the ongoing saga of minouette

Happy Birthday Copernicus

2012-02-19T08:51:00.000-05:00

I read recently in the Globe and Mail that Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473, so I would like to wish him a happy birthday. He looks good for 539, no?

In case you were wondering:
This is an original 2 colour linoleum block print showing Copernicus and his model of the celestial spheres, or as we would say, the solar system. Copernicus is shown in green with a lily of the valley, the standard Renaissance symbol to indicate a medical doctor, since like most proto-scientists, or 'philosophers' (doctors of philosophy) he learned his astronomy incidentally, since astrology was considered a vital diagnostic tool for medicine. His planetary model is shown as he conceived it in gold. Using the ancient Greek and Roman symbols, the heliocentric solar system has the following planets: Mercury (the fleet-footed messenger with his serpents and staff, the caduceus), Venus (goddess of beauty - the mirror, like an ankh), Earth (4 cardinal directions), Mars (spear and shield), Jupiter (thunderbolt) and Saturn (the scythe of Time). The outer planets had yet to be discovered. Beyond Saturn, he envisioned the sphere of the "fixed stars".

Copernicus' great work, "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri sex" (or "Six Books on the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres"), commonly known as "De Revolutionibus" (or "On the Revolutions") was finally approved for publication as he lay on his death bed. Was this due to perfectionism, fears, or religious belief and the concerns that displacing the Earth from the centre of the universe might conflict with literal interpretations of the Bible - perhaps we will never know. But we do know that as a consequence of the publication of this provocative volume, the Western world experienced what is now known as the Copernican Revolution. This is a landmark in the history of science and culture.

Break out the cinnamon hearts...

2012-02-14T09:29:00.000-05:00

I hope you have a good Valentine's Day - the annual celebration of eating a frightening number of cinnamon hearts. This is a holiday I enjoyed as a child; my mother always had a heart-shaped box full of cinnamon hearts and other goodies for my brothers and I. As an adult, it seems to me like Valentine's Day has become a way to pressure couples to spend money, and to make singles feel abnormal. So I'm all for reclaiming Valentine's Day. Love is a good thing; endulge yourself (the person you should remember to love), and remember all your loved ones (friends, family, pets, whomever). If you do get to spend your day with a sweetheart, have fun, and don't let anyone tell you what symbols are necessary to show that your love is true. There's more to love than romantic love, and there's more than one way to express any sort of love. Do whatever you want to do.

I like to make (slightly irreverent) Valentines myself. I am very happy to have received a beautiful bouquet this morning. I think I was as impressed that he managed to surprise me; I have no idea where he could have hidden the flowers. RJH said Minouette helped (by agreeing not to eat said flowers). I love my little family.

Space Jellyfish Fractal Triangle Quilt

2012-02-08T12:59:00.000-05:00

Yes, you read right. Reynardin seems to have given me ~~the plague~~ her cold, but I have managed to sew with a fever this week. See, I had some completely awesome (if I do say so myself) space fabric printed with imagery I downloaded from NASA (credit: NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org). They kindly keep the vast majority of their photography open source and you can use it, though they appreciate a credit. See? I did too need more fabric.

So, I planned this quilt as a giant fractal Sierpiński Triangle, with nested lino block printed fractal Sierpiński Triangles). Also, some of the downward pointing triangles which by default are space imagery are replaced by my block printed jellyfish on dark blue fabric). I carefully arranged the triangles so that areas with nebulae were nearby one another (nebulous areas? nebularful? nebulicious?) and the starry, mostly dust-free regions were near one another. So it's space, jellyfish, fractal triangle FTW. This is just the quilt top, so this is still a work in progress. I bought some glow-in-the-dark thread for the actual quilting, bwhahaha!

I'll get some proper photos of it when it's complete.

1300 hearts!

2012-02-05T13:04:00.002-05:00

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
I don't know why I'm so silly about hearts, but I really do love watching the number of People who have favorited minouette. It broke 1300 today! Yay! A sincere thanks to each and every one.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Happy Groundhog Day!

2012-02-02T11:32:00.000-05:00

Well, it's that time of year again, midway between Solstice and Equinox, when we turn to the weather prognosticating rodents to assess of chances of better weather. Since this part of Ontario has been spared much winter at all, it may not surprise you to learn that Wiarton Willie (technically, Wee Willie, as the original, or at least, most recent albino Wiaton Willie is desceased) and his Nova Scotia cohort Shubenacadie Sam both did not see their shadows this morning. If you believe the (wildly inaccurate*) weather prognostication of rodents, readers south of the border may be dismayed that Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil disagrees, having observed his own shadow. However, this year, thanks to the positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation much of North America has had low snow cover and warmer-than-average temperatures. So, for once, I think that there has not been much winter to speak of, and the Canadian groundhogs may actually be right.

The photo, of course, is of two copies of my a groundhog and his thermochromic shadow linocut - on Japanese kozo paper 11" by 12.5" (28 cm by 31.8 cm). The shadow on the left has been heated, and thus it disappeared. So the print itself serves as a prognosticating groundhog for Groundhog Day! If the shadow is heated above 30°C (86 F) then it turns colourless. And let's face it; if it's February 2, and your artwork is > 30°C (86 F) you either a) live in the tropics north of the equator b) live in the Southern Hemisphere or c) need to turn the thermostat down ASAP. So, there's a pretty good chance that this print can accurately predict that there will not be 6 more weeks of winter (to a degree of accuracy at least comparable to any celebrity rodent).

*Estimated at 37% accuracy

Animal Pillows

2012-02-01T13:37:00.001-05:00

RJH is kind enough to let me ~~play~~ use his camera, so I've been photographing and relisting all my block printed pillows. He must really love me, cause I don't think (between you, me and the lamp-post) that I could let him borrow the gravitymeter -the differential pressure gauge maybe; that thing is damn near indestructible. Luckily, he would have little to no use for either, and the photogs view cameras as tools to be used which must not be fragile.

p.s. If you would like a new internet habit (hahaha) you can find minouette on Pinterest. Leave a link if you've got one too.

Happy Birthday Reynardin!

2012-01-24T08:18:00.001-05:00

(image: Watercolour illustration by Heinrich Leutemann from Reinecke Fuchs, circa 1880 via A Journey Around My Skull)

A very happy birthday to the one and only Reynardin!
May this year be your best ever yet!

love Minouette

An Ostentation of Peacocks

2012-01-23T14:38:00.004-05:00

I completed another print in my series on the terms of venery: the aptly named 'ostentation' of peacocks!

This lino block print is printed in metallic and pearlescent inks on Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper 12.5 inches by 8 inches, or 31.7 cm by 20.3 cm in dimension, in a slightly variable edition of eight. The pearlescent ink mimics the beautiful irridescence of those ostentatious peacock feathers. The block is inked 'à la poupée', meaning the multiple colours (indigo, apple green, turquoise and gold) are all inked at the same time, in small areas, and the print is pulled all at once.

The word 'Ostentation' is in a rather rococo and ostentatious typeface. I designed the font of 'Peacocks' to echo the feathers shapes and 'eyes' on the tail feathers.

For almost three years, I live in a rural area of Vancouver Island, in small farm house. My landlady kept a horse, chickens, a peacock and a peahen. The peacocks are beautiful, but their appeal as pets somewhat allude me. The make the most bloodcurdling screech, at a volume which put the rooster to shame. They are also unruly, proud, escape artists. They were reasonably common on the peninsula, and many times I found myself stuck crawling along a back road in my old beater of a car, waiting for an escaped peacock to cross, or retreat. Our peahen escaped regularly, and terrorized the neighbour, who was not fond of large birds. I would have thought the local bald eagles and barn owls would have been more intimidating, but I suppose they at least, stayed away from people. Whereas the peahen would loom above doorways. Personally, I think she just wanted to get away from the arrogant, preening, screeching cacophony of her would-be mate. I would run away too, if I shared a coop with anything which made that raqcket.

Happy Chinese New Year!

2012-01-23T12:30:00.000-05:00

This is a one of a kind dragon is printed in environmentally-friendly water-based block-printing ink on handmade red Chinese paper, with gold blossoms. The sheet is 11.75" (30 cm) wide by 14" (35.6 cm) tall.

The dragon is a near-universal figure in world mythologies and has quite complex symbolism. In China, the dragon is more benign than in most Western legends, and the powerful creature is the fifth in the 12-year zodiac cycle. Dragons with five claws are reserved for the Emperor- this is a three-clawed dragon, speaking the character "long" for dragon.

I hope the Year of the Dragon treats you well! Gong hei fat choy, as they say here in Toronto (as there are many different transliteration of Chinese characters into English, for many different dialects). Congratulations and be prosperous!

2011 in review, Part 2

2012-01-20T18:52:00.001-05:00

July

We flew to England on Canada Day. RJH got very sick, but was a very good sport. We spent a few days in London, where we did a lot of exploring on foot. We managed to meet one of RJH's old high school friends for dinner, and the lovely, multi-talented for brunch, both of whom were coincidentally in London, though they live elsewhere in England. I dragged poor ailing RJH all over the Tate Modern. We added The Tower to the UNESCO tally. We went to see The Monument, because Robert Hooke was a lot more than Christopher Wren's sidekick. We continued south to Southampton. My exhausting interview went well. My brave, feverish RJH drove a rented, stick-shift ~~tin can~~ car, and drove on the ~~wrong~~ left side of narrow, round-about-ridden roads, without a proper map. I think this was a cultural clash; North Americans get in the car and drive places, for hours, with the idea that they'll find a hotel at the end of the day, where ever they end up. We buy road maps at any gas station. Not having a hotel reservation, a map and a plan, seemed to bewilder people we met. However, we found Stonehenge, and a nice place to stay in Salisbury. The Cathedral was incredible, and even contained one of the handful of surviving original copies of the Magna Carta. We continued to Bath, on the recommendation of every single English person with whom we spoke. (I hadn't recognized that my sister-in-law still has family there). Sure enough, Bath was beautiful, though RJH teased me about being on the Jane Austen tour. We visited the Roman Baths, the Cathedral and enjoyed the architecture, and some surprisingly good Thai food. Though we made the mistake of arriving on graduation day, which meant traffic jams, low hotel vancancy, and some well-lubricated student celebrations. We drove south through Dorset, where the roads are narrow like Canadian logging roads; while there are mercifully no logging trucks, I confess I found lorries and hedges scared me. We stoped at Poole, and then went through Bournemouth to the New Forest, were we walked with the semi-feral ponies. We flew home and I packed and flew to Vancouver Island for our research cruise. It was beautiful, tough, with partial experimental success, and luckily, some answers to our questions. I was contacted at sea with the news about the job. We spent our time in the Stuart Channel and the Georgia Straight. Afterward, I had a chance to show our volunteers around Victoria, and visit with friends.

August

My Mercator print was requested by the Mercator Museum in Sint-Nicolaas, Belgium who will be celebrating the 500th anniversary of his birth in 2012. I gave a Euoplocephalus to theDADproject to raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society. RJH and I explored the Humber River by kayak, and the Brickwords on foot. I started experimenting making and using thermochromic ink. RJH and I went to my step-mother's cottage, and visited with Dad&K, my aunt and uncle, and K's mother. I made a bunch of tea cozies, chipmunks and dinosuars. I was featured on the Trans-Canada Etsy Team blog.

September

I became underemployed, for the first time ever. I made a lot of art, sold more than I'm used to, started gathering Canadian myths, and studying up on 'smart' materials. RJH and I explored the Scarborough Bluffs. I began a quilting course and made my second quilt. We watched the salmon run in the Humber.

October

We began October with Nuit Blanche, always an experience. My 'Cloud Classification' was on Etsy's front page and I reached 1100 hearts. I had strange negotiations about a non-job and did not go to China. My brother and his wife bought a house a few doors down from the other brother. I made more unicorns. My screech owl was on Etsy's front page. I shared my portrait of Mme Wu in time for Ada Lovelace Day. I made some mini-prints and entered the Mini Print International Asian Pacific competition. RJH, the DJ&K all ran the half-marathon. I cheered. I started a screenprinting course. I started making tapirs. We visited with Dad&K. We had a low-key Hallowe'en.

November

There was some nonsense in our building about garbage, and some garbage at work about nonsense of the BS variety. Bohemian Hellhole profiled my shop, prints, and blogs. I tried to learn Photoshop. I pursued my own projects, including some non-fiction. I submitted my Dragon to the Year of the Dragon show, and re-vamped my shop. I made some complicated, multi-colour and glow-in-the-dark screenprints. Our ceiling started leaking. I did some engineering type work in the lab.

December

I celebrated 1200 Etsy hearts and took part in the Designwali giveaway. I made more tapirs. I made a lantern and took part in the Solstice parade with F&R. They (F&R) once again hosted a beautiful solstice feast. I was able to introduce RJH to the tradition and spend time with friends, including those we rarely see (Lady Redjeep&husband and Baby E). Since K was not well, there was no Polish Christmas Eve feast, and Dad joined us at my brothers for Christmas with Mom. It went surprisingly well. RJH made a beautiful oak top to the antique map cabinet he found me. We had a cozy New Year's Eve.

2011 in review, Part 1

2012-01-20T16:41:00.002-05:00

I have friend who always reviews his year on his blog, and it seems to me a good idea.

January

I submitted a linocut once again to the international print exhibit and exchange in celebration of Chinese New Year (this time for the Year of the Rabbit). I flew off to Victoria, do deal with some BigScience things, but I took the chance to visit with some great friends, though I was foiled in my quest to brunch at the Blue Fox. Craftster kindly awarded my 'Bumblebee' with their 'Best of 2010' in the printmaking category. I was interviewed by the lovely print and textile desing blog Okyo Love.

February

I went to the opening of the 'Year of the Rabbit' show at PROOF in the Distillery district (which involved much less alcohol than that sentence seems to imply). My 'Mercator' portrait got some press. RJH spoiled me on Valentine's Day, though I don't think he realized I would have been satisfied with cinnamon hearts. I survived a FIVE HOUR teleconference/planned mutiny (moral: never piss off large groups of scientists). I celebrated 900 Etsy arts, made a bunch of art, and did quite reasonably well, for my least favorite month.

