It’s been far too long since my last market. Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed taking a wee break, but it felt excellent to dust off my inventory sheets in preparation for this weekend & get back to making impossible TO DO lists. No matter how many hours I devote to prepping for a market, I’ve still never finished everything on my list. It doesn’t help that the list keeps growing, of course. From simple things, like designing new tags or printing little bio sheets to go with each print, to big ones, like creating an entirely new product (brooches, anyone?) – there’s always something else to do.

Today was spent making new Scrabble tile pendants & assembling the lockets that I sealed a few days ago. Any jobs involving resin are bumped to the top of the list since it needs time to cure. Picking up business cards from the printer? Tomorrow. Trimming magnets & putting together postcard packs? Friday. Figuring out which original paintings to bring? Friday night. Late.

As much as I would love to stroll into a market on a good night’s sleep with my entire table set-up perfectly organized & stored sequentially in air-tight containers on wheels, I also know that I wouldn’t have done a single show yet had I waited until I was completely “ready.” My table will never be perfect, but I come up with new ideas, tweaks & generally think I get a little better with every show I do. And that’s exactly why my TO DO list never gets any shorter!

If you’re in the Vancouver area this weekend & want to see for yourself, you can find me here:

Saturday, September 25th

Autumn Shift Festival
outdoor street fest sponsored by Blim
Main Street between Broadway & 12th Ave
12 to 6pm

This free, fun, family friendly event will feature live music, improv and comedy acts, a merchant’s market, a farmer’s market, local artists, great community participation and lots of exciting activities for children. For more info check out the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement website.

Sunday, September 26th

Portobello West

Rocky Mountaineer Train Station

1755 Cottrell Street

12 to 6pm

Hello lovelies! I’ve been back from Winnipeg for a week now, but I feel like I’ve hardly had a moment to myself since I touched down in Vancouver. Though the Boggle app on my Information Phone begs to differ, we both agree that I’ve been a busy bee packaging up orders from my Etsy shop, creating new lockets for a couple of local retail stores & all the general busyness that piles up after taking a week off. Phew!

I grew up in Winnipeg, so it was great to visit my old stomping grounds. I got to catch up with one of my oldest friends while I was there & it was really lovely to spend time with her & her daughter, who is the spitting image of her mom, I might add. At 6 years old, she’s also the exact same age that *we* were when we first became friends. It was quite surreal to see the same bedroom furniture & realize that yes, we were that little once upon a time.

I hadn’t been back to the ‘Peg in probably 5 years, so it was fun to drive past an old restaurant (it’s still there!) or shop (that’s where my mom & I took pottery classes!) & get little bursts of nostalgia. I didn’t travel too far down memory lane though – the main reason for my visit was to see my sister, who lives on the complete opposite end of the city as to where we grew up. (She swears this was not intentional.)

My beautiful sister is one of the strongest people I know. She’s the type of person you can always count on, no matter what. Incredibly hard-working, super smart, compassionate, honest, principled to the point of, dare I say it, stubbornness – she’s awesome. She was & continues to be a wonderful role model for me. She’s also battling breast cancer.

September marked her final chemotherapy treatment, so my visit was a sort of celebratory one, though a mellow celebration to be sure. Apparently chemo has a cumulative effect, which means that while the first few treatments didn’t seem too awful, the last 2 really put her body through the wringer. She was feeling pretty exhausted, so we did a lot of TV watching, visiting & I introduced her to Boggle, on which she was promptly hooked. *heehee*

Since she’s my sister, she doesn’t accept help easily. Or ask for help. Ever. Living so far away, I haven’t really known what I should do to help, so it felt good to be there even if it just meant doing the dishes or picking up groceries.

I think that’s the thing with people fighting cancer – they probably don’t want more cancer “stuff” foisted upon them. (Side rant: Seriously, is there anything left to slap that pink ribbon on? There’s even an official breast cancer awareness vibrator available. Is that really necessary? I’ll let you do your own Googling & decide for yourself.)

My sister has a whole pile of people phoning to check on her & I imagine having the same conversation over & over again is pretty tiring. What she seems to appreciate most is the people who send her funny little things in the mail, stuff that makes her smile. Silly magnets, erasers, maybe a good movie or two – who wouldn’t like getting fun surprises in the mail? It never occurred to me to send her stuff like that. Such a great idea!

Everyone is different, of course, but if there’s anybody in your life going through a tough time, maybe they’d appreciate a laugh instead of a typical “get well soon” card. If you have any other suggestions, I’d love to hear them too.

After a week of visiting family in Manitoba, I’m home & back in the swing of things, which (of course) means using the trending topics on Twitter to find out what I missed! I don’t usually watch the VMAs, possibly because I don’t usually watch music videos, but more likely because all of the awards seem to go to a really small pool of musicians, few of whom I can stand  to listen. I am, however, a Lady Gaga fan. I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of her music per se, but I love the crazy outfits, I love the music videos with massive production value (I watched Telephone on YouTube) & I love seeing someone doing something interesting with their celebrity. Love her or hater, you can’t deny that she’s more interesting than discussing Lindsay Lohan’s most recent rehab stint.

So. Since “meat dress” has been a trending topic on Twitter for several days now, I finally caught up with pop culture & watched the VMAs. My immediate reaction? Lady Gaga is a Mark Ryden fan! Rad!!

I’ll let you be the judge. Gaga in the meat dress is pictured above & here is Mark Ryden’s painting, Incarnation:

Meat dress aside, don’t you think the VMAs would be more interesting if they actually played some of the videos? I don’t have cable, so maybe I’m an odd duck for only seeing 2 videos in the past year. However, when I *did* have cable it seemed like bad reality-format shows had replaced the music videos. Meh.

