Sonicgreen

And Cut!

2016-10-31T16:40:00.001-07:00

Hi folks!

And that wraps it up... October is finished! My favourite month flew by and I had little time to savour it. My birthday came and went, and I'm another year older. Lucy got me tickets to see Sweeney Todd in theatre, and since I've been a fan of the old-school shave for quite some time now, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Work has been rocky and a bit sparse, so getting by was my main concern this month. I also decided to speed things up with getting my lathe running again, so after several stern e-mails to the company, they shipped me a replacement which I received last week. To my dismay, the forward/reverse functions are wired backwards, so although this may not seem like a big deal with a lathe, it's a nuisance and the two don't run the same way. Just imagine the engine in your car being reversed, so when you want to go forward, you have to put your car into "R". It still goes... but it's not right.

I did however find a bit of time to finish up a very old project for a friend- a shaving brush holder. I had this big hunk of walnut that I gnawed at, but it wasn't until I received a stationary sander that I could really get it done. It was supposed to be this nice swoop. Sweet and simple. After much sanding and a few coats of varnish, this was the result:

smoooth

I think it turned out quite nicely in the end!

If I ever get my lathe working again (Lucy made a valid point... perhaps I'm not meant to have one... perhaps some cosmic forces are just keeping me from getting killed by one), then I will finally be able to knock out the remaining shaving brushes I've been meaning to make. I haven't made those in a while!

To wrap up this uneventful month, I wanted to also include that I finished making that paper fox that I received for my birthday last year!

rawr

It took several long evenings, a bit of trial and error and some tearing of a few pieces back apart, but I got it done and hung on the wall. Some fake grass, a mushroom here and there and the ensemble will be complete.

Some tough times lay ahead, but hopefully I can still do some creative things on the side. With the winter months approaching, I will most likely be turning to writing so I don't have to heat my garage.

Until next time,

Keep the skies clear!

Return of the King

2016-10-01T17:51:00.000-07:00

October.

Dear followers, well-wishers and stumblers by. It has been a long, long time since I've visited my blog and written in it. The coming of this wonderful, favourite month of mine has brought me the strength and motivation to write here again! It has been a turbulent year, but hope is on the horizon. Let me explain.

On May 31st I got fired from my job... the 9-5 job I always spoke of. The time leading up to the firing was stressful, depressing and unhealthy for me. I'd like to say that aside from getting glasses and a pinched nerve in my spine, the company gave me several useful skills in the shipping/trade world. I got a severance package, and with a heavy heart I said:

The next few months were a financial and emotional rollercoaster, and I can't say that I've fully evened out yet. However, there have been many improvements.

Following several lame job interviews/offers/opportunities, I was extremely lucky to be contacted by a friend of mine who's dad is a carpenter. As it was, he needed help for a project he was doing and was willing to take me on as his padawan learner. Given that I'm not completely inept in the world of hammer-holding, he has kept me on board for the time being. I'm very grateful that things worked out like this because carpentry/renovation work are a great skill set and a huge leap towards my goal of furniture making. It's too bad that it had to happen this way, but that is how things turn out sometimes I guess. I pray that things go alright from here!

Aside from looking for a job, trying to make ends meet and taking care of the family, I had a bit of time to work around my garage as well. I'll start with this teaser picture of the little corner I like on my desk:

Those colorful little drawers actually have a purpose now and they're filled with stuff! All along they were just blanks for decoration. Item #1 off the checklist.

Second, I was commissioned by an ex-co-worker to make a few little shelves for him:

They're fairly simple, but fun to make! I feel like now, having learned a few things at my new job I would make them a bit differently, but it's mostly in how I plan these things out rather than the actual execution of the project.

Next, I wanted to clean out my garage to finally get going on my Kickstarter project and to finish a shaving brush handle order. As I was cleaning out loads and loads of scrap wood, I didn't want to entirely throw everything out, so I salvaged what I could and made a whole bunch of random little boxes.

They're nothing special, since they're just made from scraps, but they came in handy and were fun to make!

A long while ago, we had one of these IKEA desk chairs that broke:

The bottom portion had a weldment that broke and it was one of those things that couldn't be easily repaired because one of the plastic components broke as well. Either way, the top part was still fine and I didn't want to waste it, so I made this zany repurposed chair:

in progress...

low rider

Tada! It isn't anything special, but it's a chair again! I like chairs that are low to the ground like this one.

In an attempt to have some physical fitness in my life without spending a billion dollars I also wanted to find a place for my heavy bag. It was also another part of cleaning my garage. I had a friend do some quick and dirty welding for me, and a wall mount was born.

comes in red

I sprayed it with some intense outdoor paint... hopefully it'll hold through the winter. Once I bored a bunch of holes in my wall outside, I hung up the bag.

*insert boxing quote

There it is... waiting to be bopped around. My goal was to go crazy on this thing for a half hour every day, but that has not happened at all... just a few times so far. Oh well.

We went to the beach twice during this summer. I would have rather gone zero times, but almost nobody likes going at night. To fill up the time, I made this guy...

quack

This counts as something I could write about here, right??

Okay moving on... there's a lot to cover and I don't want to keep babbling about each thing!

There's a useless bulkhead in our living room that for a while we had been considering making into a bookshelf. I finally got the materials together and started making it. Here's how it looks so far:

I think I saw this library in Beauty and the Beast...

The goal is to make it go across the whole room, as far as the bulkhead stretches. Unfortunately the maple plywood is quite pricy, so I can't get all of it done at once.

Before I finish with the last item, I was stricken with more bad luck when my lathe broke AGAIN. I was going about my own business like usual, doing my thing, flipped the switch and... nothing. It just wasn't working. I'm currently in a one-month silent treatment battle with the company's customer service people... so it's no fun. I really think there's some sort of weird lathe curse on me!

To end on a good note, I wanted to present a project that has filled me with warmth and fuzziness. A pair of tribute plaques I made to Weezer:

Above a great Weezer poster I received from some wonderful friends of mine, I hung these song title plaques colored with their respective album cover colors.

Lastly, folks, it's October! Usually I do something special in this wonderful month. It's been hard for me to remain positive lately since this has been a terrible year for me, but I hope I can think of something and produce it before the month ends. Will it be a shadow box? A wooden stool? A new house project? Time will tell!

Until next time,

Keep the skies clear!

Breakfast and Bonsai

2016-04-03T19:18:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since my last depressing, unpublicized blog post, so I come to you with a few updates. In general I feel this blog of mine has grown over the years, especially when I decided to break my own rules. I figured this would be a strictly "how to" blog, or rather "how I did it" when showing the things that I've made. I don't mind showcasing the various things I make, of course, since that is the main purpose of this blog, but it feels nice to also share some of the philosophy behind what I like, what I make and why I make it.

A while back, I was reviewing the tweets of my prop-making idol, Harrison Krix, who, as I have mentioned before, has successfully made a living making replicas of various video game and movie props. Obviously I don't know the guy, but through following his work over the years and seeing how he acts and what he posts, I feel like I have a general idea of what his personality is like. He tends to be very direct- I'll leave it at that for now. So one of his tweets (this was a while ago, so I don't remember it verbatim) was asking about why artists are so hung up about inspiration, or why they wait for it, and that he in turn just goes into his shop and makes stuff. There were a bunch of responses to that tweet, with a lot of people bashing artists and how whiny they are. This is very true. Like I said before, I consider myself an artist and I am VERY whiny about my work, although it's been a few years since I've blamed it on inspiration. In my experience, inspiration is a combination of a nice feeling, a convenient circumstance and a word or two that got the "idea ball" rolling just enough for me to start creating something. Waiting for all of these things to happen at once is indeed rare. Given that most of them occur in the mind, though, they can easily be simulated. You just have start doing something- whether it's writing, sketching or picking up a piece of wood and start sanding it, the memory stored in the motions gets juices flowing. Now, Harrison admitted also that he replicates things, so he's not responsible for generating new ideas (yes, this helps a lot), but to my fellow artists, I have to now say that "writer's block" is a bit of a myth. I figure if you string together three words that sound great, then you've accomplished something. You can either move on and start on something else, or build from there. I regularly blind myself as I'm falling asleep to write down a word or two on my phone of a story idea, cool phrase or anything that pops into my mind.

So firstly, I'd like to announce that my lathe troubles have been resolved as far as they ever will be resolved in the near future. After many months of e-mails, phone calls shipping chucks back and forth, I have finally received a chuck with decent enough tolerances for my purposes. This opens up a lot of cool possibilities for me on the tool, and I'm happy to finally have it running!

you spin me right 'round

Now, for the main course. There was a breakfast nook idea that Lucy and I had been talking about doing in our living room, that we got from Andrew Turski's wife, Asia. For anybody reading her name in English, I salute you. The idea is to have a length of board under any window in the house where you can pull up two chairs and nibble on your breakfast. This is a very sunny and simple concept, which I kind of twisted into my own goopy interpretation.

The first step was chairs:

This won the award for "most pink ever"

I still had a few chairs kicking around from my crazy bachelor days when I collected a lot of random chairs from when people sold them or threw them out. Then, I reached deep into my paint corner, and grabbed whatever was left. Lucy doesn't like the pink chair, and pink wouldn't be my first choice either, but it's done, and it could be worse. However, the pink offered a pretty cool opportunity:

dip

I really like the "recent" (it's fairly old now) trend of "gold-dipping" stuff. Although this isn't a true dip, it still turned out pretty cool. I didn't want that middle portion getting painting though, so I masked it off. Ideally this would be tried with a chair that doesn't have those lower supports. I did a pink chair and a green chair.

this is why I had to write it

The next step was to cut out the part that you sit on, which had to be fitted to the chair sizes. I don't know if I ever wrote about my tie experiment, but I had some left over fabric from it. I also had some foam from when my dad was getting rid of it a few years back. Why did my dad have foam, you ask?

go dad go!

Oh, perhaps because he used to be a professional upholsterer! Bam! Using my expertise to convince my dad to upholster the chairs, he did exactly that.

Now it was time to make the table. Lucky for me, I had a nice chunk of hardwood plywood left over, which fit my needs perfectly. There was even enough to make a supporting layer underneath.

there she blows

I was rooting for the natural finish, but my wife wanted a painted surface that had the worn, chalky look. So I compromised by painting it a color that she didn't like, bwahahaha.

faded blue

It kind of reminds me like those old, rubbed out desks in grade school. I never did end up finish it with anything- what you see is just the painted wood with a buttload of sanding.

red

I also painted the brackets underneath a nice, sharp red, which you can't see at all in this picture because of the light contrast! Hooray!

at day

at night

So there it is, folks. A very simple project that didn't take too long, and happily, didn't cost me anything either! I mean, I just happened to have all the materials beforehand, so I didn't have to buy anything new or extra to make it. Because of its size though, it has come to be more of a writing table than just a breakfast nook. The table itself is very sturdy also, which is nice. Our kids have climbed on it and everything, and although the brackets are graded to technically support me sitting on it too, I have less faith in the screws holding it to the studs, so I will not try that.

