2012 New Year’s Resolution

I love this cartoon! My problem isn’t that I don’t know what to do but that I have so many projects on the go I don’t know where to focus. Last year, I found that my attention and energy was divided amongst so many different areas I didn’t accomplish as much as I would have liked to on any of them.

I’ve been a member of a wonderful, local arts collective, Arts Off Main, for the past year and a half. There’s great camaraderie amongst the participating artists and I love working my shifts in the gallery, meeting the public and talking about art. But I’m going to have to let go of my participation there so I can free up some time to make more art. It was a tough decision but one I made to help me step closer to achieving my goals.

2012 will be the year that I let go of some things and focus on just a few others. Then maybe I’m gonna REALLY accomplish something!

News in October and November

A little bit about what I’ve been up to this fall:

1. Culture Days was celebrated across Canada. I helped to organize venues for local artists to give visual art demonstrations at Arts Off Main and other shops along Main Street.
2. Spent a weekend in Manzanita, Oregon at our friend’s cozy cottage where I was out with my camera getting great shots of the beautiful beach and surrounding forests. Many of these photos have become part of my Shape of Breathing series.
3. I was the featured artist at G&F Financial on Main Street. Thank you G&F for supporting local artists by offering your walls as gallery space!
4. Malaspina Printmakers is now offering silkscreen printmaking. I took a course with Molly Winston to learn the basics as I would like to start combining silkscreen with my digital inkjet prints. Molly encouraged us to go big and I brought home some huge red pieces! Great fun for the first time out.
5. The Eastside Culture Crawl was Nov. 18-20 and this year our studio, Octopus Studios, enjoyed the company of over 1100 visitors! I showed my new Shape of Breathing prints and the West Coast landscape art prints I made earlier this summer as well as demonstrating through-out the weekend. I got lots of positive feedback on the Shape of Breathing series so look for more work in the new year.
6. Nigel, the printing guy, and I were invited to judge a photography contest at the Motor Vehicle Sales Authority of BC. With four categories – people, places, animals and open – and over 90 submissions we had our work cut out for us. There were some really good photos and we managed to narrow down the winners without too much bickering! It’s great to see the company supporting its staff’s interest in photography by sponsoring this contest. The winners photos hang in the office hallways through-out the year. Thanks to Anna and her team for a great effort.
7. My larger pieces are hanging at Fiona Begg’s law office, located right next to Arts Off Main Gallery at 218 East 28th. Pop in if you have a chance.
8. And lastly, I’ve enjoyed a couple of great visits to the Vancouver Art Gallery: once for FUSE with my friend, Carmen, and the other with Megan and Shanti for the Michael Audain talk. There is a major art exhibit on right now of works from the Audain Collection. Michael spoke with directness and sincerity about his love of art – how he falls in love with a piece of art and develops a relationship with it. Especially true for the numerous First Nations masks he has whose spirit he feels, whose presence is alive in his house. Not what I expected to hear from a property developer/businessman! I enjoyed his anecdote about one of Jeff Wall’s photographs of Richmond. He said many learned art folks have seen and commented on the work hanging in his home and offered their analysis of it. But apparently, when asked, Jeff said he just took the photo because he liked the scene! And sometimes it doesn’t get simpler than that.

Thank You from Octopus Studios

Thank you to everyone who came out to see our studio and artwork over the 3-day Eastside Culture Crawl. We had over 1100 visitors to the studio – our best year yet! See you in 2012!

The Art of Movement

I’m fascinated with this time-lapse yoga by Megan Currie. Thank you Belle Ancell for posting it! It’s beautiful and joyful and made me smile and laugh.

Open Studio Visits at Octopus

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Here are some quick shots of the studio that I took this morning before the doors opened for our first visitors. It was a beautiful, sunny, but cold, morning and people were out early. Notice how clean and well presented everything is! While Beata’s area in the front always looks great with her artfully displayed pieces, the rest of us tend to have more chaotic working areas that have been completely transformed for visitors. I missed getting Luchia’s space and Travis’s upstairs — tomorrow! Come down to see us – one more day! We had 180 visitors on Friday night and several hundred today, I’m sure. I didn’t get the official count from Beata but visitors were steady through-out the day. Thanks to everyone who gave me such supportive feedback for my new photography, the Shape of Breathing series, especially the Rainforest. That one seems to resonate with west coasters. I’ll be sure to get to work on the other photos I have in that series to share with you. Tomorrow I’ll be working on the last of the 3 prints I made of the Red Trees artwork.

Metalwork by Karin Jones

I thought I’d share the work of Karin Jones at the Mergatroid Studio. I love Karin’s work inlaying gold on steel in patterns drawn from Islamic and Arts & Crafts traditions. Fantastic, Karin!
Karin Jones is showing her work in her studio as part of the Eastside Culture Crawl here in Vancouver, Nov. 18, 19 & 20, 2011. Video by Jeff Murton.

Down at the studio

Thanks to Jeff Murton for shooting video on Eastside Culture Crawl artists and getting the word out! Awesome job, Jeff! Check out other Eastside Culture Crawl artists’ profiles.