h o m e

Home is: being greeted at the door by a ginger cat and a grey pug; lazily chatting on the back patio; a well stocked fridge; treadmill running in a retro laundry room; sleeping late, nestled in a sumptuous bed; verdant streets and yards, wide open spaces.

Home is: nostalgia; famaliar faces and voices.

Home is love and it's heartbreakingly hard to leave.

v i c t o r i a

This past weekend, I took a trip back home to Kitchener to celebrate my birthday; while there, my boyfriend Josh and I paid a quick visit to Victoria Park. We went on a whim after dinner, to the sprawling lawns nestled in the heart of downtown, with its murky waterways and arching bridges. 

It was just before dusk when we arrived; families with young children were winding down their playful days and the sun was setting slowly in a cotton-candy coloured sky. We wandered past small copses of flowering trees and over the lazy curve of an aforementioned bridge; the wooden planks beneath our feet clunked with each step. In the distance, a lone swan was hunkered down on the shore of the small island in the little lake. We stepped casually closer along the edge of the dark water in hopes of snapping a photo of the bird, which had been drawn to the bank by a little girl throwing bread crumbs.

Eventually, the swan drifted over to where we were standing; it stared at us with black, glistening eyes, gliding to and fro. While Josh crouched down to photography the gigantic beauty, I began to panic; I was convinced that the swan would suddenly hop out of the water full of squawking rage and attack. As Sue Townsend repeatedly reminds in Adrian Mole and The Weapons of Mass Destruction, "a swan can break a man's arm".

*

Once near Christmastime, I went with my family to Victoria Park after dark to see the holiday light displays. Driven by tween logic, I wore shiny, impractical shoes that night; I slipped on ice, ripped my tights and cried.

*

I met a date on the playground there, two New Years Days ago; it was a secret rendez-vous, a naively optimistic rebound. The park was deserted, the city quiet and closed. We met, hugged and shuffled awkwardly along the damp wooden structure in unseasonably warm winter mist; we talked nervously while wandering the park because there was no where else to go.

l i t t l e . l i g h t

Whenever I pass by a window, I can't help but look inside--especially at night. Walking past in the dusk or darkness, they glow seductively, little golden glimpses into another world.

*

I recall a conversation in winter, when I was four or five: my father sitting on the edge of my bed one night and telling me how to break my window (with the miniature blonde-wood chair from my desk set) and escape in case of fire. I imagined myself hopping through knee-high snow in my nightgown; I tried to summon up the strength that such a task necessitated, and wondered if I ever could.

*

Five years later: on summer nights when high-winds rendered me too anxious for sleep, I sought comfort in the noise and light of television. Nestled on the plaid couch in our family living room, I focused my eyes on the screen and willed myself not to glance towards the far side of the room with its wide windows; beyond the peeling paint of those aged wood frames was the wide open sky, tinged an unnatural pink. In front, there stood a long table of heavy, antique wood which was laden with plants whose silhouettes were only just visible against the glass.  

I remember the angry howl of the wind coming down the chimney and the ominous sight of skeleton branches dancing wildly against the clouds.

*

On another summer evening, in young-adulthood: walking through quiet neighborhoods with someone that I had feelings for, the mood casual yet confusing. As we meandered past quaint houses on lush, tree-lined streets, I passingly peeked into open windows; I wondered if the people who lived within were happy. As the sun set and nature turned cool grey and blue, I wanted to be inside the golden light of those bright homes and the life that they embodied.

j u l y

Is it just me, or did June WHIZ by?It was a pretty busy month for me, and it looks like July is going to be even more so. Cheers to getting things done and staying busy.

*

Happy Cananda Day to all my fellow Canadians! Hope that everyone has been enjoying the long weekend with tons of fun, food and friends :) I've been spending this lovely mini-break celebrating my birthday, visiting with family and daydreaming new drawing ideas.

*

Here are some of my favourite posts from the past month:

i n . b l o o m

My mum loves gardening. While I was still living at home, she would often try to persuade me to come outside and help her tend to her plants; she would (and still does) joke about paying me fifty cents to weed.

Even though I love flowers as a visual concept (as explained here), I was never very keen on the concept of gardening; one (among many) of my most dreaded summer phenomena was the experience of being dragged along to an open air garden centre; the heat and inevitable swarms (or so it seemed to me!) of bees and other bugs were unbearable to me. I was also always nonchalantly adamant that when and if I ever had a garden of my own, I would simply throw hand-fulls of seeds onto the earth and let nature take its course.

It's a mystery to me, but so far this summer I feel like I'm obsessed with plants; I keep pausing when I pass by beautiful gardens in bloom and can't resist capturing them on camera.

*

When I was little and we lived out in the county, there was a giant peony bush on the corner of our property; I remember staring in morbid fascination at the lush blossoms swarming with gigantic black ants.

c a k e . d a y !

