Halloween

Nice Halloween. William didn't go to any houses, although he was dressed as Italian Spiderman. Geremy, Ellen, and Rory came over. Weather was good. Got 56 kids. 

Carving pumpkins

Margaret and William were carving pumpkins when I got home from work. Later, after Talkies with "Clash of the Titans", Allan and I also carved a pumpkin each. 

book making madness

William has been struggling to even find the light at the end of the tunnel on an art book project he's been working on for a couple of weeks. It has so many inexplicable details he wants to include that he is almost paralyzed with decisions. One part I didn't even know existed until he was laying it out was a big fold out map, all done with the fragile old 1950s paper. 

a Sunday

Baked biscotti, organized my game stuff, and prodded William towards progressing on his already late art-book project. Supper was at Margaret's parents' church. Cabbage rolls but no perogies. Turkey but no jellied salad. Lemon pie was nice. While the gang was at Geremy's, we made contact with Rob and felt the tension of his impending move out of the house. 

Filmpool screening

This weekend there was a pretty interesting screening of prairie films, many being performance based and quite comical, curated by Colton Bates and Amber Christensen. Good crowd of a couple of dozen as well asa bunch of filmmakers in attendance. 

William university acceptance

William got an acceptance letter to the UofR MAP including an offer of a $1000 entrance scholarship. Of course they spelled "Saul" wrong, which I'll need to bring to someone's attention. 

Gazebo temporarily in place

Thanks to Paul, Margaret, and William, we put the gazebo temporarily into the place it will be installed. In the spring I'll need to tamp the crusher dust and lay blocks then reinstall it here. Until then, it is stable, level, and out of the way. 

Berny and Sandra in gallery

Congratulations to Berny Hi and Sandra Staples-Jetko for their group exhibition at the Fifth Parallel at the University. Everything is a work in progress (which would be a good title for a show like this) as Berny was still making alterations to his work a half hour before the reception and Sandra, knowing better than to try to do that herself, also had ideas for how to change the work that the audience was yet to see. That's grad school for you. 

Painted an old 110

This week in painting I did Margaret's old 110 camera, including her initial in one corner, with an off-scale flash bulb (instead of the required magic cube) supplied generously by Geremy. Lori is working on an apple. 

basement sorting

With the tool room now re-arranged, sorted, cleaned, and purged, I will need to take on the art/studio room, also in the basement. I have made progress on it a couple of times but this will be a much bigger cleanup than ever. Here is the before picture. I expect this to take a few weeks. 

Family over for cake

I made two cheesecakes for the weekend. On Saturday we brought one to Ivana and Kathy's across the street (I thought it was the lemon one but it was the mango one). Sunday's cheesecake was for family (lemon finally) with George (not pictured), Lori and Al (the boys are busy with mid-terms), my parents and Margaret's parents. 

William early admission application

William and I headed down to the university for their open house and early admissions sessions. He got his unofficial transcripts from the high school and filled in the forms. We dropped into a few booths and got some pens and information, but didn't attend any of the longer break out sessions. On his forms he expressed interest in MAP and Science. The rest of the day was taken up working on his art book.  

Convocation

Congratulations to the University of Regina students who convocated today. In particular, a bit call out to MFA grad Jesse Goddard and Master of Education Ellen Lague. Great to see you today.

Medical tests

Morning at the hospital with no answers or suggestions. Missed a big meeting for it. Don't know which would be better. 

another camera

Deb suggested that some of my background (applied ahead of time with a pallet knife) looked like it could be a shadow of the camera. Wondered if I should remove it as I want the cameras to be outside of the context of the real world, to be studies of the essence of cameras, not of cameras doing things of being some place. 

Margaret's birthday

Happy fiftieth birthday. We had a busy but nice day. I'm feeling guilty that I've not managed to put together a party. Korean BBQ was good (thanks for picking up the tab Paul). 

Grape Jelly

Tried to make grape jelly with the grapes Mom brought me from BC. Everything worked except the jelly part. Totally liquid. Don't know how long to leave them in hope of jell. 

another finger puppet workshop

Margaret repeated her finger puppet workshop today at the Dunlop. It apparently went very well. William worked on his art and we didn't attend this time. Big progress on William's box project which I'll post about elsewhere. 

Carmen Angel

William and I attended the final (held over) performance of Joey Tremblay's play "Carmen Angel" at the John Paul Centre. The space was strange, being sort of an "L" shape so that the audience was divided into two wings, neither of which could see all the action. The performances were strong (Jayden Pfeifer never lets you down) and direction was good (Joey co-directed with Judy Wensel) but I left feeling that the script didn't do much for me. I think this is a revision of a play he wrote quite a few years ago and it seemed a bit too poetic and in the end doesn't say much. It is a bit of a murder mystery, which had a nice surprise so that was fun, but as a social/psychological critique.... I'm less certain. 

Drinks with Grad students

We had pizza a beer with grad students this afternoon, welcoming them to a new year. I had a lengthy conversation with Peter about cult tv and star ships as bodies. 

New stand mixer

Margaret bought me a new (RED) stand mixer. Our old one has been repaired a few times and is making some struggling noises. The new one is just slightly bigger but has a more powerful motor. We made some cookies to break it in. Mom arrived back from BC with grapes for us. 

Berny's studio and Gabriela's Slate opening

Met with Berny this afternoon and talked about his projections and a bunch of big and small ideas around it. I like that he is investigating narrative in it, although by their nature, loops resist complex story. 

After work we headed over to Gabriela Garcia-Luna's opening at Slate. Her photographic work has tremendous texture to it and I told her how I found myself looking at some of them from an angle to see if they really did have depth. Cool stuff. 

Photos of paintings of cameras

So long as you don't enlarge them, my paintings look okay in small photos (much better than in real life). 

animation tricks

We were working with rear and front projections in animation today.

Thanksgiving art day

William working ahead on his art projects, having to do a large drawing of something small. He has his treasured dead dragonfly he found on the deck this summer. 

Finishing touches on my film

Completed a short film I'm calling "The Lost Art of Inertia" based upon the first roll of 35mm film I shot with my WWII camera a few months ago. It is primarily a study of rhythm and and experiment with some sound editing I've been thinking about. The finishing touches this weekend allowed me to enter it into the SIFAs. I like to get something to them that has not been shown before, when possible, although this strategy has always failed to get a fall screening and nomination. My only nomination with them was with Eyes of Sorrow Moon which had already shown for two months at the Dunlop and at the CCE print show after that and a handful of festivals. Fingers crossed I suppose. 

Typing my credits onto my film

Film credits now include 18% more punk.

art creating on day off

I stayed home sick today but made major progress on my new film "The Lost Art of Inertia" while multitasking around the house, cooking and cleaning, while William and Margaret learned some image transfer techniques at Gerda's and went to a birthday party for Debra. William made a good contact with the new editor of the Cathedral Village Voice so hopefully Beardo will return soon.

Down with a cold

Last night I started sneezing and today I had a harsh cold all day. I had to go to work for a couple of meetings but kept them short. Stopped at Mazda to figure out an indicator light that had come on the other day (no big deal, took two minutes) and saw the Marsha Kennedy exhibition at Slate Gallery before it closes this weekend. Marsha's work is amazingly detailed, as always, but this new work takes an uncanny turn as she takes the dead birds she frequently uses and mixes them with images of people taken from old photographs. Eerie and wonderful.

Marsha Kennedy painting at Slate Gallery in Regina, Oct 2018