My Weblog

Colour Me Sprung

When I was little, every spring my Dad would recite the same poem: 

Spring has sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where the birdies is

I know he didn't make it up, but I'm not sure where it comes from.  And I also know I've already sung the praises of spring, but when you live in a city in which it's truly brutal winter seven months a year, spring is really, really significant.  By summer, I guarantee I'll be complaining about the heat, but right now I'm profoundly grateful for both the sunshine and the rain, and the gorgeously comfortable temperatures.  And the colour, oh the colour!  On that note, here is a little gal I've just made, unnamed as of yet:

Her hair is rather messy and needs some adjusting, but you get the idea.  I'm taking a little break from clay and making some cloth dolls. 

I've got a bunch of parts just waiting to be pieced together so that they need no longer be creepy disembodied doll parts.

Everything I make from this point on until the end of May is intended for the LabCab festival that takes place in Toronto May 31st and June 1st.  I'll be there with my little booth as well as a section of the art display, so if you're in the area, come on by!  There will be theater and music and visual art, and it has all been organized by my dear friend and the most talented actor, Aviva, so it is bound to be most excellent.

Thanks to the beautiful weather I've been tootling around the city on my bike.  I've recently become obsessed with Montreal rooftops because no matter how long I live here I can't get over how lovely they are... so much beautiful detail and colour.  Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a cross between a tale from Ye Olde Days of Yore and an Edward Gorey illustration.  Here are a few of my favourites:

Can you believe it?  A castle! And some turrets...

And balconies for all the star-crossed lovers...

More happiness everyone, and more spring!

Poltroons, Beware!

... Nora Barnacle is here to make you walk the plank at the Swashbuckler's Soiree!! This event was the brainchild of the lovely Donna O'Brien (you can find her blog by clicking the link above...)

I joined the Soiree quite late, but here is my offering, Nora Barnacle.  She is named after James Joyce's wife, who was not -as far as I know- a pirate but with a name like that she should have been! 

Rumour has it that Nora purchases her head scarves at the same high-seas establishment as Jack Sparrow...

But the embellishments on her skirt are pure Nora...she goes diving for starfish, snails and sand dollars and of course sews all her own clothes!

And of course no self-respecting pirate would go out without a de-rigeur pair of striped stockings!  But the seas are a dangerous place for even the fiercest pirates, so Noraa carries a wee sword (which she was unable to photograph clearly - heads at the Canon camera factory will roll! Into the ocean!)

Argh, mateys!  I'm running out of pirate talk, so I'm going to try to talk Nora into holstering that bad boy long enough to check all you other swashbucklers...

Ode to my Blessed Dollybox

I've read about the importance of taking good photos so often, but try as I might I was never able to get the  lighting right with my dolls.  There were always shadows and the lighting seemed cold.  So I finally made a lightbox (you can find the tutorial I used here) and figured out how to use the white balance on my camera (my dad got it for me in Japan, oh maybe six years ago?)  Let's just say I'm a bit of a techno-phobe and every little step I take I have to drag myself kicking and screaming...But I'm soooo happy I did because my most recent photos are so much better, my dolls' vanity has finally been satisfied and they no longer call out my name in accusing tones at night, demanding I do them justice. So forgive me if I go a little overboard with the pictures in this post...

This is Imogen.  She has one of the quasi-historical I mentioned in my last post: Victorian avec bustle!  But here is my question to you all, an informal poll if you will; I made her a little headband with antlers, but I wonder if it makes her look too busy, as her hair is already quite large.  It would be removable, but maybe it's overkill?

Here she is in her fancy-pants dress:

And from the side, because her bustle must be viewed in all its bum-you-could-balance-a-teacup-on glory:

And from the back because I'm rawther pleased with her train (ever read Eloise? One of my faves...  Nanny is always rawther this and rawther that):

Hmm - not sure if you can really see it that pic, but her underskirt does have a train...

Here is her bustle closeup:

And her pantaloons:

Imogen will go in the shop on Thursday. 

I also took these pictures of Delphine (who is in the shop now.)

And these ones of Cosette, who's going in the shop momentarily...

(Cosette has my first handmade pair of eyes!)

Whew!  I'm all lightboxed out for now.  I'd love to know what you think about Imogen...antlers oui ou non?

Dolls, Bikes, Corsets, oh my!

