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Nugget of Awesome Interviews: Siobhan Topping

I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a series of interviews with some lovely creative types I want to share with you. Since I’m heading to Alberta this summer maybe I have gold rush on my mind, but truly, each of the women I’ll feature here is a golden nugget of excellence in the career she’s carved out for herself!  Therefore, I am delighted to present the inaugural:

Pocket Alchemy Nugget of Awesome Interviews: eight  interviews with eight inspiring, artistic, self-starting women over the eight weeks of summer. I am proud to call each of them friend and am delighted to share them and their work here. Please note that I am replacing my regular Rearview Fridays posts with these interviews over the summer.

THE INTRODUCTION

Siobhan Topping and her son Liam.

SIOBHAN TOPPING is the woman who is most new to me in this series of interviews. When I started blogging and working towards being an independent crafter in January this year, a mutual friend told me I had to meet Siobhan and set up the introduction. And I’m so glad to have met her, Siobhan is truly a kindred spirit, the full-on Anne of Green Gables variety. She’s been making and selling her natural soaps and products for years now and has been so generous in sharing her experience and survival tips with me. We have spent many hours over lunch and little boys playing (her 1 son and my 2 little guys, so yes, it gets loud!) discussing pros and cons of craft fairs, etsy, online sales, relationships with stores, ideas about product development, scheduling and so on. And I’m in love, LOVE with her soap. I shamelessly stand on my blog-soap-box and declare that you gotta try it. And her room spray. And her cleaning scrubs. Dang. I’m so glad to include her here!

THE BIO

Siobhan Topping is the owner of Sacred Lotus, a natural product company. She is also the editor of naturalmommy.com, a free natural resource for moms and caregivers. Siobhan studied Aromatherapy and holds an honours-specialist degree in Women and Gender Studies from the University of Toronto. Her academic research focuses on midwifery, natural childbirth and women’s history. 

THE INTERVIEW

Pocket Alchemy Question: Tell me about your artistic work.

Siobhan Topping: I create natural products through my company, Sacred Lotus, to help people live naturally and feel well. My work is centered on the environment. I express that through Sacred Lotus and with my other endeavors at naturalmommy.com. Naturalmommy.com was born from a personal realization that I had: Parenting is an environmental issue because the sustainability of our planet is connected to the sustainability of our children. I want to explore this and other natural parenting topics with other moms.

I have a passion for mom-and-baby care and for limiting toxins in environments where children live and play. Sacred Lotus has a full line of natural baby care products which are free from preservatives and synthetic fragrances. 

I am also the smitten mother of a toddler and I often think of motherhood as an artistic work in and of itself.

PAQ:what is currently sparking your imagination?

ST: My son, who is magic to me, my family, friends, nature and other moms
who share their experiences.  I have also been spending a lot of time organic gardening this year. I really love playing in the dirt! It is good for the imagination and the soul. Planting and watching things grow is like a meditation for me. I love that I am giving my son the opportunity to be in nature and to just have fun outside.

PAQ: How do you structure and manage your days/weeks/months to get it all in? Do you have micro/macro plans that you stick to?

ST: With a young child, I have come to understand that structure requires some flexibility. For the most part I have learned to pick my top 1 or 2 goals for the day in regards to my work and I try to only work on those things when I can. That way, I feel as if I have really accomplished something. I also work when my child sleeps, like right now for example! 

PAQ: What is a current favourite resource or material?

ST: I love, love, love essential oils and always have. I believe they are one of the keys to our environmental sustainability. They have so many helpful properties, such as being anti-bacterial or anti-fungal. All you need to clean and rid your home of toxic cleaning products is essential oils, organic liquid (castile) soap, baking soda and some white vinegar. I am not kidding! Cleaning naturally with homemade toxic-free cleaning products can easily save your family hundreds of dollars per year. Natural cleaning products are especially important when one realizes that most store bought “cleaning” products are major contributors to indoor air pollution, which can, alarmingly, be anywhere from 2 to 100 times higher than outdoor air — not safe for children, not safe for anyone!

PAQ: Give me 4 great songs to work to!

ST: The joy in music is in its variety, so this is a hard question for me. I have to say, anything by Simon and Garfunkel. I am also a big Lhasa De Sela fan, a former Montreal resident who sang in English, Spanish and French. My favourite album of hers is The Living Road, which I like to put on and just let play. I also took a few classical music courses in University so I am drawn to having classic music on in the background while I focus on other things. 

PAQ:  What about your work keeps you up at night (for good or ill!)?

ST: It saddens me to think of babies and families living in extremely toxic conditions without even realizing it. I truly believe that so many health issues can be prevented from living a more natural life. People have been bombarded with toxic substances, unknowingly, and I am on a mission to help people to have healthier options. I also love making products, writing and coming up with new ideas, so it is not unlike me to be too excited over something to go to sleep. 

PAQ:  How has your aesthetic evolved over the years?

ST: Naturally, my aesthetic has evolved as I have grown as a person. I started making natural product more than 10 years ago. In some ways my focus was really narrow but ironically broad in the beginning: Make natural products which help to make people feel good and live naturally. Sounds easy? Not! I realized there were so many skills and things which went along with that. I had to create not just the products themselves but to also market them, package them, put them on-line, etc.

It has been an amazing growing experience. Along the way, I gained many skills I didn’t know I needed and I have learned how to apply the skills I already had to everything that I do. My husband once wrote on our fridge with fridge magnets “courage and hope indeed.” I try to enact that in my businesses and in my life. Running a business makes me push myself outside of my comfort zone.

THE WRAP UP

Siobhan Topping has 2 websites for her work; you can find her products at Sacred Lotus and her resources at Natural Mommy. I am obviously a big fan of the Sacred Lotus products, natural, gentle yet get-the-job-done and made here in Ontario, Canada. Order some if your cupboard is low!