March

In March, a magnitude 8.9 earthquake hit offshore Japan, triggering a devastating tsunami. The consequences were dire. To my knowledge, no one I know was injured or killed. Though I did spend some time thinking about how my research can or cannot be usefully employed in early warning systems. I also took a second job, looking into some land-based artic seismic work. I was invited to fly back to Victoria for a job interview. We went to Brampton to look at a boat, in the snow. My boss gave an interesting public lecture, at which no one was hurt despite the combination of cryogenics, flames and methane.

April

My job status was unclear. I helped organize a craft show. I was invited to go to Halifax in the summer. Despite being asked to apply for the job in Victoria, no one bothered to tell me anything post-interview. I applied for a job in England. We really started to think about job opportunities, or lack thereof, for both marine geophysicists and photojournalists in any single spot, anywhere on the planet. The state of the apartment was pitiful, what with the leak to the tenants' downstairs and the storm gutters hanging like the sword of Damacles. RJH had a birthday. I read some books which made me so cranky I gave some serious thought to doing scientific visualization as a bigger part of my career. The Toronto Etsy Street Team had a craft show at the Gladstone, self-proclaimed centre of the universe.

May

I had a birthday. We had a very depressing federal election, though at least the surprising results for Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition suggested that there is some appetite for change. I had a bad cold. The war against the moths got more colourful when I started printing broadsides. I also made a portrait of Ernst Haeckel and Laplace's Demon. We celebrated Victoria Day, and I had 1000 Etsy hearts. My travel schedule was suddenly packed. RJH and I went to Ottawa, where I explored the Museum of Civilization and he played hockey for charity.

June

I went to a very inter-disciplinary ocean science meeting in Halifax (wherin I learned about cannibalism in fish, that "crazy" people 5000 years ago, who made the megaliths stopped doing so coincident in time with the end of warm water circulation in the North Atlantic, that the Labrador Sea is a major carbon sink though there's a price to pay in terms of acidification and assorted other things). The UNESCO World Heritage Site summer tour began, after my conference in Halifax, when RJH and I drove around Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. We visited Peggy's Cove and Lunenberg, then drove to Digby to take the ferry to Saint John, NB. We then drove to Fredericton, where we stayed with RJH's lovely friends, visited his grandparents' farm and I met his parents. We returned to Saint John to visit one of RJH's longest standing friends, then spent the night in Sussex. I was charmed by the murals, but not by the stroller-punks. The Bay of Fundy and Hopewell Rocks, and back in NS, the fossiliferous Joggins Cliffs were added to our UNESCO World Heritage site tally. I got badly sunburnt. We drove from Truro to Lunenberg (again), stopping to photograph a cheesy, fake mastodon at the world's least educational paleontology park. Then we flew home.

I was invited to interview for a university lectureship in England!

I went to New York city for a few days with my mother. We stayed in Queen's but explored Manhattan daily, saw two Broadway shoes, did some shopping (including a suit for my interview) and spent the day with an old friend I hadn't seen since grade 9. I dragged my mother to the amazing Alexander McQueen exhibit.

I returned to frantically prepare for our research cruise, which would immediately follow our trip to England. RJH and I were rear-ended when on his motorcycle. Neither of us, nor the bike were badly hurt, but it was scary.

A Bellowing of Bullfinches

2012-01-17T21:41:00.001-05:00

How could I resist a "bellowing" of bullfinches? We don't actually have bullfinches (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) here in North America, apart from the odd, very lost, Eurasian stray. We do have many other types of finches, and living next to such a huge park, we get them regularly in the back yard. Without first hand knowledge, I had to wonder, are they loud? Do they bellow? Perhaps the "bellowing" is an allusion to the 'bull' in 'bullfinch'. So, I hunted down a surprising number of YouTube videos of a bellowing of bullfinches. They do not appear shy. They do like to sing. I listened to their songs and hear triplets and short strings (tuplets) of likely irrational eighth and sixteenth notes. So, I tried to illustrate my bellowing of bullfinches bellowing their songs in this fashion.

The males are the flashy pinkish-orange breasted birds and the females are the dun colour. You know how the males like to dress to impress.

The typography is designed to match the words. The letters of 'Bellowing' ("to make the loud deep hollow sound characteristic of a bull") are hollow and capitalized. The serifs on the 'B'of bullfinch are evocative of tail feathers. The letters are cursive and organic to suit the birds.

Year of the Dragon

2012-01-16T13:39:00.000-05:00

For those on this side of the Pacific, and more specifically, here in Toronto (and elsewhere in Ontario), you can see a great, international collection of prints celebrating the Year of the Dragon, including my linocut above. Venues include: PROOF Studio Gallery (Distillery District, Toronto),OCADU (Ontario College of Art & Design University), Ottawa School of Art and Muskoka Art Place Gallery. The exhibit will premier at PROOF, January 26 - February 12, 2012, with the Opening 2-5 PM, Saturday January 28!

PROOF Studio Gallery, Studio 104, Case Goods Warehouse, Bldg. 74,
55 Mill Street, Distillery District Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5A 3C4
phone: 416 504 6761

If you are a printmaker, they will accept submissions up to January 25th so there is still some time to get involved.

Let me be the first to wish you 'Gung hee fatt choi, fung bao diu loi' ("Congratulations and be prosperous, now give me a red envelope!" ;)

Mini Print International - Asia Pacific

2012-01-16T13:12:00.000-05:00

I've just realized that I was selected as an Exhibition Finalist for the Mini Print International - Asia Pacific! I created the Winged Walrus specifically, with this exhibit in mind, but submited other "mini prints" (10 cm by 10 cm print area - roughly 4 inches square for Imperial unit hold-outs - on 18 cm by 18 cm paper). The others are the Hand-Held Harpy, T. Rex with Flowers and The Bumblebee. You can find information on their planned exhibits on their Mini Print International - Asia Pacific Facebook page. They had to move to a larger venue and are planning the Mini Print International Awards and exhibit at Melbourne's premiere contemporary exhibition space No Vacancy Gallery (QV) April 2-16th, 2012. They plan later dates in Sydney and Hong Kong.

All finalists will receive catalogues of the exhibit, but if anyone happens to be in Melbourne, I'd love to see photos of the work in the gallery (and the same is true of subsequent exhibits in Sydney and Hong Kong - I'll update you here about future venues).

An Obstinacy of Buffalo

2012-01-15T11:46:00.001-05:00

The collective noun for a group of buffalo is an "obstinacy". Clearly, these are hard-headed beasts. These ones have drawn a line in the sand. I dare you to cross it. Technically, these are American bison (Bison bison), known colloquially in North America as 'buffalo'. These mighty beasts were once obiquitous across the Great Plains. Despite the worst efforts of the colonists, they have not been exterminated, and many obstinacies obstinately remain. The nature of the typography reflects the words: black, thick, solid, conservative and capitalized 'OBSTINACY' and 'Buffalo' with letters adorned with horn-like serifs.

These linoleum block printed bisons are printed in slightly variable chocolate brown and black ink with dark gold ink grass, and brown, gold and black letters on Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper. Each print is 12.5" by 8" or 31.7 cm by 20.3 cm in dimension. There are 6 prints in the edition.

Happy Birthday Faunalia!

2012-01-14T11:36:00.000-05:00

Have a great day to launch your best year yet!

p.s. see you soon!

p.p.s. original lino block print 4.5" square (11.4 cm square), showing books with a favorite quotation by F's father

Bumblebee on the front page

2012-01-13T09:35:00.001-05:00

Last night, my bumblebee mini linocut was on Etsy's front page! It's a great little treasury:

How much do I love that badger? The lightbox got me thinking. Most of the artists were on my favorites list before I saw the treasury.

A Crash of Rhinos

2012-01-11T18:15:00.003-05:00

I've always loved terms of venery. My copy of An Exaltation of Larks (by James Lipton) is jokingly subtitled or, The Venereal Game. The terms of venery are those weird collective nouns, sometimes evocative, sometimes odd and obscure, for groups of animals (and other things). Like, "a crash of rhinoceri" or "an exaltation of larks" or "a murder of crows".

This linocut shows a crash of rhinos in all senses of the words. Though would one really need multiple rhino before a "crash" would be a good description? Luckily, my crash of rhino are all on paper. These three are all headed for collision. The typography of the words represents their meaning; "crash" appears to implode and the stout letters of "Rhinos" are adorned with horn-like serifs.

I considered the various versions of the name of the beast and its plural. Apparently, all of the following are acceptable: several rhino, rhinoceros, rhinos, rhinoceroses, or rhinoceri. I prefer the elegance of rhinoceri over the absurdity of rhinoceroses (say that out loud five times fast), but decided that "rhinos" has the advantage of being pithy and obviously plural.

These linoleum block printed rhinoceri are printed in dark gold ink with gold and turquoise words on Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper. Each print is 12.5" by 10" or 31.7 cm by 25.4 cm in dimension. There are 6 prints in the edition.

This is the first of a new series.

Mme. Wu on the front page!

2012-01-09T10:44:00.000-05:00

My linocut portrait of Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997, Chinese-born American physicist, whose nicknames included the “First Lady of Physics”, “Chinese Marie Curie,” and “Madame Wu”) and the violation of the conservation of parity was on Etsy's front page last night.

This morning I got a note from a fellow Etsian thanking me for the information on Mme. Wu, because several members of her family had been involved in the Manhattan Project, and were basically unremembered beyond their family. It's very interesting to to hear a personal argument for the promoting the history of physics. I'm used to thinking about it more in terms of increasing general knowledge of physics or dispelling some myths about its history.

clouds and unicorns

2012-01-06T18:57:00.001-05:00

The OB asked for a unicorn for his birthday, so I've been making more.

Carved in linoleum, and printed on variety of Japanese washi paper (kozo, or mulberry and chiyogami and katazome-shi) and European patterned paper is a unicorn, strangely amongst a welter of lovely umbrellas. This piece employs the techniques of printmaking and collage. I am making a series of these multimedia; each one is unique. These are the 11th to 14th in the series.
Dimensions are approximately 12.5 inches by 18.5 inches (32 cm by 47 cm).

Also, I made a third edition of my cloud classification linocut, because the 2^nd edition sold out. I found some lovely brilliant sky blue paper from Nepal, but sadly, it was not fun to work with. It do not accept ink well, and sometimes fibres would be stuck to the block. So much for the idea of more affordable coloured paper.

that deep blue, late afternoon sky

2012-01-04T10:11:00.001-05:00

I'm really happy to have a proper place for my paper now. RJH found me an antique map cabinet, so I can store my large sheets of Japanese washi. I have smaller file folders for small pieces of washi (chiyogami, katazome-shi, unryu and so forth) and other papers. I also have some Thai and Nepali screenprinted and batik papers, some Chinese screenprinted papers, French and Italian patterned papers, a little bit of Brazilian marbled papers, and some beautiful paper I brought home from Amsterdam (whose provenance I don't know, since I don't read Dutch) and a collection of ephemera. This piece, for instance, uses vintage sheet music given to me, years ago, by Lady Redjeep and a bit of a vintage book illustration, which was part of a thoughtful welcome package by vintagepaperparade for 'A Spring Handmade Market' a couple of years ago.

More Balloons, Afternoon & Evening

2012-01-03T17:54:00.001-05:00

The second in the hot air balloon series is set at dusk.

The third in the hot air balloon series is set closer to noon.

Balloons

2012-01-03T10:07:00.000-05:00

This is my first artwork of 2012. I wanted to continue the series of prints with collaged papers, like the 'Unicorn amongst umbrellas' and the sailing ships, and I had the idea of hot air balloons. So, I sought out images, paricularly of vintage balloons in the late 18th and early 19th century. Some of the pioneers like the Montgolfier brothers, built the most spectacular and astounding vehicles. I love that they deemed it necessary to produce elaborately decorated balloons. Many of the early ones had sails and baskets shaped like ships, in order to sail the skies.

I inked my lino block in a gradient of colours to produce the 'key' print of he sky at sunset on Japanese kozo (or mulberry paper) approximately 12 inches by 13 inches (30.5 cm by 33 cm). I printed the balloons within the block on variety of Japanese washi paper (kozo, chiyogami and katazome-shi patterned paper) and vintage sheet music, and collaged them. I am making a series of these multimedia; each one is unique. This is first in the series.

That's totally a skunk

2011-12-29T21:34:00.001-05:00

A determined skunk marches through the snow in this lino block print in black on white Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper. Each print is 12.5 inches by 8 inches (or 31.8 cm by 20.3 cm). There are 8 prints in the edition.

While most famous for their malodorous defense mechanism, the black and white striped skunk is actually rather cute. So, I'm adding it to my collection of black and white block printed animals.

This is an actually conversation I had, inspired by my "discarded proofs of prints as wrapping paper" scheme.

R: Oh, did I tell you I love your narwhals print?
M: You mean the pygmy right whale and the two seals?
R: Yes, and this is a great badger.
M: Dude, that's totally a skunk.

These things can be important to know. Those in Europe may not truly appreciate the pungent consequences of mistaking a skunk for a badger (though, I don't suggest messing with a badger either)*. N's cats like to taunt the local skunk, so they are not allowed out if the skunk has been seen. Unfortunately, one summer night they closed only the screen door. The vengeful skunk sprayed their house. N's teenage children were sent home from school the next day, because they stank, merely from being in the same building. Can you imagine being a teenager sent home from school for stinking?! Skunks are quite common here, even in the city. When I was small, we had one who lived below the back porch.

I've been translating all my Etsy listings into French, for days. It's funny to note that while in school I learned that a skunk was a moufette but in Québec it's often called la bête puante (or the stinking beast)! Apparently in the US a skunk is sometimes called a polecate, which I don't understand.

*I can hear the stinking badger jokes now.

Marley & Meat*

2011-12-26T16:56:00.000-05:00

This is a portrait of my "nephew", my brother's (the OB's) black Labrador Retriever, Marley. No relation to any other labs by the same name - this Marley was named after Bob. In this hand-carved lino block print, he's dreaming that the prime rib steak my brother bought is actually for him. Basically, this is inspired by the OB's Facebook page, which seems to consist of photos of large portions of red meat labeled 'dinner for 1', and photos of his dog looking cute. I have to think that Marley may envy my brother-the-carnivore's diet.