As promised, a few photos of two dolls I just finished (with more to come very soon!)  These are not their 'official' pictures because I'm going to make a lightbox tonight to try to get better photos for my Etsy shop (oh-so-barren at the moment.)  I've always struggled with lighting, and am hoping a lightbox will give me more control.

They look French to me. Delphine?  Cosette?  Haven't decided yet...

Well, it's another beautiful day here in Point St. Charles - how about a trip to the surprisingly well-stocked local library? (I feel a bit like creepy Mr. Rogers here with the virtual neighbourhood tour, but will push through my self-consciousness.) Let's go out the front door this time...

These are the houses across the street.   I love the colour and the little gabled  roofs over the windows.  The rest of the street looks like this:

If you look to your left, you'll notice some more of the Point's unusual graffiti, certainly part of its charm...

'Velo' is French slang for bike, hence the 'velorution'.  According the city stats, Montreal has the most extensive bike paths of any city in North America.  There is one right outside our door that leads to the Lachine canal, a beautiful canal that runs through the entire city and has bike paths long its entire length.  I love biking in Montreal and not having to worry that I'm going to get flattened by some aggro driver (and there are certainly plenty of those here, too.)

This lady drinks her soup just up the street - isn't she lovely?  But we can't stop long! We have to get to...

This is where I recently took out the most stunning book on Kyoto's fashion collection (aptly titled Fashion.)  The mannequins are all white with white ribbons for hair - tres belle!  Here are few photos from the book:

I'm working on some larger dolls in paperclay and plan to use this book as a reference for quasi-authentic historical costumes (that is, the ones in the book are thoroughly authentic, but mine will be quasi as I lik e to combine rough edges with all the bows and frills to temper the froufiness factor of period costume.)Thanks for the walk everyone.  Happy Spring!

Come Walk With Me...

I have been away so long and am duly ashamed of myself!  But in the meantime we moved house - our fourth move in five years.  It was exhausting but we luuuurve our new apartment and are not planning on going anywhere for a very long time. (Has anyone ever read the diaries of Georgina Nichols books?  They are the diaries of a saucy fifteen-year-old English girl and I always steal them from my teenage sister when I go home for Christmas.  Anyway, she says 'lurve' for love and I've some how picked it up.)  I also finished my second semester of my two year grad program - yay!  I know have four luxurious months off from writing papers, marking papers and reading overwhelming quantities of literature (fascinating as it is, sometimes having to plow through 4 - 5 hundreds of pages a week takes the pleasure out of reading.  I'm so looking forward to a summer of getting settled here, working on my dolls and general taking it easy.  I plan to read nothing but PD James and spy novels until school starts up, and I neither want to hear, read nor utter the words aesthetic, paradigm, discourse for a very long time. 

Anybody feel like going for a walk? Come check out my fab new neighbourhood, Point St. Charles (in the Wikipdia entry it says it was Canada's first industrial slum.  Yummy! But that was a long time ago.)  It's a little rough around the edges but it's got scads o' character...

Ahh...my laundry.  Isn't it beautiful?  Okay, the real reason I took this picture is because it's actually warm enough to hang out my laundry!  It's SPRING!!!  Even up here in the nordic tundra that is Montreal.  Under that laundry line there is still snow, because we got so much snow this winter, there was a ten-foot drift in the  backyard (backyard, people , I have a backyard!  Well we share with the downstairs tenant but still - I'm psyched.) Ahem.  Moving on...

Our alleyway!  Yes, I'm even excited about the alleyway.  We used to live on a major downtown street, but now we're on a little residential street and the backyard opens into alley through which we can bring our bikes and we can lock them in a shed on the backyard and don't have to drag them up a flight of stairs like we used to and wheeeeee!  It's thrilling (probably only for me, I realize.)  Did I mention I did all my errands on my bike today?  Oh, joy.

Here is some of all-time favourite graffiti on the nearby train bridge that I walk under every day - aren't they sweet? 

A beautiful church up the road. On the weekend we can hear its bells...so lovely.  I had some fun with photoshop with these pictures:

I'll be back soon with the rest of the walk, and some pictures of the new dolls I've been working on.  I tried to post a video below to make up for my dreadful absence, but it's not working and I can't delete it for some reason.  Sorry to be a tease! 

 

   

Watch out for that hurdle!

