Starting holidies

Having submitted my (undergrad) grades, it finally started feeling like holidays are near. We lunched with Geremy then William and I visited dad. He was amiable but not talkative. 

When I got home, I brough the tree in and got it set up in the stand with water. I think it is a bit dry. Drank a lot of water and more needles are falling than I'd like.  

 

New MAG show

 Margaret had to work but William and I headed to Mackenzie to see the new exhibition; Anthony Thorn retrospective as well as a showcase of ten artists of Saskatchewan of 1955 (pictured above). Great stuff. Staff kept asking us if we were there for the party. Tons of people were at a function on the second floor. Security confirmed that the food looked good, but we didn't crash. 

Bought a tree

 Bought our tree. Storing in garage until we are ready to put it up. Decent size but smaller than many we have purchased in the past. $65. 

War film

This term I've been meeting with Jessie Short every week to look at and discuss war films as part of her graduate work. This week, being the last of the term, I went far afield with Guy Maddin's Archangel. I'd not really looked at it as a war film before, even though war is ever present throughout (the bombing and gunfire sounds in the background almost never stop). The film is more about memory and masculinity than war, but seeing in through this lens was interesting. Many of the tropes are not present because the main character has amnesia and so issues of nostalgia and missing home is confounded. More thought on this is needed. 

St. Nicholas Day

 

We considered putting it off until tomorrow, but it seems that St. Nicholas comes but once to fill your shoes, so this morning we binged on chocolate and lego mini-figs (Margaret had to assemble the Christmas baby Yoda). 

Drawing near the end of term

William's last project of the term, a large drawing about the Rat King, is due tomorrow. Moved him to the kitchen for final details. 
 

New book from Steve Wolfson

 Steve launched his new children's book, "Aunty Jane Knits up a Storm" at the Penny University Book Store on 13th Avenue. I got a copy with a nice inscription. It's a terrific read with cool artwork. We ended up talking at length about Florida and watching the space launch with his son a few weeks back. Very exciting. 

Early early early this morning

 Last night (up until this morning) Paper Umbrella extended its hours beyond the annual late night session along 13th avenue to (as with every year) outdo the rest of the block by staying open all night. William has a major paper due but we took a break at about 1 AM to visit and buy some pens and drink some cider.  

William presents two projects

 On the threshold of burnout, William staggers up to class (classes) with two major projects to present in photography and painting today. He'd have worked all night fine tuning had I not insisted he sleep. He still has a paper to finish writing tonight. 

Revisiting "Zip"

 Tyler Banadyga's film "Zip" starring Jason Hipfner ran at the RPL again. We were a bit annoyed that the image was stretched to 16:9 from its original 4:3 super-8 aspect ration. No projectionist on duty so no one knew how to fix it. William hasn't seen it but couldn't go as he is swamped with homework (2 project due tomorrow). I'd forgotten a lot of what the film was saying since last seeing it 12 years ago. It really is about the nature of youth and the expectation that they have something to say, which quite often they do not. Quoting books replaces actual content. Why do we expect so much from them? 

The Weight of Sock-Vile

As Erik and Stephen work at sound and music, I've been trying to do final corrections to the picture (see glitch below) and editing of Sock-Vile. It was shot nearly 12 years ago and has moved between many computers, growing with each move and each revision and each software upgrade. I don't know how it has 88 thousand files in it, but there it is. My next step is colour correction and the final hand-painted credits. 
 

Catching up day

 Visited dad today. Saw mom there as well. Also did some writing and other work stuff, then took some evening time to paint. William was at class then stayed at university to paint until 8. He got a pretty cool painting finished. 

Curtains for Sockvile

 Still tinkering with Sock-Vile. Today I was feeling sheepish about the phony, digital manipulated curtain scene so I reshot them so they could be more natural. Did it in computer room so that I could perform the pulling back of them in sync with the images as I ran them. While this ended up taking me at least a couple of hours, that was nothing compared with the time I wasted struggling to make the poorly shot curtains look like they are moving by using video tricks. Happier now, but am thinking I should take another year re-doing even more things. 

SIFA awards

 I attended the SIFA awards hosted by the Filmpool at the museum this evening. Much smaller event than in the past. Strange to not have the pomp and fanfare like other years. I hated that stuff, but still feels odd to not have it there. Very low key. Happy to have voted for Curtis for audience favorite for his Pot Head web series. 

Kyath Battie talk

MAP Speaker Series this afternoon: Kyath showed some amazing films that she's been working on over the past few years, starting with what she shot at the film farm in 2018. 

Raegan Moynes exhibition

 

Dropped past Fifth Parallel Gallery and took a look at Raegan Moynes MFA exhibition. 

