Call For Submissions - Help Create The Shapetionary!

What is the Shapetionary? It is a visual index of objects.

It started from looking at the dictionary and wondering why some words are illustrated and others aren’t, then thinking it would be interesting to illustrate the whole dictionary, or all the object nouns...then organize them by shape.

So Margaret Flood extracted all, or most (aprox 9500), of the object nouns, and is now setting out to get them illustrated by as many different people as possible.

She is interested in our subjective and collective understandings of objects. So far over 400 people are participating, and she estimates that between 1200-1500 drawers are needed.

If you are interested in illustrating some words, email Margaret Flood at velvetbicycle@hotmail.com and she will send you a list of 6-8 words, along with complete instructions. All contributors will be acknowledged in the final project.

I'm doin' it and if you like to doodle or draw, so should you!

Anyways, a big shout out to Instant Coffee for turning me on to this project!

Dudley the Fearless

Dudley the Fearless, originally uploaded by micgormit.

micgormit is one of my favourite toronto-based flickr photographers, and dudley is the cutest puppy ever!


oh, i mean, besides oscar of course...

vote for raymi!

I visit Raymi's website pretty much every time I'm online and I have more than 5 minutes to catch up on what the hell is going on. I kinda can't help it. The same thing happens when a television and I are in the same room and America's Next Top Model is on. She is arrogantly opinionated but in the funniest, hottest and sweetest way. If you haven't heard already, she is up for a 2006 Weblog Award in the Best Diarist category. Even though only 5 people read this blog, every vote counts.

Vote now.

Vote often.

I'm looking for a good free Mac RSS reader...

any suggestions?

fancy new colours!

Last night I wrote my final art history exam and am finally off school for winter break. Kirk and I are now drinking some decent shiraz from Argentina and we're watching the Pirates of the Caribbean that just came out on DVD. We're halfway through and it's about what I expected. It's some dreamy dirty pirate fun! So much fun that I'm posting this while it's still on. Last night we watched Superman Returns. It too was adequitely entertaining.

this is my latest sculpture homework. no really.

props to Kim Adams for inspiring me to hack a bunch of war toys and hand it in as homework. And I got an A on that last project!

i'm in last-3-weeks-of-first-semester hell. this story made me laugh so hard i peed a little.

I Was Placed On This Earth To Put Off Doing Something Extraordinary

Ever since I was born three weeks overdue, it was clear that there was something different about me. However, it wasn't until I postponed going...

shitty, shit, shit.

I feel like a big ole bag of poop today. I should be doing homework, but instead I'm lying on the couch, reading blogs and surfing the 5 tv channels we get. I have a presentation and essay due tomorrow night, but can't concentrate. Seriously, I just had to check the spelling of 'concentrate'. Even though it's right, it just looks weird to me.

It's probably just the Nyquil.

you are what you eat

This is my third assignment for my Form and Structure course, and it's due tonight. The assignment was called 'The Body'. The guidelines were:

1. The structure of your work can either be a fragment of the body OR a relationship/association created between 2 or more body parts.
2. Your completed broject will focus on, and be expressive of, a theme/idea/meaning
3. Your sculpture can be abstract/representational/self-contained/assemblage/installation/personal/political
4. Materials suggested: mould-making medium, plaster, plaster bandage, air-drying clay, sculpy, wax, wood, fabric, organic materials, etc.

SO, the idea I wanted to explore (as this post title suggests) was 'you are what you eat' in relation to how little we think about all the invisible stuff (fertilizers, pesticides, hormones) we put into our bodies when we consume seemingly innocuous foods, like fruits and vegetables. This is exemplified in the fingers that are bitten off along with the apple, as if the "biter" didn't notice. This also touches on the theme of the psychological impact of the mindless consumerism western culture, which is on my mind a lot lately with Christmas coming up, and me not having much money to spend. In fact, Kirk and I are considering making it a Buy Nothing Christmas.

Anyway, I really wish I had taken pictures of the whole process for ya'll. Instead I'll just tell you how I did it. I used alginate to make a 'negative' mold of my friend Melissa's hand, holding an apple, sans bite. Then I made a 2-part plaster bandage shell to hold it all together while it set. The shell also allows for you to pour your material to make your 'positive'. We then melted down some oil-based clay and poured it into the alginate/plaster bandage mould and poured it in. Once it was set, we pulled off the mould and had a great clay positive of my sculpture.

Then Melissa took a few bites out of the clay (yuk) and I used some hand tools to clean it all up. Then we repeated the alginate/plaster bandage process to make a new negative to pour the hydrocal (white gyspum cement) into. When the hydrocal started to set, we inserted a 3/4" wood dowel into the base, for mounting, and let it dry overnight. During the curing process, the dowel expanded with the moisture and heat and unfortunately cracked the base below the wrist. So I had to mix up some more hydrocal and work it into the cracks. Next time I'll remember to use a metal rod.