Last month I got an email from the lovely Deb over at The Laughing Doll, letting me know she had selected me for an art/ blogging prize.  It's taken me a long time to spread the love, in part because things have been so crazy (have I mentioned I'm moving this Sunday???  Probably not because I think I'm still in denial.)  But also because I have a rather ambivalent relationship to prizes...I think it all started when I was in grade two and I was forced to participate in the annual school track meet (everyone was) and I knocked over every. single. hurdle. In front of the entire school.  My heart sunk as I heard each one fall behind me and I still feel a little sick to my stomach when I remember the humiliation.  I was then "awarded" with one of two cheezy, synthetic 'participant' ribbons, the other three people placing either first second or third.  Did they really think that because I was only seven, I didn't know that 'participant' really meant ...

Since then I have lost some prizes, and won some as well, but it's the ones I lose that linger and give me that sickening feeling...I guess my seven-year-old self still hates that fact that for some to win, someone else has to be excluded.  Now, obviously this is a very well-intentioned prize (for one, the  winners didn't even know they were up for it, so it comes as a pleasant surprise!) so I must push past my terror of prizes and pass it in on in the spirit in which it was given.  So thank you to Deb and thank you to everyone whose blogs I read - you inspire and entertain me, and I love being able to see  your artwork in process!

From the original post: "This prize has arisen from the daily visits that I dedicate to many blogs which nourish me and enrich me with creativity. In them I see dedication, creativity, care, comradeship, but mainly, ART, much art. I want to share this prize with all those bloggers that entertain me day to day and to share this prize with those who enrich me every day. Doubtlessly, there are many and it will be hard to pick just a few, the people I will name today deserve this prize, as do the very long serious list of bloggers I enjoy to read, but I will name the first 6 and will leave the rest of the work to all the bloggers that visit other's blogs and are nourished by them."  So without further adieu...

Art and Ghosts

 

A Fanciful Twist

DuBuhDu Designs

Oh my Cavalier 

Lilies and Ether

Marmee Craft

Nostalgia Video la Deuxieme:

Some of you might remember that a few weeks back I posted a Kate Bush video absolutely oozing with 80s-ness.  Well, looking for that video sent me on a bit of a nostalgia whirlwind, and I found this very early, hilarious (but still sexy) video by U2.  U2 was such a huge part of my childhood - my mother was basically obsessed with them and she saw them at the El Mocambo in Toronto!!!  I know that won't mean anything who's not from Toronto, but suffice to say it was a serious dive and the band was not well-known at all at that point ( 1981, I think) and some woman at the show hand-cuffed herself to a nineteen-year-old Bono on stage!  My mom also wrote them fan letters and someone (a woman named Ann) always wrote her back.  Pretty crazy when you think about what they've become.  Below is the cover of their first album, Boy.

 

This one's for you, Mama!

Quoth the Raven Never More

Recently I was approached by the lovely Lady Lavona (a little alliteration, loves?) to create an doll of the sublime Edgar Allan Poe.  I've long been a fan of this Gothic rockstar, so I was very excited to start the project.  Poe was such a physically striking man, but very psychically tormented as well.  I read recently that his parents died while he was very young and his nurse gave him laudunum to keep him from crying.  No wonder he had a rather bleak view of things!   I wanted to capture not only his appearance but the look of anguish one so often sees in pictures of him:

Here he is, in all his misery...he's just missing the little raven I'll be sending off with him. And of course a post on Poe would not be complete without some of his lovely, sad words, so I will include the beautiful "Annabel Lee" at the end of this post.  It' s a poem I first fell in love with in high school when I skulked around in my ripped black stockings and pounds of eye liner, carrying my little velvet poetry notebook and feeling generally very tragic. This poem is also referenced in my all-time favourite book, Lolita, making it super-extra tragic and beautiful.

If you read my last post, you know that I am a fan of Arcade Fire, but would it surprise you to know that, despite being a reformed black-only-wearing, poetry-toting sulker,   I'm also a huge fan of....this ultra-cool, super-real, down-to-earth most sexiest rock-god who shall remain nameless but appears in this video ONSTAGE with Arcade Fire because apparently people have accused them of imitating the sound of said rock-god in this particular song but rock-god is so cool and gracious that rather than be pissy about it he showed up unannounced (to fans) at one of their concerts and performed the song with and if I had been there I would have totally LOST MY MIND and screamed like hormonal schoolgirl, rather like the people filming this video (if you have sensitive ears be warned - they express their enthusiasm with very, erm, colourful language!)