Gnomes

 What I described yesterday worked all right. Everything a bit rushed and sloppy, but the lesson delivered. Here is one little thing I made with clay and glass: 

Testing rear projection

 To avoid technical problems like last week, I set up a rear projection and camera and other stuff today so that class should go smoothly this week. Set up is complicated. Performer will need to hold still, moving like an animated figure, captured live with a high 8 camera with image fed to a mini-projector which shines onto a rear screen in front of which will be an animated model being photographed by another camera which feeds into the computer running Dragon Frame and that computer feeds its signal up the the class projector so everyone can watch. 

Moe Money

 $500 today. Still won't vote for him. 

Grey Cup

 Weather was nice for the Grey Cup. We didn't go, of course. Jets flew over a couple of times but otherwise we didn't hear much. 

Neutral Ground party

Neutral Ground turns 40 and had a 1980s party. I wore shirt painted by Pukka-T in 1988 and my coat from 1987. When the band covered "Eye of the Tiger" we knew it was time to leave. 
 

Roots in sewer

 Our sewer line continues to be perfect since redoing it 25 years ago. However, roots are getting into the city side of things and giving us problems for the second time. Guys came and routed out out. Bill goes to the city and is taken off of our water bill. 

Praxiniscope

 In class  yesterday we did a session on the praxiniscope. They all worked then watched in class, rather than me letting them take home the pattern - no one has ever returned with praxiniscope drawings from home to view them in one of my classes. Having work time in class is proving very fun. My rotoscope session messed up (technical problems of mine) so at least something worked. 

William getting very busy

 As tje term comes near the end. William is more busy than ever on projects and having difficulties keeping up with extra stuff like his radio show. Tyler Banadyga came to the house this evening and they recorded enough solid stuff for two shows. 

Liking the fake wood

 Wood in my paintings almost always messes me up. This one is more just a bit brown, although the plastic surface seems to evoke wood in some way. Work well anyway. 

No socks

Visited dad. He was in the sitting room at the end of the hallway with slippers but no socks. I thought this unusual, but since found out that he is no longer as obsessed with having socks as I'd though. 

 Got home to find William had been doing his new rat king character in watercolour. 

Gertrud's birthday and explosion

 After we visited with Gertrud on her birthday, William and I drove around the area where a house blew up this morning. It was blocked by police and, as the weather was cold, we didn't try to hike in. Ends up it was an empty house and a gas explosion. Nothing Breaking Bad - like. 

William back at cyanotypes

 William has been doing his cyanotpes at home. Results have been imperfect. The film strips seem to refuse to flatten against the paper, even though he has a heavy piece of plate glass on top of them. 

Painting again

 Throughout the fall I have not been painting as much as I should. It does tend to relax me but I have so many things I'm worrying about that I believe I should be working on that I will not give myself the time to paint. Very negative circle. Add to that, my turntable was in being repaired and Margaret has been writing (so I've tried to keep off the table and be more quiet) so I have not had the right head space (created through music) to get into the groove. 

Felicia Gay at the MacKenzie

 Felicia Gay did a talk this evening at the MacKenzie regarding her curatorial practice and her current exhibition on Faye HeavyShield. Margaret was working and William is drawing (below) so I went alone. The talk often leaned towards stories (in which she is generally talking about First Nations traditional stories) as not being legends and not being metaphors but being true and being living things. She talked about blood memory. I get to wondering where the differences between art theory and religion lie. 

Fred at 90

 Margaret's father, Fred Bessai, turned 90 today. Lots of flowers sent to the house. 

Work bench plans

 Sean was kind enough to show me his work benches so that I can try to figure out how I should build one for the garage. This will likely need to wait until spring. 

Winter painting

Winter is now here. I still have lots of things to catch up on and to plan for, but am feeling more free to paint now. Record player working again (Kevin at Audio Warehouse couldn't find a new replacement for the micro-switch that turns it on/off, but was able to salvage a switch from an old turntable). Put on some Warren Zevon while painting this camera from Amy Snider. 

Winter

 Winter is here. This won't go away until spring. We finally parked in the garage. I've very seldomly every parked in a garage. Our old one was small and did park in it in the winter for a few years, but not in at least ten years. 

Katherine on the radio

 I think that William and his cousin Katherine had a pretty good time (65 minutes to be precise) talking about comics for his radio show. 

Upon listening to it later, I was surprised that they misinterpreted the Lio strip where the information sign refers to the idea that the monolith has a history of imparting great knowledge onto people (such as teaching the cave people how to use a bone as a weapon). 

Two camera paintings

 Painted this Rebel camera today (above). Painted this other older camera from multiple sides last week.