3 MORE WEEKS

Just cleaning off my desktop and found this image. No idea why it was there, or where it came from, but thought it might have been a warning or reminder to not slack off at school from the homework gods. It is entitled (by lord knows who) "3 More Weeks" which is precisely how much time I have until my final thesis presentation. Do you suppose the underlying message is "do good work girlie otherwise you will be taking the bus for the rest of your life." Or perhaps, if we look at the glass as half full: "do good work, and then you'll be hot and desired like Marilyn Monroe and Don Murray". No wait, I don't like that one. She died too young, and him I never heard of. p.s. What are they doing? Is she fainting? Is it a quaint 1950's allusion to fucking??? Oh well. Hmmm...maybe it's about finding true love at the bus stop--- OOOH I KNOW it's like a virtual fortune cookie. "In three weeks you will find true love at the bus stop." Ok, perhaps........but I don't think so because my true love just broke my heart. I just found out he's dating that bitch, Linday Lohan. Sigh....oh Jude. How could you?

What I've Been doing Lately

February was a very creative month for me. I wonder, if anyone ever did a study, if they would discover that most great songs, poems, paintings, designs and other pieces of art were born in February, the saddest month. Design or die!!!! Ha, that makes any recent work a "Pisces," like me.

The pinnacle of productivity was the week before Come Up To My Room at the Gladstone Hotel, in which I and 21 other OCAD students, under the gentle guidance of Motherbrand Design, set up a Canadian Souvenir shop in room 214.







The idea was to re-imagine the Souvenir, and not surprisingly, almost all of the participants focused on the Canadian Souvenir; perhaps because-- as any trip to Chinatown or Yonge St. will remind you-- the items currently being sold as Canadian keepsakes are trashy, cheap, ugly and completely misrepresentative of what it actually means to be Canadian.

The show was a big hit, and the "Murdered City" decal tiles by Naomi Yasui and the "Canadian Prairie Snowglobes" by Dylan Pask were the top sellers. The caliber of work at this show was incredible. I spend a lot of time complaining about school and the shitty work that I am forced to ingest daily, but this exhibit made me feel very proud to be an OCAD soon-to-be alumni.

Here is my submission, "Comfort Food: Maple Cookies" up close:




I am currently under the heady influence of mould making, which I have fallen deeply, dangerously in love with. I moulded these porcelain Maple Cookies from an actual Dare Maple Cookie. It was very fun, and the mould smelled like maple even after a bunch of castings. Here is the description of the product from the CUTMR exhibit:

Made for Canadians abroad who miss their buttertarts, maple cookies, Smarties, Rockets and other comfort foods not available outside our borders. These porcelain talismans can be held snug in a pocket or purse, or displayed proudly as a pin or magnet.

I lived in Minneapolis for a year and it was a sad awakening realizing I would have to go without buttertarts as long as I was there. In fact, when I complained of this to my best friend, she packed up a dozen or so, and sent them to me in the mail. When they arrived, they resembled ground beef more closely than a delicious sweet treat, but I gobbled them up anyways. Mmm....PECAN PIE! You got NOTHIN on a butter tart!

Saturday March 10 @ Graffitti's

PLEASE COME!!! It's the first gig with a full band in a long time! And probably the last until school is done in May....gulp....!

What Is All That White Fluffy Stuff?

I spent two short, beautiful days of my mostly insignificant reading week (do they call it that instead of "break" because they know it's not going to contain any break at all?) in Northern Ontario dashing through 2 feet of powdery, pristine snow with 4 of my best loved ones. In one 24 hour period, we went snowshoeing (which SUCKS btw) hiking, cross country skiing, toboganning, trampolining and had a great snowball fight. It was absoluely the best winter experience I have had in years. Really, winter with nice snow-- the kind you can play in-- makes all the difference!


I will attach more pics later, I really just wanted to show off the snowsuit I got to wear:



This may actually be the best snowsuit remaining in the modern world. It belongs to my friend Chris' mother. It is all one piece and judging from the colour and the angle of the zipper, I am putting it at about 1992...but it was in use until at least 2001, according to the still-attached lift ticket.... go mom!!!!




Here is a picture of the best toboganning hill I have ever had the pleasure of sliding down. It took about 10 minutes to claw our way to the top, and then every ounce of courage I had to push forward and go! Thanks to Mike who "helped" me get started down the first time. After that it was easy, and screamy. Note the picture of me at the top waving my pink toboggan around...