The portrait is printed in black and burgundy ink on Japanese kozo (or mulberry paper) with chine collé (added coloured paper) brown eyes. Each sheet is 9 inches wide and 14 inches tall (22.9 cm by 35.6 cm). There are 12 prints in the edition.

Marley is a sweet dog, so long as you aren't trying to rush out of the house, in which case he might chew the cord of the hair dryer or sabotage your attire, or unless you want to leave the park, in which case, he no longer knows you. I understand that all labs like to swim, but I believe that Marley is actually a seal disguised as a dog. He loves his people very much.

p.s. Happy Boxing Day!

*RJH made me use that title

In Honour of Mr. Cat

2011-12-23T19:24:00.000-05:00

I managed to bring my last present to Reynardin and Faunalia today. It's the first of an edition of six prints I made, dedicated to the memory of the late, great, lamented TC. I always associated TC with R's father; they had a similar gait and outlook on life, it seemed to me. This was one of his sayings, most useful to recall when things might look a little bleak. The wonderful, wise, old, gray cat, Tail Chaser (TC) always was there to comfort anyone who needed this message and to feel more resilience. I thought the memory of TC could continue to comfort R&F.

This linocut print, in gray and green, on Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper, with chine collé (added coloured paper) green eyes is is 9.5 inches by 12.5 inches (24.1 cm by 31.8 cm). The typography is inspired by calligraphy.

I based the portrait on a photo from F's blog. I found my photos of TC weren't quite right. Apparently, F says the photo was taken by LW one previous Winter Solstice, so it seems an apt choice.

Winter Solstice!

2011-12-21T23:49:00.001-05:00

Despite the rainy weather the 22^nd annual Kensington Market Winter Solstice went ahead. I met Faunalia at the start. We were in there close to the performers. I really enjoyed the flaming pipe. Greg was there on stilts to start things off again. We marched down Augusta engulfed by the samba squad. We managed to get to a less crowed and deafening part of the part, where we could hear the drums and each other. The route was a bit abbreviated, but it was wonderful. I enjoyed having my lantern, complete with burning candle (no LED for me). We made it to the park, where they had set up the vignettes (usually within the market); I suspect they decided setting up on roofs in the rain was not wise. We found Reynardin who had brought F's lantern. I loved the shadow puppets. The storyteller persevered despite technical difficulties (including loosing lights and his mic). We checked out some of the booths and then I went to get a better look at the Chinese dragon. The dragon came right up to be and blinked its eyes at me! We managed to get a good spot to watch the burning of the fire sculpture and the fire dancers. It was worth braving the weather!

Happy Winter Solstice!

2011-12-21T17:33:00.001-05:00

Happy Solstice everyone! Bundling up for the parade...

Adventures in Shipping

2011-12-20T19:01:00.002-05:00

During our well-catered paper-lantern workshop** chez Faunalia & Reynardin (for the Solstice Parade) I was complaining about all my trips to the post office. I was amused that Blythechild suggested the postal outlet in the pharmacy up the street because while this is normally an excellent suggestion it's quite crazy in December - and it is precisely where I am going so often that all the staff know me. I was there today to mail some tapirs and a dodo, behind the usual line up of about 6 people, half of whom were chatting in Polish. There was an old man behind me who seemed to be anxiously willing the line to move faster. As the letter carrier arrived with a large, collapsible dolly to lug away the copious amount of mail, the old man suddenly lunged forward. He ignored me altogether and asked the girl ahead of me whether he could go ahead of her. He said he wanted to catch the mail pick-up and only needed stamps. I could see his envelop was stamped, so I pointed out that he could mail stamped envelops in the slot at the front. (I wasn't kidding when I told my friends I would know how to say, "You can buy stamps at the other cash," in Polish, by the end of the month. I know all the ins-and-outs of this postal outlet. I am a regular.) He somewhat frantically said he didn't know how much more postage was due. The lady behind the counter was dealing with two customers and one on the phone, so was not responding to his flailing to get her attention. A young father witnessed this scene and tried repeatedly to give the old man stamps, so he could mail his letter before the letter carrier left. The old man seemed too anxious; he didn't know how much more postage was due and wasn't keen on accepting charity, even if it was one stamp. The letter carrier noticed what was going on and paused. Eventually, the old man got the lady behind the counter to tell him he needed one more stamp, accepted the young father's stamp as a Christmas present (after trying to force some change on him), and the letter carrier took the urgent letter with his huge pile of parcels. I imagine there will be some happier grandchildren somewhere when the fat envelop arrives.

The girl in front of me claimed her package, and then I placed my parcel on the scale. The lady behind the desk asked me whether the letter carrier had left. I said yes. She said if I hurry I would catch the mail too. I just calmly filled in my Customs form and said I didn't think I would make it. She whipped the half-signed form from my hand, stuck the label on my package and said, "Go! Go! If you run, you will catch him - and then you can come back and pay for it." It seemed pointless to argue, so, I went, weaving through the customers in the pharmacy. I found the letter carrier loading packages onto his truck and I asked him if he could take one more. He saw it was labeled and he placed it on the truck. I returned inside to pay for my shipping. The letter carrier followed, with a large box. He explained he couldn't take the box since it had no postage. The lady explained that she had tried to tell the customer she couldn't accept the box without postage, but the customer had insisted that Land's End had free returns*. The letter carrier said it would just sit around for a long time and then get thrown out. Meanwhile, another woman tried to get her mail into the letter carrier's collection too, but the lady behind the cash just told her it would simply take too long to fill in her form and he couldn't be delayed. I guess there are benefits to being a regular.

On another note, here is our tree:

You may recall the Minouette-angel toper I made, to go with all the block-printed ornaments. This year, all gifts are wrapped in my discarded proofs of prints on newsprint. I've got to do something with them, and I can only make so many paper lanterns. So, hand-made wrapping paper it is.

** By the way, the dollar store 'Shoupie' markers were not only coloured differently than advertized, they bled. It's okay of course, but you might want to know this prior to using them.
*Perhaps this is a US policy? In Canada, if it doesn't say 'postage paid', it isn't.

Reading is sexy XLVIII

2011-12-16T13:33:00.000-05:00

(image source) The next two books I read had a theme of dysfunctional sibling relationships, where siblings compete for love with fatal results, also the theme of Eden, the serpent and fall from grace. Just in time for the holidays! (kidding of course)

23. The Game by A.S. Byatt This is a shorter, early novel by Byatt, which tells the story of two adult sisters, Casandra the Oxford don and Medievalist, and Julia, best-selling novelist. As children they had an elaborate, shared, imaginative life and the titular game, inspired by Medieval romances, reminiscent of what the young Brontë sisters made with their mythology of Gondal and the associated maps and stories they created together. The adult sisters are distant, but brought together when their father has a stroke. They grew apart, we learn, as the novel progresses, due to a series of perceived transgressions (Julia writing about their shared game, their mutual and competitive love of the neighbour Simon -now a jungle-dwelling herpetologist with a budding TV career, Cassandra's rather melodramatic denunciation of the family's Quaker faith and conversion to Anglicanism, Julia's sort of self-sabotaging hero-worship for her older sister). Cassandra is a spinster, with a secret obsession still for Simon, who shared her early religious investigations. Julia is married to would-be Quaker saint Thor, and has a teenage daughter Deborah. Julia finds herself on a TV show about art and ideas, through which Simon re-enters their lives. Once again, Byatt has a natural scientist as a character to involve zoology, but also the symbol and mythology of snakes and serpents. I appreciate her consistent argument that science, like art, contributes to culture. Julia, initially intending to repair her relationship with her sister, ends up writing a novel, which is a thinly-veiled story of Cassandra and her relationship with and to Simon, without much thought to consequences. This is a study of family relationships, unrequited love, ideas, the nature of art versus science, writing, mental health, suicide, charity, academia, and responsibility. The characters feel quite real and the story is engaging, though it is perhaps less of a tapestry of ideas than Byatt's later novels.

(Literary gossip being what it is, I read once that this novel started her feud with her sister Margaret Drabble, though, it's also been attributed to writing about a family tea set.)

24. Cain by José Saramago This strange and final parable from the wise old man himself, is a sort of mythical biography of Cain. It begins with his parents, Adam and Eve, and their despotic Old Testament Creator (complete with ample pride and crown) in the Garden of Eden. After their expulsion, and an interesting interlude between Eve and the guarding Cherubim, they land on their feet when taken in by a caravan (because, of course, there are other people), and eventually they make a home and a family. Cain, in frustration with God's petty testing of his faith by only accepting Abel's tributes, kills his brother in jealousy, but argues for God's partial culpability. The story is really of his life after this, as a nomad, through time and space. He serves as skeptical witness to all of the most famous Old Testament stories (from Abraham and Isaac through Sodom and Gomorrah, the Tower of Babel, Moses, Job, various wars and battles ending with Noah). The thesis seems to be that the Old Testament God is cruel and capricious (all that senseless death and destruction, including innocent children destroyed in Sodom and cruel demands of sacrifice), but Cain has a plan for retribution.

As intriguing as all of Saramago's novels, this is a most unusual book.

25. My White Planet by Mark Anthony Jarman At first I thought, that's what you get for choosing books at random off RJH's shelf. He, after all, has King Leopold's Ghost (about the exploitation of the Congo) by his bedside, and The Road (in which *spoiler alert* people are eaten) in the glove compartment of his car. I wondered whether perhaps all his favorite books would be sad. Jarman's first story (and some of the subsequent stories) of a soldier's life in Custer's army is a bit grim. Several stories are informed by the violent North American colonial wars and battles (with allusions to Sitting Bull through Louis Riel). The titular dreamy story about seven isolated men at arctic research station which has fallen out of contact with civilization, who find a shipwrecked girl, is quite creepy. But, he writes crystalline stories like poems. "Make way for my itchy antlers, my spikes of rage, my affection for the slippery slope." I have the idea that Jarman is a writer's writer. He knows how to wield words. His stories are very evocative. I recognized the unnamed Straight of Georgia (and was unsurprised to learn the author lived in Victoria, prior to moving to Fredericton) in the description of a float plane flight in Bad Men Who Love Buzz Lightyear; I recognized Fredericton with its right side and wrong side of the Saint John River in Bear on a Chain. I can see how his simple story of a New Brunswick old timers hockey team, A Nation Plays Chopsticks would charm RJH, with its descriptions of the game, the odd camaraderie, driving moose-ridden highways at night, haunting old arenas, and questioning the drive of the 'civilized' narrator (presumably Jarman) to play a sometimes violent game. I personally enjoyed the sporadic allusions to an interesting array of music (clearly he's an avid listener) - from Bobbie Gentry through the White Stripes, by way of everyone from Otis Blackwell, Neil Young, Stereolab, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Joy Division, the Tragically Hip, Sid Vicious, Syd Barrett and assorted unexpected allusions. The final two stories are even labeled "Bonus Tracks". Personally, I would read this book for the sheer pleasure of these two sentences: "If Derrida didn't exist we'd have to invent him. And then beat him up at recess," but the book is much richer than that. Read these well-crafted stories and see.

26. Myths To Live By by Joseph Campbell. Guess it's back to the imagery of the Garden and the serpent.

{Series so far: books read, more books read, books read, books read continues, more books read, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII,XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL,XLI, XLII, XLIII,XLIV, XLV, XLVI, XLVII}

more and more tapirs

2011-12-12T20:53:00.000-05:00

making tapirs

2011-12-11T17:38:00.001-05:00

Today, I'm making wee, little, lino block printed stuffed tapirs in sets of two: parent and baby.

Panda Family

2011-12-09T16:04:00.001-05:00

This is my linocut portrait of a harried mama giant panda and two unruly cubs. They are magnificent, if funny, creatures, whose expressions make them easy to personify. They remind me of people I know. This print is made in black block printing ink, on white Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper, 10.5 inches by 12.5 inches (27 cm by cm by 31.8 cm), in an edition of six.

I looked at a lot of photos of pandas, and I must say, they are most improbable. Sort of riddiculously cute, and by appearance at least, lazy. Most photos show them semi-prone, munching. Apparently their heads are so round because of their bamboo-diet. But they actually do have much more of a 'teddy bear' shape anatomy than any of the North American bears I know. Perhaps that, and their colouring, explains their popularity.

Minouette on designwali

2011-12-09T09:32:00.001-05:00

This morning, my prints and minouette etsy shop are featured on a lovely local blog, with a desi flavour, designwali! Sundeep of designwali is keen to display some local talent and is hosting a give-away. Check out this post to learn how you can win one of my 'Fly Agaric' block prints. The contest is open to anyone, worldwide, not just Toronto residents, by the way. :)

There are some great local artists and jewelry makers who you can find in recent posts, and lots of design and decor goodies to be found on designwali. Check it out! Sundeep has an eye, a sense of humour to go with the sense of colour and writes in a conversational tone, which makes her blog lovely to look at and fun to read.

1200 Hearts!

2011-12-03T11:31:00.000-05:00

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
I don't know why I'm so silly about hearts, but I really do love watching the number of People who have favorited minouette. It broke 1200 today! Yay! A sincere thanks to each and every one.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Feed My Paper Habit

2011-12-02T09:34:00.000-05:00

So, one of my favorite haunts, The Paper Place is having the 2nd annual chiyogami giveaway.. You know that I need 700 sheets of 8.5 x 11 chiyogami, but if you would like to enter too, just check out their blog for more details.

Dear Paper Place,

If you give me the loot, I promise to make lovely things like these:

Maybe I can convince someone to help me make a video for 50 extra entries, because I think I probably do qualify as chiyogami super-fan. You might notice that this blog even has both a chiyogami and a washi tag.

