Tag: Toronto

May 27, 2013

M is for May and Matryoshka (tattoo)

May has been epically busy, and in addition to my usual exploits, I got inked! Yes, tattooed, me. I always wanted one when I was a teen. However, being a practical creature and an obedient dance student, I thought I might regret it and also piss a bunch of teachers and choreographers off. But actually, I regret not doing it. And since there’s no time like the present, I researched artists last year, found Angie Fey at Archive Tattoo in Toronto and fell in love with her work. You should check it out. Extraordinary. Whimsical. Colourful. Charming. I wanted 4 Matryoshka dolls; I love them, their secret stacking, their folk-arty-ness, all the symbolism potential.

And it has been started, my left forearm is officially hardcore. The outline is done and June brings colour. I am in love with my little dolls, representative of family, carrying images of things precious to me. Wearable art — and a great conversation piece I’m discovering already! Does the moustache not charm your pants right off?! And the flowers. And the variation in grey. The little cheeks. The pleats in the scarf knots. Sigh of contentment.

Other adventures this month included a bunch of dance work with Simcoe Contemporary Dancers for their show Departure. And, you know, I managed to choreographed a work, costumed a few pieces, do lighting design and assistant stage manage some shows. I love love love me a dance show, but honestly! Over-commitment is my middle name me thinks. Truly soul filling work though.

I’m also getting prepped for sewing commissions, which include: costuming the New Actors’ Colony Theatre company in Bala, ON this summer, a couple of dance shows in Toronto, and 2 wedding dresses! Plus my own sewing work (ha ha). And the usual mothering. Ahem. Working from home with an one-and-a-half-year-old is insane. I constantly over-estimate how much I can get done, but this period shall pass, I know. So I mostly put aside my own work and just hang and nap and do things that don’t involve pointy objects during the daytime! My shop can happen any time, the little man will grow past needing me like this very soon, never to return to this magical/overwhelming time.

December 5, 2012

Embroidered Map Art – Von Esteban Styles!

I have been a pretty absent blogger of late as I’m in a perfect storm of selling and buying houses and readying to move in a few days, sick little boys who pee beds and vomit copiously, sewing and editing gigs galore, prepping for christmas, goodbye visits my amazing gaggle of Toronto friends and so on. The adventures are coming thick and fast, offering all sorts of fodder for brilliant blogginess, but alas, no time to sit and write. I’m keeping a list of good ideas for quieter days ahead … all that said, I should really not be blogging at this moment, but I simply must share this right now!

Today I picked up my first big-girl art. A real, alive, commissioned piece from the remarkable Casey Von Esteban. A friend of mine had a piece on her wall by Casey that I fell hard for. In mid gush to my lovely husband about Casey’s stitched art, he suggested that I commission a piece for my autumn birthday. And so I did. That was in September sometime. And now it’s done. And I picked it up (jamming it in front of my sick sleeping boys’ feet in our Toyota Matrix because I am obviously a highly responsible and priority-straight parent). A 4′ x 4′ stitched map of my childhood neighbourhood! Here it is perched on the radiator in my almost-packed house:

I am on a big map kick right now, or maybe for always. I simply enjoy them, never tire of looking at the grid, always seeing new bits and places. I like the architecture and design of a place I don’t know or revelling in the comfort of familiar streets or landscapes. To that end, I asked Casey to stitch a chunk of South Edmonton, specifically Parkallen, where I grew up.

[googlemaps https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=edmonton+map&hnear=Edmonton,+Division+No.+11,+Alberta&gl=ca&t=m&ie=UTF8&hq=&ll=53.502087,-113.519754&spn=0.021161,0.046349&z=14&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

She did such a great job! Perhaps because I am moving cities for only the second time in my life and am overtired, or whatever the reason, emotions are close to the surface these days I can barely look at this piece right now without a misty wave of memory and nostalgia for childhood days and a beloved prairie city.

This piece of art encompasses a bunch of things I love — old, weathered wood, embroidery, maps — it is all of that. It’s tactile, I can run my hands over it, see and feel the care with which the artist worked. I love the back too, a rough, knotted mirror of the front. Casey actually drills every single one of those holes and then embroiders the work through them. It blows my mind. And. I. Love. It.

See the burgundy street in the centre of the image above above? That’s where I lived! Right on the inside corner. We had a great yard on three sides of the house because of that inside corner. I did a lot of dancing and daydreaming there, sigh!

I am a fairly large fan of the work of Casey Von Esteban. Ahem. You should check her work out, she’s a local Toronto gal. Her stuff is readily available (not just commission) and it’s not too late for holiday gifting (insert horn tooting here)! In addition to her maps, she does Toronto images (I really love the streetcars), animals (the squirrels and racoons make me giggle), miscellaneous (fingerprints, hearts and microphones, oh my), inappropriate words (nothing compares to a carefully embroidered f-bomb, nothing) and more. My map will have pride of place in our new home. Big girl art, sorted.

July 3, 2012

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 …

June 25, 2012

Quilting Challenge: June [and musings on “home”]

I have been thinking about home a lot lately, perhaps because I am on the cusp of a big driving trip across the country to Alberta where I grew up. So I feel certain that June’s 2012 Quilting Challenge square should be a house! I love that Mr. Owl looks like he’s perched on the roof top.

I have many places I call home. Alberta of big sky and my first 20 years is home. City: Edmonton, neighbourhood: Parkallen. Friends and family, school and lessons, choir and dancing, adventures on foot, bike, bus and car, flights of imagination in the backyard. It’s more the memories that are home because by now a lot of the people have moved and the landscape has changed a fair bit. It’s the capital “H” home of my mind and heart.

Toronto is my adult home, In fact I’ve been here for 14 years as of this week — maybe that’s why home is on my mind! I came for dance school and fell in love with the city. And with a boy, who I married. I discovered how strong and able and independent and brave I am in this big city. And to my continued surprise, I rarely manage a streetcar ride without seeing someone I know. it’s become the lowercase “h” home, but no less important in my list of homes.

Now Toronto’s Cabbagetown is home-home. A house-of-dreams (yes, you are correct, that’s an obscure Anne of Green Gables reference) and its century-home maintenance realities is the literal roof-over-the-head-home. Now I am maker and keeper of the first home my boys will remember, with their own set of smells and colours and sounds and favourite corners. Their own intangible roots are stretching from this very house and city into the world.

And Adam, that boy I fell in love with, he and our 2 boys are HOME. All caps. Full stop. They are my chosen home, my heart and my landing place, my still point.

My friend Shannon Litzenberger, a prairie girl from the prairiest of all provinces (Saskatchewan of course!) and a powerhouse artist, arts advocate and policy junkie, is currently developing a dance project called HOMEbody. It’s a multi-faceted artistic musing on what home is, literally and figuratively. Definitely worth checking out!