Category: Writing & Editing

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

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 …

The Veggie Vag Mug!

VEGGIE VAG MUGS!?!? 

That’s right, now you can order your very own Veggie Vag mug!

After a recent post about my editing/writing trio and our fictitious company Veggie Vag a number of people said they loved the mug so much and wanted one. So I thought I’d make them available on CafePress. Now you too can drink your coffee in … style?! And you’ll feel the eternal love of the Veggie Vag and our faithful Dane. Much respect to Veggie-Vagger Christa Couture for the inspired design.

Veggie Vag: where make-believe and pratical collide

This post is in praise of the dreamers and creators. The brave ones and silly ones who still play house and superheros and make mud pies when they’re adults. It’s also a little love story to 2 great friends of mine …

(L to R) Christa Couture, Maria Kendal, Susan Kendal, James Kendal and Lindsay Zier-Vogel at Susan's wedding in September 2003. Photo by Rhya Tamasauskas. Christa, Susan and Lindsay are the charter members of their company Veggie Vag. As far as we know this is the only photo of all 3 of us together since we are rarely all in the same place at the same time. What a shame! We'll do a shoot next time we're together. Though we are all very young and foxy in this one ...

I am fortunate to be surrounded by folks who are bursting with imagination, the kindred spirits that Anne of Green Gables was always keeping an eye out for. There are 2 such friends with whom I am having a most excellent, ongoing “practical-make-believe” adventure — Christa Couture and Lindsay Zier-Vogel, wonderful women and artists in their own rights, musician/designer and writer/book-maker respectively ( check them out, they are extraordinary).

And what is our awesome practical-make-believe game? We have a “company” called Veggie Vag. It sounds just rude enough that it makes us giggle, hard.

We even have a logo that Christa, in a fit of procrastination, sass and hilarity, used her graphic design skills wisely (?!) to create a few months ago:

Veggie Vag started about a year ago. You might ask, is it about vegetables? Or, is it about vaginas? Both would be fair questions. Veggie Vag is not really about either, other than the fact that we’re all ladies. And we do like veggies. It’s really mostly about editing. And being friends across miles of space and life. And being hilarious to ourselves.

We were all busy with applications, building websites and so on (the usual) around this time last year and were often editing for each other, enjoying getting the value of 2 perspectives on our work. We started to joke that we were like a collective. Then we decided we were a collective, which meant we needed a wicked acronym. Christa came up with both, she’s the most clever of us, hands down. VEG was first, it stands for “Virtual Editors Group,” which was funny and accurate. But then she said wouldn’t it be more awesome if we were authors — well, Lindsay actually is an author — then we’d be the “Virtual Authors Group,” ahem, VAG, which was infinitely more funny than veg. Put them together and we are really, virtually (as it were) the unstoppable Veggie Vag!

The cool thing is that between the 3 of us we’ve edited grants and “About” pages and difficult emails and cover letters. I got an amazing logo by being a member (thanks Christa!) and we’ve all  had a lot of success with the things we’ve edited for each other. Not only do we have this ah-mazing faux company together, we are quite useful to each other. Keeps us in regular contact too, which is brilliant!

Here’s what my co-founders have to say about Veggie Vag:

Lindsay Zier-Vogel: The Veggie Vag is an editing machine, a sounding board, a safety net and cheerleading squad. It’s a place to daydream and blue-sky and hammer out details. Every grant and proposal and project description that passes through these diligent hands is all the better for it. It’s a thoughtful and hilarious editing collective that keeps three of us closer than I ever could’ve imagined. Whoopi, Cate and Julianne should be so lucky to play us in our biopic …

Christa Couture: What started as occasionally asking friends for editorial advice grew into a collective, not quite formal, but steadfast and dedicated, of three women supporting each other’s work. My own work is better for the input of the Veggie Vag, and I love being up to date with, if not also being helpful to, the work of my co-Vag-ers. The Veggie Vag is friendship and artistry combined — a team of writers, thinkers, brainstormers, schemers, planners and best of all cheerleaders … cheerleaders in yellow pant suits and berets. Or spandex. Depending.

[IMPORTANT ASIDE: With “yellow pant suits and berets” Christa’s referring to Je M’appelle Steve, a brilliant YouTube clip we at Veggie Vag like to watch over and over til we cry with laughter. The more you watch it, the funnier it gets.]