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Check out the other Nugget of Awesome Interviews:

July 6th: Christa Couture

July 13th: Lindsay Zier-Vogel

July 20th: Bess Callard

July 27th: Quinn Covington

August 6th: Michelle Silagy

August 17th: Jennifer Dallas

August 24th: Susie Burpee

Nugget of Awesome Interviews: Michelle Silagy

I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a series of interviews with some lovely creative types I want to share with you. Since I’m heading to Alberta this summer maybe I have gold rush on my mind, but truly, each of the women I’ll feature here is a golden nugget of excellence in the career she’s carved out for herself!  Therefore, I am delighted to present the inaugural:

Pocket Alchemy Nugget of Awesome Interviews: eight  interviews with eight inspiring, artistic, self-starting women over the eight weeks of summer. I am proud to call each of them friend and am delighted to share them and their work here. Please note that I am replacing my regular Rearview Fridays posts with these interviews over the summer.

THE INTRODUCTION

Michelle Silagy. Photo by Michael Haas.

MICHELLE SILAGY taught pedagogy to me at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. She has a magical ability as a dance educator for children, I remember her commanding a huge gym full of grade 3s without hollering, extraordinary! Michelle makes delicate, thoughtful dances and immerses herself in the work of an artist. I think she has a backdoor pass to fairyland as her work on stage and in the classroom often seem dusted by something intangible and delightful, wild and beyond reach for the rest of us. Once I graduated from school Michelle hired me as a teacher in the School’s Young Dancers’ Program. She is a mentor who has become a loyal friend, she manages to be my boss yet works with me so collaboratively she feels like a colleague — it’s a fine, rarely achieved balance. Michelle is deep and wise-cracking and an enduring champion of dance and art and joy, she is a quiet gem in Canadian dance.

THE BIO

Michelle Silagy has her BA (Hons) Drama from San Diego State University, California and is a graduate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s Professional Training Program. She has been active in Toronto as an independent choreographer, dancer, and teacher since graduation. She began teaching in the School’s Young Dancers’ Program in 1989 and is currently its Program Director.

Michelle Silagy in her own dance, “Time Folds.” Photo by David Hou.

Over the past 23 years, Silagy has received many awards through the Ontario Arts Councils Artists in Education program to bring dance to schools throughout the province where her kindhearted approach to working with children has been lauded by educators and parents alike. Michelle has also taught dance to youth at the Canadian Opera Company, the Institute of Child Study and in schools across Ontario. As a mentor artist with The Royal Conservatory of Music’s Learning Through the Arts program, Michelle has worked across Canada and abroad as a creative movement specialist.

Michelle’s dance work has been presented across the country in galleries and theatres, and at Series 8:08 — a monthly Toronto choreographic workshop — which she co-founded 1992. Michelle travelled to Vienna this summer on a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to take the Danceabilities Teacher Certification Course as taught by Danceabilities founder Alto Alessi within the ImpulsTanz 2012 Festival.

THE INTERVIEW

Pocket Alchemy Question: Tell me about your artistic work.

Michelle Silagy: I am a Contemporary Dancer who loves/seeks collaboration with contemporary artists from other arts backgrounds. My work is largely influenced by nature and by a curiosity in the human form in all its stages of development.  This is what makes up the guts and viscera of my movement vocabulary. I work extensively within Ontario’s numerous communities through education with a vast range of ages and abilities.  The nature of this experience allows me to reflect on how I wish to create within a dynamic, malleable society. This influence finds its way into the dances that I make since my intent is always to cultivate a unique expression with the overarching goal of portraying the beauty of the human form, of humanity itself. Each time I venture into the studio to create anew, I revisit my vision for dance. I invest together with interpreters and collaborators, the most valuable catalysts, since the work unfolds through them. It is through this collaboration, I feel, that intimacies within a given work are revealed, accented and brought forward for the viewer to receive.

PAQ: what is currently sparking your imagination?

MS: Nature, people, garden lettuce and books. | The garden – and how life seeks water and light and a place to grow. | Working with Dancers in the Young Dancers’ Program. Having the privilege of working with Patricia Fraser and with all the people who make the Young Dancers’ Program sing. | Being in the studio and finding where the light is landing in the studio that day. | Working with Jennifer Lynn Dick on any day in the studio. | The thought of going to Vienna soon to study for 4 weeks with Alto Alessi and learn everything I can about DanceAbilities. | My family always. | Any and all conversations with the ever-brilliant Sarah Chase. She remains an extraordinary influence in my life and in my aspirations to make something that someone else will love and remember.

Jennifer Dick in “HOME/WORK.” Choreography by Michelle Silagy and Jennifer Dick of The Identity Project. Photo by Ecstatic Photography.

PAQ: How do you structure and manage your days/weeks/months to get it all in? Do you have micro/macro plans that you stick to?

MS: You are the third person who has asked me this over the past 2 weeks. The other 2 presumed that I had this one figured out – how I wish it were true. Still I love trying to make it all balance.

Regarding a plan. My Macro Plan includes – getting enough sleep, sweating every day and eating home made organic food grown as close to home as possible. I am most balanced when the doing of dance is driving the day – when I am rested and not slogging away at the computer too much. As an independent dancer balance is hardest. When trying to do too much myself, it doesn’t work. Working with a creative administrator who knows dance and knows how I work is essential. Beyond that: knowing when to ask for help, when overwhelmed, combined with my own commitment to finding simples/elegant solutions makes for more balance. I also know that reciprocating the generosity extended to me by helping others get things done when ever possible (hard to do with a full schedule) is a lovely and absolutely necessary part of my survival as a practicing artist. Consistently keeping the daily function of my home life as light and simple as possible helps a great deal – as does giving loved ones plenty of notice when work demands more attention than usual.

