sabbatical

story

Ken Burns: On Story from Redglass Pictures
What makes a great story? For legendary filmmaker Ken Burns, the answer is both complicated and personal. In this short documentary about the craft of storytelling, he explains his lifelong mission to wake the dead.

the other side

Last year, one of my nearest and dearest friends, Cristin, and I decided to throw an art show under a collective we started called UnderBelly Art. We organized the event kinda just because and kinda just to see what kind of magic we could make with some like-minded people in the city. Our first event Yards of Chinatown, although made possible through no formal plan and the most minimal of budgets, was the cat's meow! We had a weird and wonderful group of artists, performers and patrons soaking up the community love (and spiked refreshments) and adoring local art all day long.

Since this event last summer, Cristin and I have been gearing up for another summer large-scale outdoor art event, along with a slew of other strange and mystical pop-up art events for the Fall. 

Our big bang summer art show, PillowTalk (with Mr.Sandman) is taking shape and drawing near (Sunday, August 12! Woo!) Right now, we're organizing our community-driven art projects that are taking place all through July in preparation for the show. As well, we are sending out a call to all artists, performers, musicians, artisans, or anyone with an inspired idea or industrious spirit to participate in the show. 

The atmosphere of the concept of 'pillow talk' simply breeds conversation, so we’re asking all participants to reinterpret, redo or reenact a moment inspired by the pillow and help us transform a space in order to explore the conundrum of sleep and dream life. If you're interested in participating or would like some more information, give me a hola! underbellyoutfit@gmail.com

You can also keep up-to-date of projects and art opportunities by liking our Facebook page. Or you can follow our every move via twitter @undrbellyoutfit

Thanks for showing interest or getting involved. Mad love!

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The UnderBelly Art Collective hosts large-scale and pop-up events that present the community with an opportunity to come together to initiate new thinking or weave a different social fabric for the arts. Taking the form of a gallery, a performance space, a gathering for miscellaneous ideas--you name it--UnderBelly aims to create a welcoming and highly accessible venue for artistic freedom and exchange.

Our creativity is expressed through the love of thought. Love of art. Love of sounds. Love of love. We are looking for the beauty in every moment--we cheer on the tug of war between artistic abandon and structure. We applaud the moments that are simultaneously chaotic and harmonious. We encourage the heroic experiments of the maniacally over-ambitious, while provoking curiosity and curating a new experience. Like a black hole, Underbelly wants to draw you in and make sure you can’t escape our pull. But this isn’t rocket science. This is magic.

[website launching summer 2012] 

june

If I said what I meant all the time I would regret it, although feel better, momentarily, before everything collapsed into hurried words and hot-headed agony. So I’m not. And I haven’t. And as you can tell by the lack of activity here, I’ve been keeping it low-key. How else am I supposed to keep you interested and consistently coming back if I’m not shrouded in a bit mystery, huh?

Essentially, I’m summing up this month-long hiatus from writing as the time I buckled napalm to my actions and reactions in order to give you something  good to read--a vacation from scrutinizing thoughts and assessing behaviour and just carrying on in a reckless manner regardless if I remember how or why. You guys cool with that?

So as a 1-2-punch update: life has been a parachute opened, impossible to shove back into the case. So much has happened, started, stopped, and continues on in unknown directions. Read a little, seen a lot. I’ve sat porchside, stoopside, poolside, on the right, and wrong side of bars with my tight little clad of friendly bandits. Some of the writing work I’m doing is chomping away at my senses and poisoning my vocabulary, but then the art!…oh the art projects I’m involved in makes it feel like I’m grabbing a brick and busting through the window of whatever’s making me feel trapped—pure satisfaction.

 My partner in crime is back from Scandinavia. The moon is increasingly more influential. I’m finding new nerve endings I never thought I had. The city! The city is alive and degrees away from exploding some days. I love it; but also am burgeoning in time spent out of it.

Some days are like cinematic feverous dreams, like fireworks in th eyes and swollen kisses and hallucinations that certain moments will last forever. And then there are days spent with my head in between my knees, gently rocking, trying to find balance again. Another nothing. Another something, Another summer. 

this'll do

I'm not going to tell you what I've been up to, I'll just let you draw your own conclusions based on these images--all of which I love and kinda sum up life these days. I know the writing has been moderate lately but I'm so enamored with all things off-line that my beloved blog has been shuffled down my list of priorities. Regular scheduled blogging and all other digital self-indulgent practices will resume soon enough. Thank you for checking in consistently regardless of the lack of updates. Love y'all. 

x

images via http://thethinkingtank.tumblr.com/  http://dumdumgrrrl.tumblr.com/ and comme de garcon installation

is this real life

Everything is getting muddied these days. Streetlights for eyes and nouns in place of verbs. I seem to burn holes in everything I write. Shit. I'm even quoting david after dentist.

inefficient

Oh the word 'efficiency.' Bane of my existence sometimes. So often we're encouraged not to linger over ideas for too, not to slow down and ruminate. Instead it's action, reaction--hurry up and complete one task so there's time to move on to something else. What else? Anything else--the new, the now, the next. 

Take your brain, fraught with all its messy smear of ideas, it's only once you let dreaming take over 

to smooth out the minute details that flimsy, fragmented concepts may enter the real world. So beware creeping efficiency because if you lose the time to dream, you will eventually lose your mind.

take me somewhere nice

 

A glimpse of the weekend. 

