alexander calder, nye, goat cheese omlette

I woke up this morning miraculously cured from my nasty cold/flu. I met up with my beautiful friends Amy L and Myera at Aunties and Uncles. All three of us had the omlette special of the day, goat's cheese, spinach and caramelized red onions.  I seriously can't get enough of their challah bread, with jam of course. 

Why is it so difficult to make concrete plans for NYE?  We finally decided to meet up at Three Speed, then some of us are going to see Elliot Brood and Lee's and we're all hoping to meet up at Holy Oak.  I've never been to Holy Oak, here are some nice photos take from the blogto review of Holy Oak.

After Breakfast Amy and I swung by Lettuce Knit in Kensington Market. I picked up a cute little pack of bits of yarn and unspun wool that I'll use to weave.

We strolled down to the AGO and came across an amazing show, Alexander Calder: The Paris Years.  He was a master of using simple line to create drawings with so much personality. We were both impressed by his wire portraits. The portraits below are of Fernand Leger, Joan Miro and Edgard Varese.

The exhibition claimed that Calder invented the mobile. I actually had thought that this style of mobile belonged to Joan Miro.

I found Calder's other mobiles on display were equally as interesting, such as the one below that has a hand crank made out of wire. Unfortunately we couldn't crank the crank to see the movement.

Calder also created an intricate wire-figure flea-like circus. He created small kinetic toy-like sculptures and actually  "performed" a circus in front of a camera.  A group of children watching were completely intrigued and were laughing and "oo-ing" and "ahh-ing". Here is footage of his circus from the Whitney.




Here's a slide show of images of little kiddie's artwork inspired by Alexander Calder's circus.



HAPPY NEW 2010!!!

Chris Duncan

Chris Duncan
Balance, 2009.
http://www.thetimebetweenthebeginningandtheend.com

Out of Africa, buttertarts and the view from my living room

Joe and I are both sick.
I had so much planned today. I even had set my alarm this morning even though I'm on vacation.

I did pick up a lightbox and a huge piece of foamcore for my next weaving experiment.

I also was able to get some work done on my braille weaving project.

I love the view from my front window. The huge red brick house across the street is so mysterious. In the summertime, the people who live their leave their side door open and blast classical music and through the open door I can sometimes see a figure sitting at a desk, silhouetted by the light of a desk lamp.  The curtains of the house are always drawn and I've never actually seen the face of anyone that lives there, although at night I've seen the glowing eyes of the family of raccoons who live in the chimney of the garage.

I rented three movies in anticipation of a few days of sickness: Chungking Express, Twin Falls Idaho and the film I just finished, Out of Africa.  Meryl Streep is gorgeous. The shots of Africa are beautiful... Meryl Streep's character (Karen) goes on a safari adventure with Robert Redford's character (Denys) and there is a very sensual moment where Denys washes Karen's hair. Looking at this still you'd assume that he slowly lathered up her hair, but he actually scrubbed her scalp.  It was pretty sexy.

After I watched the movie I at one of my Nana's buttertarts.

Cesar Díaz Meléndez - Sand Animator

While reading more of Masha's blog (she's my new online crush) I discovered Cesar Díaz Meléndez, another incredible animator who creates animation with sand.

You can check out his YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/cesarlinga

I'm amazed at how he communcates/depicts actual lighting in this short animation. WOW:




This video reveals his process. A little intimidating... WOWIE!

New Weaving Project in Progress

I started a new weaving project tonight. It's my second attempt at making and using my own cardboard loom. 
Here's some images of my first attempt:

Here's the plan I drew up in my sketchbook:

I used a braille translator to translate some text that I am attempting to weave into the piece. I'm hesitant to go into detail as my idea may change.  I'll fill you in a little more as I finish the piece.

Here are some photos of the work I've done so far:

I'll be working on this tomorrow.  I've also decided against making my own set-up to animate sand and I'm going to buy a light box instead.  Maybe this one?

I am having quiet time

Boxing Day

I'm back from 4 days of family holiday goodness and I'm basking in the dim glow of my droopy Christmas tree, surrounded by boundless rolls of lifesavers, hershey kisses and foil wrapped santas.







My highlights of the holidays:

1. my 3 year old nephew pooping in his pants by the christmas tree after my mom singing a song where the chorus is "everyone body poops!". 
   