And now, for dessert.

I have always been fascinated with the art of the Bonsai tree. Years ago I had even purchased a book about them that I never really followed through reading. For Christmas however I received a small bonsai tree, that I promptly murdered. Well, I had tried caring for it, but because I'm painfully inexperienced and because they're a tricky breed to care for, the odds were against me. I have since replanted it into a tiny sauce bowl and it remains frozen in its state forever. Here it is:

R.I.P.

Offended and determined, I decided to give plant-growing another try. One night as my wife and friends laughed and laughed, I took the seeds from some clementines and planted them, and HA! Look what happened:

yeah, take a good look!

That's right, they started to grow, so IN YOUR FACE! That picture is from a few weeks ago, and I have since planted other seeds and replanted my main, best clementine seed into the original bonsai pot that I had received my tree in.

"golden boy"

I originally thought that bonsai trees were some sort of freakish dwarf breed of plants, but they are actually just regular trees that have a limited root system and so they grow in a miniature form. I hope that in a year or two, I'll have a healthy specimen of a clementine bonsai tree. Oh yes, the juices of thousands of miniature clementines will be dripping down my chin, as this time I will be the one laughing!

Anyway, I know growing stuff is really "making" it, but this is a new endeavour for me, so we'll see where it goes. Historically, I have a good talent in making plants die (an old friend and I once made a very effective weed killer that would turn any plant black and dead within fifteen minutes out of random stuff we found in his garage), but this time we'll see if I can make them live. I have also planted some jalapeno pepper seeds, lemon seeds and a pear seed.

That's all for today folks!

Keep the skies clear!

Tales from the Crypt

2016-01-24T22:23:00.000-08:00

Dear readers!

I come to you at another strange point in my mind, where it's late, I've been thinking about life and it all comes swirling around in a way that pulls away every last feeling of comfort from my soul.

Recently I hailed the return of an old friend- my trusty back injury. This has left me mobile, but more often than not incapable of doing things that are important to me. Everything from working, to picking up my children (something that I rather not miss out on now, since I'm told they don't appreciate it past a certain age).

I could stand to lose weight, pay off debt, direct my creative energy into something useful, be a better husband, be a better father, be a better son, write more, care more and just stop thinking about myself for a second to see the world around me and appreciate it.

In addition to this, I have what I've come to identify as apeirophobia. It's a crippling fear of eternity. It only hits me once in a while, usually as I'm falling asleep and I know I don't have it as bad as others might. It's not about heaven or hell, but the sheer concept of existence outside of time, which, to us as beings inside of time, is simply a very, long, time. Even writing this is casting my mind into a panic.

This is a very special blog post because I want you, the reader, to know that I am flawed. I don't want anyone to feel pity, or feel like this is a cry for attention. Social media and an online presence is a method of showing people the way you want to be seen. I need you to know that I have loved this life, I love my children, and I love to build. We may have all forgotten that moment- the moment where you become aware of life around you and you start trying to figure out where you fit in. I've been violently trying to seek validation since that moment.

I am a husband, I am a father, I am a son, and I am an artist. A person worse than you. A person who happens to be living at the same time as you, on this same planet. I'm sorry to everyone who I have hurt- I probably think of the bad things I've done more often than you do. Thank you to everyone who has ever helped me- I don't deserve it.

As inexplicably and terribly short as this life is, there is a reason for us to live it. There are so many of us. Can each of us make a difference? Can each one of us be remembered? Can each one of us billions of people make a life-changing mark on this world?

I for one, intend to try.

Here is my posed and doctored portrait.

Goodnight!

Dark Waters

2015-11-03T06:53:00.000-08:00

Hello y’all!

Today I bring you another collaboration!

You all know my friend Andrew Turski, of www.andrewturski.com, who I have talked about and included a bunch of times in my blog. Andrew has been on a mission to level up as much as possible in the past few years, and has gotten quite far- one of the hugest achievements being finishing film school in Prague at FAMU. I asked him to take a photo for the collaboration, and he chose this quote:

“I broke it again. This time it won't be as easy to find all the pieces.”

Thank you, Andrew, for the great photo!!

Like I said, Andrew has done a bunch in the last few years, and is busy shooting videos and photos for different companies. He also did a great music video for the artist Kishi Bashi!

That’s number one!

Until next time,

Keep the skies clear!

Memento Mori

2015-11-02T06:41:00.000-08:00

Dear readers!

As I mentioned at the beginning of October, I wanted to do a post about “memento mori” – the reminder of death. Although it’s not an October post, I can’t think of having it on a better day than today: All Souls Day.

I never liked the rock n’ roll/biker sort of graphics of skulls and other junk that appear in that culture. I still don’t completely understand the style and art that happens in those circles, because it just seems to be gross and dirty for the sake of gross and dirty- unless I’ve been missing some greater meaning of it this whole time.

It wasn’t until a few years ago though, that I learned a value of the symbol of death (a skull), when my parents received an old crucifix from friends of theirs’. I didn’t know this, but apparently most crucifixes had a skull and crossbones on them back in the day, and so did this one. It belonged to a monk who had passed away, and these people were able to save things like these that would otherwise get discarded. I was told that certain monks would study and pray with their fingers in the eyes and nose of a skull to be constantly reminded of their mortality and of their true purpose on this earth (hence the quote from a few days ago!). This really struck me, and over the years I’ve come to possess a few skull items that bring that sort of spirit to mind that may or may not have been created with that intention.

The first of those items is a small, crocheted skull that I found advertised on Etsy.

I was kind of a sucker for it from the start because it’s a miniature, but it was also nice that it was fabric. I would have it in my pocket, and it’s gone through the wash a few times. Regardless of the creator’s intention for these skulls, I use it as a memento mori.

The second is a spoon that has been modified to look like a skull from Pinky Diablo.

I’m not too keen on the “diablo” reference in this person’s shop, but I had written to them about my thoughts on the spoon and how I view it and everything and they loved it. They said that they loved it and that their work is seen like that, as a memento mori by them as well. Since then, these spoons have been a commercially available item in addition to how they make them, so I’m happy that I was able to get this one years ago.

Finally, a ceramic skull from Etsy, which I painted black.

This shop definitely has a different view of the skull symbol than I do, but nevertheless the artist has perfected his craft and made a very recognizable silhouette of the skull.

Death is an inevitability that people often don’t like to think about, and I can admit that it’s a delicate matter. Thinking about death too much isn’t good, and ignoring it completely isn’t good either. I believe in living like it’s your last day, but popular culture has made that to be this crazy ordeal, where people make bucket lists, do crazy stuff and try things they wouldn’t do otherwise. Isn’t this just overcompensating for the boring lives people have led? Often all these ideas make people into someone who they aren’t, which is the biggest deviation from the entire point of living a full life. Going skydiving or seeing the Eiffel Tower are what society has told you is extreme and a must-do, but do people sit down, read about what’s in this world and develop a passion on their own? Not to say that the Eiffel Tower isn’t worth seeing, but so often we’re caught up with this big goals that we forget the small gems in our own towns, or trying to have a fun evening out on just ten dollars or something like that.

We’re always shown stories and images of great people who do great things, and as we sit at home, we can’t help but feel useless. You might be one of three thousand people working at a factory, and you might be very expendable and very replaceable. I think it’s a chance to do ordinary things extraordinarily, and frankly, you’re not there twenty four hours a day. There’s nothing that says you can’t do cool things on the side, like have a hot pepper garden at home, start a petition to have a playground built in your neighbourhood, start a bagel day once a month at work, try a new coffee flavour, write little poems and self-publish a book- anything! I feel like people are often jostled to start doing these kinds of things when they get news of a life-threatening disease or something like that. Why not start now instead?

I’d like to finish with this thought:

“The only reason, my friends, we should be thinking about death, is so that it brings us to thoughts of life.”

Until next time,

Keep the skies clear!

Elliot and Marceline

2015-10-31T06:53:00.002-07:00

Ahoy-hoy!

Today I'm going to be presenting yet another awesome collaboration! Except this time, I present you the art of MUSIC! That's right, tonight's presentation is not of a visual art, but one of sound. I had asked my wonderfully talented sister-in-law, Klaudia, to cover some songs for me and she delivered with a 100% awesomeness! She has a bunch of stuff up online, but I didn't consult with her as to whether or not she'd like to have that stuff shared, so unless you see this edited later, I'll leave it at that for now.

First, here's a bit about the songs.

The first one is "Between the Bars" by Elliot Smith. I heard this song in an episode of "Rick and Morty".

Rick and Morty

For those of you who don't know the show, it's about a genius scientist grandpa who goes on intergalactic adventures with his grandson, to put it very briefly and very mildly. The show is quite crude, which is a little unfortunate because it tackles a very rich subject, and accomplishes the rare feat of combining science-fiction and humor successfully. Despite all of the gags, jokes and offensive bits, there's a glaring image in the show that keeps making its way to the front. The universe is immense, and we are very small. So small in fact, that the universe would not slow down or change for one second if we were completely annihilated. You can't help but feel depressed by this thought, however, here we are. We're conscious beings, aware of our existence and searching for purpose. And therein lies the trick: to find it.

Here's where Elliot Smith comes in.

Rest in peace!

Granted, I'm not like a hardcore fan of his where I know all of his songs and everything, but I've known about him for a while and most famously I knew his song "Needle in the Hay" from the Royal Tenenbaums suicide scene.

"Between the Bars" struck a chord with me as well, and after I heard it in the show, I couldn't stop listening to it. As you may or may not know, Elliot Smith (allegedly) committed suicide, which to me means that you're in a place beyond your own reasoning. You're walking on a plain that is separated from this world. I chose the picture above because it shows the tattoo on his right arm. Once during an interview on a show (one of those popular mindless teen shows), the interviewer asked him about the tattoo, and Elliot responded to this effect: "Oh, this is the bull, Ferdinand, and there's a story about him where he doesn't want to go to the bull fight..." and this is where Elliot loses complete confidence that the interviewer will care or understand anything about this story, so he quickly finishes off by saying "... but then he does.", to which the interviewer says something like "cool", because just as Elliot detected, he doesn't really care. And that's it- I think that sometimes if someone reaches out to someone else to show that they care, their lives can change for the better. Perhaps that's what Elliot Smith really needed. As for the story of Ferdinand, perhaps Elliot felt that he was dragged out into a world that he didn't want to be a part of, and that he rather enjoy his peaceful time alone.