Michelle Silagy teaching at Kimberly Public School in Toronto. Photo by Sheena Robertson.

Regarding scheduling a career pastiche together with a selection of varied projects and 3 annual contracts, priorities are made easy by being clear and knowing what can be achieved within the timeframe given. I am a big fan of careful and fun planning with whomever I am working with.  That goes a long way in keeping things in balance energy and time wise.  Having said that, when left to my own devises I still come way too close to the wire regarding deadlines. And so now that I’ve got my e-box cleaned up and files almost cleaned up, the new goal is to bring things to completion before the eleventh hour.

Teaching makes up the majority of how I make my living in dance. It is important to me that I only teach where I can joyfully contribute – no one benefits from a teacher who isn’t happy in their environment. I am always making dance work with people who inspire me from process to performance. Any excesses in my dance life fall away, in the presence of being in the studio and working hard with people who I admire and enjoy. Lastly, each part of my life has to feed and nourish the other. If it doesn’t, then a change has to be made. I know that seems cliché, but truly that is how I keep things in balance.

PAQ: What is a current favourite resource or material?

MS: Sun, Water, Dirt and Love. | Music from all eras, all corners of the world. | A beautifully sprung floor with light spilling onto it. | Anatomy of Movement by Blandine Calais-Germain. | The Poetics of Space, again, read and purchased long, long ago. | The Name of the Tree. A Bantu Tale retold by Celia Barker Lottridge. | Roots to Fly by Irene Dowd (still). | A hoola hoop given to me just last week.

PAQ: Give me 4 great songs to work to!

MS: Songs, okay, you mean with words. Hmmm – so many. Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday | Smile by Charlie Chaplin | Stranded or Steady On by Shawn Colvin | I Paint My Sorrow by Stephanie Martin and Chad Irschick

PAQ:  What about your work keeps you up at night (for good or ill!)?

MS: This is hard since my days are full, making sleep come easily. There are so many artists and there are so many people who help artists whose work is still undervalued. Progress is being made but not nearly enough. And though carrying on against all odds remains second nature, still, I find this a hard reality.

Megan Andrews, Andrea Nann and William Yong in “Necessary Velocity” by Michelle Silagy. Photo by John Lauener.

PAQ:  How has your aesthetic evolved over the years?

MS: I am even more interested in creating works for interesting environments in addition to creating work for stage. Collaboration with extraordinary artists in other mediums changed the way I work. Meeting and working with Kai Chan, a senior visual artist who creates incredibly unique realities with textiles and found objects, altered the way that I view collaboration with artists in other disciplines. Kai is the one that insisted that he respond to and interpret the dance work that I was developing on his own terms rather than acting as a craftsperson who was hired to realize what I was imaging his contribution might be. And since He was not at all interested in crafting a set based on what I was imaging the set could or should look like, through him I embraced a new way of communicating with partners during the making of work. I am also trying to work with live music whenever possible. I feel it monumentally changes the nature of a dance performance – for the better.  In terms of my aesthetic evolving, I have always aspired to foster a process where the interpreter is respectfully revealed to the audience as much as is possible within the comfort and willingness of the interpreter to do so. I wish to continue along these lines and become increasingly fluent at doing so.

THE WRAP UP

You can always find Michelle Silagy at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s Young Dancers’ Program, of which is is Program Director. She is also part of The Identity Project with Jennifer Lynn Dick. She presents her dance work regularly in Toronto and teaches in schools across Ontario through the Ontario Arts Council’s Artists in Education program and Learning Through the Arts. If you are a school teacher, I highly recommend getting her into your classroom to share her passion for dance with your students!

Michelle’s blog from her summer at ImpulsTanz Festival in Vienna

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Check out the other Nugget of Awesome Interviews:

July 6th: Christa Couture

July 13th: Lindsay Zier-Vogel

July 20th: Bess Callard

July 27th: Quinn Covington

August 10th: Siobhan Topping

August 17th: Jennifer Dallas

August 24th: Susie Burpee

Nugget of Awesome Interviews: Quinn Covington

I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a series of interviews with some lovely creative types I want to share with you. Since I’m heading to Alberta this summer maybe I have gold rush on my mind, but truly, each of the women I’ll feature here is a golden nugget of excellence in the career she’s carved out for herself!  Therefore, I am delighted to present the inaugural:

Pocket Alchemy Nugget of Awesome Interviews: eight  interviews with eight inspiring, artistic, self-starting women over the eight weeks of summer. I am proud to call each of them friend and am delighted to share them and their work here. Please note that I am replacing my regular Rearview Fridays posts with these interviews over the summer.

THE INTRODUCTION

Quinn Covington.

QUINN COVINGTON is a woman I’ve known since high school. I met her in line while waiting for our ID cards before the first day of grade 10 (with my friend Christa Couture who was the 1st Nugget of Awesome interview this month!) and the three of us got lockers together in the basement hall. We were all pretty hippy-dippy and it turned out we had unknowingly picked “the cheerleader hallway,” so we were an island of middle-parted hair, long patchwork skirts, and, in Quinn’s case, Janis Joplin glasses throughout that whole year! Good memories. By the last year of high school I rarely saw Quinn without a camera in her hand. We stayed in touch a wee bit over the years and then this spring ended up randomly, fatefully,  on a plane together for 5 hours, so we talked our way through the entire flight, catching up on art and life and babies. I love that she’s gone the school of life route with her photography and am inspired by her just-get-down-to-it attitude and practice, in the midst of mother two little ones no less!

THE BIO

Quinn Covington’s tool of trade has been a camera since she was around the age of 18. That was when she photographed her first wedding for a friend. Quinn bypassed any formal training and went straight for the hands on approach working alongside other photographers, which leaves her at a point in her life where she can say she’s been doing something professionally for 15 years now!

A bridal portrait by Quinn Covington, Covington Studio.

