Supercrawl 2012

What better way to enjoy a crawl than with your babies? Hamilton closes a portion of James Street every year so they can celebrate art, music, and other creative ventures.  We walked the length of the street, danced past the bands playing on stage, browsed through the various street vendors, saw some art and even created some of our own.

The kids were well behaved and so I assume enjoyed the festival.  When we reached the end of the street though William pointed out, "We haven't actually done anything that I want to do."

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

"I want to get ice cream."

So we back tracked and went to the ice cream truck.  Both Will and Jadzia ordered popsicles and became a sticky blue mess. By this time it was almost five.  We decided to meet some of my Staircase friends for dinner. I asked a police officer where the restaurant was and he said it was a five minute walk.  It took us half an hour.

We enjoyed some tasty German food at the Black Forest Inn. The kids were on their best behaviour (minus some crawling under the table) despite a long long wait to be seated, then they dazzled everyone by eating large quantities of bread and spaetzle.

It was a good day.

Fingerpainting with Chocolate Sauce and Ketchup

Because I am a Mommy genius!

Insecure Writer's Support Group - Insecure Artist

Well it's the first Wednesday of the month, time to open up my fragile psyche and expose my insecurities.  I write but I also paint so I'm insecure in all kinds of mediums.  As many of you know, I recently started work at an art store.  My boss is a painter herself (much more talented than I).  The store is filled with paintings of people, landscapes, fruit and flowers, all created in a beautifully naturalistic style.  She works in oil, acrylic, and water colour with equal skill.  Working there made me want to paint again.

To say that my style is different would be an understatement. I have ideas that must be put on paper, but even after four years of university art courses my work never achieved the realism evident in boss lady's work.  Both the girl and the wolf in the above painting were traced from a photograph.  Emphasis on ideas over style. It's like my writing in that way.  Whatever else my work might be, it isn't flowery.

So I assume that if my boss saw one of my paintings she would hate it.  My writing too, probably.

Sometimes Persistence is Just Silly

An unseasonably warm March is upon us.  A time of year that usually gives us our last great snow storm of the season has instead come with summerlike sunshine and confused birds. Yes, I'm talking about the robin who stars in the above video. We have lived in this house for three years and the robins take up residence every spring.  The first year they nested in that cedar tree in front of the window, the year after that they made a home above our exterior light, last year in the small pine tree beside our driveway. This year apparently they've decided to build their home in our living room.  Unfortunately there's a pesky window in the way.  This is more than a run of the mill "oops I thought that was thin air". This bird is persistant. It has been crashing into that bay window over and over, all day long, since Thursday.  It is making the dog crazy.

In an effort to discourage the bird, my offspring and I have plastered the window with artwork. I hoped that having something on the glass would let the creature know that yes, there is something there, and no, you can't fly through it. Allow me my proud mama time and check out my personal favourites:

The above drawing, by Jadzia, depicts an elephant, a giraffe, a monkey, a dog and a cat, and a zebra (note the stripes).

This one is from William, who thought that the best way to scare the robin away would be to draw terrifying monsters, which this is. Look at all those legs and spikes!


William drew a few more monsters and Jadzia drew many more animals (mostly elephants). So our window now looks like this:



Definitely an improvement in a decor sense, but unfortunately has done nothing to deter our visitor.  The bird apparently has no fear of creatively drawn zoo animals or grinning monsters and continues systematically testing our forcefield for weak points. I admire this creature's bravery and persistence, but I question its motives.

A walk with the dog revealed that the neighbourhood is full of similarly dopey robins, who Worf has decided are the ememy. They are a little too slow to fly away and my loveable mutt came close to catching one or two (also came close to ripping my arm out of its socket from pulling the leash so hard). I suspect that the early spring means that these birds aren't yet old enough to be street wise.

Making Art

Just a quick post to show off the poster my daughter and I made today using finger paint and crayons (two deceptively difficult mediums). It was a true collaborative effort and, as you can see, our artistic styles mesh very well together.

Below is a detail showing my favourite part of the piece.  It's a snail that Jadzia drew.

Her friend Zoe (who is 4 and a half) says that Jadzia can draw anything.  She's right. And Jadzia is only two and a half. At this rate my daughter will surpass my meager talents in a few short years (if she hasn't already, art is so subjective).  I'm hoping that we're still collaborating when she's old enough to become famous and then I can share in her millions of dollars and adoring fans.

Appreciating Art

Today the family and I went to the Art Gallery of Hamilton because, being a dreary cold day, I was in the mood for some culture. If you spend enough time looking at art you begin to feel saturated by it, as though each painting, sculpture and installation imprints itself on you, exhausting your ability to perceive.  This is the feeling I anticipate every time I go to a gallery.  My family anticipates boredom.

Though I was the only one particularly enthusiastic about visiting the gallery, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves once we arrived.  Although Jadzia was afraid of most of the art.  No, really. She hid her head in my shoulder as we browsed through bold colorful paintings, black and white photographs, and African masks.  Adam and I tried to tell her that these were just pictures that people had made and weren't likely to come alive, but I don't think she quite grasps the difference between reality and fantasy.  She did, however, enjoy the quilts.  I was never that into textiles, but seeing my daughter delightedly point at the patchwork of flowers, animals, and colours made the exhibit worthwhile for me.

William seemed inspired, and only a couple of times claimed to be "hungry" (four-year-old code for "bored").  His favourite piece (everyone's favourite actually) was Kim Adams' Bruegel-Bosch Bus, an installation involving an old red VW van covered with various toys, trains, cars, models, etc.  (It's on permanent display, so you can go have a gander any time you want). It reminded me of one of those I Spy books.  The more I looked at it, the more details emerged.  The kids inched closer and closer as they examined the various scenes, and Adam became paranoid that they were going to touch the artwork, especially since a security guard with dreadlocks had been following us around the gallery since we arrived.

By the time we left, we had spent an hour and an a half in the building, seen pretty much everything, and no one had fainted from fright, whined to go home, or destroyed a priceless artifact.  I declare the outing a success!