Without further ado, I'd like to present "Between the Bars" as sung by Klaudia. Click below!

Elliot Smith - Between the Bars

Second on this list, is the fries song from Adventure Time, sung by Marceline. I really like this song because it's simple, short, but also carries a strong message.

The vampire queen

For those of you who are familiar with Adventure Time, you know it's a ridiculous and zany show that once in a while turns very serious and directly deals with very serious problems. One character with such problems is Marceline. She's a vampire, and like most vampires, she deals with the struggles of being an immortal being- however immortals deal with regular problems too. In this case, she composes a song about her relationship with her father, who was often absent and at one point insensitive enough to eat her fries while she went to the washroom at a restaurant!

Here is the full version of Marceline's fries song as sung by Klaudia. Click the link!:

Marceline - Fries Song

There was a third song that Klaudia and her guitarist did not get around to doing, however that will be for another time!

Thank you so much to my baby sis for lending her beautiful voice to this project! Klaudia really had to step out of her comfort zone, because if you look at the other songs on her Sound Cloud account, they lean away from the indy/emo/alternative genre. You're awesome!!

Until next time,

Keep the skies clear!

The Great Beginning

2015-10-29T19:14:00.003-07:00

Hello all!

I hope you've been enjoying this rapid-fire final week of October, but fret not! It will not conclude on Saturday. I will have to step on November's toes a little, because a few more posts are in development.

I'm happy to present another collaborator: Marysia Lima! I have know Marysia for a veeeery long time, and I have always admired her skill as an artist. Marysia is a stay at home mom who does freelance graphic design and illustration. She likes to work in a variety of mediums, from traditional drawing and painting, to papier colle and digital art, sometimes combining the two into mixed media pieces. She has a B.A. in Fine Art History with minors in Medieval Studies and Visual Studies, as well as a diploma in Visual Merchandising- fancy!

Here's what she wrote about the piece:

"I chose the quote: 'Look at the monk! His fingers in the eyes and nose. He will know heaven before we, for he dares not forget that this life ends.'

Perhaps it is because of my background in art history and mediaeval studies, or simply my love of gothic and fantasy literature, but I was easily inspired by this quote. I immediately saw the image of an old friar working deep into the night, sketching studies of a human skull. The man is treating the skull with little to no reverence - "His fingers in the eyes and nose" - which makes me believe he is performing some sort of scientific study. He treats the skull as though it were any other object devoid of soul or life, which might seem disturbing to those who find it difficult to separate the physical from the spiritual. This could be especially true in our Catholic faith where bones of saints and holy people are treasured as relics. I wanted to set the scene in the Middle Ages which are most often portrayed as a time during which the arts, sciences, and education in general, suffered, only to be revived in the Renaissance. Contrary to most representations, the mediaeval period was actually full of incredible minds and stunning works of art, not to mention the establishment of universities. This monk represents to me, the best of the mediaeval period - a learned man who, through the study of the world, wishes to deepen his faith."

Title: Vivere disce, cogita mori
Medium: pencil

I really love how this is drawn, and it reflects my own vision of this quote with surprising accuracy. Nobody knows what it's like to be older than they are, but as we travel along this path of life, we begin to see how fleeting the things of this world are, and how important it is to make the most of the time we have now. Thank you Marysia, for this piece!!!

As a side note, Marysia has worked with her husband on a music video for a local band called Will Currie and the Country French. She also designed their album art and concert posters- that's highly rad.

I also didn't want to say anything about this as to not overshadow this main subject of this post, but this is also the

100th blog post!!!

Youpiee! Thank you all who read the posts, scrolled through the pictures and generally stuck around every time my wife put up a new one on Facebook. It's been a long and strange ride, and I'm glad you're tied up in the trunk along with me.

Keep the skies clear!

October in Tokyo

2015-10-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody!

I have to say that this is one of the most exciting posts I'm writing on my blog! Let me give you a bit of a backstory:

Thousands of years ago, I decided that I want to learn Japanese, so being a student of low income, I went on Ontario's (Canada's?) favourite online garage sale, Kijiji, to see if anyone was offering lessons. This is what I saw:

Gundam!

There was an ad for someone offering Japanese lessons with this picture included in the posting. Naturally, I had to sign up.

This is how I met my Japanese teacher, Norm, who is Canadian, but has a great passion for all things Japanese. Although I didn't take enough lessons to learn a lot of the language, I learned a lot about the culture and the way of life there. Our encounter was brief, but we stayed in touch and have remained good friends since then!

Because I love both Japan and October, I asked if he could make a video for me about Japan in October, and so here it is!

I'm fairly certain that I'm one of the only people who gets excited about these kinds of things, but I was really happy to see how this video turned out!! It's crazy to see how green and warm it seems to be over there still, especially since all of our leaves are practically gone, it snowed once already and there has been frost on our non-pink cars a few mornings now. Tokyo looks awesome!

Thank you, Norm, for the great video! It's so cool to see Japan in October!!

Hmm... Japober.... Octopan!

Anyway, keep the skies clear!

1.21 Gigawatts???

2015-10-28T05:24:00.001-07:00

Dear readers!

As promised, I wanted to write about a very fantastic movie that roared back into popularity last Wednesday, October 21st, 2015 at exactly 4:29pm. That's right, it's Back to the Future!

golly, they started time travelling just a few days after I was born!

I know that there has been a lot of hype about the movie, and even a special appearance by the now aged Doc and Marty on Jimmy Kimmel.

This video clip makes me both very happy and very sad at the same time. Happy because these actors played along with the story and came out to do this, but a little sad because nobody had really cared about this until just a few days ago. Not to say that Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox haven't had good careers after that movie, but you know what I mean. I hope they were glad to do it.

In preparation for this post, over the past two weeks I have re-visited and re-watched the trilogy, which was actually re-released in bluray for this occasion. The movies definitely have a lot of those dorky or cliche aspects to them, but that's what makes 80's/90's movies fill my heart with a delicious cheesy center. To my generation, it's the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids", "Jurassic Park", "Ghost Busters", "Groundhog Day" kind of movies that hold a special place. But then, any movie that you happen to watch in your youth with stick with you. Now days you can look up the "things you'll remember from the 90's" posts and memories will start flooding back. I'm sure you old people from the 80's and you youngin's from the 2000's can find similar pages that will bring back good times.

I can't say that I've been a die-hard fan of the series my whole life, but I've owned the movies for a long time and I've watched them over the years, so I don't consider myself entirely a bandwagon jumper. In fact, even a few years ago when I decorated the coffee room at my work (mentioned in a previous blog post), you might recall that I had purchased some Back to the Future artwork for the room. Which can be found here on Society6. Here is the series of three posters from this artist, which I really like!

Of course, there has been a lot of fan art over the years, and I'm attaching three pieces by two artists that I liked:

work by Khyzyl Saleem

This one takes the Delorean out of the picture and replaces it with some sort of awesome super car. Not a bad way to time travel!

Here are two more by Jeff Delgado:

Marty in the car with his mom!

the mind reading device that never worked

I won't go too long talking about the whole movie, because we all know the story and how cool travelling both back in time and into the future would be. I've always loved the concept and I like any movies or cartoons that explore the possibility and their predictions as to what will happen (especially when they cross our current timeline and it's way off). So, as an artist who tries desperately to be unique and different, I'll talk about one moment in the first of the three films that struck me to my core. Although the movies are a comedy, they explore some pretty deep concepts that are generally brushed over. Here's what made me think:

There's a moment where Doc Brown from 1955 is crouched on the floor, rewinding the part of the video that Marty recorded where he (Doc) looks up in horror and says "they've found me" and the film shortly cuts out after that. He keeps rewinding it, over and over again. We see a person trapped in a monumental loop, a terrifying look into the future. He sees himself, an old man, suddenly so scared of something that happens, with no answer to what it is. At that moment I felt so bad for him, so full of pity. The moral of the story, of the movies, is that the future is ours to write. But to make it a good one, we have to step outside of our comfort zones once in a while, swallow our pride and do something that is selfless and good for once.

Take care for now, and

Keep the skies clear!

Double Feature

2015-10-26T18:13:00.000-07:00

Dear readers!

What was supposed to be a glorious month of tantalizing posts and a gush of creativity has become a mere hiccup. A lot has happened in these past few weeks, so allow me to explain. First off, our whole family was sick (very sick) for a week straight, and I still have a lingering cough. It was some sort of super flu with a dash of strep throat and pink eye and who knows what else. The four of us had some sort of variation of it, each with a special mix. I can't help but feel a little cheated, and I might have to extend October into the first week of November- I'm sure November won't mind.

Also, on the 20th I turned 30! I never though I'd make it this far actually- I always thought I would burn out and die young, but I guess I wouldn't have accomplished much if that happened. Instead, I have a wife and two wonderful kids, who I will train to like the stuff that I like (the kids, that is- it's too late for my wife). However Lucy threw me an amazing surprise birthday party! Thank you again for everyone who came. She had planned it for months, and it was really cool.

so dirty

Also, as has become my tradition, I brought some food into work in the morning for everyone.

yums

Basically, bread and sausages! Is there any better start to a day than with those two things? No. There isn't. Moving on!

I'm excited to feature the first artist who has completed the collaborative assignment! Her name is Katherine McHugh and we go allll the way back to junior high. Although we knew each other just from school for that brief time, we've kept in touch over the years. She was happy to collaborate on this project, and chose this story quote from my collection as the driving inspiration for her piece:

"I took it as a mixed blessing when everybody I knew forgot me. Why is it that both wicked and holy fight to be remembered? Ah, but the holy do not. They fight to be forgotten so that the holiest can be remembered."

And here's what she wrote as an introduction: "I loved your story partly because it reminded me of a quote from one of my favourite books, Middlemarch by George Eliot: 'But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.'"

Title: Reliquary
Media: Clay, copper wire, wax, oil paint
Size: 12cm x 6cm

It's a stirring piece and hauntingly beautiful! I feel lucky to have Katherine sculpt this for me, given her professional background and training in visual arts. It actually reminds me of the movie "The Fountain". Unfortunately I can't describe which part exactly because it would give away the whole movie, but if you've seen it, you'll know what I mean. Either way, it's a sobering study on our mortality, and what our place is on this earth. I'm often shaken by the though of eternity, and how incredibly brief our time here on earth is compared to it. Perhaps the best thing we can do is bring to light the things that are better than ourselves, and draw people to living a life with more meaning.

