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Kind of a gloomy day outside my window, luckily I can distract my gaze with this cool little trinket instead of focusing on the rain. It's just some old key chain from a Dutch bank but I like the horse and anchor logo.

I've been a little obsessive about Gord Downie lately. His solo albums and the latest Tragically Hip album (We Are the Same) were the soundtrack of my summer and I find him really inspiring as a hard-working-artist-type.

Anyway, I like going to shows but I'm not usually a groupie... but this changed when GD and The Country of Miracles played a small hall in my little hometown recently. I hung around to get a picture and a signature from the man himself - it just seemed appropriate to shake the hand of the man whose voice has been in my subconscious for over 2 decades IN the town where I did much of my growing up.

The group of four that I attended the concert with were all there because one guy happened to see a write-up for the poorly advertised gig in the local rag (which he says he normally never looks at). He took care of getting the tickets too because the rest of us don't live in that town anymore. Before heading to the venue the ticket-getter, who is a pilot, told us a story of seeing Gord many years ago at an airshow and the obscure thing Gord said... a plan began to hatch in my brain.

After the show, I waited to meet Gord Downie, not just because I wanted to meet him but to get an autograph for our pilot-friend.

And since pilot-friend doesn't have a lot of art on his walls, I decided to make a little collage-y, shadow-box thing to commemorate the magical evening.

There is a map of Ontario for the backdrop and you can see Kingston just below the moon (that's where both Gord and myself were born). The poems are from GD's book of poetry, both pertaining to flight. They're both typed out on old Airmail envelopes. There's a ticket and the autograph (appropriately flight-themed) written on the envelope that contained the tickets. In the lower-left is the picture of me and Gordo (with speech-bubble and the original, funny quote that inspired this whole adventure). Some stars, clouds, and a moon to go along with the motifs of the poems. And my favourite part, a little airplane hanging on strings so it can fly a little bit.

You can click on the picture to zoom in and read stuff if you like:

It's a little "scrap-booky" but I like it... I always liked making scrap-books... even though "scrapbooking" is a dirty word for most artsy-types...

It will be awhile before I use glitter again though. As a comedian once said (I can't remember who it was), "glitter is the Herpes of crafting"... that shit is EVERYWHERE now! Even my cats have caught this CTD (craft-transmitted-disease).