Quinn grew up in Edmonton and attended an art-driven high school with a photography department that helped her to focus her fanatic interest in cameras. A few years after graduating she moved to the Canadian Rockies where she worked as a wedding, portrait and tourist photographer for a few years. In 2001, Quinn photographed the Alpine National Ski Team and in 2002, she was published in Ski Canada Magazine. She has often found herself working at camera stores, film labs, and imaging retailers.

Quinn and her husband moved to Vernon, BC in 2010. At that point she took a hiatus from photography to deal with moving and a couple of babies, but now that their children have grown to toddler and pre-schooler, she is looking forward to giving her photography career the attention it craves.

THE INTERVIEW

Pocket Alchemy Question: Tell me about your artistic work.

Quinn Covington: I do photography. It’s an incredibly versatile and evolving art form. It gives me a platform to be literal and scientific or wacky and emotional. There’s lots of room to breathe, which is why I adore it.

An engagement shot by Quinn Covington, Covington Studio.

PAQ: what is currently sparking your imagination?

QC: Artistic spark doesn’t just reside in the technicality of the tools used but also in the rapport I have with my subjects. The starting point of any image are the words I use and the energy I exert to inspire the process of delivering the end product. The chemistry I have with my clients definitely plays a part in my creative process. Each person I photograph provides me with the materials I need to work with, from there my imagination takes off.

PAQ: How do you structure and manage your days/weeks/months to get it all in? Do you have micro/macro plans that you stick to?

QC: In my world, time has little influence except where others implement it for me. I have many goals and to-do lists that push me along, all without a master plan. The structure of my photography rests with the demands of the people I work with. Once I’m in session, once I’m holding a camera, I’m oblivious to my own personal needs. When I’m editing images on the computer, dishes get ignored and I drop everything except the child on my hip to get the work done. Typically I’ll create a week-by-week goal of the work I hope to finish.

PAQ: What is a current favourite resource or material?

QC: Currently, I’m inspired by the style of wedding photography that asks a photographer to design sets with a bride but keeps the authenticity of the wedding intact. Collaborating on a visual theme, which would allow me to do more than simply show up the day-of with my camera at the ready, is the direction I’d like to take my photography in. I’m constantly looking online for crafty and stylish ways of contributing to a photo shoot.

PAQ: Give me 4 great songs to work to!

QC: I Got Sunshine by Avery Sunshine | Play by Kate Nash | Horchata by Vampire Weekend | Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men

A smiling couple by Quinn Covington, Covington Studio.

PAQ:  What about your work keeps you up at night (for good or ill!)?

QC:  My clients’ satisfaction keeps me up at night. I do whatever I can to not only give them what they expect but hopefully supersede that with fun extras they can look forward to.

PAQ:  How has your aesthetic evolved over the years?

QC:  My niche is in knowing what I like when I see it, being inspired by people and ideas, and then expanding on that creatively, hopefully giving it a new beautiful life. Knowing this about myself is what has helped me to evolve my work over the years.

THE WRAP UP

Check out Quinn Covington, she’s based in southern and interior BC and if you want an easy-going yet passionate photographer I’d recommend looking her up! She’s got creativity and ideas exploding out of her ears and she has the true ability to listen, which I think is so key for a photographer capturing people’s intimate and important life events.

Covington Studio

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Check out the other Nugget of Awesome Interviews:

July 6th: Christa Couture

July 13th: Lindsay Zier-Vogel

July 20th: Bess Callard

August 6th: Michelle Silagy

August 10th: Siobhan Topping

August 17th: Jennifer Dallas

August 24th: Susie Burpee

Nugget of Awesome Interviews: Bess Callard

I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a series of interviews with some lovely creative types I want to share with you. Since I’m heading to Alberta this summer maybe I have gold rush on my mind, but truly, each of the women I’ll feature here is a golden nugget of excellence in the career she’s carved out for herself!  Therefore, I am delighted to present the inaugural:

Pocket Alchemy Nugget of Awesome Interviews: eight  interviews with eight inspiring, artistic, self-starting women over the eight weeks of summer. I am proud to call each of them friend and am delighted to share them and their work here. Please note that I am replacing my regular Rearview Fridays posts with these interviews over the summer.

THE INTRODUCTION

Bess Callard and her son Edwin.

BESS CALLARD and I were students together at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. We were in different years but I remember watching Bess dance. She had a simple, efficient, calm and sophisticated way of interpreting, she was arresting yet subtle. I think those qualities have travelled with her into her graphic design work. Her charming custom name art graces my sons’ room and her Everyday Objects Calendar graces my kitchen wall, giving me a smile as I walk by and reminding me ever-so-pleasingly of the date. Bess’ blog offered inspiration in my own blogging start up, and I am excited to see how she and shifted from one professional artistic passion to another while negotiating independent work in the midst of early motherhood.

THE BIO

Bess Callard is an illustrator, graphic designer, and sometimes dancer. In 2006, after a successful career in contemporary dance, she began the transition to the world of design.

Going back to school to pursue her new passion, Bess attended The School of Design at George Brown College in Toronto before she had the opportunity to move to Europe. Bess spent three years living in Vienna and travelling throughout Europe.

While living abroad Bess found she had the time and freedom to explore what she was most passionate about and founded her children’s illustration company, English Muffin. English Muffin offers beautiful, fun and educational prints and posters for kids. It was through this venture that she honed her skills as an illustrator and made her initial foray into entrepreneurship.

Upon returning to Canada, Bess was offered the opportunity to illustrate for the online magazine Pure Green Magazine. Since then the magazine has made the leap to print and Bess is an integral part of the design team. Pure Green Magazine is available across Canada, the US and Europe and currently publishing its third volume in print.

Originally from Toronto, Bess is currently living with her husband, new baby boy and miniature pinscher in Montréal.