Thank you again, Katherine, for this wonderful piece!

Until next time,

Keep the skies clear!

Lemon Hope

2015-10-05T19:42:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the wonderful month of October, and to my new layout! What's the occasion? Well, a little while ago, my blog crossed ten thousand views! It took me almost five years what a video of cat farting can do in five minutes, but it's a nice achievement in its own way. I hope it looks a little more fresh, but familiar at the same time.

Let's get started!

I wanted to talk a bit about the artist collaborations. You might be wondering what makes it a collaboration in the first place, so here it is. I have written a series of story snippets… I’m not sure how else to describe them, but basically they’re single ideas, often single sentences, that present an image or a glimpse of a larger story. I wrote them to be intense, vivid and concentrated. The idea was then to have the artist choose one and create something based on their inspiration from it. Of course not all mediums can work off of this concept, so not all of the pieces will be done like this. Either way, I’m curious to see what we’ll get! Here are some of the story bits that I’ve illustrated below:

They look kind of real, don't they?

Moving on though, I've been eager to write about Lemonhope, so that's what I'll start off with this month. For those who don't follow Adventure time, you'll need to read the portion below if you want to understand this character and his struggle. It comes with spoilers up to season 5! On that note also, I haven't seen any episodes beyond season 5, so I don't know what happens to him after that.

*SPOILER ALERT!*

Princess Bubblegum creates Earl of Lemongrab, who is supposed to be her successor. Unlike the princess, Lemongrab is cruel, very selfish and has no tolerance for things that don't serve or help him. He lives alone because he's so terrible, but the princess creates a clone for him for companionship, and for him to leave the Candy Kingdom alone. The two Lemongrabs end up using the princess's cloning formula to give like to many weird lemon people, most of which are kind of gross and mindless. Save one. Lemonhope. He's a little lemon boy who plays the harp and flute, and isn't so cruel and loud. That's why he is locked away.

Lemonhope is then broken out of his prison and taken to the Candy Kingdom. To the weird lemon people he is the symbol of hope, and the only one with the power to free them from the grasp of the Lemongrabs. He doesn't want to do this, however. He simply wants to be free to do whatever he wants to do. He's given clothes and an education, but he escapes and sheds himself of both (he runs around naked) and embraces his newfound freedom.

While on this journey, he's always haunted by dreams of his responsibilities to his kin. Through his hardships, he soon learns the true concept of freedom. He's free to jump onto a pirate ship, he's free to starve in the desert, he's free to go on adventures and he's free to help his people.

With the aid of his mentor, he realizes this last freedom and decides to help the lemon people so he can finally have peace. Once he does, he finally has a dream where he's no longer chained or bound by this responsibility. He's free!

He's hailed as a hero and the princess prepares a special bedroom for him. She encourages him to stay as the Lemon Kingdom's champion. To everyone's disappointment, he dryly responds that he only helped the lemon people to have some peace of mind and that he'll come back when he's tired of being free- which will be in about a thousand years. The scene then cuts to a much older Lemonhope with long hair, fitted with some futuristic gadgets. He walks through an empty modern metropolis and finds his way to the room the princess had prepared for him centuries before. He lays down in the bed with a warm, satisfied smile.

*SPOILERS OVER!*

The character of Lemonhope explores the complex nature of freedom. He desires freedom above all else, but he doesn't fully understand what that means. Having true liberty requires a lot of hard work and it doesn't come easy. Does freedom mean that you're untethered and you can do whatever you want? That you live your life as a passenger? Although the idea of living out in a cabin somewhere far away or leading a nomadic lifestyle seems appealing, most people aren't called to be hermits, and those who are still need some sort of higher purpose or direction. I feel like the thousand-year-old Lemonhope who laid down in his bed never truly got it. His heart had solidified a long time ago- perhaps when locked away in the castle as a little boy. Perhaps he was so harmed by that experience that he wanted to run for the rest of his life, and only when he had outlived everyone else did he finally want to come to enjoy the solitude.

It's kind of like the new university students who move away from home, go nuts in the first few weeks and wake up in a smelly bed, surrounded by empty pizza boxes and a pile of dirty laundry, having eaten and slept poorly the whole time. As they crawl back to their parents, they have a new appreciation of home-cooked meals, a tidy room and clean clothes. Those of us who have worked past that phase know that having those things takes hard work and discipline. The same goes for kids, or pets too, for that matter. You don't let them run around and do whatever they want because of the harm that could come to them. If you have lots of housework and cleaning piling up but you decide to watch TV instead, are you truly free? Are you not binding your own hands by ignoring your responsibilities? A lot of people struggle with this paradox, including myself, but the truth is that only within certain boundaries you are genuinely free.

I would like to close with this:

"An uncontrolled will leads to us falling into our natural vices. The farther we fall, the more free with think we are. The opposite is true however, and unless we let ourselves be guided the right way, our freedom diminishes completely. It is vital therefore, to swallow that first bit of pride, because who knew that we needed such careful instruction to truly be liberated?"

Thanks for reading folks, and until next time...

Keep the skies clear!

Septober!

2015-09-30T18:55:00.000-07:00

Greetings, faithful readers!

By the time most of you read this sentence, it will already be October! Congratulations! Isn't this fun?! Some of you may still be stuck in September, like I am. I'm sorry to hear that. It's okay people, just a few more hours.

This year I have decided that I will coordinate a series of awesome collaborations with several artists I know! That's right folks, for once my blog might actually be exciting because it won't be me making the stuff! Although the idea came to me a little late, I think I'll be able to pull it off. I don't want to give any sort of official list of what I'm going to be featuring because I only contacted the artists in the past few days about this project. Ideally I'd like to post one collaboration a week, but knowing life it might be quiet all month and then all of them will tumble in on the last day.

However, it WON'T be quiet all month! As I push myself to write more posts, the amount of things I can make in a given time dwindles, so I turn to my more philosophical side. Last year this was something that I kind of resorted to, ended up enjoying and got some positive feedback from, so this year it will be on purpose. I've also tried to think of a few of them in advance, so it won't be as impromptu. Let me give you a sneak preview:

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Oh yes folks, 2015 has finally come! On October 21st, Marty will blast into our present time, having visited from 1985! Without going too deep, I wanted to look into some of the ideas explored in this movie, what it means to my generation and how it's just plain fun.

MEMENTO MORI

We're all going to die. I'd like to turn what seems like a negative topic up on its head and shed a little light on how it's been a positive influence in my life.

MORE FILM MUSIC

I had lots of fun with this one last year, so I wanted to do more! I have a strong feeling that it may go beyond October and become a bit of a regular thing. There are many songs I like in movies, so there's lots to talk about.

LEMONHOPE

It's no secret that I'm fond of "Adventure Time", and over the course of watching the show, a very interesting character named Lemonhope was introduced. With this one, I'd like to go as deep as I possibly can. Lemonhope tackles man's greatest gift and greatest problem: freedom!

I have a few more on the list, one of which you can expect to be my birthday post, but those will be a surprise! Hmm... that kind of sounds like they'll be better than the ones I gave a you a preview for, but they're not. Not to say that these will suck, but let's just say I don't want to spill everything all at once! Until then,

Keep the skies clear!

The Death of Summer

2015-09-17T20:54:00.001-07:00

Oh, hello there!

A few weeks ago, I smelled it in the air: the death of summer. This is what you smell the moment the leaves decide it's time to hibernate when a cooler wind blows through them. My favourite time of the year. It's September now, which is a great month because it's right before October! October is obviously the best month, September is the second best because it announces the approach of October and then November is third best because it's the first month that leads the countdown to October! Lucy asked me if I'm going to do anything special in my blog in October. I think I'd like to, but I'm not sure if I can keep up the quality and quantity. It was kind of a bust in that sense last year and doing one thing a week is kind of like cheating. We'll see.

It's been a few months since my last post, and even that one had been catching up from many missed months before that. I don't know if I can promise to write more often- it doesn't seem like a promise I could ever keep, but as always, I would like to.

The Kickstarter campaign that I had mentioned in my last post has been put off completely due to yet another tooling problem with my lathe! I got a brand new chuck for my brand new lathe and you guessed it... not running true. Maybe sometime in the future I'll be found dead in my garage with the lathe still running and it had somehow killed me and this whole time God was trying to make me avoid using it because of that exact reason. For now though, I'll keep trying to use it! I'll continue a bit on Kickstarter in a minute. This is what I've worked on a little while ago:

You know the drill

The force is... kind of with this one

This is an idea I've been playing around with for a while and I finally found some time to glue a few wood pieces together and make a lightsaber hilt! It's not too bad for a first attempt I would say. One thing I would like to add still is the power switch... hmm, as I write this, a brass one would be kind of cool to have.

I wanted to say a word about Kickstarter. I've been browsing it quite a lot and I've even backed a few projects- something that I hope people would do for my project too. Like many things that genuinely belonged to "the people", Kickstarter is slipping into the world of big business. eBay, Fiverr, Etsy, they all started with just a bunch of people selling stuff they made or had at home, but now the big Chinese companies muscled their way in, and you have to plow through four pages of cheap companies until you get to the real stuff.

Kickstarter is not entirely like that (although there are some companies... you know, simple cool design for a suspiciously low price), but the behind-the-scenes part is very much big companies cashing in on successful projects. First off, Kickstarter skims a percentage (I forget how much) off the top of your campaign, which is why it's wise to accommodate for that when setting your goal. That's fine because they need to make money somehow, but for the projects that reach sums around the $1 million mark are contributing quite a lot to Kickstarter! The people are really getting a lot of business are the logistic companies I think though. If you're just a regular Joe who invents the glow in the dark toilet-shaped bottle opener and suddenly gets five thousand backers, you'll be thanking those logistics companies for taking care of those five thousand separate shipments you have to make!

I rather see a very tired guy from Denmark sorting through hundreds of boxes in a rented storage space with his cousin, doing his best to ship out everybody's order! I don't like going on rants like this in my blog because people barely read it as it is, but this one has been a long time coming. I still really like Kickstarter and I think crowd-funding is a great idea, but why do the big guys always have to lean back in their leather chairs behind their glossy mahogany desks and laugh as they blow cigar smoke in our faces and say 'I told ya you couldn't live without us!'. Let the little guy do his thing for once!

