Murals on garage doors is a thing in Toronto and I am a fan. These were all taken in back laneways where most garages downtown in the city are located. I would love to see this trend make its way to Vancouver.
Kensington Market garage door murals:
Harbord Village garage door murals:
Each grouping from the two different neighbourhoods were taken in the same two laneways. I love the variety, and I wonder how the whole thing came about.
Boris and I took my mom to Allen Gardens Conservatory for a brief visit on her birthday. It was a grey rainy day, so it was the perfect spot to wander indoors and look at colourful things. It’s been a million years since I last visited the garden, and I find it much more interesting as an adult than I probably did as a child.
It’s one of Toronto’s oldest parks with tropical plants from all over the globe inside five greenhouses covering 16,000 square feet. It was much larger than I remembered.
My favourite of all the greenhouses was the Cactus House full of an amazing variety of unusual cactus and succulents.
Now that we are back home again, I am enjoying looking at these colourful photos as the days continue to be grey and rainy in Vancouver.
Read more about Allen Gardens on the wikipedia page.
This exhibition at the Gardiner Museum was on my must-see list while in Toronto, and it did not disappoint. It wowed and impressed. Janet Macpherson creates weird and wonderful hybrid animals in porcelain cast from all sort of objects in the form of animals, such as toys, decoys, masks, etc. The exhibition is made up of four groups of installations and explores the Canadian experience in different ways.
The carved deer head and legs were among my favourite pieces. I think they were glazed in black and then the intricate leaf pattern was carved into the surface to reveal the white porcelain underneath.
The installation below was the most fascinating of the four because the viewer needs to take a long time looking at the many strange combinations of animals that make up the individual pieces. My favourites (not pictured here) were a polar bear body with the head of a song bird, and one with the body of an eagle combined with the head of a horse.
Such an inspiring exhibition to see! The show continues at the Gardiner Museum until May 22, 2017, and was commissioned to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation. View more photos of the exhibition here.
One of the things I’d arranged in advance of my trip to Toronto was to do a studio visit with textile artist, Amanda McCavour. She was about to leave town to do an installation in Alberta, but we managed to fit it in. It was an absolute pleasure to finally meet in person, and I felt we had much in common. I took a few photos after we chatted for an hour and a half about our work, life in Toronto versus Vancouver, and so many other things.
Her studio is located above an art supply store in The Junction, and despite the rainy day the room was filled with beautiful light. She had pulled out a selection of her installations in their storage containers for me to see, and of course this reminded me of my own approach to modular work made from small pieces. The poppies below are from an installation that has not yet been shown. I was thrilled to get to take one of these home with me.
I loved her wall of sketches, as well as the glorious wall of colourful threads. It’s always a treat to visit another artist’s workspace.
Amanda McCavour will be showing in Vancouver as part of Means of Production, a group show of textile artists opening in June at Cityscape Gallery.
I was in Toronto last week visiting family, and I’d also arranged to teach a paper cutting workshop mid-week at The Paper Place. It was an enjoyable evening of talking about paper cutting, knives, and paper, all in one of the best paper goods stores I’ve had the pleasure to visit. I did not manage to take many photos during the evening, and I wish I’d taken a few of my students work in progress.
I did two activities during the workshop, one on kirigami and the other on pattern paper cuts with templates. The photos here were taken during the kirigami portion of the evening, as we worked with lots of lovely colourful paper. I’m so glad I decided to teach a workshop while I was in Toronto because it was a terrific experience.
I went back to the store a few days later and bought a selection of Gampi, Kozo, and other Japanese papers to test out and hopefully create beautiful new work with it.
It’s been the rainiest and coldest spring I can remember in my thirteen years living in Vancouver, and only now at the end of March are the usual signs of spring making an appearance. I saw my first cherry blossoms of the season on an elderly tree at Kits beach, that is consistently one of the earliest bloomers. I was overjoyed to see these delicate flowers – and the blue sky!
The magnolias started making an appearance on trees in my neighbourhood last week, and I couldn’t be happier to see them. More blue skies, warm weather, and flowering tree please!
As most artists I know seem to do these days, I listen to podcasts when I’m working in the studio. I add new ones to the list all the time, and remove older ones I am no longer interested in. At a recent get together with artist friends we made a point of having each person recommend two podcasts to the group, and I thought I’d share this compiled list with the world at large.
I’ve divided the list into ones that are new to me (and have not yet given a try), and shows there were already on my list:
New to me:
Revisionist History – http://revisionisthistory.com/
On Being – https://onbeing.org/
Savvy Painter – https://savvypainter.com/podcast/
Good Life Project – http://www.goodlifeproject.com/radio/
Modern Love – http://www.npr.org/podcasts/469516571/modern-love
Here’s the Thing – http://www.wnyc.org/shows/heresthething
S-Town – https://stownpodcast.org/
Seamwork – https://www.seamwork.com/radio
Ones I listen to already:
Reply All – https://gimletmedia.com/reply-all/
Snap Judgement – http://snapjudgment.org/podcast
Death Sex and Money – http://www.wnyc.org/shows/deathsexmoney
Strangers – https://www.radiotopia.fm/podcasts/strangers
This American Life – https://www.thisamericanlife.org/podcast
The Moth – https://www.themoth.org/
Missing Richard Simmons – https://www.missingrichardsimmons.com/
Happy listening!
I put the finishing touches on the sashiko stitched denim skirt last week with the addition of a few more circles and half circles. I kept most of the design to the front of the skirt with a few small details on the back and sides.
I love all of those straight stitched lines against the dark denim. I have not yet worn this because it still feels too cold for a short skirt even with tights.
This is the fourth sashiko / embroidery project I’ve completed over the past year. I’m sure I’ll find something else in my wardrobe in need of embellishment. I love working on these textile-based side projects. It’s also a thrill to get to wear my own work.
Boris and I were over on South Granville earlier this week in a rare moment between rain showers when the sun was out. I needed that break in the rain because the constant state of grey has been bringing me down (please do not read that as depressed). It was the perfect time to visit the kaleidoscopic mural on the side of Ian Tan Gallery painted by Milan Basic (photos here of the entire mural) and do a quick photo shoot.
The mural, the appearance of sunshine, and taking these photos of Boris and I, totally made the day better.
For someone who is an inexperienced sewer I seem to make many sewing projects without a pattern. I’ve done this in the past to make a laptop case for Boris, bedroom curtains, and pillow slip covers. They’ve all turned out okay, so I keep diving in with my patternless improv.
I’ve been wanting to make a proper case for my sunglasses, which came with a crappy slip bag that has slowly come apart over time. I did not photograph any of the work in progress of this project, so you can only see the end results. I used a piece of scrap padded foam left over from Boris’ laptop case project, and chose a grey and white fabric square recently purchased from A Spool of Thread.
I measured, cut, sewed, and voilà, the glasses have a very simple case to protect them while bumping around in the bottom of my bag.
I should really put more time into learning more advanced sewing techniques.