Today is my birthday! I've always been the kind of person who loves their b-day (as you might have guessed from all of the exclamation marks thus far!). I love the sensation of knowing that on this day, how ever many years ago (it's 24 today) I came into existence; my mum usually calls me at 6:12 am to remind me. I love the feeling of specialness that pervades today; June 28 belongs to me. It's hard to explain, but my birthday feels like a hug, all warm and wonderful.

This birthday feels especially excellent because I know that I'm going to be surrounded by people who love me; I jam packed my weekend to make it so. In the past, I might have felt crushed when people didn't pay attention to me today, or when people that I thought were my friends showed their true colours; as wonderful as birthdays should be, they can sometimes be awfully lonely. This year however, I vow to only surround myself with positivity. I won't place my happiness in the hands of anyone else.

*

In preschool, when my mum rented a giant bouncy castle for my friends and I to jump away the afternoon; when I turned 13 and had an co-ed party with spin the bottle (and felt pretty cool for once); in England on my 16th, when my Uncle bought me a selection of mini-cakes; my 19th, when my best friend told me the beach was too lame for a party; my early 20s, spent in Argentina, visiting the zoo and going to midnight movies; last year, when I spent my actual birthday alone, with pizza, Netflix and my cat, Rory (a sad one).

*
I am enamored of "baby" pictures lately; see me, below, rockin' a seersucker dress (made by my gramma, who also used to make me amazing birthday cakes) as I swing the summer away on my Cookie Monster swing-set. Be free, little Sam.

c y n d i

At the moment, it's approximately a thousand degrees inside my condo; I'm sweating underneath my laptop, cursing the fact that the night's passed by too quickly. I also feel a cold coming on.

While I work, background noise is an absolute necessity (otherwise, in the silence, my mind wanders to strange places and things can get a little too intense). Usually it's video looping around, familiar character voices and story lines filling the void; there are shows and movies that I've probably played hundreds of times (I once watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire four consecutive times to stay in the zone while painting). Once in a while, however, I'll switch over to music.

Tonight was a Cyndi Lauper kind of night; once I saw her name, I had to listen. She reminds me of childhood and freedom and excitement; I want to be like her, channel that spirit of intense individuality and openness and passion.

*

I've been caught too, thinking about the past and playing the melancholy "what if" game. I'm happier now in life than I've ever been, but it's still impossible not to look back and sigh a little bit sometimes.

*

I just wanna have fun!

p r o g r e s s

I'm excited to share a sneak peek of my newest series, Fangs. I've been busily editing scans for the  past few days and it's beyond satisfying to have some new work under my belt! I'll be sharing the full versions in the next few days, so stay tuned.

g a r d e n . p a r t y

Yesterday, I spent the better part of the afternoon out on my quaint condo patio doing an impromptu photo shoot. Taking photos of my work for Etsy is a job that I'd been putting off for a while; those who know me know that I'm a perfectionist and not the most confident photographer (a dangerous combination!). The sunlight and warm air were alluring though, and I found myself enjoying the act of capturing my work (and some other things too!). I like that I'm starting to appreciate plants and nature much more than I did in the past too.

g a r d e n

f l a s h b a c k . f r i d a y . 2

Lately, it feels like all I think about is the girl in these photos: the versions of myself that existed once, long ago. I imagine them still out there somewhere, preserved on alternate plains of reality; in memory, I jump from self to self as easily as flipping through photographs, remembering.

She is me and I am her, but she's gone forever. I must finally be an adult now, mourning my childhood as if that little girl really did die.

b o n e s

Recently, while browsing through photos of old work, I came across this beautiful specemin. (It was amazing as well to rediscover so many pieces from years past that I had completely fogtten about).

When I was in the second year of my Fine Arts Undergrad, my drawing class was given an assignment to create a piece of work using a bone as a reference. Cool. What made it even better, however, was that we each got to take (and keep!) our reference bone home with us for the two week duration of the project. Some of the bones, as my Prof. explained, were plaster replicas, and some of them were real human bones. While this freaked out a couple of my classmates, I was beyond excited.

(I realize that this makes me sound like a creep).

Overachiever that I am, I wanted to challenge myself and sought out something complicated; I ended up choosing an entire (real, human) foot, with all the little parts held together by wire. I wrapped it up in a scarf and carried it with me everywhere over the duration of the assignment. I couldn't get over the idea of having real bones in my purse; I was in heaven. 

I remember the weight and delicacy of that foot when I held it, studying its contours and design; I remember the incredible way that the parts moved together, tiny pieces of an amazing machine, identical to what was in my own body. It struck me, while I was studying them, how wow the concept of each of us having our own set of bones, hidden away inside, was. I tried to imagine the person who had possessed those bones before I did , what their life was like; it was surprisingly intimate, holding a piece of a stranger in my hand.

