Category — Art

I love old things - buttons and bellbottoms, postcards and polkadots. So, you can imagine my excitement when my husband first showed me his vast collection of scouting badges. I have been brainstorming a fun project for them for most of a year.

Back in Vancouver I began collecting more badges in hopes of launching a kids onesie line along with my friend Jen and sister-in-law, Brittany. When our clothing supplier dropped the ball, I kind of sidelined the project. Until now…

Introducing lost and found goods!

If you are my friend on facebook, you’ve probably already noticed that I launched an Etsy shop last week.

There is a delightful nostalgia to collected things — old stamps, polaroids, postcards, buttons, and badges. First and foremost, Lost & Found is a paper goods line featuring found objects from across Canada but I hope to add onesies soon, too.

All vintage cards are snow white square and each order comes with a flashcard insert typewritten with love and care.

I would like to offer you a discount on the cards in the shop. Simply use the coupon code: LOVETHEBLOG at the checkout and you will receive a 15% discount.

One more thing…

A GIVEAWAY! Post a comment below and you will be entered into a draw to win a free card and a gift bag with other little trinkets.

Thank you for reading!

[acrylic, foil and paper on canvas]

“All of us are trees in winter, with little to give, stripped of leaves and growth, whom God loves unconditionally, anyway.”

- Brother Lawrence

Have you heard of the “You are beautiful” movement? Maybe you were walking down the street on a particularly dismal day and stumbled upon the words on a telephone pole, in a bathroom stall, or on the wall of a favourite coffee joint (or on a giant panda atop an Irish hilltop.) Well, someone left them there for you.

You are beautiful. It’s true.

I’ve long been a fan of this simple, creative movement and I just got word that they are doing a reprint in a couple of weeks. So, if you’re thinking of getting some stickers, now is the time!

From the You are beautiful website:

We can’t go anywhere without a few in a wallet or back pocket. They always come in handy - slapping one up, leaving one behind for that nice waiter, or dropping one into the lap of someone who has had a tough day.

You’ll get 10 stickers for each dollar, and we’ll cover shipping on all donations made between now and November 4th.

http://you-are-beautiful.com/STICKERS.htm

I thought I’d start a neat little weekly feature called Word for thought Wednesday.

What do you think? Worth a weekly gander?

Last year I pitched a story to UPPERCASE magazine — a profile of my creative hero, artist/author Sabrina Ward Harrison. It was a thinly veiled attempt to meet Sabrina, whose work I have followed for close to ten years. As luck/fate (read: GOD) would have it, the pitch turned itself into much more than a phone interview.

I was sent to Prince Edward Island for a three-day sojourn with six other women to create alongside Sabrina at an old waterside hotel called the Highlands. (You may remember I faced a little trepidation as prepared for this trip.) The historic home and adjacent town dance hall, where we did our making, has housed royalty and the likes of Reverend Billy Graham. Each room was brimming with island minutiae and stacks of old LIFE magazines — a writer’s dream. Angela Ritchie, founder of the Whistler-based ACE Camps, and a creative mastermind in her own right, was the organizer of the retreat. I had the good fortune of interviewing her when I was back in Vancouver last week.

The fruit of the trip — Watchful Reverence, in UPPERCASE issue 10 — arrived at stockists and doorsteps days ago.

An excerpt:

“It’s the steady calm of the island air whistling through the birch trees. It’s the burst of plover, finches, and jays that begin their daylight calling at 4:30am, beckoning us to do the milking… I am sitting on the front stairs of the Highlands main house. Here four crooked trees congregate like an outer hearth. The twisting white-worn branches are the sort you’d find in the Haunted Wood of Anne of Green Gables’ imagination. The beaked chirps, caws and whistles blend into a symphony of spring. Behind me seven girls chatter on around the breakfast table: preserves, balkan yogurt, fresh-baked muffins, boiled eggs, brimming between. In the old adjacent dance hall Sabrina, dressed in a vintage polkadot dress, is readying for the day’s making.”

It was an absolute gift to meet Sabrina and a joy to work with Janine Vangool, tireless publisher/editor/designer of the magazine (not to mention mother to an on-the-run toddler.)

______________________________

If you are interested in reading the complete article you can order single copies or subscriptions to this beautiful publication at: http://shop.uppercasegallery.ca/collections/uppercase-magazine-1\. It is available in print only.

I have stubby thumbs. They’re quite comical, really. Apparently the actress Megan Fox has the same ones but she, unlike me, gets a thumb double.

Anyways, these fat suckers have kept me from being very crafty because I have little-to-no patience for handling finicky things. So it was a big step for me to sign up for a sewing class because I would have to feed the thread through the needle hole, and fill a bobbin, and handle all of those little itty bitty teensy weensy things. And though my thumbs hung me out to dry a couple of times, I had a really good time. I took the Sewing Essentials class at The Workroom on Queen Street which is basically a get-to-know-your-sewing-machine class.

We made a pillow case. Here’s how mine turned out. I’m pretty darn happy about it.

Next project: hemming curtains.

The final piece, now hung in our office / art room. Paint, India ink (Sabrina’s lettering, my words,) and collage on craft paper. I originally thought I was making a piece to be cut into pages but decided in the end I liked it too much whole.

_______

Closer…

[Grab images and drag to a new window to look closer]

[poetry / freewrite]

I am here today to give myself

permission
to take all of the twine
the knots
the dirt-sand-rock-thorn lines
and bless them
smile with my mouth
my eyes

what I mean by that is

I want to live open
extend my arms
out
give way to the new things
lift eyes to grey skies
lover’s hand
and grasp with the strength of a giant

last wednesday

I sat with my one-year-old
reading the ugly duckling
the ripped pages
painting a pretty picture on the floor

and we danced
cheek-to-cheek
on whatever was playing on the radio
her warmth to my warmth

I am craving

more of this
the untethered moments
the knowing
that this is life at best
life at present
life given
life to be grabbed
life not foresaken

and I want the beautiful

when I was little I wore

dresses that matched my sister
and it made me proud
I wanted to look the same
next to her olive skin

the colours were

pink, white
sweatshirts with happy and sad faces
dresses in fuschia and aquamarine
there were yellows — warm

I remember how

we’d go to the playhouse
dad built in the backyard
the one with the real house windows
that opened and closed
we’d sit on the black spackled roof
and laugh at our brothers
dressed like batman and robin
jumping from roof to lawn
and be secretly jealous of their bravery

I wore my hair

long then
but I’d liked it short
the time I cut it in my friend’s bathroom
with paper scissors when no one was looking
and wore it the same way to my dad’s wedding –
a perfect tomboy in a pale blue dress

[process]