hallowe'en on my mind



I just came across this photo I took a few months ago at the Emily Carr Institute grad show... the subject matter seemed appropriately gothic for this fine Hallowe'en holiday.

"Prayer Beads (what are your mantras?)" was created by Chris Walker, a fine arts student at Emily Carr. It's made up of dozens of porcelain skulls, and it's huge. Each skull was pretty much life-size, I think. This was one of my favourite pieces in the show.

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i'm not ready for the great pumpkin

Hallowe'en has snuck up on me this year, and I've barely done anything for the holiday. So far, the most seasonal things I've done is help make a French Canadian recipe for a potluck, which was basically Meat in a Pumpkin. Trust me, it tastes better than it sounds.

If you're like me, and are in need of some Hallowe'en spirit, visit Wool and Water's flickr stream for lots of beautiful Hallowe'en themed artwork.

The one pictured here is one of my recent faves.

Wool and Water also sells some of her lovely (and spoooooky) creations on Etsy. She even makes paper dolls you can assemble yourself.

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bedside reading, bedside painting

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what does it mean when you paint a picture of several thousand words?



Roula Partheniou's paintings in Winnipeg's Other Gallery are canvases made to resemble book covers.

I'm not sure if you're intended to hang these on the wall, or pile them on a bedside table or bookshelf. In a way, they could be used like those fake sets of encyclopedias that people put on their shelves - only much, much prettier.

Check out Roula Partheniou's paintings here.

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the best thing I've seen today

Is it Christmas?

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you're the one, all right

On the river Loire in France, there is a giant rubber duckie. He is 26 metres tall. He knows no borders and has no political agenda - instead, he is proported to have healing properties. I know my day got brighter just seeing a picture of him.

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breakfast: a photo series

This lovely photo set of people paired with what they had for breakfast is somehow such a beautiful and fascinating thing. Assembled and photographed by Jon Huck, who also did a series of headshots of couples, it's a warm, interesting, lovely collection of pairs that gets me thinking... what else could you pair? So many things... people and their pets (which I know is kind of trite, but it's always funny and interesting to me... especially when they look alike), people and their favourite hiding or alone places, a favourite comfort food or activity paired with something that scares you... the list goes on. I like the idea of pairs.

What would you pair?

[via]

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platefull (or empty?)

Still hungry after all those Thanksgiving dinners? You could always eat the plate...




I love this plate by Italian illustrator, Olympia Zagnoli. Too funny. (It's also make a great craft project for kids! ...except for the scissors part, I guess. For older kids, then.)

You can check out Olympia's work on flickr and her site.

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Gorgeous!

Old style address box - great colours. Takes the hipster PDA to a whole new (crafty, pretty) level.

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makeshift thanksgiving

This morning my two housemates left for their respective hometowns for the long Thanksgiving weekend, which means that I have the house all to myself for four days! I'm not sad to be spending it alone - not yet anyway. I have big plans, not the least of which is to cook this amazing-looking cuban chicken and rice for myself on Monday! Who needs cranberry sauce when I can have this? I'm going to have to quarter the recipe, though, which is going to be interesting.

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miranda july

Props to the multi-talented Miranda July, who recently won the 2007 Frank O'Connor award for short stories for her first collection of short stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You - beating out such Big Muscle names as Alice Munro.

If you haven't seen the book's website yet, you must check it out. Forget Web 2.0, the stovetop is the REAL future of the internet.



I recently read No One Belongs Here More Than You and was expecting to fall into Serious Crush with it, the way I did with Miranda's movie, Me and You and Everyone We Know. Like the movie, the book was all about strange, quirky things people do, and the stranger, quirkier things they think and feel - none of which are really so strange and quirky, because the strange and quirky are actually fascinating and beautiful. Where MAYAEWK (the movie) differs from NOBHMTY (the book), however, is that the movie seems to wonder and marvel at life, and ultimately makes you feel intrigued and hopeful, whereas the book made me feel quite down and depressed. I don't need a happy ending, necessarily, but did feel that, for the most part, the stories were united by a theme of hopelessness and futilty.... which I'd say is the exact opposite of what the movie does. Hrmph. Did anyone else out there read NOBHMTY? What did you think?

Miranda July is also asked "HDYGTFAJ?" (or "How Did You Get That F*&%ing Awesome Job?") by ReadyMade, in this month's issue of the magazine.

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the most wonderful time of the year

October!
It's October!
That means... we can start posting about Hallowe'en!
Yeah yeah yeah!
I will never grow out of this "holiday" - I love it.
Check out these cupcakes... don't they just get you in the mood? [Via.]

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back to the future

Katrina Moorhead goes back to the future in her upcoming show at the James Harris Gallery in Seattle. From October 4th to November 10th, they'll be displaying the artist's works, including a wooden replica pair of doors from that infamous car, the Delorian.



But it's not all Michel J. Fox and "I'll get you McFly!"... turns out the Delorean is full of history and politics.

Monumentalizing Jon DeLorean's controversial automobile factory in Belfast, the doors lay lifeless on the gallery floor. Constructed in the late 1970s and aided by British government incentives, the factory was designed at the height of political and religious tensions in the region. As such, the factory was designed with two entrances: one for Catholics and one for Protestants. Once inside, workers came together to assemble DeLorean's highly futuristic sports car but, despite the joining of efforts, the plant was soon closed partly due to a poor business model and partly due to fraud that had gone undetected by DeLorean’s auditors. In the sculpture On or about December 1981, the artist lovingly recreates these gull wing doors out of wood. The abstracted forms and their gesture, akin to that of clipped wings, are a tribute to the workers and the events that loomed large while the artist was growing up in Northern Ireland.

- from the James Harris Gallery website


Incidentally, you can now get a Delorean made for you from original parts by a company in Texas.

And, as always, you can read up on the whole Delorean backstory on the website of the future's past, wikipedia.

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