THE ANaTOMY OF A CHEERS

Ever wondered what a glass is thinking in the crisp moment just before it smashes into a bigger, meaner looking pint glass? Last night we sent JonJon off, back to Holland with long sad faces, as you can see by the photos. We heart you Jonny! Can someone please invent an emoticon for a heart already?? <3

My Cat's Cradle fingers can whip your Nintendo thumb

It has recently become clear to me that I am slowly turning into my grandmother. Not my mother (she's much cooler than I will ever be), but my Nanny, Eve, who I will ever remember for her perfectly coiffed hair, wheezy, silent guffaw and closet full of sequined ball gowns and patent shoes. I did not inherit her sense of style, unfortunately, but with each day that passes I resemble her more and more closely-- physically and psychologically.




Nanny was a classy lady (ha, I guess I will get to the resemblance part later); she knew how to serve tea, and did so in fine-boned teacups with spidery, delicate hands. She was always dressed in a skirt suit (or, at least, in my memory she was) and had the most gorgeous collection of costume jewelry. Bracelets, necklaces, and screw-clasped earrings-- holes were for cheap women-- that I have inherited, despite my eight in total piercings. She had gold lamay blouses and satin evening gowns, and a "waist-reducer" that looked like a bathroom scale, that you stepped onto and twisted for a smaller, firmer waistline. I guess it worked, because she was tiny even when she passed away at around age 70. My sister and I spent hours up there playing on that thing, and trying on her makeup and jewelry, peering at ourselves in her vanity mirror.

These memories always surprise me, looking back, because Nanny wasn't what you would call a "kid" person. She was very fussy, and never actually "played" with us. She loved us, for sure, but was more of a hands-off kind of Grandmother. Don't touch anything, don't break anything, and above all keep the noise level down because she usually had a headache. But for some reason we were welcome to rifle through her most prized possessions, and do what we pleased with them. Nanny's gift to my sister and I was not amusement, or big-bosomed, bandaid bearing hugs. It was how to use a hot water bottle, how to apply lipstick, how to decorate a parlour, how to be a "lady" and how to love your husband with the grace and thoroughness of a queen.

And thank God someone was teaching those lessons, because in the 1970s, my Nanny's craft (and that of other ladies her age) was fast becoming a forgotten art. So, she was our secret benefactor, bestowing herself subtly and generously, and, in my imagination, she watched us playing through the crack of the door, wondering how two such energetic tomboys could possibly be related to her, while her heart pounded with inexpressible, mystifyingly deep love.

I think about her a lot, because I didn't really know her. She died when I was 11, and is mostly hazy and mythological in my mind. I have many pictures of her, and it is true that I am beginning to look exactly like her. I even laugh like her, right down to the asthmatic sounding wheezes. I wonder at times if this freaks my grandfather out. Papa, as it turns out, was much younger than my Nanny. A total babe, he was, kinky black hair and big shoulders. He's 84 now, and his hair only began to turn gray a few years ago. Still a head turner, in my opinion, though I may be biased. Papa used to save the cardboard rectangles that the Laundromat put inside his freshly pressed shirts, for my sister and I to draw on. I still have one of them somewhere, tucked into an old scrap book. He was/is a real joker, with a great, loud laugh, and a completely wicked black and white 1970ish MGB that we were allowed to sit in while it was parked in the garage.

In my long winded way, what I am getting at is this: as I age, I find I am clinging more tightly to the things and memories of the past; things that made me who I am today, for better or worse. I just came back from the cottage, which we have had since I was about two. Until recently, it has never changed, not even a bit. Fake wood paneling, cheap orange carpet, mis-matched 70s furniture. It was perfect. But now, I guess as my dad nears retirement, he is getting bored, and he keeps renovating the cottage. Gone are the mushroom covered brown drapes and beige 14 acre velveteen couch--replaced with a Burgundy and hunter green, plaid outfit that fell out of a Sears catalogue. Gone are the weirdly out of place posters of Austria and the ugly brown bunk beds, replaced with floor-to-ceiling pine planks, a skylight and lamps made out of miniature canoes and moose antlers. Gone are the moldy air mattresses and moth-ball smelling blankets, and in are the gigantic powerboat with the walnut-paneled dash and the powder blue exterior paint job that clashes so smartly with the green of the surrounding pine trees and rust of the forest floor.

