Category: Projects

One Self Portrait A Month: Hibernation

My November self portrait is one of those that barely squeaked under the end of month deadline. I was so caught up in preparing for the Culture Crawl all month that I didn’t have time to spare for this project. I wanted to set it aside finally but my need to complete things saw me through.

Hibernation

I kept it very simple and used a visit to VanDusen Garden as an opportunity to shoot it outside. It was a cold wintery day with snow on the ground, but this spot in the garden was clear and had beautiful afternoon sun falling upon it. I sat for a moment catching the sun, and took a few photos (with Boris’ assistance) before moving on.

One Self Portrait a Month: In Bloom

One self portrait a month in 2014 continues with a lovely colourful addition to the series. I was much more determined this time to shoot a new image and get it done before the end of the month.

In Bloom

Late July and August is the time of year I can find dahlias at the farmers market. We were full up on fruits and veggies last week so I went specifically to the market to buy flowers. It was only afterwards that I decided the dahlias should be the focus of the latest photo. I love these flowers because the colours are spectacular, and they have these elaborately structured petals. Each one is a work of art in itself.

One Self Portrait A Month: Arranging Constellations

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It wasn’t my intention to leave this until the end of the month again, but for the previous few weeks I’d been coming up dry on ideas and enthusiasm for the project of shooting one self portrait a month. I didn’t spend much time shooting this because I felt impatient about getting it done. And yet I love what I came up with, and not just because the drawing is dazzling.

February - Arranging constellations

The drawings are groupings of triangles which remind me of maple leaves in some ways and a constellation of stars in others. I love the process of doodling these because it is soothing, simple, and meditative but creates a complicated end result. I’m not sure whether combining my image with the drawing makes this more or less so.

Wearing Hearts on the Street

My friend Vivienne has an uncanny ability to find hearts and messages of love around our neighbourhood of Commercial Drive, and she often shares these on Instagram. It got me thinking about leaving more hearts for her to find, which in turn led to an idea for a collaboration we could do together.

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I created a couple of heart stencils, three by hand and one using the digital cutter, and bought two cans of spray paint. I was curious to see how well my elaborate heart paper cut work would translate when painted on the sidewalk. We wanted to do this in time for Valentine’s Day, and bring a little more love into the world.

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Vivienne and I went out twice last week and added hearts to parts of Strathcona and The Drive. Some of these have already washed away in the rain, because that’s how it goes with street art. It’s not meant to be permanent and the work is at the mercy of the elements. I think a few of the hearts will stick around for awhile, and at some point I hope we’ll go out again and add more.

Hearting the Neighbourhood

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We decided to title the project #HeartingTheNeighbourhood. If you come across our hearts around town please share them on Instagram and use the tag so we can see.

I hope you had a happy heart day.

One Self Portrait a Month: Leftover Pieces

Just in the nick of time, with a few days to spare, I managed to shoot the first self portrait in a new series. As mentioned in a previous blog post, I’d been thinking about taking one self portrait a month for the next year. A simpler version of 52 Weeks of self portraits, but with the same level of creativity.

I knew if I could talk myself into doing one within the month of January then the project would be a go. Mission accomplished, and the project is rolling.

January - A chaos of paper scraps

When I started this shoot I had a different idea in mind to use the paper scraps, and of course it evolved. These are all cut away from finished paper cut work, and have been collected together in a baggie I keep stashed in my studio. The pile of paper and my face were shot separately and made into one through the magic of Photoshop.

Going forward with the series I’m going to attempt to incorporate my paper work into each self portrait. It’s a good way to bring photography and paper together at last.

A New Self Portrait Project (I Hope)

Over the past few weeks I’ve been considering what my new projects will be for this year, and I realized I would like to do something with self portraits again. I can’t stand the idea of taking a self portrait a day, and I don’t want to redo 52 weeks of self portraits, but I want the project to have a specific timeline in the same way. I had a self portrait project epiphany one day as I was coming back from a walk, and realized I should shoot one a month.

Hand and eye coordination

It’s the perfect amount of minimal commitment, and gives me plenty of time to work on idea. But now I need to move this idea from the thinking to doing phase.

