Your task is to be dogged and persistent

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I had to share the latest horoscope for Leo from Free Will Astrology, because it so strongly relates to many of the projects I’m working on these days.

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LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The marathon is a long-distance footrace with an official length of over 26 miles. Adults who are physically fit and well-trained can finish the course in five hours. But I want to call your attention to a much longer running event: the Self-Transcendence 3100-Mile Race. It begins every June in Queens, a borough of New York, and lasts until August. Those who participate do 3,100 miles’ worth of laps around a single city block, or about 100 laps per day. I think that this is an apt metaphor for the work you now have ahead of you. You must cover a lot of ground as you accomplish a big project, but without traveling far and wide. Your task is to be dogged and persistent as you do a little at a time, never risking exhaustion, always pacing yourself.

There are marathons, and then there are MARATHONS.

Succulent Growth

How many different titles can I come up with to include the word succulent, is something I wonder every time I write a new blog post about the project. I think I made ten more last week, as I switched between working on the growing cluster of paper plants and the giant piece of tyvek I am cutting.

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They have started taking over the top of my paper drawer because there are twenty-five of them now. I love how they look, with all that repeating shape, texture, and delicious colour.

In The Pink For Spring

The cherry trees have begun their magical work of blanketing the city in pink and white blossoms. It’s my favourite time of year, and I end up photographing flowers on a daily basis because they are incredibly beautiful.

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As with last year, there are trees coming into bloom earlier in the season than in years past, like the magnolia and Flowering Quince above. It has me wondering if this is the new normal, and what are the long term implications.

Work In Progress: Returning to a Neglected Tyvek Project

Looking through old blog posts, I was happy to realize it hasn’t yet been a year since I first started working on my second installation piece cut from tyvek. I set it aside in May shortly after I started my artist residency at The Leeway Studio, and have worked on it very little since then.

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But I’m back at it with the goal of trying to finish it in the spring, maybe even the end of March. The piece is hand cut from a roll of tyvek that is roughly seven feet long and eighteen inches wide. The design is composed of a series of circles intricately cut with my favourite freehand pattern of crescent shapes (I really should come up with a name for it…)

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I was surprised to realize at the end of last week that I’ve cut close to three feet of the piece already. I felt like I’d barely made much progress on it, but I’m close to halfway.

This is the second of three installation pieces from tyvek I eventually plan to create. You can view the first one here.

Studio Visits: A New Blog Series by Sarah Clement

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Sarah Clement just launched a new series on her blog called, Studio Visits, which will feature photos and interviews with Vancouver artists. I am featured in the first post in the series, along with beautiful photos of my work Sarah took when she visited my studio in November.

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It’s an honour and a thrill to be included in this project. I can’t wait to see more from the Studio Visit series.

Read the blog post here »

Off-Cut Pieces and Finished Succulents

I make the succulents from strips of paper about 1.5 inches wide by 20 inches long, and what is left behind is a very interesting off-cut. I’ve been saving some of these as I go and there’s now a small pile of them at the side of my desk. I may do nothing with them, or I may turn them into an interesting collage at some point. I don’t often do anything with these leftover pieces, but I like to give them careful consideration before they end up in the recycling bin.

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This is the new cluster of succulents I worked on last week. I made sixteen of them in various shades of reds and greens. I’m going to keep making more until I have enough to fill a few shadowbox frames.

Customizing With Triangles

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I mistakenly thought I’d shared a photo of this on Instagram or my blog ages ago, but at some point (I can’t remember how long) I customized my red iPhone case with adhesive vinyl. I made up the composition of triangles as I went along.

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Pictured here is the new version as I redid some of the work over the weekend because pieces have been peeling off over time. It was a simple project but so satisfying to do. The colours make me happy on these dreary days.

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.

Succulent Paper Succulents

I’ve had this arrangement of tiny paper succulents sitting in my studio for about a week and a half waiting for me to make a decision about what to do next. I was feeling tentative and uncertain about how to attach them, and even if I should bother. Is this something I want to explore further or is it a distraction from doing other work? Is this “real” art? What is my real artwork, and do I really want to go off on yet another side tangent changing the type of work I do yet again?

It’s a lot of questions for a cluster of tiny succulents to bring up, but that’s what happens sometimes. I’m feeling uncertain about a lot of things around my artwork, and it’s not just about succulents.

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Anyway…I adore the cute little things. They are all under 1.5″ high, anywhere from 1.5″ to 2″ across, and made from Canson Mi-teintes 98lb paper. The cluster is glued directly to acid-free white mat board, and framed in a 9″ x 9″ white shadowbox frame.

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Looking at them makes me happy in the same way I feel about seeing real succulent plants. Maybe this is the most important part, and why I am going to make more.

Seattle Art Road Trip

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I went on a day trip to Seattle last week with a group of friends to go gallery hopping. We managed to fit a lot in during the short amount of time we were in the city. I did not take as many photos as I wish I had, so there is a lot of terrific inspiring art I can’t share. The ones I did photograph showcase a very random selection of things.

Seattle Art road trip

Gift City: A Project by Keller Easterling at Henry Art Gallery

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Franz Erhard Walther: The Body Draws at Henry Art Gallery

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Trimpin at Winston Wachter Fine Art

Seattle Art road trip
Gala Bent at G. Gibson Gallery

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There’s A Story Here by Sean Johnson at Greg Kucera Gallery

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Complex by Evan Blackwell at Foster White Gallery

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Don Fritz at Gallery IMA

It was a terrific trip with a fun group of friends. I was happy to visit a few new-to-me galleries, that I will definitely revisit the next time I am in Seattle.