Most Sincerely,

Monoprints

2011-11-29T13:53:00.000-05:00

I had one final screenprinting class yesterday, so I thought, since I had only 3 hours of time, to make some monoprints. This is not a method I've used before. The word 'monoprint' can be applied to unique prints made with a variety of printmaking methods (so long as there are not multiples). In this instance, I mean screenprints made by applying a pigment directly to the screen and then lifting and disolving it and printing with the squeegee as if one were printing with ink. You can do this with, say, silk paints and screenprinting medium, or even wallpaper paste. Any sort of decent medium which can disolve water-soluble pigments, and has good printing properties (like viscosity - not too thin or too gloopy) will work. I printed all of the following on heavy weight paper with a deckle edge (moreorless 10 inches by 14 inches). I experimented with the silk paints:

There are white areas where the pigment was too thick, and actually blocked the screen - but I like them.Also, you can see the mesh, which is interesting to me. I also tried paper stencils (snowflakes) combined with a silk paint + wallpaper paste monoprint:

Then, I tried the crayons (also with cut-paper snowflake stencils). My first attempt wasn't quite what I intended (but still sort of pretty I think). The instructor pointed out that there was still pigment on the screen, and with more medium and pressure (a recurring problem for me, I feel like a weakling) that I might be able to get another print. He gave it a try and got much better results:

Lastly, I drew a discomedusa jellyfish directly onto the screen with colour pencils and crayons. This proved harder than expected. The screen itself is not an ideal medium for drawing. The mesh tends to hinder smooth, curved lines (which are sort of necessary, at least if you are me, and you are attempting to draw the least rectilinear animal in the world). Here's my first attempt, which is pale, but appeals to me:

Again, there are places where the pigment blocked the mesh, but I think it works. There is white, often, within water, and I think it helps give a sense of movement. Here's the no-nonsense instructor's 2nd attempt:

which shows hom much more can be transferred with more strength and experience. I also like the surviving snowflake stencils. The ones made from strong Japanese kozo paper survived:

I feel I should do something with the screenprinted snowflakes, but I'm not sure what.

Shang Yang, the Bird that Makes the Rain

2011-11-25T11:51:00.000-05:00

This linocut shows how I imagine Shang Yang, 'The Bird that Makes the Rain'. I found a description of this marvellous creature in Jorge Luis Borges' (and poor, forgotten Margarita Guerrero's) 'The Book of Imaginary Beings'. It explains that Chinese farmers called upon Shang Yang to bring the rain:

It had but a single leg; in ancient times children would hop on one leg, wrinkle their foreheads, and shout, "It will soon rain, for Shang Yang is frolicking in the yard!" It was said that the bird drank water from the rivers and dropped it on the land.

In ancient times, a wise man domesticated this fowl, and he would walk about with it on upon his sleeve. Historians say that one day the Shang Yang, flapping its wings and hoping on its one leg, passed before the throne of Prince Ch'i, who, alarmed, send one of his ministers to the court of Lu, to consult with Confucius about the event. Confucius predicted that the Shang Yang would cause floods in the principality and in the lands nearby, and he advised that dikes and canals be built. The prince followed Confucius' advice, and thereby avoided great disasters.

Interesting, isn't it, that even the lengend explains that water rose from rivers, to the sky, to produce rain, as it does according to more modern understanding of the water cycle. Apart from hopping about on his single leg, and bringing the rain, Borges provides little clue as to Shang Yang's appearance, so I was free to imagine this strange creature myself. RJH says he looks like a cross between a stork and a turkey; perhaps he's right. I wanted to make sure the single leg looked sturdy; it is much to thick for a stork, with a solid knee and strong thigh for more springy and comical bouncing. I couldn't resist the the stylized, Chinese Buddhist sort of swirling cloud.

Shang Yang is printed in Payne's gray, a bluish, dark gray like rain, on Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper. Each sheet is 6 inches by 12.5 inches (15.2 cm by 31.8 cm). There are 12 prints in this edition.

Imaginary Antarctic

2011-11-22T21:48:00.000-05:00

One of the most marvellous things I've seen are Pacific harbour seals at night, surfacing at night in water rich with bioluminescent bacteria. They glow in the dark! This inspired this print. I imagined glow-in-the-dark seals, a Pygmy Right Whale, a mysteriously forming submarine miniature galaxy, between two icebergs, below a starry sky and the aurora australis. This is one of a (variable) edition of 20 screenprints (22.5 cm by 33 cm/8.6 inches by 13 inches). The south polar sky does vary from print to print. The seals, stars (in the sky and the sea) and the aurora are all printed in glow-in-the-dark ink. It's very hard to take a photo in the dark... but they really do glow!

In screenprint class, we took some of the prints into the dark room to have a better look. I don't know how to capture this in a photo... you'll have to take my word for it.

Dinosaurs and Games

2011-11-19T21:29:00.001-05:00

This is my mini linocut of a Scutosaurus dinosaur. The block is 10 cm by 10 cm (3.9 inches by 3.9 inches), inked à la poupée (i.e. one block inked in more than one colour, in tiny regions, like as by a little doll our 'poupée'). It is printed on 18 cm by 18 cm (7.1 inch by 7.1 inch) kozo (or mulberry) Japanese washi paper. There are 9 prints in the edition.

Scutosaurus ("Shield Reptile") was a genus of armor-covered pareiasaur that lived around 252-248 million years ago, at the end of the Permian era. The pareiasaurs had massive, rounded bodies and used their sawlike teeth for chewing foliage. Despite its size (2.5 m or 8 feet long), Scutoraurus was a vegetarian.

I don't know about you, but I have a tennis freak on my gift list.* The slogan 'tennis starts with love' might be a bit corny but I like the three tennis balls as an ellipsis. It is printed on Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper 14 cm by 23 cm (5.5 inches by 9 inches).

*She's far better at tennis than technology (for instance she called today to ask me to explain how to switch the TV to DVD, again), so I'm pretty sure I can place this on my blog without revealing anything to her.

Year of the Dragon Print Show

2011-11-16T13:58:00.001-05:00

This weekend, we visited PROOF Gallery to drop off my 'Long: the Dragon' linocuts for the 11th International Print Exhibition and ExchangeCelebrating The Chinese New Year Year of the DRAGON 2012. Follow the link to see all the submitted prints as the arrive (or the submission call if you're a printmaker). I'll let you know about exhibition details in January. My print and prints from around the world will be displayed at PROOF Gallery (in the Distillery District, Toronto), OCADU in Toronto, Ottawa School of Art and the Muskoka Art Place Gallery. You can also find it here and a variation on the theme here. I've enjoyed participating in their Year of the Tiger and Year of the Rabbit shows previously. I love seeing all the different takes on the theme. Since I created my Chinese Zodiac Series before becoming involved in these exhibits, my take is pretty literal, but some artists are much less literal (like the NSFW takes on 'rabbit' or 'bunny' last year). I wonder what they'll come up with this year?

In other things from secret minouette places news, I re-divided my shop. Previously, I had the 'Linocut Chinese Zodiac', 'Scientist Portraits' and a general 'Printmaking' categories. I'm trying a scheme more like the one in my head: 'Linocut Chinese Zodiac', 'Science and Scientists', 'Natural History Prints' and 'UnNatural History'. Does that make sense to you? I want flora and fauna in 'Natural History' and you know, harpies and unicorns in 'UnNatural History' (along with the odd inanimate human-made object).

minouette mail

2011-11-16T12:56:00.001-05:00

I'm trying something new for anyone who is interested in my prints and my shop. If you are interested there's a totally opt-in/unsubscribe at any time mailing list sign up here. I subscribe to a few artist's mailing lists, and I like them, so I thought I might try it myself.

Also, you can just click on the 'News from secret minouette places' tab above. That works too.

Reading is sexy XLVII

2011-11-14T16:42:00.000-05:00

(image by Mladen Penev)
Goodness. From reading this blog, you would think that I have given up on the pastime of reading. I haven't posted a thing since August. Usually, I aim for 50 and hit about 40 books in a year. This year, I'm nowhere near that. Though, on the other hand, I've read a couple of epic books, which probably should count for at least three normal books (and in fact, one of them does, in the original Japanese). The trouble though, with not posting promptly, is that it is less fresh in my mind. In fact, I might omit an entire book! Ah well...

17. Too much happiness by Alice Munro. This is an excellent collection of short stories and the titular novella. (It won the 2009 Man Booker International Prize). I sought it out because I am interested in Sophie Kovaleskaya (there are various spellings and means of transliterating from Cyrillic characters, Со́фья Васи́льевна Ковале́вская) the nineteenth century master of mathematics and literature, and first female university professor in Northern Europe. Like the other (fictional) characters in these stories, her real life and marriage was complex, and she sought love in the wrong places. The stories have stayed with me; the people seem real, with faults and virtues, interacting in ways they don't foresee any more than the reader would. Several stories are overshadowed by violence, or the threat thereof. The collection is capped with the novella based on the facts of Kovaleskaya's turbulent life (her nursery wallpapered with her father's old calculus notes, her introduction to nihilism, her initially sham marriage as a means to escape Russia and pursue a higher eduction, her fight to study mathematics and her relationship with her thesis supervisor Karl Weierstrass, her return to Russia, the birth of her daughter, the complexity and end of her marriage, her writing, her life and professorship in Sweden, her lover, her premature death) and her ironic last words, 'Too much happiness.' Beautifully crafted and plotted stories.

18. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. I managed to read another Pynchon novel, but this early one is a mere 126 pages. Though, he packs those pages with more life, conspiracy, insanity, radio DJs, dead millionaires, secret codes, illegal underground mail systems, engineer bars complete with Lissajous figures on an oscilloscope for a sign, dive motels, psychiatrists doling out LSD to housewives, skeletons, a teenage band called the Paranoids, clues in bloody Jacobean Revenge Plays, stamp collecting, and one sex scene of more slapstick hilarity than can be imagined without reading the book. Oedipa Maas gets more than she bargained for when she agrees to be the executor of her former lover's estate.

19. Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster. Well, if I can read one book with a complicated relationship to reality as we know it, why not two? Mr. Blank, an old man, awakes each day in a simple room: door, window, bed, desk and chair, but no memory or understanding of where he is or why he's there. He doesn't know if he is being imprisoned or is free to leave. A couple of people visit him, and he is given some clues to understand his fate. This odd, post-modern yet grounded, novel feels like one of the parables of José Saramago. It is a game between the author and the reader and the characters, but it is not only a game. It will be more rewarding if you read the New York Trilogy first.

20. The Woodcut Artist's Handbook by George A. Walker This was a thorough and enjoyable resource on 'everything you wanted to know about relief printing'. I've had it for some time and am glad I finally read it. Though intended to serve as a textbook or reference for printmaking students, it is very readable - especially since it includes a large collection of illustrations of relief prints from many artists, most of whom are also quoted describing their own techniques and preferences.* In terms of woodcut, he focuses on Western methods of engraving and woodblock printing, which is useful to me, in that I've only studied Japanese moku hanga methods. Though, that would be the one criticism; to be truly comprehensive, the book might have included more on Japanese and Chinese approaches to relief prints.

21. ghost by Alan Lightman. I've read a few of physicist-turned-novelist Alan Lightman's books and articles. I really enjoyed Einstein's Dreams, which was genuinely new and innovative. I have found some of his writing less to my taste. I wasn't sure what I was getting into with ghost. As it turns out, it's compelling and subtle novel about a man struggling to cope with something that defies characterization. David was always smart, but did not finish law school. He finds himself, divorced from a wife he adored and mystified how he lost his job at the bank. He takes a job at a mortuary, temporarily he thinks, because he needs a salary. There, in the resting room, he sees something. That is where his problems begin. How does he process what he's seen? What should he say or not say to the people in his life (his girlfriend, the people in his apartment building, his colleagues, and ultimately, the press and scientists who become embroiled in the story). This is a very earnest character-driven story, and the relationships between the characters are quite something. It's also a meditation on knowledge, the bounds of knowledge and superstition.

22. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami I am a huge fan of Muraki; I've read every book which has appeared in translation: novels, short stories, non-fiction, even anthologies he's edited and a book about him by Jay Rubin (one of his main two translators into English).

1Q84 did not disappoint me; this is the hard-boiled, fantastic, supernatural Japan full of high and low culture (from ad slogans, to under-appreciated jazz clarinettists, to fashion, to cooking and to Proust and Chekov) like only he can write. The title is a play on words. In Japanese, 9 is kyu, and the title alludes to Orwell's 1984 and the setting, a strange version of 1984 Japan, where our heroine Aomame (literally her family name means 'green peas') finds more and more things are not what they were. She begins the novel stuck in traffic on an elevated expressway, to the sounds of Janáček's Sinfonietta, and her cabbie informs her that she could only make her meeting if she takes the unusual move of abandoning the cab, and climbing down the emergency staircase (in her designer suit and heels). He warns however, that things may change, and that there is only one reality. Not really remarking on his words, she takes the staircase to her important meeting, and finds herself in a different version of 1984, which she dubs 1Q84. The police have new uniforms and guns, since breakfast. She was somehow unaware of a big news story: a shootout between a militant faction of an organic-farm-cum-religious cult Sakigake and the police. Most damning, the moon now has a new smaller, greenish companion moon. Aomame's story is interwoven with that of Tengo Kawana, mathematics cram school teacher and budding novelist. Tengo is convinced to take part in a shady scheme to act as ghostwriter, for a strange 17 year old girl Fuka-Eri's stranger story 'Air Chrysalis'. As the novel unfolds we learn of the bond between Tengo and Aomame, though separated for 20 years, they fell in love at 10, before either really knew what that meant. Though Tengo excels in school and sports, he has an unhappy boyhood with his undemonstrative, demanding father who drags him door to door while he collects fees for the national NHK TV broadcaster. Aomame is likewise dragged door-to-door in the hopes of using guilt to get better treatment, by her mother, a devout follower of the Society of Witnesses. They intuitively recognize their akinness as children they spend the rest of the novel increasing seeking each other out.