Speaking of Kickstarter, earlier this year I back a great project called Vinyl Moon. To keep it short, it's a mixtape. On vinyl. And it's a subscription you can sign up for to have come to your door every month! Basically this guy, Brandon, from the states, chooses music from a bunch of fresh new artists and curates an amazing mix of new music. I've received the first one, and it's awesome. The vinyl is custom-pressed, the jacket and artwork is original and carefully designed, and the music is perfectly matched. He also kind of looks like Kevin Spacey in his friendly roles (maybe he is Kevin Spacey, there's no real way of knowing). I think everybody who signed up for the first round of records received them already, so I'll show you a picture of Volume 001: Orbiting.

holy space, it's out of this world!

If you like the oldschool sound of records, good music and great artwork, then trade your money for this! Here's a sizzling song hot off the grill: Control, by Olympic Ayres.

Last year I was going to spiffy up our front door, and it finally happened this summer. I wanted to have someone do a bit of a wrought-iron dealy over the window, but this is a nice start. You know my love for any bright color combined with gray, so since our house is one big nasty gray cube, basically any color I chose for the door would have looked great.

don't memorize my house number please

I also pulled off the house numbers and painted them red. I wish I could have those huge trendy numbers, but I'll settle for these for now. Oh, and I did the frame around the door in a dark gray, which made it stand out extra lots!

I made a few additions to our wall of frames and photos as well. I don't plan on updating you each time this happens, but I just might and there's nothing you can do about it. Because the last picture (unintentionally) ended on a nautical note, I decided to draw out the theme a bit.

octo-hat

ring ring ring ring ring ring ring banana ring!

The moment I saw this banana ring on Etsy, I knew that it had to be on my wall somewhere, with this white frame around it.

heart of gold

I can't recall if I ever wrote about this frame in our hallway, or the golden heart, but now they are together as I originally intended them to be. This is kind of my eternal dilemma (more artists than just me have to have this..), where I find something awesome and I know that I will use it for something. It sits around for months or years, and then there comes another thing that fits it perfectly, after which they wait another few months before the perfect spot to display them can be found.

Moving on. I hate the 80's. A lot of stupid styles happened in that weird decade and to my horror, they have been coming back! I'm not only talking about the "80's parties" that people have, but in mainstream too. But lo, something is different! With a dash of irony and a pinch of refinement, the 80's have returned a little more mature and I'm surprisingly okay with a lot of it. Here are a few things that I found to be rather cool:

Do you like hurting other people?

You wanna fight? Wait, wrong movie.

Who watches the watchmen?

Watchmen and Drive were both great movies- very well done. All of the dorky 80's aspects were used nicely and did not have that obnoxious quality to them that the original 80's did. Hotline Miami is a very brash and violent video game that won me over with its pixely 80's goodness. If the rating system worked in a way where the more violent a game or movie is, the older you have to be, then you would have to be like 75 to play this game. Without spoiling anything, here is my homage to the game in Lego form:

the helmet

Not too bad I have to say. I also have it for sale on Etsy and someone already bought one! Oh, by the way, notice how my photos haven't been terrible in this post? It looks like I accidentally paid attention to lighting and stuff, and with this last photo, I actually used a light box!

Speaking of Lego, I have to brag about my son's Lego-building ability. I mean, I don't know if other kids his age are miles ahead and he's just doing his own thing, but as an adult (am I considered an adult? When does that happen exactly?), I think this is pretty cool for a four year old:

from a galaxy far, far away?

So yeah, he just came out of the basement having built this all on his own- the symmetry is pretty impressive! Am I talking too much about my kid?

And speaking of other people's work, remember that bee show that I was a part of a while ago? Well Ania, who had told me about it, only recently showed me the piece she made for it and it's awesome! Check it out:

bzzz

What's cool is that she totally made those honeycombs by hand out of paper, and dyed some resin to make the honey look! It's a really amazing job. What's even more cool is that I feel that at least one person will be like "hey, I saw your blog post, that bee/honey thing you made was awesome!" and I will smile at them, knowing that they did not read a word of this text.

I will end with something kind of funny. I made a trap for my friend Slothemo at work!

Don't do it

I left it on my desk and watched him go insane for a few minutes- it was great! I ordered an arcade button from eBay and definitely had some fun making this bad boy. It's a great social experiment. Some people get so frustrated with it that they just run up and press it a million times. The brain is an interesting fruit!

Don't forget about October, people. It's next month. Mark it in your calendars! Maybe with a smaller calendar attached to your normal calendar, but all the months are just October. I would like to do something a little more special, so stay tuned!

Until next time, keep the skies clear!

Age, time, life, responsibilities and blood vs. art, tonight only on top of the Empire State building, $1,000,000 admission (free popcorn)

2015-07-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

Starving readers!

You've heard my story a thousand times, crawling, apologizing each time for not writing for so long. Not this time.

Okay, I'm a little sorry. I like writing in my blog and I like writing in general. It's been over half a year since I've written here (and probably just as long since I've written a story). The last entry was me babbling about Christmas for crying out loud! A lot has happened since then, and although daily life and parental responsibilities have taken the wheel, from time to time I've had a chance to hit the cruise control button, slip into the passenger seat and let the car swerve around the road while I did something creative.

Several major things happened since Christmas, so I'll talk about a few of them and hopefully you'll keep reading long enough and stay interested.

One major thing was our trip to Poland. We've wanted to go for a few years now so that our family could meet the kids and it finally worked out! It was a very brief two weeks, but we managed to visit everyone and share in the joy that is our home country, family and food. Now shut up and show us some photos.

Here is a dandy picture of a miniature replica of Warsaw, made out of what I assume to be bronze. It was very cool and small, so I took a picture! Both of our families are from cities just outside of Warsaw.

Mini Me

Reluctant photo subject with the Palace of Culture (and science!)

My uncle and my son at Palmiry.

amazing place

My other uncle makes a lot of cool stuff and has a creative, artistic mind. I have spoken about him before. The uncle mentioned in the photo above is the kickboxing jeweller uncle who is awesome too. Anyway, I took a few photos of the neat stuff my other uncle makes, and I am posting one here. This one is pretty straight-forward. He took a very old chair, found a bunch of pictures of mushrooms and pasted it on there! I think it looks fantastic.

shroomy-shrooms

I also rummaged around in my grandma's attic and I found one of my dad's old notebooks from school! The dates were marked 1975, so it was from when my dad was 15! (If you're a math wiz, you will have figured out my dad's age at this time).

so old!

This trip to Poland was very important to me. Family bonds that started to fade because of distance and time were strengthened, and I felt like having everyone see the next generation of their bloodline gave a sort of hope and joy, especially since we try to instil our Polish culture and language in our kids. It wasn't an easy trip home, but we had to come back to our life back in Canada.

Palace of Culture (and science!) pepper mill souvenir! Yes!

no need for you no more

Onto another part of my life. Bees. I don't know much about bees, but there has been a lot of buzz about them being important recently, and that they are dying out at alarming rates. This is bad because apparently we will die out quickly soon after. The Graven Feather studio in Toronto decided to take on this issue and have a gallery sale a little while back, having some of the profits go to the David Suzuki foundation for the bees. Ania Trica, aka The Specialista told me about this event, and I was interested in making some cool stuff for display. Although the gallery was only displaying two-dimensional art, I elbowed my way in and they agreed to make an exception and show my 3D art, since I'm incapable of making any other kinds!

bzzz

Yes! They're little beehives! These little guys were fairly simple to make, and I don't need to tell you that I made them on the lathe. I didn't expect anything to happen, but three of them sold at the show! Woohoo!

Speaking of my lathe, I finally got a (brand new) chuck for my (brand new) lathe, and you know what? IT DIDN'T WORK!!! The chuck was all wobbly and all over the place! I could have just as well strapped a rubber chicken to that lathe because that's how useful a wobbly chuck is to me!!! The lathe company thinks that throwing a new chuck at me is going to solve my problem, which is what they're currently sending me, however I'm at my wits end with this madness and it will definitely end with me begging and aged woodworker to come and FINALLY JUST FIX THE THING!

Moving on.

My son turned 4 this year. Although it's not some sort of crazy big round number, any parents with kids above this age will know that it's an age where they start to 'get' birthdays, what they're about and that they get to have fun with other kids and get presents. So this year we invited a few tykes around his age and we had a knight-themed party. We had those pointy princess cone hats for the girls, but more importantly, swords and shields for the boys! I didn't bother taking pictures of the process because it's all stuff you guys have seen me do already, plus I'm sure everyone can imagine how plywood is cut, so here they are!

just after painting

swords!

party weapons with party beverages!

I even made up names for all of the shield symbols! From left to right there's "Fox Hunter", "Eagle Eye", "Bear Claws", "Elken Flame" and "Royal Guard". I wanted to swords to be a little more elaborate, but that's how they ended up. I do like how the handles turned out though, with the two colors of leather being wrapped around like that. I don't know if this is something that my son will appreciate when he's older, but for now everyone had a fun time bashing the heck out each other. I also like to think that my son is developing some artistic skill of his own, as I will demonstrate with a recent pattern-block arrangement of his.

art?

I don't know if it's art, but it is symmetrical (I mean, the whole thing was moved, but in the amount of shapes on each side), so I think that means something. Maybe he's just going easy on me and then one day he'll be like "hey dad, I want to be a football-playing accountant.". NOOOO!!!!!!! I really won't know what to do.

Remember that green hallway I painted? Well last week I finally put up some pictures on it! Lucy and I had always loved the look of tons of pictures in hallways, so we finally gathered all of the frames we accumulated along with the art prints and photos and BAM, I put them up. I tried to have each picture fit the frame and have a certain flow/look with the colors and shapes, and I'm quite happy with the result.

Many!

I am cool

The plan is to let our collection grow and trickle over to the other wall. It's hard to visualize our kids growing up or us having more of them, so I think the wall will evolve and expand on its own. So far it's great!

The last thing that I wanted to mention is that I'm working towards creating a Kickstarter campaign for my woodworking endeavours. I find myself often complaining about the lack of tools and my lack of skill. Frankly I haven't mastered the tools that I have now, and they're also closely connected to the ones I want to learn to use. The problem is having money for these things, but if the spirits of crowd-funding choose me, I will be off to a good start in having some proper machinery and honing my skills to make awesome things like stools and boxes!

Until next time,

Keep the skies clear

Awful times ahead

2014-12-28T21:21:00.003-08:00

Hello all!

