Skype with June

Did a Skype lecture for June to her media class in St. John on the topic of experimental film today. There were a couple of questions, but it's difficult to hear and to connect so mostly it is a one way communication.
Painted the Bolex again. The snow last night stopped Ward from getting to town. On top of that, the heat was off in the Balkwill Centre. I have a couple mistakes that I 'll really want to fix on this painting as a result of weather, cold, and rushing to get to the lecture in time.

Arthur and family visit

Gertud and Fred's old friend Arthur came up from Australia for a visit, bringing his whole family (or at least those that could go) on a world tour. From Regina they will hit Niagara Falls then I believe Berlin. I thought we'd stop in to say hi to just Arthur, but then discovered the whole group and we stuck around, eventually joining them all for supper at Gulf's. Lots of great chats about life in the arts, travel, tv, family, and food. 

Pile of Bones Film Festival

Jon Tewksbury has once again proven his adeptness in programming films with the fourth annual (I hope there are more!) Pile of Bones film festival. The single evening event included over a dozen short films, all with a sense of humour and a sense of space, and both of those things belonging to the prairies. It's difficult to pin down what the inherent prairie sensibility was in this year's films (I'm not sure if last year fest quite this way) but it certainly included a sense of loneliness and more than a dash of desperation. I felt very connected to the work and regret that summer events distracted me from entering anything myself. Regardless, I was treated like I was a programmed filmmaker anyway and we all went across the street for drinks and snacks after the films. William enjoyed connecting in this way as well and experienced post-event barroom festivities for the first time.

When we were leaving, the snow started. 

Amaile Atkins opens at Art Gallery of Regina

I was supper pumped to see Amalie Atkins' new exhibition at the AGR this weekend. I ran into her in the parking lot and got to say hi, but it was cold and I was carrying a wet painting so we didn't chat. When evening came, I had a massive headache, perhaps a minor migraine, and was in a daze for the whole talk. I don't think I could repeat a single thing that she said. 

Microscopic camera

I ordered a small microscopic camera from Amazon (it is the one that has been popping up on Facebook every day). It works when I have it connected to the computer but I've not figured out how to connect it to the tablet yet, even though it is obviously meant to be used that way. 

Pixelvision camera painting

Painted my PXL 2000 camera today. It's such an odd shape that I made quite a few errors but generally they are invisible if you aren't comparing the painting to the original. Staying loose. Deb is suggesting more smudges outside of the camera and brought some images from Art Now to inspire. 

Quick and Dirty

Some solid talks mixed with some weaker ones tonight at quick and dirty. The speakers were primarily restaurant owners, and brewers along with a writer and a skrunchy maker. It's always surprising who ends up being engaging or not. 

Painting again

For the first time, I have repeated a camera that I'm painting. This isn't because I've run out but because I'm committing my Monday paint sessions to the Bolex, in particular to an old Bolex I own that has a large zoom lens affixed to it. Today I did just the lens and I worked only with a large (1" wide) brush. It was a nice new challenge. Ward said I did well.
William had his first session at physio, even though his doctor doesn't want him doing any actual physio until the metal has bonded firmly with the bones. Margaret took him while I painted. Meanwhile, her collage collective were hanging a new set of works in the hallway without her. One of her pieces was assembled with magnets and proved unmanageable and was not hung.

no work done today

Lunch at mom and dad's. Sean and Ruth and Quinn came too. Pleasant. Then chair shopping at Alfred's. Sale has everything about 1/4 to 1/3 off but all sales cash and final. Didn't settle on anything.

Home all day

Stayed home all day. Had a nap. Animated. This is the sort of thing I need to do every day. Nothing new in this animation but I am mostly just repeating the processes I'm learning until they become second nature. Not there yet. I'm making mistakes and trying to fix them instead of doing it all again. Fixing things is proving to be harder of those choices. This is based on a tiger from the Winnipeg zoo.

Taking art breaks

 William has Fridays off so we both ended up working at home most of the day. Simon and his crew were working on our south wall (below) which does have a few big cracks so I guess it is a good idea we have it repaired. They'll break for the weekend, so the yard is a bit unmanageable for now. We took a break to head to the MacKenzie to see Mitchell Wiebe's work, still in progress even though he opened the show yesterday (that we missed due to Art Now). We'd met Mitchell last week at Swampfest so I was quite anxious to follow up with seeing his art and to meet him again. It is a dizzying display of glam items, bold colours, and stream of consciousness design making me feel at times like I'm in his house, and other times like I am in his brain.

 In the evening, Margaret and William attended a fountain pen event at Paper Umbrella. While I really support and encourage such activities, I don't know what possessed me to go myself. I didn't have a chair and didn't have commonality with the people there, so I opted to walk around outside and listen to the radio in the car. William did a couple drawings, had some conversations, and won a door prize pen.

