"i am sick" zine finished!

/\ also a drawing inspired by sky gardens, dante's hell, and the letter w

I made a zine last week and finally got it printed today! I don't know why I always end up making these things in a whirlwind flurry - this took me an evening and a half, and it came out pretty naturally. The naturalness might be due to being feverish and wonky the whole time I tremulously held that gluestick, but I wouldn't have it any other way. In fact I stopped when I felt better enough to leave the house, which left me with exactly 16 pages of ranting and diagrams and love songs to lozenges.

I'm also partway started the next issue of Underwater Cigarettes, which might get a name change along the way, but it's still looking to be the same sort of structure, that is crazy pen drawings leaking onto stream of consciousness writing and so forth. I would give my teeth for a typewriter or a printer! But I would also settle for giving away my jaw. I have killer TMJ right now. Not that anyone cares, but it hurrrrrts. :(

Okay, okay... montreal art. I saw a movie at Articule last Saturday called La Grande Bouffe. Oh my goodness it was fabulous!!!! It was about these four frenchmen who decide to eat themselves to death, which naturally requires hiring prostitutes to notch up the decadence. We're talking feast after glorious feast after ridiculously mindblowingly rich and rare feast, with greasy roasts and vats full of "puree" and always always these strange over-iced gateauxs. Oh, and it was funny as well. And there was a love story. And the funniest bits were so horrible. It won at Cannes in the 70s and I'm of course recommending it from the tippiest bits of my curling-in-horror toes.

I suppose the important bit is that Articule needs a new floor though. It really is the sweetest little artist-run center that ever existed 4 minutes away from my house. I hope they make enough to replace it, and if they continue these events with the movies and vegan squash soup + toasty almonds on top (and grilled cheese that I couldn't eat but smelled nice) I think they will.

with a pretty bow, we take a bow

This could sum up the tune in my head these days very well.

"Lately - and I think this is a cultural observation - I've replaced the post-romantic metaphor with one of a knot. I see individuals now as knots, in say, the piece of lace that one of Vermeer's lacemakers is making. Things go through us - the genetic code, the history of the nation, the language or languages we speak ... the constraints that are put upon us, the people who are around us. And if we are an individual, it's because these threads are knotted together in this particular place, and they hold. I also have no metaphysical sense of the self, and I see this knot as vulnerable; you could cut one or two threads of it... or you can, of course, get an unwieldy know where somebody has had so much put in that the knot becomes a large and curious, and ugly object. We are connected and we also are a connection which is a separate and unrepeated object."
-- A. S. Byatt (1987; 26)

Last week we had our first taste of actively doing some performance art together for class:



There were other things done too - that black circle of tubing was filled with hundreds of downy pillow feathers that we sent cascading through the big glass sleekness of the new art building. Multiple times. I don't think the janitors were even chagrined! We also carried a couch into the big maintenance elevator and had a little hoedown in there, hoping that this time maybe we would get more random people to join us... and of course Kathy Kennedy (sound artist/professor extraordinaire) shows up with her sound class along with some guy eating takeout noodles and the place goes wild! The video's too long and unedited to show right now, but I may later when I get the final piece.

In other news I AM SICK. Oh woe, to have a head so full of gak! I'm probably not communicating very well if blog-land is anything like real-land, but you're bearing with me if you've gotten this far and that makes me happy enough to keep going.

Notably at the end of that class some of us got randomly invited behind the glass gallery of the FOFA to take part in a real (that is, meaningful) performance piece - Angela Silver's Accrétion where she takes outmoded pieces of writing equipment and gives them new life in contemporary ways. In this case, basically, she was wacking a wall full of carbon paper with a typewriter ball over and over, making strange partial constellations of letters and signs all over the wall. You also had to walk through Amelie Brisson-Darveau's jungle of knotted-up crimson fabrics to get to the action. (I think that also had to do with re-purposing objects - turning old clothing into measuring tools, borders, social nets, et al)

It was fairly neat, and a good denouement on feeling healthy I think. 30 minutes after this I was horking and trembling like a big 'ol microbe, but up until then... art. As it should be. :)

The next assignment for Perf. Art is to take on a different persona for a whole day... I was just thinking of switching gender, but now I think I might go a little wilder in concept. Any ideas? Mythical beasts, muses, barons and superheroes are kinda the wildness I'm aiming for. Moustache wearing is a highly amusing plus!

graar! I come from a swamp... to look fashionable at you

Went to a wig-making workshop today. Can we say fabulous? I wasn't even allowed to go and then I get an email saying I'd been pushed up from the waiting list to the list of lucky stars who got to take glue guns to creepy hair weaves for an afternoon. Improvement of situation, yes!