I was suddenly struck with a bit of a reflection just before going to bed tonight, and so I didn't go to bed and decided to write about it a little instead.

A few things have been floating around in my mind as of late, and despite encouraging a fellow writer to write recently, I never thought to write things down myself (even though he has encouraged me to write as well).

Recently, I re-read "A Wrinkle in Time". It seems that not everybody had read it in school while growing up, although I keep asking people about it and talking about it as if they did. It's a simple read for young readers, but it has depth that transcends lifetimes. Here was a particularly striking passage:

Bien sur!

"Qui plus said, plus se tait". As Mrs. Who translates, "The more a man knows, the less he talks." With Christmas just behind us, I'm sure many have watched "Christmas Vacation". In the movie, Cousin Eddy is said to not have found a job for close to seven years because he's holding out for a management position. For those who haven't seen it, Cousin Eddie is a hillbilly and dumb as a doornail. Though entertaining, it's kind of scary how often we see this amongst people we know. It's never this bad of course, but I admire the people who grow wiser in their age and experience, and I can't help but wonder what's happening (or not happening) to the people who don't start seeing the value of humility as they grow older. After all with the knowledge we gain, we should be humbled by how little we really know.

Moving on. For Christmas, I received a really cool antique camera from my sister-in-law.

so awesome!

I'm not a photographer by any means, but I like to think that I know a good photo when I see it, especially having helped out with a bunch of projects with my friend Andrew, from whom I learned a little about the trade through osmosis. The camera is in perfect condition, and I do plan to test drive it quite soon, but it made me reflect on something quite important. Photos. You know back in the day when you were like "Ahhh, if only I had a camera with me!". Well now you do. I can safely say that most people have a cellphone with the capability to take a picture. When you had 24 photos and couldn't see them until after they were developed, you took your time and you didn't put them all in an album. You had to weed out the ones that didn't turn out! Thanks to the dawn of digital photography, people have lowered the bar as to what a passable photo is, and go as far as to post it on some social media outlet. "It's blurry, but who cares.". If you take a blurry photograph of a UFO or of Bigfoot, then at best we're back at where we were in the 60's. But if you're taking a picture when you're on vacation or with family, then pretend just for a moment that you only have 24 pictures to take and you won't know how they turn out until a week from the event. I have to admit that I'm guilty of this (especially on here!!), and so I hope I can keep this in mind and produce some better pictures.

Next on the list: the Google self-driving car!

kawaiiii!

This little guy represents Google's new road mapping technology. I read about it on The Oatmeal's delightful article describing his experience of being in one of the buggies. There's the aspect of technology where it's strength often exceeds our ability to wield it (before we gain some knowledge about it), however I think society's general fear and overly-cautious approach to new technology makes everything seem like a big conspiracy and makes us look like this:

ooh ooh ah ah!

Without the right approach, we're just apes bonking a monolith that takes control of us when we least know it. So when we're faced with a new gadget, let's step back, analyze what it does, and how we can use it to do something better in our lives (and I don't mean like "hey! finally I can shave of ten seconds from clipping my toenails! huzzah!"). The Oatmeal speaks of this too, so I recommend going through the article.

I mentioned Christmas earlier, and with it come a lot of Church celebrations. At our church, for years my mom has helped out with the decorations. This year she and her friend prepared the nativity scene.

that blinding ball of light in the middle is baby Jesus

It's quite the cozy diorama, and it has a lot of detail. In addition to decorating a lot at church, my mom also decorates beautifully at home. Here's a little taste:

I love those mushrooms!

My mom has always been an inspiration to me with the ideas that she comes up with, and since I've seen pretty much all of her work for my whole life, I've also seen how it's grown. She's a great example of someone who has a style. It isn't one prop or trick that you keep recycling, but a style that evolves, grows and adapts. It's like one of those situations where you're like "Hey, is that a Monet? It looks like it. Let's see the little card... yep, it's a Monet.". A recognizable style that refines with age.

Now I'll briefly attempt to cover a topic that is completely foreign to me. Siblings. As I might have mentioned in past posts, I'm an only child, or a "lonely child" as children with brothers and sisters sometimes say. This last reflection came together with a combination of me taking my son to Lake Ontario to whip some rocks into the water,

kapow

My little daughter having to go to the emergency room,

poor thing!

and my wife braiding her sister's hair:

that's them

Siblings share a bond that's so great and yet so natural for them that they'll never know it! And I can't say that I wish I had it or that I'm jealous because I've always been without it. It is however heartwarming to see my little boy run up to his sister and yell some randomness at her and run away while she squeals with joy, and for him to be just as happy when we bring her back from somewhere. And you can tell that it isn't just kids doing their random crazy stuff. Despite him being only 3 years old and her being 9 months old, there's genuine happiness there. And just like that, 20 years later a sister can plop down in front of her other sister, hand her a brush and say "can you braid my hair?". What I'm trying to say is, if I go into the basement and have some orange juice in complete darkness, it's not weird. It's just something only children do. Or... er.. something that the type of person I am does.

Until next time, shut up and keep the skies clear.

Oh yeah, the title! Post Scriptum: What are the awful times ahead? The New Year celebration. I don't like it.

Breaking the ice

2014-12-22T10:08:00.001-08:00

Hello faithful readers!

It has been a long stretch since my last post, though technically it doesn't break my one-a-month rule. I recognize that writing a post on November 1st and December 31st is a bit of a copout, but come on... it's not on purpose!

Let's get down to business.

I got a new lathe!! This time, it's BRAND new and finally it works!

still warm and crispy

Here's a picture of it fresh out of the box- the whole motor part is still swung around for transportation's sake, so obviously it'll look a little backwards as it is right now. For the past few months I've had the lathe blues, having to deal with that busted one, but being back in the game is nice. Look how these centres line up!!

hella tight

Finally I'm able to have a tool that functions as it should with no difficulty, modifications or excuses for its age. If you haven't heard of it, Elite Tools is a great website where you can get all sorts of cool woodworking stuff brand new for a good price. This website is especially good for Canadians because it's based out of Quebec, so there are no hassles with duties and taxes or any of that stuff to do with crossing borders.

I can't say that life hasn't been busy with other things, but I'm glad I could make the time to do some turning again. It being Christmas and all, here's what I made:

now this one was literally still warm from the lathe when I was holding it

Although it's nothing new (I don't know that I'll ever make anything entirely new or original), the idea to make a turned Christmas ornament came to me a little while ago and I wanted to take a shot at it. Here it is hung up in our home:

squirrels!

The ornament is made up of walnut, jatoba and holly, so it's much too heavy to hang on the tree. I got a picture-hanging eyelet from the local hardware store once it was done, screwed it into the top and put some rustic-looking fancy string to finish off the package. Personally, I think it looks quite awesome. I didn't take any pictures of how I was making it, but one thing that I would do differently next time, is I would chop off the corners of the square pieces to not have so much excess to turn away. It's a common and encouraged practice to do this, but I didn't have access to my saw at the time. It was a big strain on my chisels, so I will definitely want to do it next time.

The other day I was speaking with my friend about my son, and how amazing it is that young kids at that age (he's 3) discover things for the very first time in their lives. Recently I had the great pleasure of taking him to his first movie in theatres! Some of you may claim that he's a little too young for the movies, but you know what? He's not as young as the infant that an irresponsible mother brought to the theatre the other day for the 7:30pm show of The Hobbit. In a word, he loved it! The big screen, the big sound, and the whole experience was brand new for him and me and my dad got to be there to share it with him!

now playing

We saw Big Hero 6 and it was fantastic! One thing about my little boy is that he's quite patient when it comes to movies, so he was able to sit through the whole thing, and he liked how funny the robot was. Just outside the theatre there was a big inflated robot and of course... he didn't want a picture with him. I had rather he didn't have a picture with him though, instead of a picture of him screaming his brains out beside the robot. Oh well.

Lately I've been talking with a friend of mine, Ania Trica, who is a rootin' tootin' designer and she recently started to make highly rad necklaces!

a sheep is wearing this one

You can look at her Instagram page here to check them out! She is still in a flurry of producing them, but I do believe that she will be looking to find venues in which to sell them soon.

Speaking of design, our friends Bernard and Zuzia got married back in September and recently we got thank you cards back from them! Here's what they look like:

WAW

The fingerprint heart is cute and the ~~Great Theatre~~ (edit: Palace of Culture and Science, thank you Bernard!) stamp is quite cool. It's kind of special to me since my family is from around there, and in case I didn't mention it before, those two are staying in Warsaw for two more years. Either way, the card is sweet and simple!

That's all for now, folks!

Keep the skies clear!

Nober - I Wish November was October

2014-11-03T18:28:00.002-08:00

Loyal readers!

It has been a little odd not writing here in the past few days, so I'm back to jot down a few words because hey, I miss you guys.

I will admit that writing a blog post every day had been challenging, especially if my blog is supposed to be about my creative projects at home. It's a good thing I had a number of things to write about that I had made before! However when the subject matter ran out and I was pressed to write something without having the time to make something, I started to write about my own thoughts and reflections. Something I didn't want to get into. However it only makes sense that an artist shares the background of his or her craft at some point and shines a light on the creative process. After all my blog is pretty much a highly sucky instruction manual on how to make things with a few bad puns in between the pictures.

I have come to realize that art and creativity can be forced if necessary, but it's always obvious that it was forced. Putting yourself in a mental state where you know you have to turn on your creative engine and produce something cool is different- a tool that you use to battle laziness. A good practice is to do a little every day. I've said it before in this blog and I'll say it again. If you do a little bit of (whatever) every day, you'll have that much more accomplished a week, a month, a year down the road.

Also, learning more information about the history, symbolism or the creative process of a work of art helps you appreciate it more. Maybe if you're a kid it kills the magic, but if you're older and you know how much work is put into it, it'll enhance the effect! For example:

fishies

You may have already heard of the artist that created this, but those fish aren't real. It's stunning as it is on its own, but finding out that it's man-made makes it all the more amazing!

wowzers

See? Riusuke Fukahori paints these fish on layers of resin, and the result is beautiful. I don't know about you, but hearing that they aren't real didn't make me say "psh, well that ruins it". It made me squash my face against my screen, trying to see the detail as closely as possible and looking in disbelief at how talented this guy is! Bam. Appreciation. This is why I also really like to watch the special features on a DVD, especially if it's a "making of" feature and ESPECIALLY if it's a sci-fi movie. It always blows my mind that CG monsters or aliens are still actually sculpted in real life to help with 3D animation. Or David Hasselhoff.

who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

All in all, I wanted to say that holding back from writing about my thoughts on art and the way it's created was perhaps a little short-sighted, and after all this journey is supposed to be about some sort of growth, right?

