letters for a long lost lover {the road to forgetting}

Recently I did a class that had a residency at the Artscape Gibraltor Point on Toronto Island with Tara Cooper. The class was super cool and I got to camp in the rain for a week. Thankfully I had the mother of all tents.

Anyway the first project was called the suitcase project and we had to take a bunch of different collections from the Island using our environment as our influence and inspiration.

The first thing that came to my mind was where I keep my suitcases, which is under my bed filled with things I don't have room for. So that got me thinking about other things people want to hide and don't have room for in their daily lives.

What I made was a collection of letters and drawings that were either meant to be sent to someone (but never were) or belong to someone that wants to keep them (but keep them a secret).

I made a box out of paper and thread, lined it with hand printed paper from Venice, then filled it with hand made envelopes. In each envelope is a letter and a watercolour.

Letters for a long lost lover or The road to forgetting.

everything is plans

i'm really just starting to get down to the thick of things.

i'm preparing myself to have no life and trying ever so hard to get my butt out of bed even when i don't have class. i recently just found out that i messed up my classes so now i only have two days of school a week after dropping an extra course that i was taking. this is making it even harder to get my early morning motivation going. but here is what i have been up to anyway. mostly at ten at night in my kitchen.

a life size sketch that i did from memory. a rough set of plans for my thesis. the people are not going to be in the final product. it will be a 5.5 foot tall hospital bed constructed and all covered in fabric. underneath is going to be a toy box, with the pattern printed on fabric and constructed, then filled with hospital things. today i'm planning out the mathematical calculations of the toy box. it's going to be a busy semester.



this section actually turned out to be my favourite of the whole drawing and what made me finish the figures and make it more of a drawing, instead of just a plan for my thesis. it's me and my dad.

here's a little story i remembered from the time in my life while drawing. i just left it on there.


i printed some of the objects i plan to craft on the paper over the toy box so that i could submit this through print for the figure show at ocad. i find out later this week if i get in or not.

also here are some cards and envelopes i printed. fuck me, it's valentines day.

if you want some wicked cards, shirts, bands and to hang out with some wicked printmakers you should come out to the thesis fundraiser at the garrison.

if you miss that we'll also be in the lobby all day friday. rocking the haggard, hangover, awesome look.

Large Scale Memories

A beginning of a sketch for my new thesis idea.
(my cat phoenix makes her first appearance in the bottom left)

Winter Birds and Kittinspiration

So originally I had wanted to use a picture of my bird instillation to enter in the Toronto Star emerging artists contest that had a winter in Toronto theme, unluckily the day I installed happened mostly sunny, sometimes overcast, definitely freezing, but most of all snow free. I was hoping for snow soon so I could go back and take pictures. It was only three days later that the first substantial snow appeared.


I was expecting for some birds to be gone, and was fully prepared for all the ones in reach to get stolen eventually. I had to talk my roommate Nicki, who helped me install, out of stealing some before I even had my critique. I was completely surprised to see about half the birds gone in such a short time.


I think its really lovely though that people from all around Toronto will have my little birds in their hands and houses. I would love to know anyone who has them, but for now I can just fantasize about where they are now. In the end I didn't submit my image to the contest, I couldn't decide if I should submit the half empty tree with snow on the ground or the full tree without the wintry surroundings. To be honest the submit date just slipped my mind and I had a moment of panic when I realized it, but also glad that I didn't have to resolve that issue.


By the time I went to take down the empty ribbons this Wednesday only the birds that were fully out of reach were left, i even had trouble getting down some of the ribbons with my ten foot ladder. There were only eighteen left and I accidentally cut a few down in the confusion of all the other tangled ribbons.


I left eleven up and all the extra ribbons are gone. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with them. Eventually I will have to take them down so they don't harm the tree, but if anyone is feeling adventurous or is equipped with a large ladder please feel free and do the job for me.


Also, just for fun, here's some silly pictures I took of some silly cats. I'm calling it Kittinspiration, and yes, I am coining that phrase.

One Hundred Birds

So here's my final project for my fourth year printmaking class. I worked on this all semester long so I put a lot of work into it. I started by drawing twenty five birds. I then silk screened those birds onto four different colours of fabric. Then I mentally prepared to get carpel tunnel from sewing 100 birds.


Here's a picture of my make-shift light table a piece of white paper taped to my lamp. Using tailors chalks I traced the birds.


Then I pinned all the white ribbons to each and every bird and sewed them!


Here is where my beautiful and lovely roommate Nicki helped me by turning all the birds inside out and stuffing them! After I sewed all the bottoms closed by hand, which took way more time than I anticipated! I wasn't sure if my fingertips would ever feel the same. Nicki is also an awesome artist! Check out her blog if you're smart.


Then I ventured to school to find my beautiful tree, which I had already picked out before hand.


Thanks again Nicki, who took most of these pictures! My gratitude and love is undying for all your help!


And this is my tree! I really loved the way it turned out! Although I wish it had been snowing on the day of install, because that's how I pictured it. I came back after the weekend on the first substantial snow and almost half of the birds were already gone. They flew away into people hands I think. Which I don't mind at all, its kind of beautiful that people wanted them so much. My christmas gift to the patrons of Grange Park. Happy holidays everyone!