THE INTERVIEW

Pocket Alchemy Question: Tell me about your artistic work.

Bess Callard: I am an illustrator and graphic designer. I create prints and posters for my children’s illustration company and illustrate for a quarterly publication, Pure Green Magazine. 

PAQ: what is currently sparking your imagination?

BC: I recently had a baby boy and find my inspiration and imagination wrapped up in him. It’s a joy to watch him discover the world around him and I love the adventures he takes me on. As a parent I don’t think one can help but see the world through the eyes of your child, the beauty in the simplicity of colours, shapes and patterns is something we’re both very interested in these days.  

PAQ: How do you structure and manage your days/weeks/months to get it all in? Do you have micro/macro plans that you stick to?

BC: Oh, Susan, what a question for a new mom! I used to work off of a handwritten daily to do list, I’ve tried online to do lists (my favourite being Teux Deux) but there’s just something about being able to make changes on the fly and apply my own scribbles and notes as the day goes on that I can’t let go of, and, crossing things off is the best part. I would have long-term plans, projects I’d like to accomplish and goals for the shop. It is really important to have at least the next three months planned out when working in an industry where seasonal holidays and themes are so important. These days however, my son Edwin is my fulltime job, and I try to take care of small projects while he’s napping or asleep for the night. It really is a one-day-at-a-time operation around here now.

Bess’s serene, simple work space.

PAQ:  What is a current favourite resource or material?

BC: I love the paper I print on. It took me a long time to find 100% recycled paper suitable for high quality printing, but I did it! The texture, look and feel are just perfect for printing English Muffin prints on.

PAQ:  Give me 4 great songs to work to!

BC: These ones are on my “get your butt in gear” playlist:

Your Easy Lovin’ Ain’t Pleasin’ Nothin’ by Mayer Hawthorne | In Spirit Golden by I Blame Coco | Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine | Dance Dance Dance by Lykke Li

PAQ:  What about your work keeps you up at night (for good or ill!)?

BC: I love a new project and the anticipation of starting work on something new is usually what will keep my mind busy as I’m trying to fall asleep. Figuring out a tricky design problem or thinking about how best to convey an idea, especially when I’m working on layouts or illustrations for Pure Green Magazine, will also keep me up.

Some English Muffin pieces by Bess Callard.

PAQ:  How has your aesthetic evolved over the years?

BC: I think it has evolved to become more “me”. As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten braver and more confident in expressing my voice and ideas. I’m less concerned with what’s “on trend”, and what others in my field are doing. It’s great to be inspired by your contemporaries but I’ve found that my favourite illustrators and designers are the ones that have developed their own style. I strive to stay as true to my own artistic voice as possible. 

THE WRAP UP

There you go, Bess Callard/English Muffin, a solid favouite! Bess’s English Muffin blog  is so worth following — I particularly enjoy her recurring perfect pairs. Check out her work in Pure Green Magazine (and support a new magazine, hurray!) or look to her shop for wonderful maps, prints and custom name art using her original alphabet.

The English Muffin Shop on Etsy

Pure Green Magazine

Twitter: @BessCallard

Facebook: English Muffin

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Check out the other Nugget of Awesome Interviews:

July 6th: Christa Couture

July 13th: Lindsay Zier-Vogel

July 27th: Quinn Covington

August 6th: Michelle Silagy

August 10th: Siobhan Topping

August 17th: Jennifer Dallas

August 24th: Susie Burpee

Quilting Challenge: July

I cheated this a bit and sewed July’s patch in June! Because I’m currently on the road so I used the brilliant pre-set publishing option on the blog and set this up a few weeks ago! Delightful. Sometimes I adore technology.

No big story here for the July addition of my 2012 Quilting Challenge, just a sweet little mushroom. I think it could really work with forest creatures or foliage on a burping pad or quilt. I thought of it late one night along with the house idea in June. I guess a house for people is followed by a house for a gnome in my free association! But let’s not get too deep here …

And wow, check it out, I’m stickin’ to this challenge! There are 7 quilt patches with 7 original designs for my quilting work and 7 months of 2012 have passed. I’m excited to string them all together on the boys’ wall at the end of the as a quilty-garland!

Nugget of Awesome Interviews: Lindsay Zier-Vogel

I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a series of interviews with some lovely creative types I want to share with you. Since I’m heading to Alberta this summer maybe I have gold rush on my mind, but truly, each of the women I’ll feature here is a golden nugget of excellence in the career she’s carved out for herself!  Therefore, I am delighted to present the inaugural:

Pocket Alchemy Nugget of Awesome Interviews: eight  interviews with eight inspiring, artistic, self-starting women over the eight weeks of summer. I am proud to call each of them friend and am delighted to share them and their work here. Please note that I am replacing my regular Rearview Fridays posts with these interviews over the summer.

THE INTRODUCTION

Lindsay Zier-Vogel in her workroom. Photo by Joel Yum.

LINDSAY ZIER-VOGEL is my most familiar and regular artistic collaborator. She is also a wicked friend to me and an amazing cheerleader in both joy and trouble. We met in 1998 at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre where we studied together for 3 years. Lindsay hired me as a dancer, my first professional gig, in her dance work September Sentence. Since then I have made costumes for her, she has made choreography on me, we’ve made dances together. I edit her writing, she taught me to make books, we had a line of clothing together called Puddles in my Pocket (a combo of her Puddle Press and my Pocket Alchemy and yes, the acronym is P.I.M.P. We didn’t realize…) We taught workshops in schools on combining poetry and dance, we even rocked that workshop at Hillside Festival a couple of times! Whew. Lindsay’s an absolute force to be reckoned with, she’s got verve.

THE BIO

Lindsay Zier-Vogel is a Toronto-based writer, arts educator and bookmaker. She studied contemporary dance at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre and completed at Masters of English at the University of Toronto.

