Mayday

Fellow printmaker Martha Knox featured my woodblock print 'Little Boat, Big Ocean' on her blog today and wrote a really insightful commentary.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I've been blessed with a beautiful day. It was wintry in the past week, but today is early summer. Usually it rains on Mayday.

I got up, cleaned the new floor, that my crazy RJH has been frantically installing in our basement. Dealt with a whole bunch of logistical problems (ranging consulting on calibrating instruments, tracking down addresses for wedding invites, to alerting craft show applicants of their acceptance or rejection from our show). It was another odd geophysicist/printmaker morning. Then my father showed up to take me out for a late lunch, which stretched on for some time. We went to Playa Cabana, a really good Mexican place which you wouldn't expect on a residential street near his new home. He gave me all sorts of books. He said the bookseller said, "Whoever these are for, this is not light reading." It should keep me busy for a while. I eventually returned home and moaned on the couch for a while, having eaten a stupid amount of food. My mother showed up with more gifts (kitchen stuff). My sister-in-law sent me a photo of my nephew with his birthday wishes, which was adorable. I've been fielding calls and messages. Thank you very much everyone. I feel old, but it's a really lovely day.

We're putting off celebrating till next week. We really want to complete the basement, so it'll be more work this evening. I hope you're having a beautiful day too. If you live around here GO OUTSIDE. Right now.

Happy Birthday to RJH

I hope you have an amazing new year; I know it promises some great new changes, even if today, your birthday was harder than it should be (since you are ill, but at work, and in fact, you're still there). I've decided however that this will not set the precedent for your year and this will be your best year yet! This year will be full of love and success for you. We've got our wedding and our future to look forward to, and I have a good feeling about it. It's going to be great.

Love,
me

Happy Birthday Reynardin!

(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

Happy Birthday Faunalia!

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

also, happy birthday to synap too!

I'm sure you're launching into a great new decade for you!

Happy birthday!

Happy Birthday Blythechild

I hope you have a wonderful birthday and a happy, healthy, successful and miraculously relaxing new year!



I made her a slightly furry Orbit pillow, just like Orbit (aka Lady Giggleswick) herself.

Birthday Party #4

So I flew into Chicago's O'Hare airport at 6 pm last night. I took a long, and interesting bus ride to Evanston, where I was met by and . We went to their home and had a lovely dinner, with birthday cake. I've finally got this worked out: you must visit a series of people around your birthday to maximize the cake input. It had great stripey candles and was really good, but I actually managed to set my hair on fire to the horror of my gracious hosts. Little damage was done, but it was dramatic.



I am perpetually surprised, but always enjoy seeing my art in other people's homes. Now the minouette print can be joined by my portrait of their fresh-fruit loving Mr. Sammy Samuelson, Cat, Esq.



Yesterday the mean UA man insisted that my poster tube was a piece of luggage, so he made me check my small suitcase and then charged $25 me for it. I bought my ticket through AC and even they don't pull that trick. Today at 5:18 pm I fly to LA. I bought this ticket through ANZ, but UA is the operator again... so I was thinking of trying the 'These are not the droids you are looking for,' approach and just bluster my way onto the plane with my laptop bag, small suit case and poster tube. Because if they charge me another $25, I'll feel like it would have been less hassle to send the tube ahead by FedEx.

In LA, I should meet RM and AS, who are on the same flight to Auckland. I can attempt to convince them to try to meld the posters into one five-poster tube... if that's physically possible. I don't know if LR will be there. She was asked by Immigration Canada to produce her passport for visa reasons and as of yesterday, she didn't yet have it back... so she may not be able to join us in NZ.

seahorse & jellyfish/butterflies, blossoms and feathers

It's my mother's birthday on Wednesday, but since we had planned to go to the OB's (post hockey game) we just ended up celebrating yesterday. She asked me, yesterday for a silk scarf to go with a new gray dress. I said I would choose red, but she mentioned salmon (as a colour). Here is what I came up with. I had some striped greyish silk. I printed it with the jellyfish and seahorse blocks in salmony pink.


I had some hand-woven Thai floral silk (oh, the wonders of the Sidney Thrift Store!), which I embellished with butterflies, blossoms and feathers in black, and tints of salmon, peach, orange and pink. Honestly, it's less busy than that sounds:



I painstakingly sewed the two rectangles together. Silk can be tough and finnicky to deal with.





I actually wear a lot of silk scarves* but have never previously attempted to make one.

*Ok, actually, it's a running joke: how many scarves does have on her person at any give time. But they are the solution to style + unpredictable weather: 40 million French women can't be wrong. I have um, several.

on-going birthday

Thanks to the Trans-Canada Etsy Team! The team just started their monthly round-up of birthdays of team members. Apparently, I am the only one born in May.

hawk is a good omen

hawk
Originally uploaded by the.minouette

What a lovely Sunday... despite the cramped quarters and slowness of service... I loved seeing and , , and for brunch today! It has been too long since we all got together.

After brunch b & b went to run errands while the rest of us bided our time until Cupcake Camp, by going to the Carrot Common. Now, I have nice organics soaps and tea, a belly full of cupcakes. When R and F drove me home we saw two hawks in the park across the street. I managed to get two photos of one of the hawks. They are so impressive, even after spending years on a property on Vancouver Island on which bald eagles nested and barn owls were common. Great raptors in this city; I watch the peregrine falcons at work and hawks at home.

Now I am waiting for the DJ to drive me to Moms for dinner, as if I need an more food.






Thanks women!

Re. dairy:

Always fresh and sweet is the way to go.

Happy Birthday Reynardin!

Hoping you may find yourself a happy, health and very prosperous fox this year!


(image of fox with duck purchased in the castle district of Budapest, Hungary by the Curious Expeditions)

Happy Birthday Faunalia

[Arnold Böcklin (1827 - 1901) Faun Whistling to a Blackbird, 1875, Oil on Canvas]