Lasqueti Press

String Theory, Part 2

2012-01-27T10:42:00.004-07:00

As more than a few people pointed out to me, String Theory would also be a great title for a post about knitting, "and besides, you're an artist: what are you knitting these days? You are still knitting, aren't you?" Green coconut hanging from the palm. Well, yes, I am: I let myself be persuaded to submit a proposal for Transforming Spaces: 2012 being held in March at, among other places,

String Theory

2012-01-24T23:18:00.003-07:00

This is not going to be a deeply intellectual post, despite the title: check out this website for the whole science behind String Theory, if that's what you're looking for....Honk! Adult flamingos on Great Inagua.That being said, I'm not one to believe in magic, but I found this paragraph from the website oddly compelling in evaluating what I'm doing and thinking about where I want to go next....

Time to go back to ice and snow

2012-01-19T15:37:00.001-07:00

We left early, on my last full day in Nassau, to walk down to the beach in time to catch the sunrise and watch the tide coming in. In some places, it rushed........but not in others.To fully appreciate this photogragh, click on it to see it in its entirety on Flickr: I think it's rather pretty....Once we got back to the house, I spent my day stripping two more coconuts of their fibre, cracking

Hitting the High Seas

2012-01-18T13:19:00.001-07:00

There's a high-speed ferry that runs from Nassau to Harbour Island, on the east side of Eleuthera, with a stop in Spanish Wells, and we went en famille the first Friday of 2012.In keeping with my shoot the light ethos, I worked on finding different things to see.Spanish Wells was founded by United Empire Loyalists -- people living in the United States at the time of the American Revolution but

Great. Inagua.

2012-01-17T10:55:00.002-07:00

Casual encounters with other artists, starting with two expat Canadians, opened up an opportunity for me to go to Matthew Town on Great Inagua, which is the most southerly island in The Bahamas. I had been told I'd see a lot of feral donkeys, but didn't see any at all. The goats, however, hang out down by the big lighthouse on the southwest corner of the island.The salt pans are stark and

Catching up

2012-01-16T22:14:00.001-07:00

Well, I was busy in Nassau. Was convinced to submit a proposal for Transforming Spaces 2012, as their theme was fibre and spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to knit a pair of socks from coconut husks. That's still in progress.But one of the most important things I wanted to do on this trip was to take pictures: I hadn't been doing much of that in 2011, and made it my mission to shoot

Between a web of intrigue and a flash of light

2011-12-17T09:28:00.002-07:00

Packing up, as I suspected, took all the time available, and by the time I did the last-minute errands (pay the tenants insurance, make a bank run, cruise the duty-free shop in Calgary), I climbed about the red-eye flight to Toronto as exhausted as I've been at any other time this year. Not much sleep on the flight either, with the guy next to me who wanted to read his book and kept his light on

Deracinating

2011-12-07T20:19:00.001-07:00

Echos abound here. In every room. All the art has been pulled from the walls, except for two calendars, put in boxes, and taken to storage. Bookcases are empty. Big Red has been towed away. Closets are being packed up. The tent, skis, golf clubs, camping kitchen, and bicycle are gone to storage. My suitcase, travelling art kit, iPod, and laptop are organized, loaded, charged, tinkered

The Velocity of Change

2011-11-01T12:27:00.001-06:00

Too Hot to Handle, my contribution for the CJSW Funding Drive art auction last week. It's eight months tomorrow, and at some level, I'm both surprised and exceptionally grateful that I'm back in the studio, creating new work that's mostly book-related at this point, but which may change after New Year's. I'm not sure yet, but strangely not panicked about what the future holds. And I'm being

Forever Autumn

2011-10-02T14:10:00.000-06:00

(Fans of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, released in 1978 and a truly excellent adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel, will recognize the lyrics. If you don't know the work, it is available on iTunes: highly recommended, although if you can find a vinyl copy, it comes with a great enclosure. The narration is read by the late Richard Burton, which is reason enough to listen,

Transitioning

2011-09-18T09:40:00.001-06:00

I could spend hours watching horses -- in fact, it's hard to keep me away from them, which is probably why I like my volunteer gig down at Stampede more than ever, now that I get to go back and wander through the barns. There's an old picture of me being put on a pony and led around a ring, next to my aunt and uncle's home in Surrey, BC: it was the summer I was three, and it was my very

Boom

2011-09-02T12:18:00.003-06:00

Calgary has an annual festival known as Globalfest that was held recently -- lots of multicultural entertainment (such as this flamenco dancer I caught on the beer garden stage) and a different country invited to create a fireworks display on selected evenings. I had gone, back in its early days, when the cultural component was scattered around various community centres, but it seemed like

Decompression Zone

2011-08-07T11:38:00.000-06:00

Since my last post, too much time has been spent in the realm of anything that can go wrong, will: having to tell yet more people about my sudden change of personal status, vehicle issues, receipt of the autopsy, dangling at the end of a telephone trying to book a second job interview, and email snafus, for starters. Being able, if only for a brief interlude, to remove myself from some of that

