It's Roxanne!

Oil on Panel 24" x 24" - sorry for the crappy photo doc. Here's panel #1 out of 9 panels of my summer painting project. Panel #9 can be seen in a previous post called "it's Norma". I wonder if the light blue patch on her nose between her eyes is too light?
Oh, and I've added the photo below of Norma, too.
Roxanne was my mom's friend, and now that I think of it, I don't remember her at all, but I do remember her name. I used to think about it a lot. I thought it was "Rocks Sand" and I always thought it was cool how she could turn it around and be called "Sand Rocks" too.

weekend booty

and much loot was gotten around and about Duncan! This weekend was super for garage sale finds and thrift store deals. I can only imagine it will get better as Garage Sale Season will only intensify with warmer weather, and can foresee my pile of loot growing into a large stack. with what will I do with it all, who knows? If you send me your address and requests I can start a gift giving correspondence type of deal.

Here's what I got and for how much: (I'll go in clockwise fashion from the bag on the left)

-this bag is a nice emerald green which the photo doesn't give justice - $1 (garage sale)
-2 pieces of luggage (also green) great for RISD trip, or so I thought but as my mom and I started walking around the neighbourhood garage sale, I was carrying this luggage I just bought, and thought, good lord, it's so heavy and there's nothing in it yet! [not pictured-too big] - $2 (same garage sale as above)
-R2D2 and C3PO puzzle - $1 - garage sale
-Electric yet dark blue (my new favourite colour) terry cloth tube top dress (but not that tight) - 99 cents - Sassy Lion Thrift Store
-Horse Dish - will be my new soap dish - 10 cents - garage sale
-Lassie Dog Cup - came free with luggage
-White cardigan - 99 cents - Sassy Lion Thrift Store
-phone - 50 cents - garage sale - important to have an analogue phone if the power goes out!

Grand total of $6.48. It feels like a time warp alternate universe of anti-inflation, it's fun!

my favourite bakery of anywhere

Cowichan Bay is a little fishing village about 10-15 minutes by car to Duncan. We used to live in Cowichan Bay when I was in Junior High, from age 13-15. I loved Junior High-hated High School! Anyhow, I used to walk down the hill from our place every morning to come into the village to catch the school bus. I remember even in Jr. High thinking how beautiful it was in the morning when the bay would be socked in with white poofy clouds which I could see below me as I walked down the steep hill. Clouds below you are always beautiful, I think. But I don't remember being too aware of "beauty" in Jr. High, so to be impressed by Cow Bay's beauty at that time, it must have been quite beautiful. Cow Bay also really stunk?Stank?Stinked? of fish in those days, but doesn't anymore. Now it smells like bread.

True Grain Bakery bakes great bread every morning, and people come from far and wide to buy it. My family buys their bread exclusively from here - a spelt loaf about twice a week, and a spelt baguette once in a while. They also have oatmeal and cream of spelt cereal, and I buy flour and wheat and spelt bran from there. So every weekend we come and have coffee and buy bread. And it's a great place for people watching, which is refreshing because Duncan can be so slow, it's nice to be surrounded by the hustle and bustle of people! It's great to see a little bakery so busy and thriving, and I believe it's the best of what the Cowichan Valley has to offer. There are a few great places like the bakery around the valley serving natural foods and people here really appreciate it. People just stream into that little bakery all day long, it's always busy, and I'm so happy for them.

The bakery is great because it gets all its wheat & kamut from the Canadian prairies, and gets spelt from BC when it's available and it's all organic grains. They don't use commercial yeast leavening. And then they have a little flour mill right on the premises, and they grind everything there, and bake with it. It's fresh and you know where the ingredients are coming from. They also use organic Avalon bakery milk, and other things like that. And they make a nice Americano. I really wish they had a place like this in Vancouver. They were hiring a baker's apprentice a few months ago and I seriously considered taking the position, learning how to do it, and then open up a place like it in Vancouver. But I don't think I'm that much of a baker at heart to dedicate my life to it like that, I'll just have to appreciate True Grain Bakery every time I come back to the Island.

VIP Beauty School-Be a master of your own life

Yesterday I was off work due to a pulled muscle, so I went to the VIP Beauty School in downtown Duncan to ask if I could take some photos there. The bosses were out so I have to go back and ask again when I have another day off, possibly at the beginning of June. But I did take this shot with my digital camera. It totally interests me how it's like a fresh start is promised if you take your courses there. I would absolutely love to do a photo shoot there. Also, I was thinking of doing a series on home based businesses, like around here you'll see people with little signs for a hair dresser's shop, and it's in their basement. I think both of these ideas are about the promise of beauty and how they're packaged, and also it's "women's work", so it has a feminist sensibility too.

my morning commute - four eyes

My morning commute is special. It's like my own personal tour de france, as I ride my bike up hills, hills and more hills, fly down hills, pass the farm called "Flying Bird Farm" and feel exhilarated as little birds fly out in front of me and my bike and I also feel like I'm flying with them. It's hard work but I'm enjoying the scenery.