Having said that, I would like to write here a little more often, but it won't only be about stuff I make anymore. Making something worthwhile takes some time, planning, patience and perfecting, so as a result, I'd like to write about other things to make this a well-rounded web-log.

Until next time, ~~see you on the other side~~ keep the skies clear!

The Motherland

2014-10-31T20:47:00.003-07:00

Dear readers,

Today this last post of October is being brought to you at the stroke of midnight. After work today I had to run several errands that took up most of my evening- some of them including some crucial pieces I needed for today's project. Then there was a delicious interruption when my wife had made two steaming baskets of dim sum for a late dinner! Moving on.

A few days ago, Robert, a fellow Octoberite, celebrated his birthday. He's Polish, just as I am, and he likes military history. So for his birthday, I wanted to make him something pertaining to the subject, and this is actually the first time he'll be seeing it, since he lives in a city far, far away from mine. First, however, a brief history lesson.

Poland had one of the most powerful cavalry forces known in history, the Polish Hussars (Husaria), however Zack Snyder hasn't made a movie about them yet, so they're not as well known as they could be. I'll let you read the Wikipedia article, but just to tell you a little bit, they did not lose a battle for a stretch of 125 years, they were established as the king's elite guard, and their charging tactic broke the formations of every army that stood up against them. They had even defeated the enemy while being outnumbered 5 to 1.

immortal lances

Their horses were bred and trained to carry very heavy loads over long distances (the soldier along with all of the armor and weaponry) and then to attack at a moment's notice. The most recognizable feature of the Hussars were the tall wings they bore on their backs, lined with eagle, swan or goose feathers. It is said that the rush of wind that passed through the wings made such a noise that it would make their number seem larger and would spook the horses of the opposing armies. It is with these stories and others that I grew up, as I'm sure did many Polish boys. There was also the legend of the "Little Knight", a fictional character from a series of books so famous in Poland that it's known as "the trilogy". His moniker came from his low stature, but he was a master in fencing. My dad would sing me the song about him sometimes before bed, which you can listen to here. It plays out in the first fourty five seconds of the clip, but you can watch the rest if you like. When I recounted the legends of the Hussars to my own son, he remained silent for a moment after I finished and said "but the sound of the wings wasn't TOO loud".

The Polish army had this bright moment of fame in history, and the rest is still interesting, but if our armies were able to defend the old borders, Poland would be about three times its size now. Either way, my friend Robert takes the most interest in the second world war, and that's the subject of my gift.

a button

This is a button from a Polish WW2 military uniform that I bought on eBay from the UK. Although a pretty cool gift on its own, I wanted it to have a "roughly hewn" frame encasing it.

this is the type of coat it would have been from

As most of my projects, it started with a wooden board.

nice

I acquired this great piece of walnut a while ago, and I've been using it for a lot of things. I really love the feel of walnut still- nothing has changed.

step 1

step 2

After the board was cut, glued and nailed, I cut out some leather strips with my magic scissors.

oooh, magic

I wrapped them around the joints, going outward and around the frame, to give it a homespun feel, as if you constructed the frame out of things found in the field. I didn't want them to look all even and clean cut.

leather bits

I had gone to an army surplus store to find the backing I wanted for the button. I found this old belt thing, and I decided that the fabric would be perfect for what I was going to use it for. It had the perfect color, and it was very durable- as most military things are.

belt thing?

I cut out the piece I needed, tied the button to it and mounted the whole thing onto the frame. Once that was done, I drilled two pilot holes on the sides of the frame so I could put in some nails off of which to hang the finished piece.

hanging

And here it is from a bit more of a distance.

the finished product

I was really tempted to finish the wood with my favourite oil/wax, but I felt that this was better. An old relic in a simple frame, cobbled together from simple materials. Happy birthday, Robbie! I hope you like it.

For now dear readers, I leave you not until tomorrow, but until another day. Sometime soon, I hope! I wanted to share my thoughts on this one-month bonanza, so I'll be back before you know it.

See you on the other side!

Death Valley, and his little brother

2014-10-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

Dear readers!

Today I come to you fully mobile, so pardon me if I don't catch some typos. I'm not sure if I discussed this before, but my wife and I have decided to do what I have called "creative nights", wherein one of us guards the fort while the other goes out and does something creative. Ideally, something is created, but building the process is just fine as well.

For my creative nights, I come to Uptown Waterloo's Death Valley's Little Brother- a fantastic whiskey and espresso bar* with the absolute best atmosphere for creativity. At least for me! I love it because of the design and the atmosphere. If I had a cafe of my own, it would be like this!

hot chocolate

It's one of those places where artists can get excited about their work, and where ideas are born! I'm forced to wake up early these days, but I believe that magical things happen in the night. For now I'm signing off, because this blog site's mobile support is less than fantastic, and I have to get some creative juices flowing!

Until tomorrow, see you on the other side!

*I'm making a small not here to say that they don't only serve whiskey and espresso. You can get all of your usual coffees like lattes and cappuccinos as well as some cold beverages and various pastries.

You can do the thing

2014-10-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

Dear readers,

Wanting to avoid the two disasters that you had the misfortune of experiencing in the past few days, I decided that instead of hurriedly trying to whittle something for you today, I would follow the style of my reflective blog posts and write something worth reading.

For my birthday, my friend Andrew bought a book for me called On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, written by Stephen King.

On Writing

I started reading it this morning, and it drew me in. It's a book he wrote that talks about his own development as a writer, and tips on how to write well. Although I'm only fifty pages in and he hasn't gotten to the "advice" part yet, I feel like I've learned something already, and surprisingly, it's something that I've already heard in The Icarus Deception. When seeking wisdom in any trade, it seems that the experienced and successful people all say the same thing: keep trying and don't give up. It's a stupid little maxim that I feel like we've been fed from grade 1 on stickers we got on our homework, but, it's true. The hardest part is being in the "trying" phase. The idea of success and recognition will therefore continue to seem unattainable to me until I get it, and I have to continue to hone my craft until then. There's also a very honest truth that he speaks of in this book, and that is that there is no magic formula for a best selling novel or a way to spawn inspiration. Ideas come from thin air and hit you in the weirdest ways, and the important part is to recognize and nab them while they're there.

hahahahaha YES

There's a whole slew of examples of companies or people who are famous now, but were rejected dozens of times simply because... someone's opinion. Most of what's popular these days is popular because someone with some sort of power or authority tells us that it is. There's no reason why the latest Gucci dress should be considered better than a funny hat that a girl knits in Australia just because someone said so.

I think it all requires a healthy combination of humility and perseverance. You can have years of formal education in certain fields, but I think someone who is truly wise will admit that the more they learn, the less they know; or rather admit that there is so much MORE to know! After all, if someone in need asks you help carry a heavy bag and you turn them down because you've come too far to waste your time on things like that, then what exactly has your education gained for you?

Ali!

As a (new) parent, I find that my little son has many questions about absolutely everything and even if I don't have an answer, I have to give an answer. It's funny because I feel that no matter how old we get, our parents seem to always be a source of information for us. They give advice that we may not always take, but that we'll always listen to as truth. Maybe that's why people repeat the mistakes and emulate the bad character traits of their parents!

So I reach out to you, my few readers, and ask for your patience. I'm new at this, I'm not very good at this, and I'd like to get better. I'm sorry for the junk I've put you through, and I thank you for sticking with me through it all!

I'd like to conclude with a popular little quote I'm very fond of, spoken by none other than Winnie the Pooh:

"I'm glad. At least, I think I'm glad."

Take care for now, and until tomorrow, I'll see you on the other side!

Spread the Love

2014-10-28T18:34:00.003-07:00

Faithful allies!

Today I set out into the garage, determined to make something decent for today's entry. I really, REALLY wanted to make a wooden spoon. A simple dream, yes, but it turned out to be harder than I thought. Actually, I wasn't going to show you, but you know what? I took this picture about halfway through, and it wasn't turning out how I imagined at all.

terrible!

I mean, if I really put a lot of time into it, hand carved it and sanded it a lot then maybe it would look like a caveman made it- by screaming at a branch and whacking it against a rock. In fact I may just finish it to have it put on display as an example of what cavemen were capable of making when they were really angry.

Anyway, then I moved onto making a spreading knife out of wood. This turned out to be small and awkward, and I don't even have a picture of it.

Finally, I ended up going with a sort of... "spreader".

piece of maple

masking after shaping

spray paint

masking removed

finished indoors

I'm not stopping you from spreading anything you want with this thing! Peanut butter, almond butter, butternut squash, butter, you name it. That's that!

I also wanted to mention the change in appearance of my blog. It got a little stale for me, so I wanted to freshen it up- that's all. I'm okay with the structure of this website for now, but who knows, I may want to re-vamp it entirely when I start making more things for-serious!

Until tomorrow, see you on the other side!

Gone Bananas

2014-10-27T19:08:00.004-07:00

Dear followers!

Today I have something very simple lined up for you. Having only time to do something small and simple, I remembered an easy project that I could do in a short amount of time, but that would yield a cool result.

tada!

There we go! A banana.

Well thanks folks,

Until tomorrow, I'll see you on the othe

wait wait wait, okay, so the concept is simple. You take a nice, clean, bananular canvas, and when you scratch the skin, it starts to turn brown and you can draw stuff! Here's a bit of a test run I did first...

swirls...

And then I put a sweater on

first incisions...

the argyle banana!

There you have it folks, I learned and mastered banana art just like that. Actually it's called banana tatooing, but only the pros call it that. People have done quite amazing things with fruit art and fruit carving in the past I must say, which is sometimes quite a feat because you don't have like an indefinite amount of time to do it- fruits go bad at some point, and you have no time to go into a reeling ten year depression in between, unlike with marble. Here is some banana art that's worth your time:

monkeys

Mt. Rushmore

Cool, eh? I'm sure everyone has seen all of this cool stuff by now, but I'll share it with you anyway. Because of the nature of watermelon and pumpkins, I think people have made some of the best art using those two... fruits? Yes, I believe pumpkins are a fruit.

aww, look at that face

mind-blowing detail

dragon!

I can only imagine how much time goes into carving these crazy fruits, but it sure as heck took more time than it did me to make that argyle banana! Here are some more fruit creations. Why not?

orange

pineapple

cantaloupe

banana

I won't get too philosophical here, but sometimes I can't help but think of families who don't have enough to eat while these crazy fruits are carved for display, and then by the end of the day when nobody has touched them, they're just whipped in the trash. Golly, that's a bit of a downer, but hopefully if you make an elaborate watermelon carving of your own one day, you chomp it down with your friends afterwards.