Veggie Vag even has an assistant! His name is Dane. Dane Joseph McKellen. He’s fabulous. He’s shower fresh even at 4pm. He anticipates our needs. Dane shows up with a latte just before you realize you need one. Dane reminds you of impending deadlines and copies all the grants. Dane keeps extra mascara and tampons in his desk drawer. Dane orders Thai when you’re working late. Dane put fresh flowers on your desk and clears the boardroom air with aromatherapy.

I could go on and on about Dane, he’s a gem. Dane even has a twitter page, of course, @daneofalltrades. If you’d like to check him out, drop him a line to tell him he’s doing great or ask for some wardrobe advice, do it! But don’t try and lure him to your company, he’s ours and is as loyal as the day is long.

I got mugs made for our 1st anniversary this month. Dane reminded me that it had been a year since we named ourselves and signed the lease on our excellent, 2,800 square foot downtown Toronto loft offices. He suggested that mugs would be particularly classy. I agreed. And every morning I drink tea and think of my Veggie Vag ladies, standing by should I need some extra eyes and perspectives. Or a laugh. Or commiseration.

I am a dreamer. I love imagining and make-believing and creating — so much so that artist and creator became my profession, it seemed inevitable and obvious to me from a young age. I choreograph and dance, I make and inhabit worlds and ideas of my choosing and construction. I sew and craft, imagining and creating what I hope or suspect might work in fabric or paper.

I also spend a few hours teaching creative dance to wee kids each week, which allows me to gallop as a horse, swirl as a wind storm, dart as a fish. It’s a space to remember the fantastic, immense imaginations we are born with. That we have the capacity to believe the impossible into all-sorts-of-possible at our start, but often squelch or embarrass or forget that faith right out of ourselves.

Cheers to make-believing, even, or perhaps especially when you’re an adult. That’s it for this Veggie-Vagger, over and out.


Springing and travelling and gathering myself

Folks, it’s spring, I smell it. I saw a Robin. I heard a Robin. I saw heaps of Crocuses. Rudi picked one, stopped the stroller of his own volition and worked it into Gene’s sleeping hand today. Is there anything better than dimpled fingers on the first crocus of spring?

My blog was quieter than usual last week because I was away from my desk and my everyday life. I took a trip across the country to Victoria with my wee-man Gene to stay with one of my best friends in the world, commencing a 3-day “vagilogue” as my husband so tactfully put it. My heart and mind got filled up with the true solid, friendship, the kind you can slip into easily, years folding up on one another, marrying now and “the last time.” I feel super buoyed up even if I’m physically exhausted from solo travel with a baby and too many time zones!

At 6-months Gene was a spectacular traveller. He happily boarded 4 planes in 5 days, did a lot of sleeping, nursing, watching airport lights, and peek-a-booing with friendly dudes behind us. He even met his uncle Dave for the first time on a strategically planned layover and he snuggled his Alberta Gran-E (obviously that’s her rapper name. She’s a granny + her name’s Elaine … you see where I’m going with this, my mom is so cool!). I also ran into 3 friends from my teenage life in Alberta 17 years ago — how nice for that to happen in real-alive-life rather than on social media, as much as I truly do love the book of faces and the twits.

And now I’m excited to be getting back into the groove of my life, surrendering happily to this utterly moment-to-moment existence as a full-time mom on maternity leave with 2 wee ones who’s also trying to get ready to hit the ground running with her own work — sewing, editing, choreographing — when the formal mat leave is up. I am working hard and gaining at my practice of simplicity in a moment, being present right where I am, which, to be totally honest, is usually: feeding, doing dishes, thinking about sweeping up the dust bunnies, reading (to clarify: not my own popular novel or work of complex theory but more of a librarian-reading-to-the-poo-joke-loving-masses), cooking, thinking that 5 months is too long to wait for a hair cut, walking to the park, colouring, thinking about blogging, playing, getting vomited and/or pooed on, thinking how long is it since I washed my hair, huh, and so on, you get the picture.

But I’m also keenly aware of the things I want and need to do to keep my adult self and creativity sharp. I keep them tucked in a brain-drawer during most of this extravaganza that is the current norm and at the end of the day, I take time to weigh what’s really necessary for the coming one, and to be reasonable with myself in order to have the personal wherewithal to meet the necessary and leave a little for the desired. Thus not a lot of action on my sewing-work front, but good plans for when the time arrives to make it all happen for reals. I live in hope good people, keep the faith!