This is a dark novel for Murakami. Though previous novels included occasional graphic violence or the terrors of war, this novel focuses more attention on domestic and sexual violence and abuse. Aomame goes from fitness and self-defense instructor to becoming involved in vigilante assassinations. There are a series of suicides, and several murders in this novel. Murakami is also investigating the nature of the religious cult in this fiction (after his extensive non-fiction investigation of members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult following their notorious sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995). Fuka-Eri, it turns out, based her 'Air Chrysalis' on her childhood experiences in the Sakigake compound. This being a Murakami novel, involves a dead, blind goat, the Little People and an air chrysalis, doppelgangers/alter egos and running away. Soon in Aomame's parallel story, she too finds herself embroiled with Sakigake. The 925-page novel (published as 3 books in Japanese) drags the reader into the 1Q84 otherworld. It is compelling, exciting, moving, disturbing, sad and hopeful. I couldn't put it down.**

I certainly recommend this novel; it is quite amazing. However, if you haven't previously read Murakami, start with A Hard-Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World or A Wild Sheep-Chase. I do think a caveat is necessary; this is a darker and more violent novel than his others. It also features various depictions of sex and sexuality (though the violence is mercifully 'off-stage'). It isn't a book for young people. I read three articles in The New York Times about it. One was a wide-eyed sort of interview, marveling at the inventiveness, strangeness and scope of the novel. The other was a mixed review, which criticized the moral ambivalence (after all, sexual abuse isn't a metaphor) but conceded that this book made the reviewer think much more than most. I think in some ways the lack of moralism is a strength because it forces the reader to grapple with hard questions (what is the solution to domestic violence, is vigilante justice warranted, what can and cannot be allowed as part of religion, what is evil). So I enjoyed the novel more than she, but her criticism seems just. The third article is a poor review, but someone with little patience for loose ends is perhaps reading the wrong novelist. I think this book is amazing, but I do recognize that it won't appeal to all.

{Series so far: books read, more books read, books read, books read continues, more books read, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII,XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL,XLI, XLII, XLIII,
XLIV, XLV, XLVI}

*Because the world is very small, amongst the artists is 's father.
**If you wondered where I was last week, my world was coping with an ear infection and 1Q84.

Io, myth and moon

2011-11-08T11:50:00.000-05:00

In this three colour (2 screen) screenprint, I combined Io, both the nympth (in cow-form) of Ancient Greek myth, and Io the large, volcanous moon of Jupiter. I'm interested in exploring the role of myth and imagination in science, and specifically here, how astronomical naming has been traditionally based on mythology. To make this screenprint, I combined my pencil drawings of cow/nymph Io and cloud with a NASA photograph of Io, which I manipulated. The screenprint is one of an edition of 10, printed in yellow (with a hint of lime), magenta and purple, on white paper, 28 cm (11 inches) square.

The story of Io is a funny one; she is one of many nymphs who caught the roving eye of notorious womanizer Zeus. As told by Ovid, in 'Metamorphoses', Io rejected Zeus' nighttime advances until the oracles lead her father to drive her into the fields. There, Zeus covered her with clouds to try and hide her from his justly jealous wife Hera, who nonetheless decuded there was something suspicious going on. Zeus then upped the ante and turned himself into a cloud and Io into a beautiful, white heifer. Hera, used to such nonsense, was not fooled and demanded the white heifer as a gift, which Zeus could not refuse. Needless to say, Hera kept this cow far from her unfaithful spouse. So, I made Io a lovely beribboned, heifer with garlands of flowers, resting on a fluffy (if lascivious) cloud.

The story goes on with more shenanigans, including Hera sending a gadfly to harass poor Io, which apparently has something (etymologically at least) to do with the oestrous cycle... but I didn't want to tell the revenge part of the tale, and no one wants to think about menses, though a relentless, vengeful, stinging gadfly does make some sense to me. Anyhow...

Io, the Jovian satellite - or moon, is the innermost of the four Galilean moons which Galileo first observed and identified (January 8, 1610 ) in orbit around Jupiter.* Galileo knew the importance of a good patron and he named them the 'Medician stars'. Io and her sister Jovian moons were important to the history of science. Their observation made it clear to Galileo that it was not possible that everything circled the earth if these moons circle Jupiter and thus, Copernicus must be right. We now know that this lovely moon is the most geologically active place in our solar system, with its more than 400 volcanoes fueled by tidal heating, as it is violently pulled in multiple directions by the strong gravity of Jupiter and the other moons. It has been beautifully photographed by a series of satelittes sent from Earth.

The Mad Scientists of Etsy challenge for this month is 'metamorphosis'. I thought I would make something related to science but with a less expected connection to the theme of 'metamorphosis'. Rather than natural, biological metamorphosis**, this print brings the mythological, metamorphosed Io (of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses') and the moon Io unexpectedly together.

*The IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature points out that Simon Marius may even have observed Io days prior, but he neither published nor necessarily realized what he saw. Nonetheless, he named the Jovian moons. (He believed in Tycho Brahe's system, which was mid-way between helio- and geo-centric, with planets circling the sun, which in turn circles the Earth. At the risk of putting a footnote on my footnote, I'll point out that this in not as illogical as it sounds, because Tycho was an excellent experimentalist and couldn't justify a heliocentric model with his data... because he couldn't observe stellar parallax. So, he was wrong, not because he avoided new ideas, but because he was conscientious and the data for parallax was not acheivable with the technology of the time. Go team Tycho! Never underestimate an honest experimentalist.).

**Butterflies may be the new pirates, but I just don't like larvae.

Bohemian Hellhole Write Up

2011-11-05T14:47:00.001-04:00

The marvellously named blog Bohemian Hellhole wrote a piece about me, my art, and (my other blog) magpie&whiskeyjack. Have a look! The author Alice has, as you might imagine, a great sense of humour, and an eye for lovely things.

Hallowe'en around here

2011-11-01T11:20:00.000-04:00

I had a screenprinting class yesterday evening, so I wasn't around when the kids were out. I did see a couple of the very young ones. I liked the roughly 4-year-old Elvis, in 70's style white jumpsuit and large black wig with his or her father in traditional Mexican gear. I also got a few picks of some local decorations. I'm not sure what a giant totoro has to do with Hallowe'en, but I think that's a great item to have on one's porch.The photo is terrible, but that's a full 3D papier maché totoro, roughly 7 feet tall.

These people are always very dedicated to putting on a big show. I saw a lot of adults who were at least as excited as the children: arranging props, testing sound and previewing their smoke machines. The BBQ seemed to be big this year. One can encorporate props, like disembodied feet.

Happy Hallowe'en!

2011-10-31T12:25:00.001-04:00

Happy Hallowe'en!

Minouette has chosen her costume; she's dressed as an angry box this year. I'm going to busy this evening, so I won't have as much opportunity to see all the little monsters dressed in their costumes, so it's sweet my darling cat has decided to dress for the occassion.

Neighbours might be interested to see the giant papier maché Totoro at Grenadier and Sunnyside. He's as large in real life as he was depicted in Miyazaki's films. Seriously.

it's a tapir, baby

2011-10-30T20:48:00.001-04:00

I know what you're thinking. Wow, there's no toping the undeniable cuteness of the stupendous Malayan tapir, with its massive tuxedo-coloured core and its unexpected proboscis. Well, there was only one thing I could possibly do. Obviously, the only thing cuter than a Malayan tapir, is a baby Malayan tapir.

Unlike the saddle-back adults, the babies have a delightful pattern of what spots and stripes, and like most baby mammals, come complete with big round eyes, and disproportionately big feet.

This lino block print is one of an edition of 12 printed on Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper 21 cm by 20 cm (8.3 inches by 7.9 inches).

Like an aardvark crossed with an elephant, wearing a tuxedo.

2011-10-30T15:11:00.001-04:00

There are four types of tapir; this linocut is of a Malayan tapir. He looks very dapper, if improbable, in his black and white coat. Like an aardvark crossed with an elephant, wearing a tuxedo.

The Malayan Tapir (Tapirus indicus), also called the Asian Tapir, is the largest of the four species of tapir and the only one native to Asia. The Malayan Tapir was once found throughout the tropical lowland rainforests of Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Vietnam. Sadly, like other tapirs, it is now endangered due to deforestation. These were always one of my favorite animals to visit at the zoo and hope that they not only survive, but thrive and flourish in the future.

This lino block print is one of an edition of 8 printed on Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper 23 cm by 25 cm (9.0 inches by 9.8 inches).

Giant Pacific Octopus screenprint

2011-10-25T12:41:00.001-04:00

My friend Faunalia and I are taking a screenprinting course. It's a nice way to try out a variety of methods. Our first class, we used paper stencils. Though this is the method with which I've made most of my screenprints, mine was a complete disaster. I managed to destroy my stencil on my first attempt at pulling a print by over-doing it and getting ink everywhere. Failure is a harsh teacher sometimes, but I need to remember I am there to learn, and I did learn something. I'm happy to say my second print is much more what I had in mind.

This is my screenprint of a Giant Pacific Octopus. It's large (the sheet is 50.5 cm by 36 cm or 19.9 inches by 14.2 inches). It's printed in a dark raspberry colour on white paper. I made it using screen drawing fluid and screen filler, which allowed me to paint directly onto the screen, so it has a rather spontaneous feel. This is one of an edition of 9 prints. I was inspired by seeing some of these amazing creatures off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Sometimes we work with remotely operated vehicles (basically, submersible robots) which allow us to see what, or who is on the seafloor.

Enteroctopus dofleini, also known as the Giant Pacific Octopus or North Pacific Giant Octopus, may be the largest octopus on Earth. They have been weighed at as much as 71 kg (156.5 lbs) and measured with arm-spans exceeding 6.1 m (20 ft) ! Though more typically, adults usually weigh around 15 kg (33 lbs), with an arm span of up to 4.3 m (14 ft). They are quite astounding creatures.

My former neighbour was a scuba diving instructor who had a job at certain BC tourist trap, where visitors were able to descend into a building with windows on the shallow ocean floor, where there was a small aquarium collection of creatures. More than anything, my neighbour dreaded the giant Pacific octopus, which he felt was mischievious to a frightening degree. He swore that the octopus pulled pranks. Often, the tourists would complain that there was no octopus visible in the window. So, my former neighbour D would have to enter the pen and coax the octopus into view. He said it would hide above the window, just out of sight. After the octopus tired of this game, it invented a new one. D would swim into the pen, only to find that the octopus had hidden above the door, swam out as he entered, and the latched the door behind him, locking D in the pen until he could alert his co-workers.

T. Rex with Flowers

2011-10-15T13:44:00.001-04:00

So, I made another mini print (10 cm by 10 cm; or 3.9 inches by 3.9 inches for you metric hold-outs). RJH said, "Fierce, but pretty, just like you."

"That's right," I told him.

It's a Tyrannosaurus amongst flowers. The block is 10 cm by 10 cm (3.9 inches by 3.9 inches), inked à la poupée (i.e. one block inked in more than one colour, in tiny regions, like as by a little doll our 'poupée'). It is printed on 14 cm by 14 cm (7.1 inch by 7.1 inch) unryu or 'Cloud Dragon' Japanese washi paper, a beautiful tissue with visible silky fibres. Variations in the paper makes each print in the edition of 12 rather unique.

Tyrannosaurus rex (rex meaning "king" in Latin, "tyrant lizard"), commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is a well known giant Cretaceous dinosaur with tiny arms, which roamed North America up to the end of the dinosaur age at the the Cretaceous–Tertiary mass extinction event, 65.5 million years ago. Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest land predators of all time. Flowering plants evolved, spread, and began to dominate towards the end of the Cretaceous, so though whimsical in nature, the imagined scene isn't actually impossible.

And, a variation on a theme:

Tomorrow, RJH, my brother the DJ and his wife, and for all I know one or more of my step-sisters, will be running the half-marathon. Actually, L could be running the full marathon for all I know. I feel strange to be surrounded by ~~such perverse behaviour~~ so many runners, but I'm proud of them.

Winged Walrus

2011-10-13T18:16:00.000-04:00

I wanted to make a linocut which would qualify for a mini-print competition. The printed area must only be 10 cm by 10 cm (3.9 inches to 3.9 inches) on a 18 cm by 18 cm (7.1 inches by 7.1 inches) sheet. So, I returned to an idea I've played with before: the winged walrus.

The walrus is printed on Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper with collaged or chine collé wings pale yellow Japanese tama paper (a lightweight watermark tissue). There are 15 prints in this first edition.

I like the idea of a massive walrus supported by delicate butterfly wings. Here are some of the ways I've interpreted this before:

Ada Lovelace Day

2011-10-07T15:22:00.000-04:00

Today is Ada Lovelace Day! Today, people around the world are celebrating their heroines in engineering, science, technology and math. Somehow, it crept up on me, and I would like you to consider my (lenghty) post on Chien-Shiung Wu and the Violation of Parity as my contribution for this year. I posted it an hour early... but Madame Wu is a great choice.

About the image: This is a lino block print of Countess, Lady Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), who published the first computer program.* She worked together with Charles Babbage, the inventor of the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine (the first - analogue! - computers), correcting his notes on how to calculate Bernoulli Numbers with the Analytical Engine. More importantly, she (a great communicator, daughter of mad, bad and dangerous to know Lord Byron) was able to understand and explain the workings of the analytical engine and the potential of computing machines. Her comments seem visionary to the modern reader. Babbage called her the Enchantress of Numbers and the Princess of Parallelograms.

The print is in gold, purple and turquoise water-based block printing ink on mauve Japanese gampi paper 15.25 inches x 10.5 inches.

Madame Wu and the Violation of Parity

2011-10-06T18:00:00.005-04:00

Scientists are trained to avoid bias (as much as humanly possible). Some biases are particularly hard to see. In physics, if there's a bias which is commonly forgiven (and viewed as harmless, or even right) it's beauty. I bet that wasn't what you expected, but it's true. Physics are suckers for beauty, and generally speaking, suspect that the Universe is inherently beautiful. I confess, I, like most physicists, share this bias insofar as I believe the Universe is beautiful. However, I think it's imperative to keep tabs on what we assume is beautiful and therefore true. One thing physicists invariable count as 'beautiful' is symmetry. The concept is invaluable in physics; symmetries are very powerful tools for figuring things out and there are many symmetries inherent to the Universe as we know it. Each symmetry leads to a conservation law.

Long before we had (Einsteinian) Special Relativity, there was Galilean Relativity which tells us that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial (non-accelerating) frames of reference. This means that if you do an experiment here, in your living room, or as Galileo noted, on a smoothly travelling boat floating at constant velocity, you get the same result. Einstein had the great insight that there are limits to Galilean invariance at great velocities approaching the speed of light. He made this based on a symmetry, by the way, which can be seen in Maxwell's equations which govern electromagnetics; this is a great example of how symmetries are invaluable to understanding our world.