These photos were from my Friday morning commute. It's at Flying Bird Farm. The cows were all "Mooove along now." Because they're protective of the babies, of which there are about six, but I didn't really even count. Duncan is pretty purdy.

Flogging carpets is not as glamourous as it sounds

This dear lady was spotted in Ladysmith. I think she has grown weary of her profession - no one is buying. Please notice the gash on her head (click image for a closer look-see). Poor lady, when will you ever come out of there?

I will show more of her friends/coworkers in the next coupla days.

self serve

This photo looks photoshoped, but it's not, it's just that my camera shaded the reflection on the window. The building reflected in the window has a swastika pattern. Most definitely built before World War II.

it's Norma!

24" x 24" oil on panel.
Norma is my grandma's friend. She's married to Don Levers who has no front teeth. I really fell in love with Norma while painting her! she's so cool. I haven't seen her for several years.
I wanted to take the idea of Process painting we did in Elizabeth's class (letting chance choose composition, colours, etc) except apply it to a representational painting as opposed to an abstract image. So I took my mom's bowling team photo from 1975, put a grid on it, and drew cards to see which square on the grid I would paint, and then drew another card for the scale. So this is actually #9 out of 9. Eight more to go! It'll be good practice for representational painting skills, anyhow. Sorry for the crappy photo doc. Any critiques are welcome!
Oh you can actually see the original photo on the top left of the blog.

Wigwam Cafe - Ladysmith

I like this cafe because it's called the Wigwam which is like a First Nations shelter from Manitoba, they serve the Chinese food buffet and they call it a Smorgasbord.


I totally need to do a photo project to document all of these restaurants like this one, because I think they'll be going extinct soon. There's still quite a lot in all the towns up and down the island. Must get a tripod!

it's Bob!

After having glazed over eyes due to Duncanitis, it was great to hang out with Amy Zion and Jenn Jackson in Vancouver on Wednesday before they went to Edmonton for the summer.

Amy and I walked through the ECI undergrad show and we both agreed that the stronger pieces were the ones in which some theory was considered, or was informing the work. But like Amy was saying, purely theoretical work is crap and so is decorative work. She said there must be a happy medium.

But how do you come to that medium? I find it's really important to engage with theory, and then forget about it. I love how Agnes Martin waits for inspiration and then paints the image that pops into her head, fully formed. This is not rational and is completely appealing to me. I think you just have to do what compels you, without fully knowing why it's compelling, and meaning unfolds from it or not. This is how I want to work. Being too conscious of the motivation behind the work could make it didactic or contrived.

What would Bob say?

new studio space

Finally, my own painting space! I set it up in my parent's sunroom, so there's lots of light, but it's pretty dark when the sun goes down. It's so nice to not have to clean up like at school and carry all my painting supplies down the stairs, over to the other building, up the stairs and put it in my locker, of which by the end of the semester I got too lazy for anyway and just started stashing stuff in the cubby holes in our painting room. I set this up yesterday and painted quite a bit, it was nice!

I'm going crazy out there at the lake

Can you name the movie that line is from? Anyhow, it's only been one week in Dunkie, and I'm already feeling a little cabin fever, it's so slow and low and a little depressing. So, as an anti-dote to that, I'll add some photos on a regular basis of life on the streets of good old Duncan.



This is the Totem Restaurant

the email that started a blog

The email I got from the RISD exchange coordinator Katherine saying I got into the exchange program. This was really exciting to hear after waiting and waiting and wondering and trying not to get my hopes up.

The email said classes start Sept. 12, and that I should come a week before to get settled. Katherine also said she talked to the painting instructor who said she would allow me to get into the third year studio class, which is great news, because by the time exchange students get to register (in September) all the classes are full and it's up to the exchange students to talk the instructors into letting them in (but they're usually pretty good about it). I'll also try to get into the Photo III class as well.

There's going to be an exchange breakfast on Sept. 10, so I'll take pictures of that and post them here.

My ceramics teacher, Jeremy, just left to go teach at RISD this summer, I'll have to get in touch with him, maybe I'll take over his apartment or something like that.