Zebra stripes

Mostly trial and error led me to getting stripes onto my zebra. Next step is figuring out how to make the whole figure rise and fall as a nested animation. Such actions will make it much less robotic. It should be easy but again, some aspect of it eludes me. 

Art Now event

This evening we attended the the Art Now event with a couple dozen prairie commercial art galleries putting work on display (for sale). I bought Margaret a small piece but it won't be revealed until her birthday. Had a great conversation with Carmen Milenkovic (Ian has art photos for sale), and Mark Sexton who generously walked us through each of the characters in his (incomplete) chess set.

Painting with Deb

As mentioned, I'm painting two days per week this fall. Wednesday Deb Potter runs the sessions. Today I worked on this Fujica zoom delux standard 8 camera. When I opened it to show Deb the workings, we were both in agreement that it would be cool to leave it open to paint.

Digging stuff at the house

Simon started the digging this week to improve the south wall.

Allan Dotson with Swampy/TAB fight drawing

Allan came over for burgers and some drawing, bringing with him the proof copy of his new book that we've been anxiously awaiting (see bottom right corner of photo). It looks fantastic but it was also great to be able to suggest some modest changes to some of the layout.
William suggested a game about clouds that control people so we discussed the game design of that for quite a while.

Painting with Ward Schell

Given the extra time allowed by my sabbatical, and my overwhelming need to do something creative that doesn't drive me as crazy as computer animation all day, I'll be doing two painting classes. Today I started one with Ward Schell. He and I talked at great length about what I should be trying this fall and his support and enthusiasm felt very good. 

Coffee at our house

Leslea, Leif, and Dianne came for coffee. The weather turned hot and the deck was unmanageable. We retreated to the gazebo. Margaret was working. 

Al's 60th

My sister hosted a part to celebrate her husband's 60th birthday this weekend. William had a long conversation with Lori's friend Bobbi, whom I'll be seeing more this fall as she is in the painting class on Mondays. Quinn is taller than William still, but not by much.
After the party we saw a bit of Leslea and Lief at Beer Brothers. 

animation tests

Slowly figuring out Adobe Animate, but still making more mistakes than I am getting things right. What keeps happening is that I do various procedures in the wrong order and then cannot fix them without redoing things. It seems to be very dependent on what order you do things. Anyway, I have a new idea about deer. 

Jon Tewksbury screening

Nice crowd of about 30-35 people at screening I curated of Jon Tewksbury's films (along with collaborator Jason Shabatoski who unfortunately couldn't make it this evening).
LINK TO PROGRAM NOTES

Surprising new art

Chrystene Ells gave William a Kafka clock she made for her father years ago. He recognized it right away and was overcome with joy.
Later we got a guided tour of Allan's original drawings which are up at the Balkwill Centre this fall. They are also amazing. 

Nikki and Lane at Hunter Gatherer

Lunched with Nikki and Lane today. Mooky joined us later. We had a great conversation about their traveling art show, "The General Store" and about the nature of trade. Also just great all around conversation (including lots of Ponies, obviously).

End of Swampfest

Mooky was hosting Swampfest today, so that was a huge priority. William got page 3 of his 4 page Swamp comic done so that was distributed a bit but he was a bit disappointed in himself over not completing it on time. 

Late night with Swampfest artists

William, me, and Mitchell Wiebe

We went to the Saturday night Swampfest event at the soundstage. As I expected, the music was very loud and there was almost no place to sit down - the sort of thing I loved when I was younger but that I'm less interested in these days. Mostly we wanted to see the work installed by David Hoffos, which was certainly quite cool (it is ghostly projections that don't photograph easily so no images here). I hoped to make a quick escape but then we got caught up in the kitchen party, or more precicely the lobby party with long and interesting conversations with Mitchell Wiebe who took a break from installing at the MacKenzie to take in some festival, and with David Hoffos/Margo Henry who was happy to talk about art and other shit for an hour or two. Glad we came.

Me, William, and David Hoffos

Swampfest on Willow Island

Afternoon on Willow Island. I mostly listened to music and talked with Mike Rollo and Allan. William was all over the place, playing Allan's commissioned swamp game, drawing, trading with "The General Store", and having conversations about who knows what. He posed a little scene with TAB at the end of the afternoon without even knowing TAB's secret identity...

Stickers at Swampfest

Swampfest opened today (Friday). The highlight this evening for us personally was that William was commissioned ($) to create stickers for the touring "Scummy Magic" machine. You can get a randomly selected one in three sticker for a dollar. Tonight was at the German Club. It moves to Willow Island tomorrow.