Parity, in physics, is the name we give a certain symmetry of anything which is invariant under spatial inversion, by which we really mean if you reflect things as in a mirror. So, anything which doesn't change if you flip sides like in a mirror conserves parity. If you drop your pencil with your right hand it drops at 9.8 m/s² and if you drop your pencil with your left hand it drops at 9.8 m/s². We expect things to behave the same even if we reflect everything in the mirror. We assume parity is conserved. This is the sort of bias which is hard to see. Because, parity is conserved for gravity (like the pencil dropping example), electromagnetics, and even for the strong force (which explains how atomic nuclei hold together). But it turns out that the weak force (which explains beta decay) does not conserve parity; it doesn't obey the mirror symmetry.

In 1956, the work of theoretical physicists Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang suggested that perhaps the weak force might not be the same 'through the looking-glass'. Further they noted that this remained untested. The bias was strong. In fact, physicists thought of the "Law" of Parity Conservation and thus Lee and Yang weren't taken seriously until Lee convinced his colleague at Columbia University, the brilliant experimentalist Chien-Shiung Wu to test the theory.

Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997, Chinese-born American physicist, whose nicknames included the “First Lady of Physics”, “Chinese Marie Curie,” and “Madame Wu”) came up with a truly beautiful experiment to test whether the weak force conserves parity. In my print on the left I show Mme. Wu in her lab and a schematic diagram in the box shows the heart of one half of her experiment. Mme. Wu is reflected in the mirror on the right side, and the second half of her experiment (shown schematically) is shown in the box - what actually happens when the reaction is reflected in the mirror. She chose to use Cobalt-60, which I've designated with the cobalt blue sphere. Cobalt-60 is radioactive and beta decays naturally; neutrally charged neutrons within its atomic nuclei spontaneously give off electrons and become protons. (This shows another symmetry and conservation law: conservation of charge. A neutron is neutral, it has zero charge. An electron has charge -1 and a proton has charge +1. So the total charge before is equal to the total charge after). She placed the Cobalt-60 withing a strong magnetic field, designated by an electromagnet on the print. You see a power source (a long horizontal line with shorter horizontal line on top labelled '+') connected to a wire spiralled around a horseshoe-shaped metal piece which becomes an electromagnet. The top side becomes the North pole of the magnet and the bottom the South. The electrons given off by beta decay (the tiny dots) are preferentially given off in the direction of the North pole (upwards). Now, when you reflect this set-up in the mirror the poles of the magnet must switch, with the North pole on the bottom. The directionality of the magnetic field is determined by the 'right-hand rule'. Using your right hand, if you curl your fingers in the same direction as the spirally wire, your thumb will point toward the North pole of the magnet. If you reflect the horseshoe and wire in the mirror, you find your thumb points the opposite way. When Cobalt-60 is placed in this spatially inverted set-up, the electrons emitted go the opposite way, downward toward the North pole of the magnet. As you can see in the print, the result is not the mirror image even though the set-up is the mirror image. To actually measure this effect of course, more care and subtlety were required than shown in my schematic; it involved cooling the Cobalt-60 in a special cryogenic facility and very large magnetic fields - but it was as ingenious and elegant as the simplified version. To my mind, this is undoubtedly a beautiful experiment and the results were nothing short of stunning. For their theoretical work on the question of parity in the physics of subatomic particles, Lee and Yang were quickly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1957; the Nobel committee neglected to include Wu.*

She did receive many other honours. Wu took part in the Manhattan Project (wikipedia states she is believed to be the only Chinese person to do so) and literally wrote the book on beta decay. She was the first: Chinese-American to be elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences; Female instructor in the Physics Department of Princeton University; Woman with an honorary doctorate from Princeton University; Female President of the American Physical Society, elected in 1975; winner of the Wolf Prize in Physics (1978); Living scientist to have an asteroid named after her. She won many awards and fellowships including: the Research Corporation Award 1958; the Achievement Award, American Association of University Women 1960; John Price Wetherill Medal, The Franklin Institute, 1962; Comstock Prize in Physics, National Academy of Sciences 1964; Chi-Tsin Achievement Award, Chi-Tsin Culture Foundation, Taiwan 1965; Scientist of the Year Award, Industrial Research Magazine 1974; Tom W. Bonner Prize, American Physical Society 1975; National Medal of Science (U.S.) 1975; the aforementioned Wolf Prize in Physics, Israel 1978; Honorary Fellow Royal Society of Edinburgh; Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science; Fellow American Physical Society. And I bet you hadn't heard of her! I'm trying to redress that.

I've been wanting to do a portrait of Chien-Shiung Wu for a while. Probably since I read The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments by George Johnson, a book which I enjoyed, despite its complete lack of female experimentalists - a fault I might have overlooked and forgiven if it weren't for the half-hearted mea culpa in the irksome afterword. I paraphrase, "Why these 10? Well it could have been another 10, but these are my 10. It was pointed out to me there are no women, sorry about that, but these are my 10. I could have included Marie Curie, but she was really just patient and precise rather than making a beautiful experiment. I could have included Mme. Wu, but, I didn't." The fact is that not only have women been under-represented in physics, but even when they have been as extraordinary and successful as C.S. Wu, they have not been celebrated, making the female minority in physics even more invisible.

Wu herself said,

... it is shameful that there are so few women in science... In China there are many, many women in physics. There is a misconception in America that women scientists are all dowdy spinsters. This is the fault of men. In Chinese society, a woman is valued for what she is, and men encourage her to accomplishments yet she remains eternally feminine.

(As quoted in "Queen of Physics", Newsweek (20 May 1963) no. 61, 20.)

She also said,

I sincerely doubt that any open-minded person really believes in the faulty notion that women have no intellectural capacity for science and technology. Nor do I believe that social and economic factors are the actual obstacles that prevent women's participation in the scientific and technical field.

The main stumbling block in the way of any progress is and always has been unimpeachable tradition.

(As quoted in Nobel Prize Women in Science by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, 1993)

Also, since I'm conscious of the lack of portrayal and celebration of women in science, I've managed to highlight some amazing women in The Scientist Portraits. However, I note that the collection thus far has represented Europeans, or scientist of European decent, which is an unintentional bias. The history of science is predominately presented from a Western viewpoint, but it isn't really a story of Westerners and this is a bias to root out too.

*If you thought the Nobel awards were 'fair' or 'unbiased' I can recommend some books to disabuse you of this misunderstanding.

Screech Owl

2011-10-04T19:52:00.000-04:00

Oh hey! My Screech Owl is on Etsy's front page right now. :)

Unicorns Amongst Umbrellas

2011-10-04T14:40:00.000-04:00

So I've been continuing my Unicorn Amongst Umbrellas multimedia series. Each one is block printed on to various washi (which, by the way, means 'Japanese paper') and collaged. Sort of a poor man's chine collé, where you use papier chine (which means 'Chinese paper', but of course, any special thin paper will do - thus chine collé means 'glued Chinese paper') for coloured detailed bits. Usually that involves rice paste for the paper and printing one onto the collaged paper, rather than multiple prints then collage, but the effect is similar. Except, people usually use unpatterned paper, and they usually use it more sparsely. Anyhoo, printmaking madness, now with more unicorns:

Nuit Blanche

2011-10-03T12:19:00.001-04:00

So we did make it to Nuit Blanche, but though I read everything I could, we didn't have a thorough plan or make it out the door very efficiently. We did however manage to see a lot of interesting things, sometimes through sheer serendipity. We started out on the U of T campus trying to find a place to park, when we passed the International Student Centre - which wasn't on my list - but we were drawn in by the pink cords and suspended labels wrapped in a web around all their trees. Maleta Stories was one event with, to my mind, superceded its description. The installation was about immigration, particularly people who came to Canada with one suitcase from the Philipines. By inviting participation from attendees, who could fill in tags and attach them to the wires through the trees, it really became much more universal and fascinating. We wandered under the wires reading people's stories. I imagine the installation would have grown more layered and interesting through the night.

Next we headed to Hart House, passing various installations involving lights and music, and apparently video games, along the way. I wanted to see AirSHIP. The Music Room, with its pseudo-medieval vaulted wooden ceiling was a wonderful venue for these luminous blimps. They proved very difficult to photograph, but imagine the ceiling filled with transparent blimps with globes of interior light, trailing strings to a mirrored floor, with ambient music. I heard someone compare them to giant jellyfish. It had a sort of magic. Also impressive was that this art installation was made by engineering and architecture students who are part of a solar blimp team.

Next we headed over to Victoria College (technically University, but whatever, I say, as an alumni). Slow Moving Falls was projected on a two and half storey screen in front of the building. It shows a film of Niagara Falls, projected upsidedown and in extreme slow motion. It was mesmerizing. It was funny to see people try tp bend over and look at the screen with their heads upsidedown. Around the corner was Radiophonic Territory which involved an exterior "confessional" where confessions were broadcast within the building and on the radio. Since this installation wasn't on my priority list, we didn't stand in line to hear the confessions, but we watched people consider entering the box.

I was anxious to see and participate in L'écho-L'eau, a simulated log-run within the MaRS building. Despite the long line on the exterior of the building, the wait wasn't too long - in fact we spent far less time in lines this year. We even had to sign a waiver, but that didn't slow us down. There was an immense but shallow pool set up in the large lobby. We had to remove out shoes and walk through the water. At the far end was the 'log-run'. We were given large umbrellas and got to walk on the logs under similated rain. I enjoyed the experience. After the log run we were encouraged to look at the 'reflecting pool' with illusion on the floor below. (On our way we passed Taddle Creek sound installation at University and College - which, while not substantial, was evocative of the sound of a river).

I wanted to see The Heart Machine, a flame-throwing installation from Burning Man. We went down University Ave. and were confused by one of the nomadic installation, which I heard called the 'Renegade Parade', though I haven't found it on the website. The travelling installation was a rave on wheels; a pickup truck with DJ, dancers and light show which was advancing through the streets. When we reached the Heart Machine, so did the rave. RJH wanted to photograph the rave, but I wove through the cars to the flames, and found myself behind the Heart Machine. Though cordoned off, we had a better view than the crowd at the front. Soon, using his trusty business card (not even a press pass) RJH talked himself up onto the scaffholding to photograph the scene from above. The woman at the cordon allowed me in and said I could stay out of the way by the truck. Much to my amusement, while RJH photographed the scene, Nuit Blanche volunteers assumed I was on staff and started reporting to me. I was told that the Renegade Parade performers were going to come through. I asked if I was in the way and was told, "Oh no, I just thought you should know," so I played along and granted my approval. It was quite the spectacle with flames on one side and rave on the other.

Next we headed downtown. I wanted to see installation at the Eaton Centre and City Hall. We parked and headed through the crowd. Fist we hit Barricades, a sort of commentary on the G20 and surrounding events in this city, which turned barricades on their heads.

Then we made it into the Eaton Centre and found the Paparazzi Bots. Moving robots, equipped with point-and-shoot cameras and facial recognition software could choose (or not choose) people to focus on like paparazzi, to photograph and broadcast their image. It was interesting to see people grinning hopefully, wanting to be the centre of attention.

We headed past Shannon's Fireflies, which unfortunately was having technical difficulties, and thus was not lit, to City Hall. He heard the eery invisible parade (music broadcast without visible source). I was interested to see people 'flying' around Nathan Phillips Square. I knew lines would be long, but thought they would be something to see. It turns out that the lightshow was much more interesting. Flight Path allowed visitors to ride a bird-shaped zip-line container to 'fly' across the square - except they moved quite slowly, so it wasn't that exciting. The lightshow, on the other hand was very impressive. Lines and planes of multicolour light were visible throughout the smokey square. It seemed that images of clouds were projected onto the light planes. This gave the illusion of a 3D projection, and the feeling of being embedded in the sky. The lights also formed archways, squiggles and other shaped.

To the south of City Hall, someone played drums within a disassembled car, which exploded outward as in an 'exploded technical diagram'.

I needed to see the glowing wolves, so we headed to the Cloud Garden, north of Scotia Plaza to see INFRA. To be honest, I was expecting more from the resin wolves glowing with fluorescent colours allegedly micmicking their heat energy as viewed in the infrared.

Inside the Scotia Plaza, I was keen to see City Mouse, a sculptural investigation of what is natural. Within the skyscrapper's lobby, a miniature simulated forest is filled with taxidermied animals (raccoon, wolf, bear and hawk). The animals in turn are filled with unusual and detailed scenes of masked business people, at their desks, in their cubicles, waiting for the elevator or shredding documents. I was not disappointed, despite the wait to see a small exhibit; I really admire what worlds artist Julia Hepburn created.

We headed home after that, quite slowly. We debated going to Trinity-Bellwoods, but only drove by. I wanted to see the balloon installation outside the Drake Hotel. It was a mistake to attempt to drive along Queen Street just as the bars let out, but I did catch a glimpse of the giant clown, the patchwork covered van, and other Parkdale LEITMOTIF entries.

Overall, it was a good night. I felt perhaps less moved than on other previous Nuits Blanches, but, we managed to see some intriging and beguiling art, some great spectacle, no one fell off a dubious scaffholding, and we had some unusual experiences we won't soon forget. This is really a wonderful event in the life of the city, and everyone should check out what they can.

Cloud Classification

2011-10-03T10:23:00.001-04:00

My Cloud Classification print was on the front page of Etsy on Saturday, and immediately sold. There are several left though, if you'd like one.

Also, I'm pretty sure that having an item on the front page helped my shop exceed 1100 hearts! I really do love those shop hearts; thanks to everyone who has listed my shop in their favorites.

More Sails

2011-09-30T16:49:00.001-04:00

I've made some more of those collaged or chine collé linocut sailing ships. Sold one of the previously posted one today too.

Schrödinger's cat

2011-09-29T16:57:00.000-04:00

Is Schrödinger's cat in the box, or not? It depends on when you look at this linocut! This colour-changing thermochromic block print shows the famous thought-experiment of renown quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger (who would never hurt a real cat!). Both the cat in blue and the poison in pink will disappear when the print is exposed to heat.