Spent the last two days in a dreamy state thanks to a sunny day running around old Montreal followed by an afternoon spent eating a copious amount of cheese and wandering the grounds of Mariposa Farm.  

Now head down and back to work for this little run-around. 

eight non-consecutive days

In eight non-consecutive days this happened:

Celebrated the life and times of dear friends with a good ol'fashioned birthday bash, party hats and all.

A lot of good eating at Tennessy Willems.

Samantha Savage Smith at Raw Sugar.

Finding reasons to wear my play clothes. 

Hanging out with the fearless types. 

Dishing out dog pats.

Finding quiet moments during the big, bad bustle.  

Participating in the 24 hour brunch that inevitability turns into a dance party.

x

so here's my problem

I haven't been able to write anything in the last week. I'm too happy, which makes me too fucking complacent that I have no inspiration. Champagne problems, I know. But thinking, even for a second, that you're losing your voice is like vertigo--at least it's the lovely kind of vertigo that feels like being drunk off whiskey, but without the maddening blindness and consequential hysteria. 

osolee

I've been meaning to post this forever ago but heck, better late than never. Earlier this year I was asked alongside a few other local bloggers to intrepret and create the lookbook for the very talented and very lovely Lee Ann Lacroix's newest initiative Osolee, an online jewelry shop that offers pieces with just the right amount of tough luxe. 

I just so happen to love lookbooks that transcend the garment or piece and are, instead, relevant to the style or overall vibe of the brand--which is why I was so excited to be asked to be part of Osolee's launch. Each blogger was asked to  represent a piece from Lee Ann's collection based on their own style. Be sure to check out the Osolee website to see the entire lookbook. 

Thanks again to Lee Ann and Carolynn Lacasse for the great opportunity. x

throw back

Slightly obsessed with the photographer Lina Scheynius these days. 

something different. something more.

Change is probably one of the hardest things to implement in one’s life because it takes courage, effort and endurance. It isn’t just a matter of putting left foot in front of right,  it’s making the conscience decision to put the left in front of the right every time--so it's very easy to slip up or give up.

I've always felt that as an artist, or anyone working in a creative field, it's part of the job to be in and out of an unsatisfied state, and to constantly make changes, in some way or another, to grapple with the space between fulfillment and angst. 

....but before I continue my ranty speech allow me to rewind a bit....

I left my job yesterday. Not a big deal except I loved my job, I loved the company I was part of, I loved my boss and all my colleagues. I spent the last year and a half involved in some fantastic projects on behave of an incredible organization . And I was actually writing. For any of you reading this who are also writers, getting people to pay you in things other than favours to write for them is not always easy. But regardless of all of this, there was something important missing and there had been for a long time--I couldn't bear to settle with longing for the unknown any more.


I've always felt like I've been one of those heroines too high strung for a normal* (*read: steady, stable, fixed) existence so now that the cord that tied me to some semblance of a structured life has been cut,  the world is, as they say, my oyster. I have no plans at all. In fact I have no idea what I want, I only know what I don't want--and the things I don't want are to feel too comfortable and too complacent. Reaching a sense of satisfaction is like reaching a state of happiness--you get there and then what? As scary and exciting as it is to tear life up without having any idea of what to do with the pieces, I'm strangely comforted by the fact that I haven't stopped looking for something different. Something more.  


images via http://misspaq.blogspot.ca/

don't stop.don't change.stay beautiful.

You create your own reality. You chose how you feel about the outside world, other people.. you’re even free to chose how you feel about yourself--although, we often forget that. 

You don’t have to be down today, you don’t have to be regretful of the past, you don't have to be the version of yourself that others like and you can't stand. Don't stop. Don't change. Stay beautiful. Sometimes, happiness is much simpler than we make it out to be.

images from inspiration folder

start this shit up

My friend just sent me this video and I couldn't help but repost it. Holy smokes! This was the best digital kick in the ass to start my day. 

x

the process

Think about it. Scratch it on paper, a napkin, the back of your hand. Let it keep you up all night. Grab the materials without thinking. Lay it out. Lap it up. Cut it. Destroy it. Mend it. Reunite everything. Peel away the layers slowly. Rip into the meaning quickly. Tag it. Scrutinize it. Hang it on your wall. Try to ignore it. Wake up in the middle of the night and look at it in the dark. Take a picture of it. Take 20 more pictures of it. Edit. Re-edit. Keep it simple. Kiss it goodbye. 
That's my process in a nutshell.

|image Judit Reigl, Outburst, 1956. Metropolitan Museum of Art|

pink

dream space

adrian ghenie

so inspired by this painter

...mmhmm...

boomboom

Today I was reminded of the importance of not falling in like.

Falling in like is the worst. Falling in like will lead to things such as bruised hips, sleepless nights and hallucinations of a marching band passing through my head.

Sure, it’s poetic but it’s also exposing. Falling in like leads to saying things I mean but shouldn't say. And I need control.

So here's the problem: do I let myself continue to fall helplessly in like, or do I start to sabotage it and slowly pick at it like a scab? Or what's worse--do I even get to choose--will I find myself potentially ruining something because I lack the willpower not to? Or will I tear it apart little by little just to beat him to the punch?

This is not a cute dilemma. This is something that is going to end in a rich flavor of hell.

Cue the marching band. Cue the blurry vision and careless decision making. We’ll leave the sabotage-talk for another late night as I contemplate the ins and outs of hour-long kisses and gazes that singe my lashes.