A pocket full of thoughts …

I love/need to mull things over, weigh thoughts and ideas thoroughly (sometimes that means ad nauseum, I admit it!), check ’em out in different lights, size ‘er up. I don’t have a lot of time for that these days, but I grab my moments, my in-betweens — in bed as I fade out, nursing on the couch, walking to the park, making soup, riding up the stretch of highway between us and Nana&Papa’s house for weekend visits.

Which brings me to:

As mentioned in last Wednesday’s post, I’ve been meditating on simplicity. For me, right now, I think simplifying means not planning too much in a day, a week, a month, something I was practicing when Gene was under 3 months, but since then I’ve shifted into planning/hoping to do too much and often end the day frazzled, thinking I didn’t do enough, frustrated by the unstarted or unfinished projects staring at me with longing eyes. I set myself up for failure every time I plan too much in a day because my natural response to having too many things going is to panic and run for cover, figurative and literal. I stop thinking clearly or being able to prioritize and I just sit on the couch hoping the things I wanted to accomplish will get some of that Disney-princess-story-magic where they do themselves and have a catchy soundtrack and a subliminal message to boot!

So last week I started consciously planning to not plan a whole lot. I do the basics of my stay-at-home-mom day (which is a full-time job, I know I know, I grant that to others in my position but have a hard time feeling legitimate in it myself) and then I choose one thing beyond that that might, just might, get done. And funnily enough, I’ve actually been more effective since it seems this approach has alleviated the flight response. We’ll see if I can keep it up.

I’m consciously working at, reminding myself, to be present in the moment I’m in. It feels a little cringy and trite to write that down. And I am fully aware it’s not original. But it’s exactly what I need to know and practice right now. Actually Being Where I Am — in heart, head, body.

All my life I’ve been a planner, an anticipator. I think and yes, definitely worry, about the mythic “down-the-road” days … the big one for me right now is what happens when the mat leave is up in August? I just don’t know. And the lack of security in the not knowing freaks me out. But then I sabotage the lovely, suspended, necessary time that I am so privileged and deeply glad to have courtesy of this mat leave, particularly because I know so many women that don’t even have the option to have this year of partially-paid mothering. And when I am fully present, I experience such deep satisfaction, in everything really.

Someone wise recently reminded me that as a trained dancer, I’m practiced at being acutely present in the physical moment I’m in as a mover. I am working on translating some of that knowledge from studio to living room.

My 3-year-old is in a creative dance class on Saturday mornings. He loves it, skips down the street, has a buzzing, jumping energy in anticipation. He’s in class with two little friends of his whose moms and I have grown into wonderful friends through our kids. The class is only 45 minutes but we go for coffee during that time and honestly, Saturday coffee with these ladies has been a fantastic anchor point in my quiet maternity-leave life. In a period without a lot of adult-only interaction, I revel in those minutes of catch-up, giggling and gossiping and trading stories. We’ve decided to keep it up once classes are out, because somehow knowing that that visit is set gives the week a marker, a turning point of shared-experience. I must say, I like having a regular ladies-visit in my calendar. I highly recommend.

Last week I got a joyful email on a sunny morning from a lovely friend with the following link she was inspired by. And I think it’s worth sharing. Thanks to the writer Amelia Olson,

Click for the whole thing.

This bit feel particularly relevant, not directly but something that I often sense, and subsequently temper myself because of:
“As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed.  Too sensitive.  Too mushy.  Too wishy washy. Blah blah.  Don’t let someone steal your tenderness.  Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart.  Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things.”

I’m going to keep feeling deeply. Cheers.

And she begins …

Here I am, joining the  blogging world, sending my humble, ahem, brilliant (obviously!) musings and adventures into the ether. I’ve been excited, heartened and inspired by many blogs by other artists and women over the past few years and now have the impulse to add my own voice to the mix.

The plan (a.k.a. my challenge to myself) is to write 2 or 3 times per week so as to be consistent but not ruled by the blog. In particular I’ll be writing about my adventures as I create and launch my independent sewing business, formalizing and making professional something I’ve done for years as gifts friends and for the simple joy of it. I’m sure that my life and whatever’s in front of me will leak in as well and am excited to be starting this record.

I started 2012 with the delivery of my very own rubber stamps featuring my lovely logo (designed by my excellent friend Christa Couture — tangent: she’s not only a great designer, she’s also a fantastic musician!) that I’ll use for labeling my work. They were beautifully made in Canada by The Old Island Stamp Company.

If you’d like to read a little more about me, check out my bio.

I think that’ll do as a starting point, til next time!