Annabel Lee
      
      It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Love Lies Bleeding

This is a doll I made recently as a commission. Her head and lower arms and legs are polymer clay, and she has a cloth and polyfil body over a wire armature.

The lovely woman who asked for her wanted a doll similar to this one I made over year ago, named Bridget/ Love Lies Bleeding.  I got the name ('Love lies Bleeding') from the gorgeous flower, which my father has in his garden.  He told me he chose it from the flower catalog based just on its name, which I found quite touching...its a rather melodramatic name and my father is decidedly not a dramatic person, but he is a brilliant gardener and the flowers - though somewhat bizarre looking  - are beautiful.  Here is a photo of the original doll:

Below is painting also called "love Lies Bleeding" by one of my favourite artists, Rozi Demant.  Oddly enough, I titled one of the chapters in my book "Love Lies Bleeding" and have toyed with the idea of making it the book's title (assuming I ever finish the thing!)  I mused one day to  O. that if I had the money, I would commission Rozi Demant to do the cover.  Then, lo and behold, she came out with an entire series of paintings by the same name!  I took it as a sign that a) I MUST finish my book and b) Rozi and I are destined to be friends (don't think she knows that yet, though.)

 
And here is photo of the real live flower, taken by the very talented Kristen nicholas.
Check out her blog!

 

Finally, I'm including a short video by the band Arcade Fire, a Canadian-American hybrid band with all kinds of wonderful string instruments and an accordian player and lovely, lush orchestral songs but also can go unplugged as evidenced by this performance in an elevator.  Enjoy!

I heart Cape Breton

I was away on Cape Breton Island visiting my Dad, stepmom and brother and sister for my reading week, as we spent this Christmas with O's parents in Maine.  My family and I had pretend-Christmas dinner and they even kept the Christmas tree up for me until the middle of February!  We exchanged presents (I'm now the proud owner of my very own trifle dish - no more making it in huge bowls!) and I had a lovely time going for long walks in the woods and sitting in my Dad's greenhouse.  I think I got more sun in a week than I had all winter.  I gave my little sister a doll for Christmas (as per her request) and she named her Emily.  Here's Emily chilling in the greenhouse:

She's made from a cloth over wire-armature body with paperclay head, hands and feet.  She has mismatched glass eyes which look slightly crazy - they are from a lot of glass eyes I bought on ebay that I thought were pairs, but when they arrived several were mismatched and when I checked the listing I realized it said "for doll eye repair." So I had to get creative... (I told this story to my sister and she then repeated it word for word to everyone to whom she showed the doll - I call her 'rain girl' because she has an almost eerie memory for anything she hears...an eleven year-old tape recorder.)

While I was "on vacation" I read two uber-long Victorian novels for a class, wrote a paper and marked twenty (I took the train 24 hours each way, so that helped my put a serious dent in the reading.)  As soon as I got back I handed it all in, went to some classes, then got in the car and went to my hometown of Toronto for a few days...not nearly as pretty as Cape Breton!  We were visiting my aunt, who recently bought a house in Cape Breton that she's never seen based on our recommendation (gulp!)

It's a serious fixer-upper, but it was really cheap and has very good bones.  We've agreed to help renovate over the next few summers and hope to move out there some day full-time...this way we would have a place to stay while we build our own place...someday!  My aunt will use it in the summers.

It has this beautiful  old barn which probably can't be saved (the other side is a big hole and the posts are literally hanging from the ceiling!) but there is so much beautiful, hand-hewn wood inside we can salvage that it won't go to waste.

This is a pretty bit of detail that I just love!  It's the trim around the roof - quite unusual for a Cape Breton farmhouse (this place is about a hundred years old.)

Here's the view from our land up above...too bad it was so overcast, but those are mountains in the distance and someday they'll be the view form our kitchen.

I'm dreaming of you green grass and trees!

Congratulations Rachael/ Skipping Town

A lot of people used number generators for their draws but that sounded scary to technophobic me (even though I'm sure it's probably very easy) so I did it the old-fashioned way...I put all the names on a piece of paper, cut them up, put them in a bowl and got my husband to draw one (with his eyes closed, of course!)  And the winner is Rachael. 

Thank you so much to everyone who entered and left great doll-related comments!  I loved reading them, and I will be getting back to people (slowly, most likely.)

I'm going out of town for ten days, but I'll be back with pictures and some new commissions to work on.  Bye for now!