It makes him happy, so I say nothing. It's his, he earned it, and we were lucky enough to spend many moments up there, luxuriating in the "true" outdoors. It just reminds me of all the things I hate to admit are disappearing rapidly from our lives, and completely truant from this generation of children's lives. Gone are the skipping rope and the tennis ball in the nylon-- replaced with PS2, Pokemon and Tamagatchi. Gone are the campfires, singsongs and hours spent in the park down the street, and in are MSN, American Idol and child snatching serial murderers. Gone are games we made with string and popsicle sticks, and hitting each other on the head with our hockey sticks-- and in are Nintendo, Second Life and morbidly obese children. Sigh.... Forgive my rose-coloured glasses, and hypocrisy as I type this on my tiny, trendy iBook.

I wonder what happened to the waist-reducer? Who inherited that? Or did it end up in the garbage. Strange, the kinds of cheap artifacts our memories can make so deeply nostaglic.

K

p.s. drop by XPACE Gallery on Augusta, to see Wall + Paper II. I have a piece there that encapsulates all the griping I just did.

Cat's Cradle

click here for cat's cradle/ string figure how-to movies!!!!

Fig. 1-- The Cat's Cradle


Fig. 2-- Book Ends


Fig. 3 -- London Bridge


Fig. 4-- The Pinky One


Fig. 5-- Taffy

The Costume Made Me Do It

You know your friends are cool when they throw a Lawrence Welk themed wedding for themselves and 150 of their closest friends. This wedding was authentically campy, down to the pastel dinner-ware, the giant rice-crispy wedding cake and the Estonian community hall it was held in. Congratulations Jason and Dan!!! We love you, and may your marriage last much, much longer than my bizarre obsession with blogging!







I went with my good friends, Matt, Atom, and (my date) David, and another boy, Scott, and we shimmied and drank Cuba Libres until we thought doing a photoshoot was a good idea. Actually numerous photo shoots. We have decided, based on the following photos, that we should form a band, and perhaps also direct perfume ads.





















Remarkably, I was the most sober, but when I got home, I had to deal with my hair, which David had teased for 2 hours into a giant, agressive bouffant. You can see the fun I had trying to get it back to "normal". Sigh.... with digital cameras comes a perceived license to take as many photos of as many things as you want. Perfect for the obsessive compulsive/ADD types. How many pictures of my eye can I take? I really should be sleeping right now. Digital cameras will be the death of me.

Life Matters

OK I promised to upload my contribution to Imaging Change, and here it is. Obviously you can see it is not a "poster" in the traditional sense, but I am definitely not a graphic designer in the traditional sense. I do ok with textiles, though, and I think this particular piece was one of the most rewarding/satisfying things i've done in a while. It sold for $100!!!!

I must say, the research for this piece was heart-wrenching. Everyone knows about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, but rarely do we actually SEE the images. Even if we do, we tend to quickly shut them out-- because they are horrifying. To make this poster, I had to force myself to look, and two things struck me as I delved deeper into the story of children with AIDS in Africa. One, the main problem in this escalating epidemic is ACCESS to treatment, education and support. Many African communities simply do not have the funding or the infrastructure.

And two, despite this, there is still HOPE. For every heart breaking image or story I uncovered, there were also ones of change, networks, outreaches and awareness forming. There were pictures of children smiling, running, playing, fighting, squealing with delight. Being kids. It was pretty amazing. Profound.

