all over the world get a moleskin journal in the mail, fill it out with story and art, then send it back in.  The Co-op then travels across the US to show the collection, ultimately and finally logging the books within their library. Every author/ artist is given a theme to work with.  You can choose or have yours randomly selected- I did that and got ‘ a day in the life.’  Of course once I got the theme I wished that I’d picked one from the list.  But eventually, I came up with an idea of something to write about.  It has to do with birds and migration, and generally knowing what to do with your life.

I think I liked the idea of sending something into the world immediately, without it having to filter through barriers of publication, acceptance or rejection, and so on.  I like the idea of people reading through my book, and it living forever in a library somewhere. Getting my art out of my own living room has been a growing theme in my life lately.

That being said, The Fiction Project almost feels as if it’s going to disappear into thin air once I send it out- never to be seen again by me (although it will be digitized online), and with the possibility that no one will have any strong feelings about it. . .  So on that hand it’s kind of hard to get motivated and get to work.  But . . . I am a bit of a perfectionist, so I also don’t want to do something half assed, because then you are not only putting time into something, but sending something into the world that is not a true representation of what you can do.  ARGGG.  This kind of mental ping pong is kind of what the story in the book is about, incidentally.

Anyways, I’m going to put up some pictures.

I love feedback!

So. . . I recently discovered the ‘site stats’ section of this blog.  Turns out you can see how many people have viewed your site on which days.  At first I didn’t really care, until  I realized that they don’t count your own visits, at which point I became completely consumed with curiousity.  Who is looking at this stuff?  What do they think?  Is it really just my mom?  SO. . . I guess what I’m really trying to say, is please let me know what you think!  Leave a comment! Anything, doesn’t even have to be relevant to the post, but I’m dying to give identities to the anonymous ‘stats’ I have become so intrigued by.  Anyways, just sending this thought into the void that is the internet.  In my head you’re reading it.

Thanks Firehall! and Hunter Bisset Gallery!

Thanks to the Firehall Arts Centre for hosting my artwork through January and February. And to the Hunter Bisset Gallery at Tinseltown for showing some of my drawings. They were part of the ‘Doodle!’ fundraiser for Atira Women’s Centre’s “Empowering Women Making Art” initiative, and will remain up for a little while longer.

 

illustration numero uno

this is an illustration for a story i'm working on.

so. . . i am uploading an image from a story that i’m working on.  the story is about a young girl who is dealing with worries that take the form of clouds and weigh her down.  this illustration is from later on in the story.  the focus on the camera isn’t so good, so i might wait until i get my hands on a different one to take some better pictures before i upload the others.

first

so… this is my first post.  the idea is that i will upload art that i am working on so i can feel like it exists out there in the world outside my living room and i am not just a crazy person who spends hours making drawings no one will ever see.  that being said i don’t really know how this site works yet, and if it takes a super long time to upload stuff i might just lose patience.  we’ll see, i guess.