In struggling to fully explain the strangeness of the quantum world, which can only be described in terms of probabilities and wave functions, Schrödinger suggested a sort of metaphor, at the size of every day things - the scale of classical physics as we know it. He imagined a cat in a steel box with a vial of poison which might be opened if, and only if, a radioactive decay occurs. In one half-life of the radioactive material, there is a 50:50 chance that the material has decayed or not. So, if the box is closed, and we cannot see within, we can only describe the state of the cat in terms of probabilistic wave functions. After one half-life, we would be forced to describe the contents of the box as the sum of the half likelihood of a live cat and the half likelihood of a dead cat. It is as if, to the outside world, there exists both a live and dead cat.... until, one opens the box and looks. Then we know we either have not yet had the radioactive decay and subsequent release of poison, so the cat is fine, or the radioactive material has decayed and the cat is no more. So, what's so special about looking in the box? Does the wave function "collapse" onto one of these two possibilities? Does the universe split into one in which the cat lives and one in which the cat does not, as in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics? I tend to side with Niels Bohr whose Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics says, as all experimentalists know, unless you observe something you cannot determine its state. However, physics cannot answer this question! We can determine the probabilities only, we cannot say why. But that's okay. Paradox is delicious.

This is one print in an edition of 10. Each print is made with the box and vial printed in normal, silver block printing ink. The cat and poison are printed using thermochromic powder and block printing medium so when heated above 30°C (86 F) then they turn colourless and disappear. Thus, as in the thought experiment, you don't know whether there is a cat in the box without looking at the print. Each print is 12.3 by 12.5 inches (31.2 cm by 31.8 cm) and made on Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper.

This print is one of a series of 'Imaginary Friends of Science', including Maxwell's Demon, Laplace's Demon and Descartes' Demon. It is also one of a collection of thermochromic prints which include a portrait of Louis Pasteur (with disappearing bacteria) and a Groundhog (with disappearing shadow).

As much as I would like to do another portrait of the one and only Minouette, I couldn't let her model for this one, even if it is only a thought experiment.

Tiger!

2011-09-27T22:53:00.000-04:00

I had this printed orange patterned paper, so I made a tiger. I like the idea of block printing onto patterned paper. This print is 21 cm wide and 26 cm tall. I carved one block to print the white and one to print the black areas. Though, generally, if you were planning to block print a tiger, most people would plan an orange block and and black block onto white paper. Since the pattern has a wider repeat scale than that, each print varies somewhat, especially the proof below. I wanted the vertical aspect ratio, but I like the horizontal more than I thought I would.

Scrappy Strip Quilts

2011-09-27T17:44:00.001-04:00

I really like the photos posted by The Workroom's flickr stream. You can see most of the other quilts made in their classes if you follow this link.

Scrappy Strip Quilt - and butterflies, dinosaurs, fractals and more

2011-09-26T14:29:00.001-04:00

I finished my quilt. I was torn on whether I wanted to block print the fabric or not... but I'm glad I did. Here's the reverse:

I made this quilt with stripes of fabric scraps from my stash, including vintage thrifted fabrics and contemporary prints. I block printed the sashing with my own carved monarch butterfly lino block. The reverse is a patchwork with the green sashing fabric, rectangles of the fabrics used on the front and a series of my block prints on fabric including a dinosaur, jellyfish, bees, butterflies, Russian nesting dolls, a fractal triangle, a quail, a rhino, and a blue whale. The quilting is done in a couple of variegated threads, by machine. The quilt is 39 inches by 57 inches (1 m by 146 cm), maybe the size of a child's bed.

Pretty nifty what one can do with scraps, imagination and patience, no?

Sails

2011-09-26T09:40:00.001-04:00

I've made some more of those collaged or chine collé linocut sailing ships.

fish are jumping

2011-09-25T21:48:00.000-04:00

Today, after solving my mother's technological conundrums, we went to the Humber to see the salmon spawning. There was a photo of a Humber River salmon shot by one of the Globe and Mail photographers this week; I had not previously realized we could see this right here in the city. With some coaching from RJH, I managed to capture one of them with his camera:

I've been to see the salmon run in Sooke, BC, which was quite the experience. While there they are larger and more plentiful, it was pretty amazing here too. Even here there were some pretty impressively sized fish, and the steeper slope meant they were jumping much higher. They really do seem to fly. It was nice to see how many people had come out to watch them. Next week, the trout are expected to do the same thing. Trout of course are smaller, but more acrobatic by reputation. If you're interested, you can see them from either side of the river, especially about midway between Bloor and Dundas St W.

These are RJH's photos:

Sailing ships

2011-09-22T15:54:00.000-04:00

I had this idea to combine my ~~extravagant~~ collection of Japanese washi papers and assorted ephemera with block print, like I had done in my Unicorn Amongst Umbrellas series for a while. I based my ship block on a decorative drawing on a sixteenth century Dutch map. The sails are washi, a nautical chart, some vintage sheet music from Lady Redjeep and assorted things.

Groundhog

2011-09-16T09:17:00.000-04:00

Ah yes, September. When the nights get cooler and thoughts naturally turn to ... Groundhog Day. That's right. This might seem an unseasonable offering (winter is coming), but, you see, I like Groundhog Day because it's perfectly absurd. Here we are in our allegedly modern country, prognosticating weather by harassing celebrity rodents (Wiarton Willie, Shubenacadie Sam,...). Further, this is Canada. Unless you live in Victoria (and possibly Vancouver), if it's February 2, you don't need a groundhog to tell you there will be 6 more weeks of winter.* If you live south of the border, anywhere near the most famous American prognosticating groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, the same is true. Shadow or no shadow, winter ain't over on the 2^nd of February.

Every year, I write something for Groundhog Day. Every year, I think I should make a print for the occasion, but I never do in time. Well, I got the jump on 2012. These are two copies of a block print of a groundhog - and his shadow - on Japanese kozo paper 11" by 12.5" (28 cm by 31.8 cm). The shadow is printed with thermochromic ink, so when heated it disappears! Whether the groundhog can see his shadow is determined by temperature. The cool blue state and hot colourless state are both shown. So the print itself serves as a prognosticating groundhog for Groundhog Day! If the shadow is heated above 30^oC (86 F) then it turns colourless. And let's face it; if it's February 2, and your artwork is > 30^oC (86 F) you either a) live in the tropics north of the equator b) live in the Southern Hemisphere or c) need to turn the thermostat down ASAP. So, there's a pretty good chance that this print can accurately predict that there will not be 6 more weeks of winter (to a degree of accuracy at least comparable to any celebrity rodent).

I bet you thought I would try to sneak in the word 'prognosticating' again.

*Conversely, if you live on the left coast, and there are crocuses coming up in your garden, you do not need a celebrity rodent's shadow to give you leave to laugh at the blizzards to the east of you.

Discomedusa

2011-09-14T12:00:00.001-04:00

I made this lino block print of the fabulously-named discomedusa jellyfish. As you may suspect, it's inspired by Ernst Haekel, the famed German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist, whose book "Art Forms in Nature" filled with lovely 19th century scientific illustrations of biology. It's printed in white, water-based block printing ink on 'unryu teal' Japanese paper. (I would describe the paper as navvy not teal, but that's what the paper was called nonetheless). The paper has many visible fibres, which add to the organic feel of the piece and makes each print rather unique. They also make printmaking by hand more challenging! The edition is limited to 9 prints, each 17.8 cm by 19.7 cm (7 inches by 7.75 inches).

Quilting stripes

2011-09-13T13:31:00.002-04:00

I'm taking a quilting course at the workroom. If you've followed the blog for a while you'll know this is my second quilt. The first one I made I a) taught myself how to make it b) use printmaking methods on every single panel and c) took me over FOUR YEARS. So, I'm taking this course and attempting to make a (much smaller, mind you) quilt within THREE WEEKS (there's a lot of 'homework' in this class). It's a lot of labour! However, I thought it was worth my while to learn the tricks of the trade, as it were. In fact, advice I've had about measuring, cutting and pressing fabric, not to mention stabilizing small pieces, in our first class, has been tremendously valuable and could have saved me a lot of grief. A lot of it boils down to using the proper tool for the job (oh! the irony! that's practically my mantra as ocean-going geophysicist) as well as (another shocker) proper maintenance of tools. So, I'm going to make a somewhat more traditional quilt and once I learn how to do that properly (which, in fairness, could be a life-long process, but I mean once I have a firm grasp of the fundamentals) then, I can mess with these tools and methods and try the crazy quilt-like textile schemes in my head.

This is the stage where the interesting mathematics of quilting starts to come into play, if you're into that sort of thing which I don't think you are, so don't panic. The basic planning is just arithmetic, but now we have permutations, tessallations, algebra and geometry to consider. We could make x's, chevrons, zigzags or diamonds. This is my plan. I scanned all my squares and then played with orientations in software, since floor space is scarce.

By 'plan' I mean, this is the way I intend to make groups of four squares, and the sashing I have in mind. There may be some more variations.

I've used a lot of my scraps and bits of nifty contemporary prints, but I've also thrown in a lot of crazy thrifted vintage fabric. I'm quite pleased how beautiful that combination can be. You can look at each square by clicking on it. I wonder if you would know the age of the fabric by looking at it.

RJH picked me up after class last week. He said a group of 'drunken party girls' stumbled by and one exclaimed, "They're quilting in there! Quilting!" in complete disbelief. They were followed by a couple. The young man said to his girlfriend, "Maybe I should ask those ladies to sew me some drapes, because you're never going to." They rent machines by the hour - I hope she suggested he could sew his own drapes. Ah, Parkdale on a Thursday night.

Scarborough Bluffs

2011-09-09T21:22:00.001-04:00

Last weekend, we went to the Scarborough Bluffs. Despite having grown up in Toronto, I've never been there. I confess, living in the city, we sometimes have a 'there be dragons' attitude about anything east of say, the end of Queen St, or Warden at the utmost, though like most Canadians, we think it's reasonable to get in the car and drive for many hours to visit some other city, or the woods.

Anyhow, it is quite extraordinary. RJH let me use his old camera.

Legendary White Squirrel of Trinity-Bellwoods

2011-09-09T11:29:00.000-04:00

Despite the opinion of some people around here (i.e. this apartment) there's a colony of white squirrels in Toronto's Trinity-Bellwood Park! I know. I've seen them, This is a portrait of one of them, climbing head-down a maple tree, along with the words "Legendary White Squirrel of Trinity-Bellwoods", which I carved in reverse, in lino, and printed in dark, silver-bronze, with redish-pink eyes, on Japanese kozo (or mulberry paper). Each print is 8.5 inches (21.6 cm) wide and 14 inches (35.6 cm) tall. It's sort of become a running joke to question the reality of the white squirrels of Trinity-Bellwoods, but they are well documented. You can google it. They even have a street, White Squirrel Way, and a café named after them.

The lettering (fantastical "Legendary", outlined white "White Squirrel" with large bushy-tail like swirls, and the more formal and stylized "Trinity-Bellwoods") reflects the nature of the words.

There are two ways in which squirrels end up white instead of grey, black or brown. They may be albino squirrels, or they may have a rare white fur coloration known as leucism (due to a recessive gene). My local squirrels seem to have red eyes, so I think they are albino. I think it is their rareity which makes them so fascinating to people. These squirrels have fans, like other pockets of white squirrels in other places.

I'll let you, gentle reader, in on a secret. I've been thinking about the myths and legends of Canada, in a more general sense. You know, like Ogopogo and Cadborosaurus, and Sasquatch, the loup-garou of Trois-Rivières or the ghost of Mackenzie King's dog. Good suggestions for additions to this list will be rewarded.

Chipmunks

2011-09-06T13:05:00.001-04:00

As ornaments:

As handheld stuffies:

They're taking over.

Dinosaurs

2011-08-31T15:58:00.001-04:00

I've also been making dinosaurs.

Love that crazy-ass 80's style, neon, geometric fabric from the Sidney thrift store. It's too manic to use in large doses though.

Chipmunk

2011-08-31T12:52:00.001-04:00

He really did make this gesture, covering his face with his tiny paws. I couldn't resist adding the thought caption. This is based on a photo RJH took of one of the chipmunk gang at my step-mother's cottage. She feeds them, of course, so chipmunk hijinks are a common sight. They even knew where to find the bird seed tin and how to open it themselves. Once RJH had to chase one out of the cottage with his hat.

I carved the chipmunk's portrait, and the letters, in reverse, and printed an edition of 10 linoleum block prints in bronze and black on Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper. Each print is 7.25 by 12.5 inches (or 18.5 by 31.5 cm). The colour varies slightly from print to print.

TCET Feature

2011-08-29T20:26:00.001-04:00

I'm currently the featured seller on the Trans-Canada Etsy Team blog. Check it out for the interview (& a special offer).

tiger tea time

2011-08-29T15:40:00.000-04:00

This is a tea cozy I made. The image is of a multimedia artwork I made called 'Darjeeling' of a tiger enjoying a cuppa tea (painted in ink with collaged Japanese washi, in an ornate, vintage frame) which I had printed onto fabric (by Spoonflower). Then I combined new and vintage fabrics (cotton, wool, ribbon and quilting batting) and hand-block-printed fabric to make this one of a kind cozy.

For those who prefer coffee...

Reading is sexy XLVI

2011-08-25T11:26:00.004-04:00

(image source, could easily be a representation of a certain character)

You would be forgiven for assuming that I had given up reading, based on this blog, as I haven't posted anything about books since May! I have been reading, though not at my usual rate, what with all the travelling and so forth. Also, to be honest, Mason & Dixon almost did me in. It's one of those, excellent-but-a-real-slog kind of books. You might recall, when it was last mentioned, I'd read 200 pages, a mere quarter of the book. I wrote:

12. Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon In which Mr. Pynchon's wild, Unfettered, Profound, tightly woven (and Sporadically, giving the Appearance, of Unhinged) Mind takes on the Lives of two Eighteenth Century English Astronomers, Servants of the Royal Society, now Best Rem'mbred for their Survey of of the Boundary of Pennsylvania and Maryland.... Though the language is suited to the protagonist's era (complete with unfathomable capitalization rules) and the narrative winding and non-linear, I'm 200 pages in and it's addictive. Only 600 more to go...

