regina

the japanese text says, “what are you doing? dog eat dog?” in kansai dialect.

it’s hard to be a girl with a fish-hand sometimes…

another drawing from my show in regina this summer.

this drawing will be included for sale on my online shop…

…opening monday!

UPDATE: you can buy this drawing from my SHOP.

the japanese text says, “you know what? you smell a bit fishy…” in kansai dialect, which is the standard japanese… to me :P

i drew this for my show in regina. it will be included for sale on my online shop.

UPDATE: you can buy this drawing from my SHOP.

(click to enlarge the image)

…you were my friend…

colour pencil drawing on paper (9 x 12″). this original drawing will be for sale on my online shop. the writing on the left says the same thing in japanese. it’s written in the real japanese: kansai dialect.

i found a pretty shop called “paper umbrella” in regina. the owner is very friendly. he sells pretty japanese paper as well as other stylish kitschy items. i bought a tiny japanese notebook made by kokuyo. it’s only 4 x 2 3/4″. of course, i bought a white one :)

among other things, i bought a bag of scrap japanese paper. i don’t make scrapbooks, but i can’t help being attracted by the idea of “scraps” - the useless and unwanted, full of imperfection. they could have been thrown away, but now they are with me. these strips of paper on only about 2-3cm wide. they’re the cutoff ends of bigger sheets of paper. i arranged the strips side by side, and took a photo of them. now they’re on my blog.

in a similar way, i find $1 store items very attractive. most of the stuff sold in dollar stores is, as you know, real junk. but some it is still very attractive to me. these cheap consumer goods weren’t made to be perfect. the workers were probably paid unfairly and had no time to make their products look good at all. but sometimes, their nonchalant efforts make a delicious item. for example, this emergency raincoat. i don’t know why they made this — i don’t even understand the concept of this design. and why is the guy running? but for some reason, this just looked delicious. i had to have it. now it sits on my desk in front of me.

someone’s junk is someone else’s treasure.

the reception for my regina show was saturday night. thanks to everyone who came down to see my drawings. this was my first time doing a show away from where i live, so i wasn’t sure anyone would show up. but there were more people there than i expected.

the art project gallery was opened a few years ago by regina artist rob bos (that’s him on the left with glasses). it’s been home to all sorts of interesting art projects over the years. rob was playing a video slideshow of the previous shows on a tv. i noticed some familiar faces from saskatoon, like jon vaughn and carrie gates. very cool. unfortunately, the gallery will be closing at the end of september, after the “rooms for change” group show.

the photo above was taken around midnight, as i was starting to take down my drawings (it was a closing reception). i brought my portfolio in and people started looking through it to see the drawings i didn’t put up in this show.

later that night, paul and i stopped by the freehouse at the cathedral village in regina to see brendan schick’s drawings. he does very detailed pencil drawings. i liked them all. i knew where to find his work because i met him at the reception and we had an interesting talk.

the reception was fun but a bit tiring. i have a hard time talking about art. i just love drawing.

(postcard — click to see closeup)

my show is up at the art project gallery! i went down to regina on sunday to put up my drawings. i’m pretty happy with how everything looks.

rooms for changing is a group show involving 7 artists. each does a solo show for a week, and there are collaborative pieces that we’ll all be contributing to. i’m showing in the second week (august 13 - 19) of the show.

the theme for the show is a lifecycle: birth to death, creation to destruction. each artist gets a different part of the cycle. my theme is childhood / adolescence. most of my drawings feature school children (although the childlike chracters in my drawings aren’t necessarily children). and quite a bit of my work involves transformations and cycles. so it works out pretty well.

this is the final show at the art project gallery. the gallery was opened by a local artist, robert bos. the first show there was called “changing rooms”, so the title of this show makes sort of a loop. i’m very happy to be a part of it.

i’m showing mostly new stuff, drawn since my show at phonographique in february. you can see them in my gallery, in regina group show. there is also a collection of new smaller drawings, most of which i haven’t shown on the website yet. the smaller drawings are for sale.

there will be an open reception saturday august 19th, starting at 7pm. please come by if you can.

art project gallery
1217 15th avenue, regina
open 1~5pm daily

see you there!