It was pretty cool, not terribly informative or mindblowing, but a neat craft session. It got me thinking actually about making shaman masks or wigs later on. Hearing Kali's name so often in my religion class that came right before must have informed the black disaster I'm so expertly modelling up there, and I kinda wish I'd had a whole head of the stuff to work with, you know, really push that crazed medicine woman primal tresses thing. I can see a series with this...

Oh yeah, and in other news people don't hate my watercolour work. Neat buckets!

I thought they were disparate as hell but no, apparently they're all quite equally strange and loveable. :)

(if you click on the picture you can see them close up on my flickr set)

on lizards, and wizards

"All that I made before the age of 65 is not worth counting. At 73 I began to understand the true construction of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. At 90 I will enter into the secret of things. At 110 everything -- every dot, every dash -- will live."
- Hokusai

I've been feeling inevitable lately. Full of piss, vinegar, and only slightly sick from the intense effort of living to the fullest. I even managed to sleep last night! Finished 10 watercolours for draw studio, which I'll post later for sure. My performance art class is also looking to be that class that actually teaches something about art (there's always one, if you're lucky). I skipped ahead in the online syllabus and found some links to Miranda July on Youtube, which made me squee, because gosh darnit I think she's adorable. Yeah, I know, whatever, she's a privileged art-heiress, but I think her work is actually really sweet, and anyone with eyes so freaky crystal blue just has to be good, right? Of course.

Keep watch for some performance art going down over here, too... I've got ideas up the wazoo, which actually surprised me but I think I might take to this like a fly to jelly, so to speak. It's just too ripe for, well, anything. I will not mail you real spam in the mail, though, I promises. :)

I've been reduced to this? bollocks!

It's strange to think that it's actually been almost a year since I've given this blog any thought. Similarly, New Years came and went without my taking stock of anything that's happened during 2008, leading me to almost believe that I'd done nothing.

This couldn't be any untruer. Most notably and perhaps most quietly... I found my artistic voice again. I recognized it as the secret joy of feeling the creaminess of graphite scribble as I worked feverishly into wee hours of the night... it would have been since grade 9 that I'd felt so in love with just drawing for it's own sake. The rekindling of this was due to meeting a remarkable person who has since moved on and through my life to her own adventure, and while this person will probably forever BE 2008 to me, I move on to the other small areas of note.

I finished the 10-day Master Cleanse in the spring, and thus quit smoking. Okay, that one IS pretty big.

I published a few zines, including the relatively successful Underwater Cigarettes #3 that got reviewed in Broken Pencil. This led to a busy mail life that involved some packages and mail art and old school enveloped fun. I might dive back into it sometime, when the mood strikes.

I started an Etsy shop, which I had been thinking about for a while and made a little over 100$ out of stuff that was laying around in my drawers. Not bad!

I decided to minor in Religion, and join the ranks of all those with useless degrees and too much propensity to think about things that probably function better when they're not under scrutiny.

I became ridiculously skilled in the kitchen. woohoo!

Um... what did I not do? Talk to people. Take some risks. Say yes to things. Be open? And this is what the new year is about now. This is travel year, in whatever form that comes in. I haven't decided where or how (exchange through uni or WWOOFing), but I'm taking whatever skanky boring job I can get with the express purpose of saving up a plane ticket. Some places are really cheap! Ecuador, Japan, wish I could go to New Zealand... anyway. That is this year.

Not to mention drawing my wee heart out, as if I could ever put that pencil down.

Other things 2009 will bring:
* at least one date
* a table at Expozine
* a plane ride
* breakdancing
* a performance art class!
* participaction in an art show (crossed fingers for Art Matters)
* doing one thing that scares me every day. Today I called someone. :)

I'm back!

Hmmm... the layout needs work. Stay tuned...