My mister & I have been enjoying feeling like kids again as we ran around the PNE, Vancouver’s version of a county fair. Mini Donuts, ridiculously expensive lemonade, the Super Dogs – so much fun & so much nostalgia, even though we didn’t grow up here. I think every city has some version of the fair & all of our favorites were there.

Aside from digesting 9000 calories, as an adult I have to say wandering around & enjoying the shows was more my speed than riding rides. I watched a horseshoe demonstration where I stood with my jaw dropped as a lady pounded nails into a horse’s hoof. Even though both my parents grew up on farms, I’d never seen this done before & was SURE the horse was going to kick the hammer lady at any moment!

There must be farming in my blood, however, because now that Vancouver has passed the urban chicken by-law, I’m pretty stoked to get a little coop for our backyard. You can keep up to 4 chickens & apparently they lay roughly 6 eggs per week. How cool would that be?

I loved the Indian Runner ducks too. These guys need their own painting, I’m pretty sure.

Since I hadn’t been on a roller coaster in at least 3 years, we decided to splurge on the ride passes. What I didn’t take into account was:

a) I’m old.

b) It was already 5:30pm by the time we started riding rides.

c) The lines were really really long.

A $40 ride pass only amounted to 8 rides for us because the lines were long & (see point A), we’re old. After 3 or 4, we were ready for a break. And honestly, if we hadn’t spent the money on the passes, probably would’ve been quite content to quit right there. The historic wooden roller coaster? Kicked my ass. Not only did it scare the crap out of me, it felt really dangerous to fly out of my seat & left me with a huge bruise across my thigh. I do not understand the appeal.

My favorite ride was a new one – Crazy Beach Party. Looking at the cheesy artwork as we queued was entertaining, the ride was smooth & gave your stomach a little flip, but never in that “I AM GOING TO DIE!!!!” sort of way. Loved it.

Speaking of art, I was delighted to see Emily Carr University had put together an exhibition of container art. Each artist was given a truck container to do with as they saw fit & though some were definitely more successful than others, it was amazing to see art included at all. Tens of thousands of people who would probably never set foot in an art gallery were exposed to contemporary art being created by local artists. Awesome.

I don’t want to be too critical here, but I will say this – when you have a container & free range to make an art installation that thousands of people are going to walk through, the most successful exhibits are ones that are specifically designed for that space. There were a few that seemed to take their existing work & slap it up on the walls, creating a very small, cramped, badly lit gallery. Not very interesting, not the best way to display your art & totally uninspired.

The best thing I saw? Kids’ reactions to the art. I expected them to run into each one, check it out & run on to the next one, kid-style. That was definitely happening, but I was amazed at  how many little dudes really stopped in their tracks & LOOKED. Pondered. Tried to figure out what was going on or what the point was. I saw lots of kids being dragged away by bored moms & that made me really happy. (Well, not happy that the moms were bored, but taking kids to the fair looks like a fucking nightmare, so I can’t blame them for wanting to leave their brains in Managerial Safety Mode.)

What made me less happy? Seeing the display of essentially free art prints being given away with a donation of $1 or $2 to some charity. Thank you for devaluing my entire profession, assholes!

Was the art terrible? Of course. Was it still insulting to see my life’s work be given away as a free gift when donating less than bus fare? Absofuckinglutely.

(Note: Yes, I’m swearing a lot this blog post. I’m still *that* annoyed.)

Part of why this annoys me is the way artists are constantly called on to donate work to fundraiser auctions & the like. Once you donate something, be it an original or a print, the barrage of requests begins to snowball. I’ve spoken to several other artists who have had the same experience & none of us are considered “well known”. I’m sure lots of other industries get similar requests & yes, I’m happy to support the charities that I believe in, but at some point it’s just not feasible. Also, please do not patronize me with the adage, “But it’ll be great exposure for your work!” Great! Tell my landlord I’ll be paying rent this month with “exposure”. I’m sure that’s totally cool.

By a long shot, the most ridiculous fundraiser for which I’ve been asked to donate something was this: a lowly gaming company was in desperate need of funds to re-do their patio, where I presume the employees hang out. Quick! In the time it takes you to read this sentence, a struggling computer programmer may have to sit outside & smoke on a patio with cracks in it! CRACKS!!! Please donate now.

Um. No.

I finished up my tiny painting for The Pocket Show tonight & it felt incredibly good to dust off my paintbrushes. This summer has been filled with plenty of work, but it’s been either the locket-making, market sort or packaging orders/off to the post office kind. This is precisely why I enjoy signing up for group art shows. There’s often a theme & there’s always a deadline, which means I get to put painting at the top of my TO DO list. Hopefully one day my life will be structured in such a way that creating art always comes first. A lovely dream!

On to the show! The Pocket Show is a HUGE group of artists (close to 100) exhibiting some very tiny art – nothing larger than 4″ x 4″, to be precise. I have a bunch of ideas sketched out in my sketchbook (thank goodness! one does start to worry when it’s been a while…), but the small size restriction meant saving some of my ideas for larger canvases. Since I planned to work on a 4″ x 4″ wood block, I decided to go with a more illustrative style & really enjoyed drawing on the wood in detail. I will often do a vague sketch, but then go over all of the lines with paint, completely obscuring them. I’m quite pleased with the way my girl turned out & hope she’ll fit right in at the show.

Only Dates Men With Beards
graphite, acrylic on wood
4″ x 4″ x 1.5″

For more details or to RSVP for the show’s opening, check out the Facebook event page.

The Pocket Show
156 West Hastings (@ Cambie)

Opening night:
Sunday, September 5th ~ 7:00pm to midnight

Show runs until Sept 18th