Lindsay Zier-Vogel hosting her The Love Lettering Project at P.S. Kensington in Toronto, May 2012.

She is currently working on her second novel titled “The Opposite of Drowning,” where 20-year-old Bea Porter confronts grief as a lifeguard on the edge of Lake Ontario.

Lindsay has written text for various dance pieces including Susan Kendal’s Organ Stories and travelled to Saskatchewan for a three-week creation residency for Shannon Litzenberger’s HOMEbody.

Lindsay teaches writing and book making workshops and is the creator of The Love Lettering Project, a one-of-a-kind community-based love letter art project that was featured on CBC Television’s The National and deemed one of the top 50 reasons to love Toronto in Toronto Life magazine.

THE INTERVIEW

Pocket Alchemy Question: Tell me about your artistic work.

Lindsay Zier-Vogel:  I do a bunch of different things – I’m working on a novel about a 20-year-old lifeguard named Bea, and have been writing the “scripts” for a bunch of dance performances this year. I am the creator of The Love Lettering Project, a community arts project that gets people writing anonymous love letters to their city. I also make limited edition hand-bound books and a Toronto Brunch Map.

I like juggling a lot of different projects as I find they often end up informing each other. I also love creating tangible “things” – books, baked goods, anything I can hold in my hand as novel-writing is a lot of sitting in front of a computer time.

PAQ: what is currently sparking your imagination?

LZV: Lake Ontario. I live close by and have set my current novel on its edge. I love that it looks like an ocean if you stand in the right place. I love how the light shatters off its surface. I love that it can blend seamlessly with the sky. I love that it is deep and dark and filled with seaweed and eels, and also swimmable.

And in terms of paper-y creations, my deep, deep love for this city [Toronto] I live in. For this year’s love lettering project, I’ve been hearing about what hundreds of strangers-to-me love about this city. It inspires me to no end.

PAQ: How do you structure and manage your days/weeks/months to get it all in? Do you have micro/macro plans that you stick to?

LZV: I write every morning, which means I have to get up way before I’d like to, but it’s when I get my best writing done, so sleep be damned. I also go (in my pjs!) to a coffee shop around the corner that has no internet, which helps me stay focused. I’ve also realized that I write in the mornings because I want to do the thing I love most before I do anything else. Even if the rest of the day goes sideways, I will have done the thing that matters most to me right off the top. I use evenings post-work to juggle grant-writing, website updating and love letter admin work.

I wish I had more of a plan, but I have an agenda that doubles as my Bible and I make sure it’s always as up-to-date as it can be to avoid double booking events. Sometimes looking at it gives me a panic attack, especially this last June.

I also try to make sure to write in upcoming grant deadlines a few weeks early to get the ball rolling early. Really, I just end up shoehorning in the time when it’s needed. Most of the time, I’m a little stunned and amazed that it all gets done…

PAQ:  What is a current favourite resource or material?

LZV: Writing wise, it’s just me and my computer (with a side order of a mushroom identification book as my main character and her grandmother like to go mushroom hunting), lists of Rush songs (as Bea’s boyfriend is a big Geddy Lee fan) and an old lifeguarding manual (as Bea’s a lifeguard on the shores of Lake Ontario).

But for book making and love lettering, I’ve fallen in love with washi tape from The Paper Place. I also love love love the Nepalese paper they carry there. The colour is so rich and the paper itself is so forgiving – you can sew it, and bind books with it. I love teaching with it, because it’s just so kind to first time paper sewers and bookbinders.

PAQ:  Give me 4 great songs to work to!

LZV: I don’t often listen to music with lyrics when I’m in the creation phase of writing, though I started my novel listening to Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago album and The Department of Eagles’ In Ear Park album on repeat, so anything from either of those albums immediately get me working again. But for editing, sewing, book making and general crafting, I need music to keep me going.

Lindsay Zier-Vogel letterpressing. Photo by Jenny Lederer.

My non-stop working song right now (that’s perfect for editing/website-updating/kitchen dancing/watering the plants/etc) is Christa Couture’s newest single You Were Here In Michigan. I love that it references the creative process.

Whitehorse’s Emerald Isle is also perfect for working to. And sometimes, when it’s time to really buckle down, I put a ponytail on the top of my head (my “powertail”), put on my running shoes (strange, but it really makes me work faster!) and crank some Bring Da Ruckus by Wu-Tang.

PAQ:  What about your work keeps you up at night (for good or ill!)?

LZV:  Transitions! In the early days of novel writing, the “who” of my main character Bea kept me up at night, and then questions about her nan, and her boyfriend, Malcolm, but these days it’s transition – how to move Bea from one chapter to the next without losing key bits.

PAQ:  How has your aesthetic evolved over the years?

LZV:  I feel like you can answer this better than I can – you’ve seen everything from those early angsty hand bound poetry days I photocopied on the photocopier at my Parks and Rec job to now.

THE WRAP UP

Check out Lindsay Zier-Vogel and her Love Lettering Project, you can follow her inspiring projects and events on both sites. She’s out and about in the Toronto area this summer presenting The Love Lettering Project, I highly recommend it as a great city activity. And you might just catch some of her infectious, brilliant enthusiasm!

Twitter: @lindsayzv

The Love Lettering Project

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Check out the other Nugget of Awesome Interviews:

July 6th: Christa Couture

July 20th: Bess Callard

July 27th: Quinn Covington

August 6th: Michelle Silagy

August 10th: Siobhan Topping

August 17th: Jennifer Dallas

August 24th: Susie Burpee

Nugget of Awesome Interviews: Christa Couture

I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a series of interviews with some lovely creative types I want to share with you. Since I’m heading to Alberta this summer maybe I have gold rush on my mind, but truly, each of the women I’ll feature here is a golden nugget of excellence in the career she’s carved out for herself!  Therefore, I am delighted to present the inaugural:

Pocket Alchemy Nugget of Awesome Interviews: eight  interviews with eight inspiring, artistic, self-starting women over the eight weeks of summer. I am proud to call each of them friend and am delighted to share them and their work here. Please note that I am replacing my regular Rearview Fridays posts with these interviews over the summer.