Skeletons are hardly secret, but I appreciated my own so much more after that experience. There's something terribly romantic about bones (in the old sense of the word); they belong to the individual, are vital for life and yet remain unseen. They're beautiful and vaguely frightening all at once; they are life and death. 

*

Recently, I've been paying more attention to how my body works and trying to better care for it; I've started eating clean and focusing on nurturing muscle growth and optimal digestion. In the past when I've tried to "get healthy", I failed because I didn't understand the mechanics of what was going on inside me. The body is an amazing device and I marvel at how the systems work without explicit commands from "me".  Now I'm focusing on how I feel instead of how I look; I want to be strong and healthy -- not just pretty. 

*

I'm a collection of bones and muscle and memories.

s k e t c h y

No matter where I go, I always keep a couple of notebooks in my purse (one for sketching and one for writing). I've always been a sketching fiend; I absentmindedly doodle the faces and forms of ladies, jot down colour combinations and plan out projects. I have to admit that my memory can be a bit fuzzy at times, so it's beyond satisfying to be able to look back at sketches and know exactly what I was so excited about at any given time. Lately, my sketches have been all about the ladies; maybe it's time to challenge myself to branch out a little?

p o o r . b a b y

I used to compalin, a lot.

After some reflection, I understand that this was a side-effect of internalizing my feelings. If I was forcing myself to be quiet about big things the majority of the time, then once I was around someone I felt able to talk to, I unleashed a constant stream of negativity. It was an ugly trait, something that I'm ashamed to admit doing.

There was a day several years ago when I vowed to resist complaining for an entire day; surprisingly (or perhaps not) it was one of the best days that I'd experienced in a while; I realized that by being negative, even if only jokingly, I was only perpetuating more negativity and cheating myself out of happiness. I often think back to that day, reminding myself to quit whining unnecessarily.

There are still times though, when I need to vent: when the streetcar short-turns in the rain and I have to walk home, when someone takes advantage of me or is mean, when reality falls short of my expectations. I need to try to remember though to keep my problems in perspective, especially when what I'm complaining about is myself.

It goes like this: I set goals, don't achieve them, get upset, reflect and say to myself, poor baby, how awful for you. It's self-deprecation, which isn't really that much better than complaining.

What I really need to do is push myself harder to achieve the things that I set out to do. I want to continue to push myself to be the kind of person who has nothing to complain about.

w o r d s

I seriously miss renting movies. 

I grew up in a small town. We lived in a little farmhouse with a pond and raspberry bushes in the spacious backyard.

We didn't have cable, so renting videos was always a favourite treat for my younger brother and I. My mum would often take us into town to the general store where we were each allowed to pick out a movie. The store was located in the main floor of a white house with a pillared front porch; I called it The Pumpkin People because they put pumpkin-headed scarecrows out there on Halloween. I remember there being candy, ice cream, crafts and a wall of VHS tapes.

Almost every time we visited that store, I choose the same movie to take home: Serendipity. The story centered around a little boy who, while exploring the arctic with his scientist parents, gets trapped on a iceberg which floats down to the tropics. When the ice melts, he finds a giant pink polka-dot egg, which hatches into a fuchsia and green sea-serpent named Serendipity. They live together on an island with a melancholy mermaid-princess with purple hair and annoying fantasy creatures and battle a mean, old sea-captain. I was completely obsessed and played it on a near constant loop. Having re-watched it as an adult, I seriously admire my mother's patience in allowing that to happen!

It's colourful, nonsensical and slightly annoying, but still absolutely magical to me (and the theme-song was super catchy!)

l e t s . b e . f r i e n d s

 

 

Today was a melancholy day; things that I thought were going to happen have been pushed out of my immediate schedule and I've been feeling aimless and unproductive.

When I'm feeling down, looking at my Tumblr Archive always makes me feel calm and inspired. These tiled images create a perfect little world full of serenity and adventure and I love how easy it is to escape from reality and drift away when I look at them.

You can follow me on Tumblr here.

p h o b i a . g i r l

Everyone has fears: situations and objects that inspire uneasiness or full on panic. 

f l a s h b a c k . f r i d a y

I. Made. This.

While recently exploring some older folders on my laptop, I stumbled upon this embarrassingly amazing gem; my family didn't have a computer until I was about thirteen, but when I did, boy did I make up for lost time. (Remember when not having a computer wasn't such a big deal?)

In true geek fashion, I spent hours combing the internet for desktop themes, icon packs and wallpapers of my favourite characters; I was like a little digital-hoarder, saving and organizing anything that caught my magpie eye.

Rainbow Shells! The Mist Dragon! Alfador!

I can't stop laughing.