The Power of Making

February 24, 2014

My partner Boris is a far superior cook than I, mostly because he has a passion for the activity whereas my passion for food lies more with the eating of it. Over the five or so years we’ve lived together I’ve steadily handed off the bulk of food preparation to his care, and been very glad of it. I enjoy his good cooking, while he enjoys a clean home and clothes.

This past December I came to the realization that I found the activities of cooking or baking to be extremely stressful. The reason why is because I did these things so rarely I was out of practice and had lost my confidence in working with food.

I am surrounded by people who are excellent chefs, and I am lucky to share many good meals made by friends, so I suddenly felt pretty shameful about the sad level my food skills had sunk to.

Immediately I made the decision to turn things around. I have been cooking and baking much more often over the past two months, including trying recipes for things I’ve always wanted to make but hadn’t previously tried. (I’m looking at you Lemon Loaf and Okonomiyaki).

The situation had me reflecting upon the empowering nature of making things by hand. I should never be afraid to try something new, or have the expectation for perfection. I understand this intimately when it comes to art and craft processes, but it also applies to working with food. Thank goodness for the Christmas baking epiphany because now I am empowered to enjoy the creation of food as much as I love the consumption of it.

2013: A Year End Review in Twelve Photos

December 30, 2013

As in previous years, I thought I’d put together a blog post of twelve photos pulled from my archive on Flickr, one for each month of the year. I was pleasantly surprised to discover I had a variety of photos to choose from even though I haven’t been uploading much to flickr.

The selection is a good mix of paper art and nature photos.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

All the best in 2014. May it be a creative year for all.

Christmas Scenes From Bowen Island

December 30, 2013

I fell off the blogging bandwagon a few weeks back when I came down with the flu. It wiped me out for two weeks and I still wasn’t feeling myself over Christmas. I’ve been pretty consistent about blogging regularly for the past few years, so it bothers me a bit I won’t be meeting my monthly goal of eight posts. Ah well, it can’t be helped.

Boris and I spent last week on Bowen Island for Christmas with his family. I went out walking every day and took many photos of the peaceful scenes.

I hope your Christmas was very merry.

Featured Speaker In December at Creative Mornings Vancouver

November 7, 2013

On December 6th I will be the featured speaker at Creative Mornings Vancouver. I am both really excited and extremely terrified about this opportunity because I’ve never done any major public speaking like this before.

It’s an honour to be stepping into the role of speaker as I’ve been attending this event since its launch in Vancouver two years ago. The theme for December is Make, which is a perfect fit for me.

Please check out my profile and Q&A on the Creative Mornings blog »

Creative Mornings is a monthly speaker series that happens on the first Friday of every month, and features creative people from a wide range of professions. The event is free (but ticketed) and tickets are made available on the Monday before the event.

If you’ve never attended before all of the talks by previous speakers are available online. This is a great resource for inspiration, along the lines of Ted Talks or Pecha Kucha.

Cross your fingers. Wish me luck. Say hi if you happen to attend.

The Seeds of Sewing

August 20, 20132 Comments

Over the summer months I’ve gotten into sewing, purely out of a desire to spruce up our apartment. I’ve had a few little projects in mind for ages but until recently I didn’t have my own sewing machine.

For home improvement project number one I wanted to make new slip covers for the throw pillows that came with our couch. I’ve always disliked the fabric, but rather than buying new pillows I decided to sew covers and choose a fabric to add more colour to the room. Dressew was my source for the bold yellow fabric I came away with.

I sewed them without a pattern but found some ideas online to use as reference. Anne advised and assisted me with the sewing as it’s been a really long time since I’ve used a sewing machine. We finished them in about an hour and a half.

The slip covers were the gateway project that led me to buying a sewing machine of my own, because I knew I wanted to make more things. I went with the tiny and inexpensive SY sewing machine from Ikea because I’d read a review that recommended it as a good starter machine.

And the next thing I knew I was sewing curtains for the bedroom, once again using fabric sourced from Dressew. As with the pillow cases I did not use a pattern. I kept things simple with minimal detail, and sewed together the patterned fabric with a white backing to block out light. My hanging solution was to purchase curtain rings to clip to the top and not have to fuss about with something more complicated.

I still have so much to learn about sewing, but at least I am learning as I go. I have another project in mind, still sticking with simple straight lines, but eventually I hope to tackle making my own clothes.

A Love of Landscapes

June 19, 2013

I’ve been sharing a lot of landscape photos over on Instagram lately. The photos are as much about the big puffy clouds and blue skies as it is about the earth below them.

These were taken a few weekends ago during an outing to Westham Island for strawberries and honey, and a visit with a friend who lives in the Woodward building. Amazing views abounded!

More Scenes from Bowen Island

May 30, 2013

A few photos from a lovely long weekend on Bowen a week and a half ago. It was a good time for bird watching, as you can see from some of the photos.

There were two Anna’s Hummingbirds constantly visiting the feeder. The view of them was excellent since it’s located just outside the window beside the kitchen table. They are amazing little birds.

The Canada Geese had taken over the Lagoon with their horde of goslings. There were at least thirty of them in one group, watched over by multiple parents. Gosling daycare I suppose.

Bowen Island a place where there are lovely things to see, rain or shine.

Found Objects: Recommended Internet Reading

May 17, 2013

In my monthly newsletter I always share three or four links to items I’ve come across that have inspired me. I call the section, “Found Objects”, and I’ve decided to try and continue the same thing here on my blog.

For your May long weekend reading pleasure, I present a few items you should check out:

Mixed media artist, Carlyn Yandle, writes one blog post a week about art. Each one is well-written, thoughtful, and insightful.
Ditto for blog posts written by M.A. Tateishi, another Vancouver artist with excellent writing skills.
Money Money Money, a series of blog posts by Kim Werker on money struggles for the creative person. It was inspired by a letter I wrote to her.
A beautiful post about body image and confidence by Vivienne McMaster. It speaks strongly to how women tear themselves down, but can also build themselves up.

Have yourself a relaxing long weekend.

A Few Bits and Pieces

April 24, 2013

At the beginning of this week I decided to take a much needed break from social media tools. I sometimes feel worn down by watching other people’s lives on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and all the unwanted noise that comes out of it. I do enjoy using these tools, and often find inspiration from them, but they’re also a HUGE distraction. It’s good to turn down the volume once in awhile, and now was as good a time as any because I have a lot of work to do.

Over the last few days I’ve found myself with iPhone in hand wondering what to do with the thing. By not allowing myself to check Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram I have much less distraction from my phone. It makes me realize just how frequently I look at the darn thing, and use social media to procrastinate or distract myself.

I sometimes wish I could do without these tools, but they play a large role in how I share my work with the world. I’m not sure how I would do this otherwise. They are also the source of connections with interesting people, events, and ideas, so it’s not all bad.

Sometimes you need to step back from familiar things in order to fully appreciate what they bring to your life. And I am reflecting on this as part of break. But until I return to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, I’m going to enjoy a quiet, centred, less distracted mind.

Celebrating Springtime

April 1, 2013

In Vancouver we are incredibly lucky to have a spring season that not only shows up as early as March (or even February) but also lasts for an extended period of time. Add in the bounty of flowering trees blanketing the city with pink and white blossoms, and you have the most wonderful time of the year to be in Vancouver (sorry Christmas).

I go a little bonkers taking endless photos of every type of flower I can find. My favorite combination are the pink cherry blossoms against an intense blue sky.