Category: Inspiration

Juxtapoz x Superflat Exhibition

The day after visiting the Seattle Art Fair last weekend I took Boris with me to see the Juxtapoz X Superflat show at Pivot Art + Culture. It was in the South Lake Union neighbourhood, which is an area of Seattle I hadn’t previously explored, and it seemed to be filled with cool art venues, and restaurants.

Elizabeth Higgins O’Connor

Kim Jung Gi

Kim Jung Gi

 

James Jean

I didn’t love this show but I badly wanted to see it because it included work by James Jean, one of my favourite artists. I’ve never seen his work in person before, only online, and it’s an important thing to do when you like someone’s work. It’s absolutely not the same seeing things on the internet. Now I want to see an entire show of his work, but I doubt that will ever happen in Vancouver.

Seattle Art Fair 2016

Katsuya Terada

Katsuya Terada

Making Polymer Clay Beads

I was recently inspired by people I follow on Instagram to try making polymer clay beads. I worked with the clay many years ago at a workshop taught by Laurie Mika at ArtFest, but the end project was to make a portable shadowbox shrine. I’d never considered making beads before, and now I want to make them all the time.

Polymer clay beads

Theses are two of the necklaces I have made to date after three sessions of bead making. I hosted an evening with friends earlier this week, and the necklace below was put together from beads I made that night. I love playing with the colours, patterns, and shapes to make these jumbled strands of beads. I am so pleased to wear my own work around my neck.

Polymer clay beads

I am inspired by these small making projects I’ve been working on over the summer. The necklaces along with my stitching project means I have lovely things to wear made by my own hand. That is the best part!

Scenes from the 2016 Seattle Art Fair

Boris and I did a short trip to Seattle over the weekend to visit friends, but I also timed it to coincide with the Seattle Art Fair.  This was my first experience attending a large art fair like this, and it was AMAZING! There was so much to see that my brain almost overloaded in the first five minutes. I started out rushing through because I was SO EXCITED, but then calmed myself down and took it at a slower pace.

I did not take as many photos as I’d wanted because I didn’t trust my battery to hold out for the few hours I was going to wandering around. So this is a small selection of pieces of art I liked or found interesting. There is way more I wish I could have photographed to share.

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Skylar Fein

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Paul Villinski

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Keun Young Park

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Christian Maychak

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Beth Cavener

Seattle Art Fair 2016
(Did not get the artist for this one.)

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Markus Linnenbrink

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Phil Shaw

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Kymia Nawabi

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Christopher David White

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Timothy Cummings

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Elisheva Biernoff

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Nancy Mintz

Seattle Art Fair 2016
Seattle Art Fair 2016
Kate MacDowell

Visiting the Seattle Art Fair was so inspiring but also humbling. It was a good reminder that I need to level up the quality and quantity of my work if I ever hope to be included in an event like that. I don’t feel my work is currently good enough, but I could be if I work harder.

Designed to Speak

Designed to Speak is an outlet of inspiration for designers and design enthusiasts profiling creative people of all disciplines with the objective to help inspire and engage the design community. I did this interview all the way back in April 2014 with Trevor Jansen and Mahyar Saeedi. I was asked to share my thoughts on making by hand and technology.

Designed To Speak – Rachael Ashe from Designed to Speak on Vimeo.

It was filmed on location at Hot Art Wet City during a group show I curated called, Voices From Another Room. In the background you can see work by Sarah Gee Miller, Joseph Wu, Connie Sabo, Alison Woodward, and me.

Watch more Designed to Speak interviews on the website.

Stone Soup and Creative Mornings Vancouver

Trevor Jansen is a long time volunteer with Creative Mornings Vancouver, and he has created many wonderful pieces of video content for the organization over the years. At the recent CMvan event at the beginning of July he premiered his latest video project inspired by the story of Stone Soup as told by some of the past speakers. It was an honour to be included in this group of people, and to get to tell a small part of the story. I discovered it is harder than it looks to say a single line and do multiple takes.

Go check out Trevor’s blog post to see the video of behind the scenes and outtakes. 

Inspiration in the Garden

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Crocosmia

Yucca flowers in the rain

There are so many beautiful flowers and plants to see in the gardens around our neighbourhood. The Gazania flower (at the top of this post) is the latest addition to our community garden plot. 

Poppies Take Over in the Garden

Last year in mid-summer I planted a packet of poppy seeds in our community garden plot, and then in the fall I scattered an expired packet of what was supposed to be wildflower seeds in another section. All these many months later and the poppies have taken over the garden. The wildflowers mix only resulted in poppies, but maybe because they were the only seeds still viable.

Poppies in my garden plot

The white with pink edge types are came from the seeds planted mid-summer, while every type and colour is coming up from the wildflower mix. Poppies are a favourite flower of mine, so I am constantly visiting the garden to see them. I am pleased to have poppies of my own after years of admiring them in other people’s gardens around the neighbourhood.

Poppies in my garden plot

Poppies in my garden plot

I am inspired and energized by my plant projects in the garden and at home. I never thought of myself as a plant person, but I sure am now.

Revisiting Sashiko Stitching with The Craft Lab

On the weekend I attended another Sashiko Stitching workshop taught by Heather Young of the Craft Lab, this time at Collage Collage. A lot of time has passed since the first workshop at Opus, and I wasn’t feeling like I had a full grasp of the technique, which is why I enrolled in this longer, more in-depth class. Now I think I’ve got it, and I have a clearer idea of what I want to do.

We did two projects in the class, both of which are pictured here. We did a sampler to practice making the stitches in straight lines, and then we had to come up with our own design in a circle to make a small pot holder. I ran out of time before getting to try a repair on a piece of clothing I brought with me. I took a photo of Heather’s sampler (below) to remind myself of the different ways to approach a visible repair. I’m going to try one of these on my favourite jeans.

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I’m committed to doing more with sashiko stitching going forward, and even put my supplies together in their own little container.

Spring Is In The Air

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It’s been a long stretch of depressing days of non-stop rain for the last two weeks, coupled with a few nights in a row of terrible sleeps. I felt like I was barely functioning by the end of last week. But Friday afternoon the sun came out and the day transformed into a sunny summer’s day, one where I wished I was wearing sandals and short sleeves.

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I came across these crocuses in the neighbourhood and was surprised to find a bee collecting pollen. All the early spring flowers are out including snowdrops, hellebore, and even cherry blossoms in a few places. I guess we all needed a break from the rain before it returned again the next day.