It's My Turn To Drive

2011-07-19T18:55:00.001-06:00

Driven to the margin of error Driven to the edge of control Driven to the margin of terror Driven to the edge of a deep, dark hole Healing continues. I'm amazed that I'm actually starting to be able to listen to more music without turning into a hysterical blubbering mass. Oddly enough, I'm listening to a great deal of RUSH, thanks, I'm sure, in large part to one of the digital movie channels

Feeling my way

2011-06-23T19:14:00.000-06:00

Life has been a rollercoaster lately. One thing I've really enjoyed of late is being able to get out and just take pictures for fun -- the ones flanking this paragraph are from a local Flickrmeet -- and it was just wonderful to be able to go, take pictures, talk about taking pictures, and have a few laughs with people I know and who wouldn't freak out if (and especially, when) I'd break down

Conditional Sentences

2011-06-02T10:06:00.001-06:00

The Government of Canada says that (D)uring a conditional sentence, the offender is supervised and must follow the rules set by the judge or risk going to prison. There are days in the last three months -- and it's been that long since I've been alone -- that I feel that my overwhelming emotions may have offended some, and that I've definitely needed supervision. But I am doing better.

Rituals

2011-05-22T12:22:00.000-06:00

Day -2: May 5 early Life is full of rituals. Hello, my name is.... How do you do? Excuse me, but.... Oh, sorry.... Everyone's life has them, and some (not that I'll mention names) have more than others: ritual is what psychiatrists call what obsessive-compulsive personalities have to do to survive. Day -1: May 6 late I've been depending on my daily routine/ritual to get through the

Reclamation Project

2011-05-09T20:53:00.000-06:00

My friends and family, and those of you in my electronic community, usually ask me how I'm doing, and when I start spurting tears, chalk it up to "she's not doing that great." Um, well, that's not exactly accurate: frankly, I do pretty well most of the time. But when I'm asked, my response depends on how well I know you. I lose it with family. Mine. His. Doesn't matter. Totally utterly

Out of sight, sometimes out of mind

2011-04-17T12:21:00.002-06:00

For regular perusers of this blog, you'll notice there's been a longer-than-usual gap between postings. There's a reason for that.While I waited for my Alberta Foundation for the Arts grant to arrive, I was knitting endlessly, preparing for my upcoming shows, and then my partner came home for a week of R&R from working in the bush. Then I was back to knitting, when I received word that I had also

Know where I'm from, not sure where I'm going

2011-01-31T17:21:00.003-07:00

One of our neighbourhood pubs supports the Rocky Mountain Pipe Band and ran a Burns Supper fundraiser last Saturday to help fund their trip to the North American Championships. While I wasn't interested in any of the auction items, I was drawn by the fact that there was going to be food and that the band would be playing as well.So although I was a few days late, I got to celebrate Robbie Burns

Déjà vu

2011-01-06T16:45:00.004-07:00

Knitted videotape for an upcoming installationI've always loved books, ever since I was little -- I suspect that's one reason why I eventually got into writing them, designing them, and building them. Yes, that has included knitting them too!And although I read a lot of fiction when I was a child, I probably haven't picked up a novel for, um, awhile -- in fact, I don't think I can remember one in

Mixed Blessing

2010-12-01T08:20:00.001-07:00

When I left to go to Chicago and my residency at Ragdale, there were a number of pending items that were just sort of sitting at the back of my mind.One was the job that I ended up not getting that I've mentioned in a previous post, there was a grant application that needed to be mailed out that I just didn't get a chance to do (it didn't need to be postmarked before November 1), there was

Midwest Adventure: Ragdale (Part 2)

2010-11-13T13:24:00.002-07:00

The two large sets of French doors on the right, and three pairs of skylights, were my home for the two weeks I stayed at Ragdale: it's a huge studio -- larger than our home! -- with a sleeping loft tucked away and accessed by a circular staircase. I slept soundly under yet another skylight, watching birds as they flew overhead, and the trees doing the watusi in the high winds we had during my

Midwest Adventure: Chicago (Part 1)

2010-11-13T12:44:00.002-07:00

Longtime readers may remember my adventure to Pennsylvania in the spring of 2008, and this photo, which bore the caption "one of these days, I've got to spend more time in Chicago...."Well, that day finally came.From dining at the one and only Superdawg, complete with rather weird neon green relish,to checking out some of the amazing public art, and indulging in a visit to the original (not the

"C"hange

2010-10-19T20:44:00.001-06:00

Scattered reflections, in more ways than one.When I was checking out Nancy Nisbet's Contours in the Crosshairs that ran from September 2 to October 2 at The New Gallery, I was intrigued at the chunks of shattered windshield that formed part of the work.When the show closed, I went down and brought home forty pieces of varying sizes to play around with -- I have a few ideas of what I'm going to do