Until tomorrow, ~~keep the skies clear~~ see you on the other side!

Some of my favourite things

2014-10-26T17:21:00.003-07:00

Hello, hoarding masses,

I just realized that I've been using The Sound of Music references in my past two blog titles. Not intentional. I'm not a fan of that movie at all, although I do like the Ewan McGregor's "hills are alive" rendition in Moulin Rouge.

Now, to the point. Some of my favourite things, that you may have caught a trend of or that you've heard me mention in my blog before are three things: miniatures, slow motion, and well-developed and believable fictional histories. The last one is not as strictly defined, as the other two, but you'll see what I mean when I explain it. Also, if you show me a video of miniature Lord of the Rings people flying around in slow motion, that won't necessarily guarantee that I will love it, despite the formula being there.

So first off, miniatures:

frappucino anyone?

jammin'

I personally don't think I'd have the patience to make these sorts of things, but I definitely love to just... see them and the amount of effort people put into them. I pulled these images from Etsy, so to be fair, here are the links to the Starbucks drinks and to the guitars. What is just as amazing to me though, are the incredible tilt-shift photos that people take!

small train station!

small version of the smallest city!

I've had it explained to me a few times, but I still have no idea how it works, but the process of taking these photos gives the result of the item in question looking like a miniature city! I think it call comes back to my delight in the belief that somewhere in our walls or underground is a magical life that exists just beyond our reach.

The second is slow motion. I'm not sure what it is, but there is something so awesome about slow motion, that there isn't much that I can think of that isn't cool when it's in slow motion (except things that are already happening slowly). I have a feeling that what spawned my love for slow motion was the "bullet time" scene and essentially brand new filming technology developed on the set of The Matrix. We all know the scene:

you have to believe, Neo!

So although I'm not so crazy about these things that I actively pursue them, I do take a look around the interweb once in a while in search of a fix for them. In my meanderings, I've found a channel on YouTube called The Slow Mo Guys. Basically it's two British dudes who do all sorts of crazy stuff and film it with incredibly amazing cameras that are able to capture super, and super SUPER slow motion.

Gav and Dan

Here's a recent one they came out with that I've enjoyed quite a bit, where they recreate epic memes and replay them in slow motion. They've called it, Epic Slow Memes. Take a look at their channel and their other stuff- it's quite awesome! I think what I love about slow motion is that it gives you a chance to observe the detail of a moment that otherwise happens much too quickly for us to focus on, and you are able to collect all of the subtleties of emotions and reactions that happen within it.

Moving on to well-developed and believable fictional histories. I've always found history to be super boring, and although I still do, I recognize that it is important to know and it deepens your appreciation for a nation or culture. However, when a story or book is written in a very believable or even matter-of-fact kind of way that portrays a fiction to be true, I can't help but be entranced, and allow myself believe it to really exist.

Dinotopia

The Secret World of Arrietty

Hitchhiker's Guid to the Galaxy

What I love even more are small remnants of these worlds that have been captured as if to show that they existed a long time ago. THIS is what I have always been most intrigued by, and what I love to (try to) make. And this brings me to a project that I have been somewhat passively working on, but that I would love to display and complete one day. I think sometime in the future I should be showing a finished product of these, because this isn't something that I'd want to put off indefinitely.

I had an idea to have a display, like a museum display of toothpicks. All sorts of toothpicks that are specially carved and historically significant from different trees around the world that have their own story. Here is a rough draft of what I've come up with:

Maple:

There is a legend that tells of the first meeting of the Inuits with the Scandinavian Norsemen traveling from Europe on the coast of Labrador. Knowing nothing of each others’ languages or cultures, they met in silence and communicated only through gestures. However both recognized that each had the knowledge and honed instinct to survive in the mighty northern winters. A festive dinner was held on the Viking longboat, and the feast ended late at night. The next morning when the two parties were ready to part, a gift was presented to each. In an uncanny coincidence, two toothpicks had been carved by each side. The Inuits carved one with the antlers of the great Canadian Elk, and the Norsemen carved another with the antlers of the Norwegian Red Deer. Both took this as a great sign of friendship, and they lived in a strong alliance with each other once the Norsemen settled in southern Greenland. The antlers of the elk remain to this day, carved out of the Canadian maple tree.

Wenge:

A lot of intricately carved toothpicks was given to a French explorer when he visited the Gabonese Republic by the Mbuti pygmies. Made from the native Wenge, they were a gift to commemorate their meeting. Although the rest of the toothpicks stayed in the family, this one was donated to the National Archeological Museum in Charles de Gaulle.

Osage Orange:

There was a story about a thief from Oklahoma in the 18th century who would break into homes in the middle of the night. The whole southern side of the Texas Blackland Prairies was affected by this one man and he plagued the country for years. After the crimes had subsided, he was found near the Ontario border in Canada two years later dead in the forest. The cause of death was choking on this very toothpick which was carved from Osage orange- a tree native to the southern united states. In his pack there was found the whole collection of jewels and coins that he had stolen over the years.

There you have it... I see these arranged in a archeological display type way in an art exhibition in a Wes Anderson type way. Perhaps in the next few months I'll try and finish it off. The idea isn't really to trick people into believing a fairly believable history (these short stories that I wrote had a bit of research go into them to make them generally verifiable), but for a little magic to happen in their lives. Alright, that's it folks!

Until tomorrow, see you on the other side!

The Hills are Alive: Part 2

2014-10-25T18:26:00.003-07:00

Hi Folks!

To continue my thought from the day before, I wanted to finish writing about inspiring music. With film music there's an instant association with an image, or scene. However with music that we've heard or discovered on our own, the songs are connected to memories, and have a way of imprinting themselves on a certain feeling that can still move us emotionally years after the fact. This brings me to the second category- music from my childhood!

I believe that the music we hear our parents listen to forms us in a certain way- giving us a taste in the music similar to it later in our lives. Now, forgive me if I write some extremely biased things in this post, because I'm only writing about my own experiences and the way I perceive music so... relax. But I think I can unbiasedly say that kids who hear country music growing up will not mind it or like it when they're growing up, and same goes for kids who's parents listen to AC DC and music of that sort. Here's some of the music that I heard growing up:

Queen

ELO

From the earlier times I can remember, my dad would blast songs like Somebody to Love by Queen or Mr. Blue Sky by ELO while we cleaned the house on Friday nights. I think this type of music (generally melodic, elaborate) led me to like the kind of music I like to listen to now, which I'll tell you about in a sec.

Another fond musical memory comes from my mom, when she would bake and cook until all hour of the night for Christmas. While I helped out in the kitchen, we would listen to Hanka Ordonowna, a Polish singer from the 1920's-1940's.

Hanka

In those moments, while listening to songs like Trudno ("It's too bad") I felt like I was in a different time- like we stepped into another era, and for a moment, we shared a moment that could have equally been shared 70 years ago with a mother and son listening to the radio at home. If you haven't seen the movie Midnight in Paris, please do. This is how I would feel! I considered sharing some of the lyrics with you, however for my non Polish-speaking friends, the translation would be nothing short of ridiculous. Polish is complex enough as it is, but like with all languages, some words capture an idea or feeling that takes a whole sentence to explain in another language.

I'm not sure how the experience is with others, but with me, there was a long pause between enjoying whatever it is my parents listened to, and developing my own taste in music. They say that music from your teenage youth is one that you'll always have a very positive association with, and that it will always make you feel good. I think that's true! Because until about 15 years ago we didn't have this crazy, unlimited access to absolutely all of the songs in the world, discovering what music you liked was left up to listening to the radio, and often you would just start to like whatever hits were out at the time. This is what hit the charts when I was a pup:

WOO-HOO!

I'm sure everyone knows the "woo-hoo" song from this album, or Song 2 by Blur, as it is correctly known. Some may also remember it from some commercial with people riding shopping carts down a hill. My favourite however from this album is Drinking in L.A. by Bran Van 3000. Here I have to be a bit careful, because there are dozens of songs I'd like to mention that I'm sure people from my generation would like 'oh yeeeaah! I remember that one!', however there's no time people, NO TIME!

It was around this time that I fell hard for a little band called The Cardigans:

I had my copy signed!

I was lucky enough to see them perform in Toronto when they were here, pretty much before they fell off the map. "Who are The Cardigans?" you ask? Everyone knows who they are. No? Lovefool. Yes, EVERYONE does. I could listen to their "First Band on the Moon" album endlessly! At one point I was keeping a list of all of the songs I liked. Not a mindless list of tunes that I found catchy, but ones that I sincerely thought were good songs. I stopped keeping track at around 500, and I actually don't know what happened to that list. I'm sure I could make some modifications to it now!

One album and band that I can't pass by though, is Weezer:

The Blue Album

I'm not part of a small crowd that likes this band (unlike The Cardigans), but I can safely say that this album played a big role in my life. I wish I could tell that to the band, but they would probably not care that much or get creeped out. Again, this is one of those albums that I could listen through entirely, and even though it's hard to choose, one of my favourite songs from it would have to be Only in Dreams.

Jumping ahead, in the years to come I would come to like music that I heard from friends or discovered on my own with the development of the internets. Here's a crazy song that I listened to over and over with my good friend Andrew.

SQUAREPUSHER!!

It's called A Journey to Reedham (7am mix) by Squarepusher. I think he got sick of it after the 100th time I played it on repeat, but I will always love it, haha.

Finally we arrive at the present moment. I still love all of those songs I discovered so many years ago, and listen to them often. Many new ones have been added to my list, with one of the most important bands being Vampire Weekend:

I guess it's a Halloween party?

It's their kind of music that I think I'm able to listen to because I would have stuff like ELO from my childhood- bands that experimented with genres and instruments. I think the song of theirs that I like the most (from their newest album) is Step. Simply elevating!

An Epilogue:

So much of the music out there now is garbage. I can't help but question the intentions of the artists or record companies, although it's no secret that the biggest reason is simply... money. Pointless lyrics, terrible tunes and shameless marketing drives bad music into every corner of our daily lives, and we just kind of accept it. So I encourage you to look for music that inspires you. Music that brings beautiful images to your mind, that gets you excited, or sad, or that sends shivers down your spine. Having said that, if a crappy top 40's song came on the radio while one of your parents took you out for fries on a perfect summer day when you were a kid, then by all means, don't stop listening to it.

Until tomorrow, see you on the other side!