While less raucous than Gravity's Rainbow, it had level of detail and critical eye for history I've come to expect - both mentioning figures from the history of science like Bouguer, someone I would only expect geophysicists to know (and then, really, only those of us who work with potential fields methods, and I don't even expect anyone reading this to know what 'potential fields methods' means), and forcing me to reconsider my thoughts on General Wolfe. Dixon is identified as 'Geordie', and Wolfe's actions in Northern England, what today we would call union-busting, like his actions in Scotland (covered in the next novel I read) go beyond pragmatic into mercenary, despite the heroic image presented in Canadian history books. It does present an epic story just prior to and after the American Revolution (both George Washington and Benjamin Franklin appear as characters), but it is unflinching in detailing the violence including massacres of native people and the slave trade and its brutality, and the plight of women. Both Mason and Dixon are reminded of their time in South Africa, and are repulsed, the Quaker Dixon in particular. It wouldn't be Pynchon without the delightfully absurd Learnèd English Dog (L.E.D.), a chatty terrier, snooty pirates, the ghost of Mason's wife, sentient clocks (and Harrison's clock, of Longitude fame), a lovesick duck automaton chasing the object of her desire, a French master-chef through the woods, Jesuit plots and prostitute-nuns, a Chinese Jesuit Feng shui practitioner, serious coffee abuse, flying over leylines and a variety of magic accomplished through the magnetic and telluric fields of the earth, and the mysterious power of their surveyed line itself. It is epic, serious, absurd, and a touching tale of friendship between our odd couple, Mason and Dixon.

The excerpt is from PRINTERESTING, who were particularly amused by the "Print causes Civil Unrest". Perhaps that's my problem, I am both a printmaker and a coffee-drinker at sea.

13. No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod This is a novel of great beauty. I read it because RJH said it was one of his favorites; I am embarrassed to say I didn't know MacLeod (an amazing Canadian author) previously. The title brings us back to General Wolfe; it is a quotation from one of his letters arguing that Scottish Highlanders lead his troops into battle at the Plains of Abraham because, "they are hardy, intrepid, accustomed to a rough country, and no great mischief if they fall." It tells the story of the MacDonald family, through the eyes of Alexander MacDonald, now an orthodontist in Toronto. He recalls his childhood on Cape Breton Island, where he and his twin sister were raised by their grandparents, after a terrible accident on the ice, when his parents and brother were crossing to their lighthouse. It is also the story of his elder brothers, who grew up, half-wild in their ancestor and clan patriarch Calum Ruadh's home, and grow to be men who are expert miners, sent around the world, but longing for Cape Breton. It is the story of his grandparents, of the Island, of the entire mythic history of Clan Donald, of the Scots and their relationship with the French. Its characters are of such fullness and humanity that it is hard not to think this is a memoir, our narrator really knows and loves these people. Even the dog and horse worked their way into my heart. It's a love story about Cape Breton itself, but it also ties their exile to many who have to leave home, like the Mexican and Caribbean seasonal fruit pickers in Ontario, and it makes the story universal. It is about Home. Read it.

14. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain. A dark and amusing little satire about pride, honesty, and small town politics.

15. Sugar & Other Stories by A.S. Byatt. Byatt's first collection of stories has a recurring theme of death and how the surviving cope. There are some ghosts; both children and parents haunt this collection. There is injustice. There is suicide, accidental death and one, possible, future homicide. It's a dark little collection, not as sweet as the name implies.

16. Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Pinkola Estés is a Jungian analyst and storyteller. In this book about women's psychology, she approaches issues through the lens of fairytales and archetypes, employing stories and characters like Bluebeard, Baba Yaga, the Red Shoes and the Inuit Sealskin to provide insight. Each tale is interpreted as symbolic of a single female psyche; both Bluebeard and his bride, as well as her sisters are all aspects of a single mind. We have our own inner predators, but our own healers too. It's a style that is a bit foreign to me (I tend towards the literal and when in doubt, rely upon my logic and rational abilities) but I do love a good fairytale, and am certain there is both insight and sound advice within.

{Series so far: books read, more books read, books read, books read continues, more books read, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII,XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL,XLI, XLII, XLIII,
XLIV,
XLV}

making cameleons

2011-08-24T16:04:00.002-04:00

1. Carve block

2. Mix inks with thermochromic and photochromic powder.

3. Ink block and pull prints.

Thermochromic Pasteur

2011-08-22T13:17:00.002-04:00

I made a second edition of my Louis Pasteur block print. You may recall I made a portrait of Louis Pasteur for a Mad Scientists of Etsy challenge. Though his work was extensive in a variety of fields, I chose to depict him as I see him; a man who saw bacteria in his environment and developed a means of protecting people from this ambient menace. The image is based on a photograph of Pasteur and the background, of course depicts various morphologies of bacteria. I don't know anything in particular really, about bacteria, but morphologies I can understand. Plus, I like his face. You can see his concern in his eyes. And he sticks his glasses in a button-hole in his coat- a interesting touch. Suggests he is thinking about other things. The lino block print is a 2nd edition of nine (some variability in mixed colours) in dark blue and turquoise thermochromic ink on 9 inch by 12 inch (23 cm by 31 cm) Japanese kozo paper.

Thermochromic ink changes colour with temperature. If you heat the print above about 30 C ( 86 F) the turquoise bacteria go white and disappear. It's like a metaphor for pasteurization. Consider these two side by side prints:

Look what happens if I apply heat to either one (with the help of a hair dryer):

The heat makes the bacteria disappear!

I've been thinking about 'smart' materials and using my scientific background to make more interactive, time-varying art. This is my first venture into this area. I've been doing some research about what is out there. There are a lot of interesting inks and textiles, but often they are only really sold on an industrial scale. To make this print, I purchased a small about of thermochromic powder and - after some experimentation - mixed it with block printing medium, or ink extender.

loyal opposition

2011-08-22T09:10:00.001-04:00

Very sad to hear that Jack Layton has died this morning.

I met him when the Teaching Assistants were on strike. It was 40 below with the wind chill factor and he came and walked the picket line with us. Though other future leaders of federal parties were on the University faculty at the time, and expressed their solidarity with us, we didn't see them out there in the snow.

The Brick Works

2011-08-12T18:10:00.000-04:00

Which reminds me, I never did tell you about our trip to the Brick Works. I've been wanting to check it out. We went the last Sunday in July, for the antique market. I wanted to see the graffiti in the old brick works themselves. It also has its own example of an urban marsh too. RJH thought it was a bit contrived, and the brick works a little too tamed, but I really enjoyed it. I think it's a great idea, reclaiming industrial space as art, event and nature space. I love, of course, that the graffiti is not only left, but featured. They have a farmer's market on Saturdays too. I also enjoyed the historical photos of the great Toronto fire of 1904. I can only imagine how hot it must have been in there with all the kilns firing, day and night, to rebuild the city core.

We saw snapping and painted turtles, and watched the great blue heron at length. The marsh was full of bees, butterflies, dragonflies and moths too. Another oasis within the city.

urban wetlands

2011-08-12T17:42:00.002-04:00

All of this is well within the city. RJH wanted to go kayaking. There is a company which rents kayaks down at the beach, not far from here. We went to the water, but they weren't there. Not deterred, we continued past Old Mill to the Humber River, where there were kayaks and canoes for rent. Where we launched was noisy enough, what with the construction on the Bloor St bridge and the overpassing subway cars, but right away we could see kingfishers, moths, dragon and damselflies. While neither as quiet, not pristine as our paddle near Fredericton, earlier this summer, it was quite amazing how quickly the city disappeared. We passed the Humber Yatch Club, but only saw a couple of pleasurecrafts, a few canoes, another kayak and some fishermen. There were a few marshes to explore. RJH took the photos (of course). I had an instinct that I should not bring my camera in a kayak and I find it's best never to ignore instincts. I love turtles and was happy to see this muddy guy sunning himself. We veered some distance off the main course of the river into a secluded marsh, where we found many swans, water lilies, lily pads and this lovely egret. He remarked that we had a full 360 degree view of green. The tall reeds screened any sign of homes or roads, and dampened noise as well. We went most of the way down towards the lake, returning only when we could see the Lakeshore.

Now I have sore shoulders and sunburnt thighs, but it's great to remember how much wildlife manages to thrive here, and that wild spaces remain, for those who can't escape the city.

With a pun only Reynardin could love, RJH mailed me that photo with the subject line 'Egrets, I've had a few.'

Hard-headed Euoplocephalus to fight cancer

2011-08-12T15:54:00.000-04:00

I'm really pleased to be donating this print to The D.A.D. Project (Drawing A Day). Two sisters, Serena and Emily, who are both illustrators, here in Toronto, and in Ottawa, decided to use their skills to make art to raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society. They didn't want to feel helpless as their father fought cancer, and now, they run the project as a tribute to his memory. They sell their art, and donations from other artists, through theDADproject etsy shop. It's always great to be able to do something I enjoy and put it to good use. You should check out their shop - lots of fun, whimsical illustrations from this talented family. And if you're a local artist, please consider donating some work.

Mmm... Coffee

2011-08-07T16:49:00.000-04:00

Ah... that's better. Now I've had a coffee, I can face the day, and contemplate doing things which require higher brain functions, like carving letters in reverse, or the molecular structure of caffeine. This is a first edition linoleum block print, in a rich, dark, coffee-brown on sand-coloured recycled paper from India. The edition is limited to 10 prints on standard 8.5" by 11" paper (21.5 cm by 27.7 cm). The print is my illustration of a coffee mug and how the aroma triggers me to remember how much I depend on coffee. The molecule is caffeine, a bitter, white crystalline xanthine alkaloid and psychoactive stimulant, which keeps us coming back for more coffee. The molecule contains carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen atoms, each of which are shown somewhat differently. Now, in fairness, I don't think caffeine is what we smell, but when I smell coffee, I know I'm going to get my caffeine fix.

The Mad Scientists of Etsy theme for July and August 2011 is 'Chemistry' and I made this print in response.

today's creative endeavours

2011-08-05T18:46:00.004-04:00

I sold a Lady Ada Lovelace print. The customer requested her biographical information be included. This is the second time a customer has asked for information on my subjects. Occasionally, despite ample evidence to the contrary*, I forget that not everyone is obsessed with the history of science, and in fact, perhaps most people have no idea who my scientist portraits represent. Even my father, who rarely admits to being ignorant of anything whatsoever, didn't know who Niels Bohr was, and asked me about him, at the 'A Hidden Place' artshow, last December.** So, I think I should learn from this experience and print some information with my prints.

So, I spent my morning fighting with my insubordinate printer, before heading off to the post office. I lost this battle.

I also mailed my print of Mercator (1512-1594) to Belgium, where they will be celebrating the 500^th anniversary of his birth year at the Mercator Museum Sint-Niklaas and asked to include my print in their exhibit.

Apart from buying some oddly coloured vegetables (with which I plan on confusing RJH) my other accomplishment was purchasing thermochromic powders (after considerable research). There are a lot of interesting new materials out there, and an entire sub-culture of crafty, techno-savvy DIYers putting them to interesting use. As a physicist and an artist, it's high time I looked into this further. Thermochromic materials change colour with increased temperature. There are also photochromic pigments and inks which will change colour upon application of UV light (which comes naturally with sunlight). I plan on making artwork (on paper or other textiles) which will change if touched (due to temperature) and then move onto art which changes with the application of electric current (cause any electrical conduction will produce some waste heat, hence a temperature change). I thought I might embed some simple circuits so the art would be interactive. What I really want is some electroluminescent ink which I can interface to sensors so that art will 'turn on' if approached. Bwhahaha! Ok, er, one step at a time. First, the thermochromic powder and testing how it mixes with block printing medium. Actually, perhaps that is the second step; despite the array of manufacturers producing these sorts of materials, very few of them seem to sell them directly, or in small enough quantities to make experimentation feasible, or affordable for an individual. So, I've made it through the first hurdle.

Oh, and I also wrote about Biophilia by Björk on magpie&whiskeyjack.

*I taught physics for arts students for how many year? I should know better.
**Why do people know Einstein, and not Bohr? I suppose Einstein's career was more ecclectic and his hair more eccentric, but I think if you surveyed physicists on "giants of the 20^th century", their names would be quoted together.

Victoria

2011-08-04T10:50:00.001-04:00

After our research cruise, we did a tour of the city. Our local volunteers and I (the former resident) showed the others around. It was a beautiful day.

Emily Carr and monkey friend

I kind of liked how Parliament was overrun by children.

I had to explain this reference to my colleagues, none of whom had seen Portlandia.

I remember playing on the Cadboro Bay octopus when I was in grade 3, and we came to visit my grandfather.

I spent the rest of my time up on the peninsula.

The California poppies are something I miss from my time out west. They're everywhere.

I went to the bird sanctuary. This is an oystercatcher.

That's a great blue heron, but you'll have to take my word for it. Mainly, I got decent photos only of snakes.

R2D2

I spent the evening with friends in town.

There are a lot of vintage cars there. There's no winter really, and they seem to last forever.

Crow

2011-08-03T10:49:00.001-04:00

So, I made a crow linocut. I actually made this before I went away to England. Our lovely hosts in Fredericton collect crow prints* so I was inspired to take on the crow as subject. They are amazing animals, which made it more challenging. I think really to capture a crow, I'd have to do a whole series of prints. So, think of this one as the flying crow. We saw lots of crows in the maritimes, to I asked RJH to photograph some for me. This print is based on a crow he photographed in Peggy's Cove.

I also made a proof with chine collé papers for the eye and feet:

I was sort of torn whether accuracy of colour was more important or whether the graphic nature of black on white made for a more interesting print. I'm going to frame this in the frame my brother made for me.**

Printmaking in the summer here in Toronto can be problematic due to humidity. It really hampers the ink viscosity. I kept this first edition small, but I'll likely print a second edition when the weather is better. There is also one proof which was ahem, embellished by Minouette. She added black pawprints to my original. I'm not sure what to do with that. I'm considering selling it at a big discount.

*Yay! It's always great when the appropriate thank you gift is obvious. For instance, I was really flummoxed by what to get my emergency cat-sitter because if I give her more linocuts, she'll have to start wallpapering her ceiling with them.

**I LOVE handmade gifts. Just sayin'