I am glad I had the opportunity to make even a small difference. Thanks to my friend Cathy, a nurse who goes to Africa to work with children there, who gave me the following links:

www.unaids.org
www.unicef.org
www.theglobalfund.org
www.stephenlewisfoundation.org
www.who.int

ANYBODY NEED A BIKE?

Magic bike for sale, cheap. See picture below. Serious offers only.

I think I might be a Leprechaun

Ok, I lead a truly charmed life. I am aware of this. Yes, shitty things occasionally happen to me, but on the whole I think I receive an disproportionately large amount of good luck (in proportion to what? My size, maybe? My friend's luck? My I.Q.? I dunno, but I digress, please read on...)

A few months ago, I bought a bike from the local (and most likely crooked) bike man who runs a shop down the street. We will call him Uncle Johnny. Not the world's most beautiful bike, but it was to replace my little, terminally ill blue folding bike, which, according to another bike man, was due to be "taken out to the field and shot" it was so beyond repair. So, I forked out $100 for the little number you see in the picture above. Then, just to be sure, I took the little blue one to George, at Parts Unknown in Kensington. Long story short, George is a miracle worker (he also does kind of look like Jesus, the hair, the beard, the blue eyes-- dirtier fingernails, to be sure, but you definitely get the vibe) and he fixed little blue.

So, now I had two bikes. So I lent one to my friend, who we'll call Jen, who, I have since learned, has earned the nickname the "black hole of bikes," and as much as I love her, seems to have a knack for losing bikes. I don't know how, when or where (the details ares still sketchy) but little white bike was stolen. :(

#1 -- Who the hell steals bikes from STUDENTS????!!! That's just plain evil.
#2 -- Who the hell would want this ugly thing???!!
#3 -- I just found out about this last week, even though the bike has been gone for a while.

I got over it, I moved on. She felt really bad, whatever. No big deal. Here's where the story gets unbelieveable. Seriously. I'm talking Dawson's Creek weird.

Today I'm riding home from band rehearsal, along Queen Street, near Jarvis where all the old guys and winos hang out and play checkers and sell empty plastic binders and VHS copies of E.T. and Weekend at Bernie's along the side of the park. I am scanning the junk, because, well, I can't help it; I have a weakness for junk. And lo and behold, I see a bike that looks a lot like little white bike. So I screech to a halt, and pull up on the sidewalk. "Where'd you get that bike" I ask, trying for casual, probably hitting more petulant, or terrified. "Theese bike here?" the tiny, scrappy old Italian guy answers. "It's, was, uh, a guy-- WHY?" He get suspicious. "Because it's MY BIKE!!!" and to my surprise, righteous adrenaline is pouring into my viens and I am suddenly feeling very brave. "How you know theese your bike? You know how many people come by and tell me theess their bike?!" He's yelling at me now, but not acting very sure of himself. I suddenly see things going very well for me.

I start listing off all the reasons why I know this is my bike. First of all, they have been stupid enought to change not one little thing since stealing it. I always figured they stripped them down, painted them. No, this one even had the clip-on thingy for my headlight still attached! It still had the weird black thing that I couldn't get off the handlebar column, above the wheel. It still had the white plastic zip-tie I used to fasten the side of the seat down! I even had the matching white bike rack at home that I took of just before I gave it to Jen. So I'm going on about how wrong it is for people to steal bikes, especially from students, and he's like "you can't have it, because the guy, he gonna wanna know wha I did with hees bike." And maybe if I give him my name and address, then he will know I am not lying, and can tell the "guy" that the rightful owner came back to claim the bike. Ya, ok, I'm going to give you my name and address. Please, Mr.Bike thief, have my address so you can come and steal this bike back again, and maybe some other stuff too! So I just said, ok, well I guess I'll go and get the police involved, at which point old Italian guy's sidekick pipes up, "Jeem, if it's-a heer bike, you gadda give heer back-a heer bike-a."

