Gratefulness

These guys won an Oscar last year for the best original song category for a little movie called Once. When they were in Toronto to promote the film over two years ago, I sang with Glen Hansard. Two weeks before that, their all-amazing tour manager, Howard, pulled a serious ninja move to let the then-underage yours truly into the vicious Phoenix concert theatre to see the band in concert.

Tonight they played a 9-song acoustic set in front of a handful of people, and I was lucky enough to witness it. I'm still not quite sure what I did to be have the privilege to be there, other than sending a desperate plea at age 18 to be let into a gig.

Over a year ago my sister and I gave them a set of paintings (the bottom half is by me), wrapped in newspaper tied with a piece of yarn from a scarf I was knitting at the time.

When I saw Glen tonight, he showed me that same piece of string, tied around his wrist, been there since the night I gave it to him on November 23rd of 2007. As I am after every night I see them, I'm full of good music and lack words of thanks. The honky-tonk piano, so out of tune, did just fine for the evening.

Next up: Chad VanGaalen! I'm really, really banking on him to win the Polaris Prize. And then Bruce Peninsula, and then the Gaslight Anthem, and then Dan Mangan, then the Swell Season (again), then the Rural Alberta Advantage, take me into winter. I'm in love.

Scenic painting class

I'm winding down. This is a picture of my last assignment of the semester with our scenic painting instructor, Richard, in the front of the flats for scale. It took 8 students and a few weeks, and it's quite a difference compared to fine arts, but it was an experience.


(Two of my group members, Alisa and Nadia)

FUN TIMES.

(photo cred goes out to Kathleen Cheung!)

Come on, student living

I really haven't been able to be as creative as I want to be, this being the second last week of classes and the schoolwork dump is inevitable. I am also two weeks away from being unemployed (my choice) and I'm excited as hell but seriously not looking forward to any further student poverty than what I already have...

So we'll continue to revisit some oldies...

My baby cousin turned one whole year old back in July. She lives in Washington, D.C. and my sister and I made this painting, bundled it up and dropped it off. I haven't seen her since, but she's learning to speak and walk and I miss her!

le chat

I've been comparing my state to a cat: I just want to bask all day in the sun and play with balls of yarn. A difficult task to achieve via living in a basement in Toronto in November.

I painted Captain Pringles (I didn't intend this, but they ended up bearing a striking resemblance) for a friend's birthday in August. I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean, but a lost sea captain celebrates his birthday at sea while a whale navigates... is what I ended up implying.

Before I go, and just so I seem at least a bit more literate than a cat, I want to comment on the situation in Burma. A hundred peaceful activists are imprisoned again. The regime refuses to negotiate terms for UN's visit due in December. Half a million people are displaced in their own country. They've appealed, by democracy and by religion and by sheer humanity, but none of this seems to impress anyone of power. Something's got to give, but whowhenwherehow?

ps... A woman lives with 130 cats.

#1

So... here it is.

I painted this over the summer, when I thought I might be painting murals for a summer job. It's of a carousel that my dad got me from a flea market in some smalltown, Ontario, quite a few years ago--it plays music and spins!