   
2. Joe managed to find a wife Christmas card that says something about me having a nice butt.
   
   
3. My nana's  80 year old boyfriend voluntarily choose the Ouija Board during the family board game gift exchange game.
4. I watched the USA spelling Bee Championships (although joe complained the whole time that they had become too commericial)
   
   

My goals this week:

1. To start a wall weaving with my newly kool-aid dyed unspun wool
   
2. To build (with the help of my dad) a sand animation table so I can play around with sand and other things... I have an ikea desk top that I'm going to cut a hole in and then lay a peice of plexiglass over the hole so that I can shoot light up from below the plexiglass.  I've done this before while teaching, but with a piece of plexiglas sitting between two chairs, which didin't work so well after a few days because the weight of the sane caused the plexiglass to sag.  Although, I know that Caroline Leaf worked with a light table.... i'm going to see if I can find a cheap one before I cut my tabletop.
   
   Here is Caroline Leaf's beautiful sand animation, The Owl Who Married  a Goose. I recommend viewing this in a quiet space, as the sound track is beautifully minimal and simple. This whole film is gorgeous.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

   
   

   Here is an iteresting blog post I found by about the actually Inuit story the animation is based on. The blog belongs to Masha du Toit who lives in Cape Town, South Africa.  Another great post further explores Inuit stories and imagery.  I'm going to wrap up this post so I can read through this awesome blog. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

three legged bowl

This piece is part of a series of multi-legged bowls The glazes I used are called "oatmeal" and "white liner" and it was fired in a gas kiln at cone 11 (I think).  The exterior is dipped in glaze, while the interior is painted. 

I'm fairly new to ceramics and I'm falling in love.  I love how I can empty my mind when I work with my hands.


I just picked up a bunch of other pieces that were fired, so more to come (including my hexagonal teapot and mug set).

xmas time is here

 What I am doing at this moment to get into the Christmas spirit:

1. I am listening to Streaming Christmas radio from Vienna, Austria, and I'm hearing some terrific renditions of 80s Christmas hits sung in German.  
2. I just finished making the dough for chocolate espresso cookies.  I'm going to roll them in icing sugar and bake them tomorrow morning  
3. I am sitting with the lights off in my kitchen with my fibre optic tree beside me.
   

 

Dying wool with Kool Aid

While stumbling around online I found out that you can dye unspun (raw?) wool with Kool-Aid. I tried it out last night and it worked like a charm. Here are some photos I took while doing it.

From right to left, I used grape, tropical, cherry and orange. Unfortunately, the tropical was almost identical in colour to cherry.

I tested out the colour by sort of drippling the kool aid on the wool. After this I steamed it in a steamer basket over a pot of boiling water.



Before I steamed it there were a lot of white areas where the colour didn't soak in. After steaming the colour spread to the white areas.

I dyed two other batches of wool in pots, one I tried to achieve a dark purple/burgundy colour by mixing cherry and grape, and in the other pot I tried cherry by itself. 

First, I dissolved the packets in warm water then added the wool.  I didn't bother following any of the measurements that I found suggested elsewhere online.  I brought the water to just under a boil and then put the lids on and let the wool sit for 45 minutes or so.  After that I checked the water and all the dye had been absorbed and the water was clear.

I was a little worried that my beautiful fluffy wool would start to felt, so I let the wool and water cool off for a bit and then I washed it out using the same temperature water from the tap as was in the pot.  Then I used a dove bar of soap to wash it lightly. Then I hung it to dry.

I'm going to be making a woven wall hanging with the wool.  I want to make a loom-type thing in the shape of a triangle.  I will likely make it out of a large peice of cardboard or foam board.  hmmm..... I will post my progress.

 

Starting off right

While seeing the Viola Frey show at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramics this afternoon I declared to my amazing friend Amy Gaizauskas that I will start using my blog to keep track of what I'm working on and what I'm interested in.  I've started and stopped blogs in the past, but I'm going to try to keep myself on track with this one. Excuse my rusty writing.  I'm already feeling self conscious. 

The following images are of Viola Frey and her sculpture work.  Amy and I both really enjoyed the show.  Some of her peices include casts of objects she had collected (toys and figures).  I thought that was pretty neat, especially after I read that she is rumoured to have not actually created the molds herself but acquired them from a defunct ceramic factory.

I love the very serious look on her face.  She is having a staring competition with her own figure in the photo on the right. 

I wonder if her larger than life figures are hollow. Seeing them up close the seams are visible. I'm guessing she fired each section of the figure separately?  One of her large, stoic male figures had her handprint on the back of it.  The write up with the work descibred the handprint as being symbolic of the silent female presence that helps to make a man what he is... that takes care of him and keeps him going.