I was fully bluffing, because, really I had no proof. The cops would be like "ya SURE this is your bike, little lady. Do you have any proof? No? Ok, run along..." But the next thing I know, after mumbling something about how I'm going to get arrested walking around with two bikes, he just walks away and says "Ok, take it. I don't care."

So, even though I am now officially in shock, I manage to balance a bike in each hand and walk off towards home. It's about a 4km walk, and it was very windy today. And, there's only so many times you can laugh at the joke, "boy, I bet it's hard to ride two bikes at once, huh?!" I was hurting by the time I got to Queen and Spadina. At which point, the luck gods doused me once again with their bounty, and a very handsome young German guy, holding a "Lonely Planet, Canada" walked up to me and says "Oh perfect, a bike for you, a bike for me!" He was on his way to Kensington (we're so cool here, we get a write up in Lonely Planet), so I let him walk me to Baldwin and Kensington, and then buy me dinner. Hahaha, I love this city.

Auf Wiedersehen!!

THURSDAY AUG 17th @ GRAFITTI'S

Oh yeah...For those of you who don't already know, I am playing on next Thursday at Grafitti's, in Kensington at 9pm. I will be accompanied by Dafydd Huges on piano, Jordan O'Connor on bass and Tim Shai on drums. We are rolling out a bunch of new tunes and old favourites. Come by for free good karma and sweet old fashioned musical fun. xoxo

World AIDS Conference

Here is a poster by a friend of mine, Paul, who has more talent in his little finger than most people would have in their entire bodies even if they died and got reincarnated 14 times. We are both donating posters to the Imaging Change show at OCAD this upcoming week in support of children in Africa living with AIDS. Which, by the way was almost 600,000 in 2005.

OCAD is holding an art show/silent auction in the Transit Space and Great Hall, which starts on Tuesday. The theme of the event, which you may have guessed by the poster is: Life Matters. Please come by! All the money goes back to Africa.

You can get to Paul's blog here. I will post my poster (post my poster??!!) as soon as it is done.

Love (safely)
Kat

PICK ONE

Somtimes I can't believe how lucky I am. Yesterday I had the pleasure of being asked to photograph some friends marching in the Caribana-- excuse me-- Toronto Caribbean Carnival. I was right there in the middle of it!!! And got some great shots. Now I need help choosing one. I am thinking of entering my first photo contest. Please leave a comment below all the pics.

Also yesterday I dropped my favourite pink plastic belt while riding my bike to the movie theatre (saw Little Miss Sunshine-- it was hilarious). Went back 2.5 hours later to look for my belt, a long shot, I know. Yet, there it was, nicely folded up on the side of a curb, safely out of danger from passing vehicles. I love this city. Makes me want to lose things more often!

xox
K


Photo A (above)

Photo B (above)

Photo C (above)

Photo D (above)

Photo E (above)

Photo F (above)

Photo G (above)

Photo H (above)

Photo I (above)

Photo J (above)

Photo K (above)

Photo L (above)

Photo M (above)

Unpaid to Learn

So I have been doing this summer internship with the City of Toronto in the Urban Planning department. My job basically consists of surfing the net while researching Toronto public pieces of art all day long. It's pretty sweet, and would be even more so if I was getting paid. Anyhow, what I have learned is that as a city we are pretty fucking cool and culturally rich. There are pieces of art EVERYWHERE if we would only take the time to notice them.


Here are just a few:




Radioville, by Roland Brener, 2006 at 285 Mutual, the site of the Old CBC building, image by Craig James Wright on Flickr.com

The Northern Bull Moose, by Hilary Clark Cole 1992 image from http://www.dittwald.com/torontosculpture/

Medusa, from E.B. Cox's Mythology Garden at The CNE, my image

Uniform Measure/Stack, by Stephen Cruise at Richmond and Spadina image from www.livewithculture.ca

That's all for now. The rain has made me sleepy and the also the giant bagel I just ate....