THE INTRODUCTION

Christa Couture. Photo by Jennifer Picard.

CHRISTA COUTURE is my oldest friend — I’ve know her for 29 of my 34 years, truly amazing. And we happen to share a birthday though I’m a year older, which used to see like an advantage but now, well, I’m simply closer to 40 than her, ha ha on me. Christa is awesome, she defies words. Her primary artistic work is music and I often have her on repeat when I’m cooking or sewing making the miles between us fold up. Of course I have to be biased, but honestly, I just really enjoy her music. As a person and an artist Christa’s stories make me laugh til I snort and equally turn me inside-out with grief. Her wit is ferocious, her bravery and trueness are unparalleled.  PS: Christa’s also a great graphic designer. In fact, she designed my logo!

THE BIO

From the start, Vancouver’s Christa Couture established herself as a singer-songwriter with sharp-shooting wit, effortless grace and heart-on-sleeve intensity. Since her critically acclaimed debut album, FELL OUT OF OZ (2005), and her sophomore record, THE WEDDING SINGER AND THE UNDERTAKER (2008), she has explored intimate spaces with a frank confidence that avoids cliché and melodrama. Her “gorgeously intimate voice [is] somewhere between the tough vulnerability of Amy Rigby and the passionate, sophisticated folk of Joni Mitchell” (Pop Matters), while Tandem (Toronto) predicts she “could be the next Canuck to enjoy the success of Sarah Harmer or Kathleen Edwards.” 

THE WEDDING SINGER AND THE UNDERTAKER hit the Top 10 on CBC Radio 3 and won Best Folk Acoustic Album at the 2008 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. Couture was also nominated for Best Female Artist and performed at the awards gala at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, which was televised nationally on CityTV.

After a two year hiatus to have her second child, Couture returned to work with the digital release of two new EPs in June 2011. LOVED featured five fan favourites – a “best of” Couture’s songs from the past six years. LOST included five unreleased songs from the same time period – an alternate arrangement that got cut from a record at the last minute, three songs from a side project that was never released, and an early demo of one of Couture’s first songs.

2011 performance highlights included the Winnipeg Folk Festival, JunoFEST and Aboriginal Music Week in Winnipeg.

This year is shaping up to see this emerging artist take the spotlight with the release of her Steve Dawson produced, third full-length album, THE LIVING RECORD, in September and a cross-Canada tour to support it. Before that, summer 2012 will include festival performances at Aboriginal Day Live, All Folked Up in Montmartre, ArtsWells, Trout Fest and Desert Daze.

Christa’s new lyric video for her song You Were Here In Michigan, the first single from THE LIVING RECORD, was just released. The words and sketching are by her husband, artist Nick Lakowski. It was made with over 1400 photos and a lot of eyeliner!

[vimeo 45080595 w=500 h=281]

Christa Couture – lyric video “You Were Here in Michigan” from Christa Couture on Vimeo.

THE INTERVIEW

Pocket Alchemy Question: Tell me about your artistic work.

Christa Couture: At the best of times I’m a singer, songwriter and performer. That’s where my heart takes me, and sometimes it also pays the bills. When it doesn’t, I also enjoy work as a graphic designer, and as the editor at RPM.fm.

PAQ: what is currently sparking your imagination?

CC: My friends. I have really amazing friends who plant ideas in my mind all the time by also doing what they love and excel at.

Christa Couture at Winnipeg Folk Festival 2011. Photo by Myia Davar.

PAQ: How do you structure and manage your days/weeks/months to get it all in? Do you have micro/macro plans that you stick to?

CC: I make lists. My Google calendar is the big picture guide, an ever updated word doc on my desktop is the ongoing to-do list, and short term reminders get written on scraps of paper that get lost in a pile before they every get to fulfill their purpose.

PAQ:  What is a current favourite resource or material?

CC: Ukulele.

PAQ:  Give me 4 great songs to work to!

CC: Love and Anger by Kate Bush | Felling the Pull by Swell Season | Graceland by Paul Simon | Red Skin Girl by Northern Cree (A Tribe Called Red Remix).

PAQ:  What about your work keeps you up at night (for good or ill!)?

CC: The money it will take.

PAQ:  How has your aesthetic evolved over the years?

CC: Slowly.

THE WRAP UP

Check out the Christa Couture website for more info and links. She’s touring this summer and is so worth the listen, live or recorded. Christa will uplift you and wrench your guts, she will make you giggle and sigh … it’s a great ride. I’ll personally be watching her live on July 8th in Regina, SK during the 5th leg of my cross-country tour de family. So excited to see her in a city that belongs to neither of us! 

Twitter: @christacouture

Facebook: officialchristacouture

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Check out the other Nugget of Awesome Interviews:

July 13th: Lindsay Zier-Vogel

July 20th: Bess Callard

July 27th: Quinn Covington

August 6th: Michelle Silagy

August 10th: Siobhan Topping

August 17th: Jennifer Dallas

August 24th: Susie Burpee

Wedding, Wedding, Wedding!

Yes. There are 3 “weddings” in the title. Not a mistake.Whew! On June 30th I was so honoured to act as Matron of Honour for my dear friend Jen’s wedding on Toronto Island. It was an exquisite, homemade, 100 mile wedding that went without a hitch. I made fun kits for the kids in attendance. I made the bags out of fabric that Jen had collected in Nigeria, hot glued the first initial of each kid on his or her bag with Scrabble letters (which I LOVE for crafting!) and stuffed them with snacks and age-appropriate toys, games and activities.

