Gravity Rides Everything

Inside my journal from when I was 21 I found a cut-up I did of a photo I took after creating a series of boob prints.

One of these prints, the left boob, still hangs above our bed. The other dons a wall in the new home of my old roommate, the soon to be Mrs. MacDonald. I've always wondered just how many people have actually seen my breasts?

After I did this cut up I hid it away due to the fact that my breast looked, well... wall-eyed and certainly not their best to say the least.

10 years later I'm just happy to have found the image again. Also I realize just how true it is - gravity really does ride everything.

23 Skidoo

My oh my, do I have a lot of work ahead of me! The last few weeks have been a blur... Hants County Arts council meetings and workshops, prepping to launch "Pretty Things Merch"on Etsy, finishing up my contract at Family SOS, Halifax Crafters Spring Fling and then as a final reward - Jamaica!

Not to worry, I captured everything on film and will share shortly.

Meanwhile I've been trying to catch up on everything I put off for "when we get back from the trip" - and that's a mighty hefty list!

Thanks to April showers my garden is a mess of weeds I've just barely gotten to. After much Etsy posting and sometime spent on a custom critter, I've started my attack on the garage... A.K.A "studio."

Sadly the garage may never be the work space I envisioned, but at least now it resembles a place you might actually want to spend time in.

While organizing this morning I found my journal from when I had my epiphany for an Arts Centre. It was quite fitting to find that now, 10 years later, as I lay my roots hoping to play an important part in the creation of a new Arts Centre here in Windsor.

I'm so excited by all the opportunities coming my way, and all I had to do was beg, work hard and have faith.

Cher Hair

So anyone who knows me or has met me knows I have very, very long hair. As a young girl I loved the Tommy Hunter show, watching hopefully each week, waiting for my hero Crystal Gayle to dust the stage with her over five foot long mane. I’d watch in awe as she swayed along with her music, her long shiny raven locks falling perfectly straight, immune to damage of any sort. I’d wonder how she was able to maintain her elongated coiffure. I’d picture her meticulously braiding her tresses before bed to keep them in their utmost shape. These tresses demanded respect!

When I was seven my father took me to visit a hairdresser friend of his who ran a salon from the basement of her house and told me I could have my hair cut any way I liked. Looking up at the woman I told her that I wanted my hair like hers, which happened to be a bouffant, somewhat like my other idols Kate and Cindy from the B-52’s. This turned out to be a huge mistake, the hairdresser got a wee bit snip happy and the resulting haircut left me looking more like a rebel little boy then the beehived beauty I had envisioned. My mother was most upset; previously she and I had had matching haircuts. She thought my father had done this on purpose to punish her. In fact I was the one who ended up being punished, arriving at school Monday to whispers of “who’s the new boy?” Did I mention the new do also sported a rat tail? Yes, I was doomed to fail socially.

This was the first of many hair failures for me. In the eighth grade my step-mother surprised me with a trip to Casa Dante’s school of Hair Design where I got my first and last spiral perm. The student hair dresser forgot about me while the perm was setting, so when she finally removed the rollers my finally once again long locks had poodled up near my shoulders with the last 2 inches bleached white! I won’t even mention the tuft that became my bangs.

After surviving the perm years and then many years experimenting with hair colour, including a year of calico chunks, I decided that was it – no more dye, perms or experimental cuts for me!

Several years later I still haven’t quite made it to Crystal Gayle lengths, more of a Cher “

Half-Breed” length. Yesterday I decided, to hell with it! I want some colour! So I broke my vow of never dying my hair again and took the plunge. I’m rather happy with the result, so much that I decided to do myself a little cut-up to commemorate my re-entry into the world of chemical hair colour. Here’s hoping I still like it in a month.

Junk Store Finds

On the weekend Bryan dragged me to Canning to what he described as the "best record store ever!"

He wasn't lying. Not only was it a fabulous record store - I got 2 Kate Bush albums, several David Bowie, Rolling Stones and much, much more..... too much in fact.

In addition to the albums, the fellas there have a nice selection of vintage toys, knick knacks and housewares. My moment of joy came when I found an old rotating postcard rack.

Even more joy was to be had when I got home and loaded it with my cards - what a beauty eh?

I wish I had the name of the store to share, but luckily Canning is quite small, so if you happen to pop through for a visit, it won't take you long to find it and all the treasures it houses. Enjoy!

Dragons, lizards and other creatures with scales

Well the countdown to the Halifax Crafters Spring Fling is on! I've been extra busy lately preparing new stock for "Woodland Wool" and "Pretty Things" (official launch is in two weeks!!!)

Being a bit of a girly girl I tend to lean towards more feminine projects - so I'm trying to get out of my comfort zone and experiment with some new critters!

Here is one of my lizard dudes who I'm absolutely in love with. I'm just crazy about his fluffy black and brown mohawk, he's too cool for school!

Wish I could chat more, but there's much crafting to be done.

If you're in Halifax the weekend of April 17th & 18th be sure to pay me and the Halifax Crafters gang a visit at Olypmic Gardens on the corner of Hunter Street and Cornwallis.

Look forward to seeing you all there!

Loss of a Genius

I just heard the very, very sad new that designer Alexander McQueen has taken his own life. I've never really paid too much attention to fashion, but I recently saw a recording of his 'Plato's Atlantis' show and was completely enthralled.

Each piece is an absolute work of art and deserves to be in a gallery. Just the other day I was thinking how amazing it would be if the clothing could travel from gallery to gallery so that we all could appreciate it's exquisite beauty.

So sad.

In fact my recent feather pieces that I've been developing for musician Christina Martin were inspired by this recent show. I've designed 3 necklace styles, one, the 'Xtina' which is asymmetrical, a preference for Christina. The second is the 'Saki' which uses lots of bright colours and are very abstract, and the third are my 'Queenies” which were directly influenced by the symmetrical dresses of the Atlantis show.

I’ve been meaning to blog about Mr McQueen's show for some time now, and it greatly saddens me that it took the ending of his life to finally get around to sharing some images displaying his infinite talent.

Halifax Crafters Winter Show

Well the Halifax Crafters Winter show was a huge success, so much so that I only really got to go and look around in the last 5 minutes before it was time to pack up. I managed to get a few trades in, but it wasn't until I got home and took a look at the furry of photos that I realized just how much stuff I would have liked to have purchased. Drat! Well there’s always April. Until then here are a few pics of some items that really caught my eye.