I’ll only be fully committed to the project once I shoot the first photo. I seem to be procrastinating getting around to it, which is why I decided to write about it here. Nothing like a public statement of commitment to get one motivated…I hope.

Work In Progress for If Walls Could Talk

In March of next year I will be creating an installation at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto for If Walls Could Talk. This site-specific installation will be a collaboration between myself and Bruce Alcock, the Creative Director of Global Mechanic. Our project is called Canopy and will combine many different elements from yarn drawings, to paper sculptures, along with digital projection, and sound elements.

Work in progress

I began work on this project in September and have been sharing my progress on Instagram. To date I’ve been working on producing multiples of maple leaves cut from white paper, which will be suspended from the ceiling. For once I am not cutting these by hand (because that would be crazy), but instead have been using a digital cutter.

Work in progress

Work in progress

The ceiling in my apartment has been the stand-in space for my explorations in how to assemble and suspend the leaf clusters from the ceiling. The leaves are cut individually, and then fitted together during hanging. It looks beautiful.

A variation of this same process has been to come up with a composition of paper wings that will eventually evolve into a lantern. The image here is of a small hand-cut rough I did to mock up the idea.

Work in progress

I eventually created larger more refined wing shapes for the digital cutter to produce, and assembled these in a similar fashion to the maple leaf clusters. The bottom image is of a prototype I mocked up and is hanging in my dining room so I can contemplate its further development.

Work in progress

Work in progress

This project is very different than anything I’ve worked on previously. I sometimes find the scale of it staggering, because there are a long list of elements that still need to be made. It’s also been a bit weird working on something with a long term production schedule, versus the short term gratification of small projects I am used to.

Creating An Installation One Piece At A Time

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Back in July I began a side project involving the creation of small individual paper cut pieces that resemble flowers or fireworks. Since then I’ve been slowly working away at this at irregular intervals with the goal of making as many as I can.

Doing a bit more work on this much neglected side project. I have lost track of how many I've cut so far.

Bits of paper floating off the page.

All these months later an I have made about eighty of these flowery bits, and I intend to keep going. They are cut from drawing paper painted with blue ink and each is about 3.5″ inches wide. It’s very satisfying to see the tiny pile of them grow.

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The idea behind this is to create something larger from these small pieces. At the moment I’m not yet sure what form this will take or how these will all come together, but it will eventually be a striking installation.

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For now my goal is to create one hundred and figure things out from there. Stay tuned for more updates…

Circles and Animals Series: Paper Cut Grumpy Owl

The selection of animals I am choosing for this series is a bit random, but I’m okay with that. I’m basing my choices on animals I like, but also one ones I think will translate well into the medium of paper cutting.

Circles and Animals- Grumpy Owl Paper Cut

When I first made this owl I didn’t really like him, but his grumpy little face grew on me. I think owls lend themselves nicely to a composition full of circles.

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Circles and Animals- Grumpy Owl Paper Cut-3

The finished size for this is 12″ x 12″. I decided to make two layers of circle cut paper instead of three because it gets trickier to fit the pieces together at this larger size. I’ve also started to collect the pieces of circular paper I cut away because I may use them for another idea.

Circles and Animals- Grumpy Owl Paper Cut-2

The grumpy owl was joined yesterday by an elegant paper cut crow, and a as yet unfinished little fox. The list of circles and animals in the series is slowly growing.

Circles and Animals: Paper Cut Snail

I finished the snail paper cut artwork just before I went on vacation last week but I didn’t have enough time to share it. I am very pleased with this one. It has turned out so beautifully, and I adore the delicate little snail.

Circles and Animals- Snail Paper Cut

I have an affection for snails, and have become fascinated with them over the last few years. There are a few different snails that often hang out on the outside of the front window of our apartment because they’re attracted to the fallen seeds from the bird feeder. Not everyone thinks snails are cute, but I do. (Oh those expressive little eyestalks…)

Circles and Animals- Snail Paper Cut-3

There are three layers of circle cut paper within the wood cradle panel, and the finished size is 12″ x 9″. The snail itself is about three inches long.

Circles and Animals- Snail Paper Cut-2

Circles and Animals- Snail Paper Cut

I will be making more of these with snails eventually, but for now I’ve started working on other animals. I’ll share the completed owl paper cut later this week, and there is also a crow now in-progress.