Then on July 1st, in addition to celebrating our nation’s birthday (O Canada, oh my!) we attended the wedding of another dear, dancerly friend. It was held in Dancemakers Studio theatre in Toronto, which was converted into a beautiful space for an afternoon cocktail wedding.

I helped plan and execute the decorations for this one, we tried to stay with the Canada theme without getting cheesy and I think we did well! We cut out hundreds of cream and white maples leaves and doves to hang from the theatre’s grid. I think the effect was magical as hoped!

I designed and made little red and white felt bags that got stuffed with custom-ordered M&M’s in red and shimmer pearl. And the tags were stamped with a maple leaf stamp I’d used for my own wedding invitations almost 9 years ago!

Lastly, I was so honoured to be asked to make a wedding dress for a dancer I’ve costumed a few times in the past. She’s a gorgeous woman and knew just the dress she wanted, a copy and formalized version of a dress she already had, a very vintage 50s looking piece. I am so proud of how it came out but will superstitiously only include a couple of details here til after the July 8th wedding, which is, of course, still to come!

And now I’m hittin’ the road Jack, making my way across the vast space between Toronto and Edmonton. I’ll be posting a series of interviews with amazing woman artists and entrepreneurs in the stead of my usual Rearview Fridays, so watch for that to start this week. And I’ll post some Road Reports as I’m able. Happy summer days all, may there be much long laziness.

Bonus shot: deliciously tired and dirty 10-month-old feet after all the wedding madness …

Rearview Fridays: Folk Art Eggs, Pysanka-styles!

I made this pair of folk-arty pysanky for my mom about 17 years ago. And she still has them! They dried, they didn’t rot, amazing. I was super-duper into folky-hippie-arty suns and moons at the time as you can see! I couldn’t believe it when I saw them at her house a couple of months  ago. But I should back up and tell you how I learned this Ukrainian art form in the first place …

When I was almost too old to for summer camp I went to a day camp that blew my mind. We got to be pioneers for 5 whole days at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village! I did it for 2 or 3 years I think, and then I worked as a volunteer ’cause I was too old to be a camper but I really wanted to be a pioneer at least once per summer still. And then I worked as a leader of the program, because I could not get enough of being a pioneer! I still love a good historic site, but the UCHV has never been topped for me. If you’re ever in the Edmonton area, you must go, it’s an unforgettable experience. You will be forever moved by the tenacity of the settlers of Western Canada and the richness of the culture that the Ukrainians carried with them over the brutal miles of untamed Canada.

Here I am at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village on the old ferry, circa 1996. Can you think of a more beautiful place to work and be? The town site is in the background.

Honestly, those were some of the best days of my life. Both campers and program leaders (along with the interperters there) dressed in historically accurate clothing. For the ladies that meant brown cotton stockings held up with penny garters, cotton bloomers and slips and drop-waisted cotton print dresses. And to top it off, hustkas, the colourful, flowered woollen headscarves.

We became members of the families in the farm and town sites, we ground grain, “shopped” at the old store, fed animals, made meals from scratch, fetched water, rode in wagons and old cars, smithed tiny horseshoes, weighed grain at the elevator, dipped candles, packed ice in the ice chest, pumped gas at the hand pump, sent out Morse code messages at the train station, went to school and church (there are 3 varieties on the historic site there!) Can you think of a better way to spend a summer? I cannot. It was the best summer job ever.

And each week we made Pysanky, Ukrainian Easter eggs. Witness Susan in heaven. Beeswax melting, pots of dye waiting, delicate eggs ready for art. We worked from traditional Ukrainian patterns, though none of mine have survived. I did get my own kystka (if you scroll down in the link you’ll see beautiful eggs and then some lovely hands working with a kystka), the tool for drawing with heated beeswax on the eggs.

Each pysanka is made with a process exactly like batik. A layer of beeswax is drawn on the egg to seal in the white of the original surface, then the egg is dyed the lightest colour you want (traditionally yellow).  Next a layer of wax designs over the yellow seal it in, then it’s dyed orange, draw, dye red, draw and so on through to black (or whatever your darkest colour will be). Then all the wax is heated and wiped away and a colourful egg appears, its magic, alchemy really! For these eggs I evidently drew the entire piece on the white egg and then layered the dye colours.

And lastly, you really should check out the Giant Pysanka in Vegreville, Alberta. Happy weekend!

Rearview Fridays: Clothesline (an art book!)

I haven’t posted a Rearview Friday for, whoa, five weeks now! Oh dear. Well, there have been all sort of adventures and emergent situations and I decided it’d be okay to give ’em a rest for a while, just didn’t mean for it to be so many weeks. And I miss my Rearview Fridays! So without further ado, I offer up a project from 2006 that I made with my oft-collaborator Lindsay Zier-Vogel.

It’s a book called “Clothesline.” Lindsay proposed the idea to me, a wordless art book that she’d bind and I’d make little clothes for. Little? I love little! Making my own clothes? Correct. I love that too. I said yes.

I remember having a lot of fun sewing the tiny slip skirts, pants, shirts and dresses. figuring out the scale for the frames, deciding on colour and fussing with the tiny seams. And they all work — tie or clip or snap. Because that is how I roll.

The book looks charming on a shelf, zig-zagging along. I have to find a place for mine (hmmm, maybe the mantle …) Clothesline is bound accordion-style with ribbon seams and each page is a paper-clad frame for the clothing pieces.

Clothesline was displayed at Toronto’s Type Books in its basement gallery during one of Lindsay’s installations of her hand-bound book creations.

There are only three copies of Clothesline in existence! Though I discovered one more set of tiny clothes while cleaning out an old fabric box a few days ago (I must have made four sets), which is what inspired me to dig this beauty out to share here. So if anyone wants to commission one, and Zier-Vogel is in the mood to bind one more …