Once it was all dry, I sanded it and used spray primer to get it as white as I could. Kirk helped me make a plywood base (phew!) and I primed that as well. Last night I put it all together and this morning I epoxied in a real apple stem that I also had primed, and VOILA! Done, aaaaand done.

Ok. I'm off to school to present it to my class, where I will endure all manner of critique. Wish me luck!

worst wallpaper ever.

This is me (and my dad's hand) in 1975. I'm guessing on the year, but this shot was taken before we moved into our first house when I was just over a year old, so it's a pretty good guess.

yes. this IS me.

my festering nipple is festering no more!

No, I don't have a fresh photo of the scar, but it is fully healed. Trust me. Not that you should trust anything a blogger-who-never-blogs says.

I had this whole plan to post about my whole going back to school experience. But it appears that the black hole of first-year homework has totally shot that plan to shreads.

So, basically, I'm a total basket case. This semester I'm taking 4 courses:

Introduction to Visual Culture: History and Ideas (art history)
Drawing
Time-Based Media (video, performance art, electronics and web stuff)
Form and Structure (sculpture)

My instructors are all accomplished, knowledgable artists and scholars in their own right and aren't uptight or stuffy. They just seem excited to see how we interpret the assignments. I've received some marks back already, so I'm feeling good about the work I'm doing. Mostly. It's definitely weird working among recent high school graduates. Most of them think I'm only about 3 or 4 years older than they are and freak out when I tell them I'm married.

I've also started working in the school's Writing and Learning Centre as their Friday reception. The pay is not the greatest, but it's on campus, and its enough to cover all my incidental school expenses, so its worth it.

Anyway, here's a photo of my most recently completed painting. Yes, I'm still painting whenever I can steal a few free hours from homework time. This is from a photo of Oscar when he was about 10 weeks old.



Also, yesterday was my first wedding anniversary! Since we're a little short in the moolah department, we just stayed home, ate veggie chili, drank some shiraz and watched Slither. Which was fantastically gross! And can I just say that DAMN, that Nathan Filion is one dreamy smartass. Ahem. We decided instead of buying each other a gift, we'd save up for a few weeks and get a 250 gig hard drive installed into the portable hard drive case we've got kicking around. That way we can store our media in one central location WOOHOO! Anniversary-tastic!

OUCH! I burned myself!!!!

That's the last time I make tea topless. Fucking kettle.

tastes like homo!

Today is training day for my new job. I'm looking forward to making a little dough, but I'm starting to freak out a little about all the homework I haven't been working on over the last few days. Though, yesterday was the WORST DAY I've had since school started.

Monster menstrual cramps + lunch of potato salad with pork tenderloin and coffee = Linda Blair-type explosive barfing.



I haven't thrown up like that because of cramps since before I went on the pill at 19. I went off it a year and a half ago at 31, and mostly don't regret it.

Anyway, here is a shot of a new oil painting I'm working on, because I'm insane and don't seem to get that I have more than enough to do already with school. It's from a photo I took of Oscar when he was about 10 weeks old. This was the first time he had been to my parents' house and he had never seen such an expanse of grass. He sat there for about 10 minutes just looking out.

sigh.

hey! are you still there?

I've been meaning to post for ages, but I'm still adjusting to the whole "get up and go" school thing (a.k.a. get off yer lazy ass and do some work, beeyatch). This term, I'm taking drawing, art history, intro to film and video and intro to sculpture.



There's plenty of homework, which I'm not really used to, so my brain is constantly chugging away. That means I'm sleeping fairly erratically. Only to grind my teeth to nubs when I actually do sleep. Since I've been off work since July, I've also been worrying (grinding) about money. So, last Friday, I got myself a part-time job on campus.



OK. Sleepy time now. Post later. Kisses!

i'm in first week of school hell. thank goodness for ze frank.

the show with zefrank

This Blog Sucks...

...dirty gym socks?
...funky goat balls?
...slimy dog toys?

Meh. blaaaaahg.

Maybe I should actually start writing, or posting or something?

Or maybe I should just give it up? Hm...

In the meantime, here is a photo of our new nephew. Kirk's sister gave birth on August 23. She named him Kirk. Seriously.

Isn't he just precious? Did I just use the word precious? uuuugh...

so i'm leaving again

Going up to the cottage once again for a whole week. I'm sequestering myself there to finish about 10 - 15 drawings for this art show thing I'm working on for September.

It's also Kirk's birthday on Monday, so there will be cake and r/c toys galore to keep him happy next week while I'm working away.

I've got 2 new paintings almost done. I plan to do at least 1 or 2 more, so when I get back I will post some photos for your viewing pleasure. Oh yeah, and I start school in 3 weeks. YOWZA.

Anyway, I hope you all have a good week and thank you to Squid, Wendy, Dave, IronicSimplicity and ThaMonkey for your encouragement and well wishes. I really appreciate you guys.

DJ Cyber-Rap - Stylin' '06 (Profile of a Mac)

DJ Cyber-Rap - Stylin' '06 (Profile of a Mac)

OH. MY. GAWD.

it's SO obvious how much they love jesus