Preparing to fix step

 Here is the deplorable state of the front step. The carpet had certainly be holding it together until recently. Geremy was here on William's birthday and felt it break under his foot. The metal is all very rusty and it isn't just that step, it is all of them. I bought materials to rebuild them. Meanwhile, we have partial power in the garage. 

Hot day

 Hot day, about 30 degrees. Soft serve will be off for the winteras Desarts soon so we went for cones. 

Constant forward movement

Sand animation in class today. Dianne wanted to learn so she took a work break and watched and participated. 

When I got home, the garage door was on (no power yet, so fully manual). 
 

Walls up

Walls went up in the morning. Roof went on in the afternoon. By the time I was home, we even had the concrete ramp and a door. 
 

Garage walls

Walls for garage are assembled and lying on the curing concrete. Progress is rapid. 
 

Painting security

 Painted this security camera from Noelle. It is the last of this batch of cameras from her, but she says she have another batch put together already. She is now my number one camera source, beating out Richard and Wayne. 

Under the steps

 Crawled under the front steps (yes, it is full of sand, and yes, it is open to the cats, and yes....). The metal of the steps is severely rusted so my small repair of a single step is not going to cut it. 

Garage progress

 Walls being built today. Mark is working alone. He also sawed lines through the concrete so that when it inevitably cracks, those cracks are controlled/guided to those cuts. 

Bathroom ceiling

 

We finally fixed the cracks in the bathroom ceiling and gave it a fresh coat of paint. 

Cement poured

 Cement truck arrived at 7:30 and we had driveway poured by 8. Much more time getting it all smooth and ready for building but a huge step forward. Neighbour Dave G was awoken and annoyed but got over it. Tom came over and chatted with Mike for a while as they have similar firefighting backgrounds and Tom couldn't start his painting job yet as it was too cold (went below zero last night). William spent day in painting studio. 

Garage: old pad torn up

 First thing this morning the crew arrived and tore up the old pad from the driveway (plus part of the sidewalk that I never got to all those years ago), then put in the form for the cement which arrives tomorrow. 

reflecting on camera

 Put a tiny self portrait into the reflective button on this camera painting. 

Bigfoot cat

 Dropped off baking pan with Amy and borrowed some cameras and met a cat she is fostering: "bigfoot" who just had a litter of kittens. 

Yesterday I painted a Barbie camera with a Barbie (or hier 1966 sister Skipper). 

Dad and errands

 

Ran a bunch or errands today, mostly looking for used dvds of war movies to supplement my course. Visited dad for a while. He seemed tired but smiled a lot and seemed in good humour. We didn't get up or walk around or anything. It looks like he ate lunch in his room, but there were only tiny scraps of bread crust remaining, so he must have been hungry. 

William in his studio

 As a senior student painter, William has his own studio now. I think he is the most junior of the senior painters as he has the least private studio with no window, but cool nonetheless. 

Erik's hi-8 tapes

 Earlier this summer when Erik was in town, I promised to digitize a bunch of his hi-8 tapes, them promptly forgot about them. Actually I brought them to my office and put them in the middle of my desk, figuring I would be there a lot doing class prep, which I did at home instead. This week I dove into the tapes. Our hi-8 deck isn't really working well, but a firewire digital 8 deck is humming and is patched into an old Mac which still has a firewire port. 

Cave

 Video cave is installed this week in the Education building. Looks pretty nice although I felt a bit of vertigo trying to watch the videos (although half the time I was also looking around at the ceiling, the projectors, the seams in the video, etc - so that would have impacted my response. 

New fish

 Three of our four new guppies have died. I purchased a catfish today. Nice looking critter, although he likes to hide in the rock. 

survey markers

Surveyors returned today and we have the clear markers for the contractor to begin with our garage. To celebrate, I made biscotti. 

 

Swampfest concludes

I visited dad just after lunch. He seemed happy but low energy. When I got to Swampfest, Reginald was doing his duty. In fact, he'd even negotiated peace with Piper the Pirate.

 

Dangers of Swampfest

Swampfest today had experienced adventurer and man-of-the-world Reginald protecting the ferry which shuttled people back and forth to Willow Island. Pirates were seen frequently but he kept everyone safe. 

 

Swampfest begins

 William and headed out to the very loud music of Swampfest tonight. I was particularly interested in seeing the inside of the YWCA, which I've not been inside in close to 50 years. William was able to get clarification on his role in the festival (which starts for him tomorrow). 

Reception at gallery

 Nice reception at gallery today. John Hampton, Deb Potter, and many others came by to see the show. 

Hosting and gallery sitting at Fifth Parallel

Nice flow of people at the gallery today as I took my major turn at sitting with the gallery, hosting and facilitating. William was in class but popped in a couple of times. Dianne came and checked out the wolf skeleton. 

 

Setting up to shoot animation

 Second day of animation. We were in the studio mostly. Most of them are not quite ready to fully engage as a group yet, but we'll get there. I like to make the most of there being a group. Animating in isolation is natural, so when we have a bunch of people together we need to work and think differently. The studio is one good place for that. Collaborative puppets and cut outs is also good. That comes soon enough. 

Gallery exhibition open

 Sixteen artists, including myself, opened at the Fifth Parallel Gallery on campus today. 

William made this pinhole camera to expose images onto super 8 without a camera. I've painted it. It may have broken so he needs to disassemble it and figure it out.  It may be because I was painting, but for some reason we ate refried spaghetti on the deck. As I write this entry 8 days later, William looks at the photo and cannot recall this even ever happening. 

 

Empty compost

 I can't wait until we have our garage. I've become increasingly obsessed with moving things around and trying to make the yard balance and comfortable. I completely emptied the two compost bins earlier and put all of that onto the flower gardens. They should be nice in the spring. 

Sneak peak

 William and I popped in to Slate Gallery during the show change day (they are still open) and chatted with Heather Cline as her work for her solo show is being unpacked and arranged around the gallery. 

Installed

 Expanded from a plan for 9 paintings to hang, to putting up two rows of nine. Once those were up this morning in the Fifth Parallel Gallery at the UofR, I looked at it and knew it needed a third row. Fortunately I'd streamlined the system Jessie suggested of glue gunning wires to the back and was able to go home, pick an additional nine, wire them, and hang them this afternoon. 

Swampfest at Quick and Dirty

Quick and Dirty this month, live at the Artesian but also streaming, featured four talks on Swampfest. Neil Adams gave a fairly straight forward history of the festival woven together with his own personal history of arts involvement which stood as a sort of manifesto for community engagement. Sean Dunham followed suit, adding only minor details. His photos of himself in his own campy costumes were funny but he seemed to be compelled to repeatedly pull back the curtain of the Swampfest mythology and reveal who is within costumes, who made up the tall tales, and how it is all fake. It actually made me feel very unengaged with the whole thing. Fortunately musical performer Emma New energized the room with her rapid ramble about her musical career for which no one has been more surprised than herself. TAB took the stage, along with interpreter Neil, and had the audience rolling in the aisles. Would have been better if the people viewing from home had attended and given the event some presence. We are all getting tired of talking to the aether.