not dead yet

I'm back from the realm of the busy - where most people manage to live most of their lives (and blog meanwhile). Being of simple mind and low energy, I can only visit that realm from time to time and must then retreat into silence.

But this blog is not dead and now continues...

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This is what the ever-evolving-sideboard looks like today. Not everything has changed but I had to free up some room for books that are currently new and/or being read. Our "bar" was briefly stationed on the sideboard but I didn't take a picture and it has since found another home. Books outrank booze.

Another new addition is this collage-y thing I put together this morning. The poem fragment (from Langston Hughes*) and bird picture has literally spent 8 years on my fridge (a friend letterpressed it back at Sheridan). Suddenly it felt like time to do something else with it...

So I put together some old things I had lying around my studio and framed it. I also added a button/pin of my baby-self (which I've had since... well... birth I guess**). Anyway, I've never been sure what to do with this button of myself... but it kind of fits in with the idea of holding fast to youthful dreams and pursuing them with the purity and innocence of a fresh-faced babe.

(I'm 100% certain that my dreams are less socially significant and far more self-centered than what Langston was talking about.)

So here it is:

In other newness, I got a neat book of weird old photos off the discount rack when I visited the National Gallery recently. It's like having the website Black and WTF in the palm of your hand - but NOT on an iPhone - haha!

The rocks are from various travels across Canada. The black lava-looking ones come from an island off British Columbia and the lump of coal is from Nova Scotia. The rest are from locales in between.

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*Here's the whole poem, Dreams, by Langston Hughes (but I don't agree with him that frozen fields are barren or a bad thing...)

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

** I'm not sure WHY my family put my face on a pin. I guess I was cute as a button?

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tent in the house

This is the current state of our livingroom. As you can see, there is a screened-dining-tent in there. Partly this is because we needed to dry it out after a recent rainy camping trip...

... but the other reason is that this is our "guestroom"...

We live in a two bedroom apartment but I've taken over the 2nd bedroom as a studio/workshop. By setting up the tent I can still work and compute in peace even when we have guest/guests... which we do, right now.

I tried to make it really cozy, almost cabin-like, in there so that our guests don't feel too uncomfortable about sleeping in a tent inside an apartment inside a high-rise.

The fold-down sides of this dining tent allow our guests some privacy (as opposed to having an air mattress in a wide open room and changing in the one and only bathroom all the time).

Also, it's a really tall tent - so you can stand at your full height.

It's got a nice rug, a quilt, a hudson bay blanket, etc.

I scored this little red table from the dumpster area of our building the night before our guest arrived. It was broken but easily fixed.

A trunk for putting the guest's stuff on. Also some light reading material and a fan. (There's also Lego in the trunk if one gets really bored!)

It's got twinkle lights!
(... and also our cheap Ikea light fixture that had to be moved to put the tent up... it looks sort of like a patio latern...)

I left one of the tent walls up (facing a real wall) so that it didn't feel too muggy or claustrophobic.

The Jack Bush poster on the real wall blends nicely with the Canadiana-cabin-feel. (He was a Canadian abstract painter... also, his name is just great: Jack like a Jack Pine, Bush like forest/wilderness/etc.)

So there you have it Potential Guests. This is where you'll stay if you come to visit. Hope you like it and I hope you will drop by!

(...but please note, I'm only setting up the tent for those staying more than one night!! haha!!)

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a look back at the christmas just past - part 1

we decked this wall instead of a hall...

... and hung our homemade garlands and stockings with care on another wall, for lack of a mantle...

... and I fashioned this stole out of the fur of an old coat-collar to feel festive and sassy and fashion-forward all at once (or is fur fashion-backward?!? I just know all the kids are wearing it on the blogs I stalk...)